NOVEL WEB Chapter 8 – Exploration
I breathed in the fresh air as I stepped out of the portal and looked around. I was surrounded by a strange kind of tree that I had never seen before. They were about 4 metres tall, had a fairly thin trunk covered by a grey papery bark similar to a birch and had a lot of small black leaves that were about half the size of my palm. I was curious about the black leaves as I was used to everything having green leaves, it was just another thing for me to research.
Other than the trees I also saw a multitude of plants that I didn’t recognise. These ranged from plants taller than I was and sprouted multiple red flowers to tiny mushrooms that covered a large circle of ground. Most of these plants were various flowers as it was spring and they wanted to attract all the pollinators they could before either producing fruit or seeds.
Knowledge of these plants wasn’t important to being a dungeon so I didn’t instinctively know what they were but I was still curious so I gathered a sample of all the different plants to take with me. Hopefully my destination would have a library that I could use to learn more about them. The sun had just started rising over the horizon and last night’s dew drops hadn’t evaporated from the grass quite yet.
The whole scene felt amazing to me, one step out of my home and I was already seeing new stuff that made me wonder what awaited me out in this world once I was able to explore it. I didn’t just use my sight to take everything around me in, some birds were singing new songs and the air smelt clean, untouched by any pollutants.
I must have spent a good five minutes just standing there taking it all in before setting off towards the closest village. Part of my chat with the adventurers was to find out where I was and what was around me, luckily there was a small village that was just barely within my reach. I had two reasons I wanted to go there, firstly I wanted some ‘human’ contact as until the guild got in contact with me to set up a side branch I wouldn’t have anyone to talk to which would leave me quite lonely.
Secondly I wanted to spread word of a new dungeon that appeared here to bring in some new adventurers. While I trusted the first party to keep their word it wouldn’t hurt to do some advertisement of my own. I knew that no matter what I did growing the dungeon was a long never ending task but I wanted to get the ball rolling as fast as I could.
After I was satisfied that I had properly taken in my surroundings I headed directly west, straight to the path that the party had been on to get to me. On my way there I didn’t see much variation in my surroundings other than some different plants and a few animal trails. Unfortunately I didn’t come across any of the animals that had made these trails quite yet.
Stopping every minute to gather new plant samples doubled the time I was told it would take to get to the path. I didn’t mind this as I wasn’t in a rush and was enjoying the scenery. Once I did reach the path I went to the tree nearest to the road and started to carve a sign in it with my dagger. This was just an arrow pointing the way I had come with the words ‘Dungeon this way à’ to help people in finding me.
With that done I took a short break to rest my legs, not that it was necessary as I was hardly tired. In my old life, even before I got sick, if I had tried this sort of thing I would have had to stop almost every five minutes as I was incredibly unfit. Now, however, I had been walking for two full hours and I barely felt tired at all. While I was training I noticed that my stamina had increased as I was able to go five hours without having any breaks but hiking was a lot more strenuous so I was still surprised.
After I had my break I took the path north while looking for signs for anything to hunt. Now that I had an easy path to follow I decided that I would try to hunt something as I was planning on selling it once I got to the village. This was so that I could get an idea of what money is worth. So I kept an eye out for any signs of animals that I could use, I wasn’t too sure how effective I would be though as I had never been hunting before and didn’t know what to do.
I wasn’t surprised at all that it turned out I was pretty bad at hunting; I had never done anything like this before so I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I ended up walking all day without finding any animal tracks or even seeing a single animal. I had to have walked past some, I just didn’t recognise them for what they were.
Although I had managed to fill half of my backpack with all my plant samples. The most interesting thing I found was a clearing about 20 metres across but there wasn’t anything in it so I just kept on walking past it. I was finally starting to get tired and I only had about 3 hours left of sunlight so I decided to find a place to set up my tent and eat my rations before getting some rest.
The rations were pretty bland compared to what I was used to but I was fine with it as I hadn’t gone into this expecting to eat food as good as I used to get in my old life. After eating my dinner I climbed the nearest tree and quickly fell asleep just like I had two weeks ago, although this time I fell asleep on purpose. The night was pretty uneventful and I woke up well rested and kept going on my journey.
I knew I had to be at most 4 or 5 hours away from the village so I decided to spend the first half of the day properly hunting away from the path. Although this time I would let my prey come to me for two reasons, firstly I didn’t know how to hunt and if I tried I would most likely end up wandering around all day. Secondly I needed water so I could just find a river to fill my waterskin and then wait for something to try to get a drink.
The first step was pretty easy as after just barely half an hour I heard the sound of water rushing downriver and followed it to the source. I then, after filling my waterskin, found a good tree to hide in before waiting for anything to turn up. As I waited I took some time to see how the scenery had changed since yesterday. I was still surrounded by the same trees that enclosed my portal but now there was a new tree that was practically identical to the weeping willow except the leaves were black.
The ground around the river turned rocky as the water had eroded the stone but it hadn’t been here long enough to turn it into sand. The bird calls were the same as before except I actually got to see one resting on a branch. It was a small bird about as big as my hand, had red wings, a brown and grey chest with a blonde head and back, kind of like a robin but with its colours changed. I didn’t shoot it down as it was too small to be worth killing.
I only had to wait about an hour before a couple of deer-like creatures walked underneath the tree I was in and up to the river. I moved along the branch as far as I dared before carefully standing up, knocking an arrow, pulling the string back and aiming at the nearest ‘deer’. I held my breath to steady my aim before letting go of the string and letting the arrow fly.
Unfortunately the arrow missed, flying over the ‘deer’, and spooking them, causing them to bolt away from me. I cursed as I jumped down from the tree before following them in hopes that they would either lead me to the rest of the herd or that they wouldn’t run too far. I was following the ‘deer’ when I heard something else that I really didn’t want to hear. Grunts and guttural throat sounds that I couldn’t understand but I had a feeling I knew what was making them.
I dropped down to the ground before quietly crawling through a bush to see what it was and my instinct was right, it was a bunch of goblins standing over one of the deer that must have bumped into them when it was running away from me. Seeing them filled me with an artificial fear, even though I logically knew that even if this body was destroyed I wouldn’t die I still had self-preservation instincts.
I took a moment to calm myself down before starting to think about the situation logically. I could only see four goblins but if the stories I read in my previous life were even partly true that meant a bunch more had to be nearby. Even if they had no backup I doubted that I could take them all on by myself so I decided to leave them with their catch and carry on my way.
I slowly crawled backwards out of the bush before getting up into a crouch and quietly walking away for a bit before getting up to my full height and walking around them and continuing my hunt. About half an hour later I finally came across the ‘deer’ again, it had stopped in a clearing to eat some grass thinking it was safe. I crept up to the treeline before taking my bow out and going through the motions a second time.
Attach the arrow to the string, pull it back until my left arm was fully extended and my right thumb rested on my cheek, hold my breath to concentrate as I aimed the arrow and let go of the arrow at the same time I took a breath. This time the arrow managed to hit the deer going through its heart and out the other side, downing it instantly. A sense of accomplishment went through me as I walked up to the deer before I calmed myself down and got to work making sure that its meat stayed edible.
If the information I remembered from my previous life, when I had been morbidly curious about hunting, was correct, I would have to remove the intestines, stomach, and any other part of the ‘deer’ that food passed through without puncturing the organ as that would contaminate the meat. It was quite a disgusting process and I almost threw up multiple times so I focused on what it looked like to take my mind off of what I was doing.
From head to tail it was probably about four feet long and it stood three feet tall when on all fours so it was pretty small. Its fur was a dark green, probably to camouflage into the grass, with black spots on its back opposite to a white-spotted deer. It didn’t have antlers so it was either a doe, young or this particular ‘deer’ didn’t grow them. It had a short tail and long legs that looked really powerful.
Just as I finish inspecting the ‘deer’ I also finish taking out all of the organs that I thought were necessary, and a few extra just in case I was wrong. I dumped the organs by a tree for some carnivore to eat before carrying the deer about ten minutes away so that if any animals had been attracted by the scent they wouldn’t notice me. I then set up a temporary camp and had some lunch.
I was surprised by how easily I carried the deer that probably weighed a good 45 kilograms when I could barely lift a quarter of that before I came here. This made me wonder how strong I actually was. Once I had lunch I picked up the deer and walked back the way I came with the help of my dungeon, I seemed to have some sort of innate feeling of where I was in relation to my dungeon so that I could always make my way back there no matter what.
I took a wide berth around where I had found the goblins but I still made it back to the path after about two hours and then kept on going to the village. The rest of the trip went by without any more distractions so after about four hours of hiking I reached my destination.