And then it hopped and hopped, and it ended inside the barrier!!Latest content published on novel•fire.net
" AH!! !" he screamed, almost seeing its large mouth eating his head. He swung his sword by instinct, and it hopped away, going outside the invisible barrier.
"What the..."
He gripped his chest, which was palpitating in shock.
Was the barrier losing energy or something? But he still had half an hour to go!
Feeling a little sense of urgency, his pace hastened even more.
At some point, however, he encountered a small monster mob in his path. He turned and paled when he saw that some monsters were also behind him. They seemed to be following his path.
The bushes and rocks were a bit dense on his side, and this caused him to be trapped. He wondered how long he could be safe inside this.
He didn’t really understand the principles of this barrier, but while it seemed to lessen his presence and his scent, it did not completely separate him. It did not create something completely solid, either.
For example, it was obviously a physical barrier that could block physical attacks (from monsters at least), but somehow the path he walked through was not damaged. When he went through the stream, there was no circle-without-water that formed under his feet either.
He also realized that he was not completely invisible. It was more like his presence was less of a priority, especially when there were other creatures there.
However, if he were alone, some beasts might still follow after him. In those cases, he would go back to the stream and walk along it to lose his scent and his followers. Sadly, he was in a bit of a rush at this moment that he forgot to do so again.
Anyway, this type of magical technology (assuming this whole shit show was real) was beyond his comprehension. He just accepted it as it was and went along with the flow.
But... what if they could enter like that monster-rabbit, too? What if there was a condition he didn’t know and he could lose everything in the blink of an eye again?
[Moving Phantom Barrier is active. 00:29:52]
He didn’t know if he’d need time to set up the so-called Inn either, so he had to hurry and find a good place as soon as possible.
He thought for a while and looked at the trees, looking for a relatively tall one that he could climb. It had been a while since he had done this, but deciduous trees were doable.
He shook his arms, trying to revive it from the tiring endeavors it had to undergo earlier (i.e. holding his entire weight on the railing + fruitless effort to stay afloat when drowning).
Except that the first one he tried to climb released sap when he added pressure!
He felt goosebumps and instinctively shook his hands as if he had touched something foul.
Ugh...
He cursed and continued to shake his arm to get rid of the sap, before rubbing the excess on his clothes. Hopefully, he wasn’t poisoned or anything, but what would that matter within the next half hour?
Then... he felt his hands growing slightly numb and he cursed.
Fortunately, the feeling was more ’fell asleep on your arms throughout the night’ rather than the burning sensation of poison or something acidic.
Looking around, both sides had such trees, so he really was trapped between two monster mobs now!
He forced himself to calm down and studied his location. Assuming the monsters wouldn’t attack him, the best path was behind one of the mobs.
He leaned down, posture ready for sprinting, eyes on the target pathway.
Three, two, one!
He dashed according to the path he created in his mind, rushed through the monsters, which, fortunately, were pushed to the side by the invisible barrier.
He ran and ran, feeling several monsters following after him, and he slowly headed back to the stream to once again try to lose his scent and his rabid followers.
It took a couple of moments with a few detours (there were never straight paths in forests), but he found it, and he immediately jumped and practically dived down. It wasn’t deep anyway, and he could feel the ground on all fours.
Slam!
It was damned painful to fall on rocks, though.
With some water rising up his nose, he lifted his head to look at the monsters, who stopped their tracks and started looking around. The wind this time followed downstream, so most of the monsters ended up following there, leaving only a few roaming around.
Sigh
This is too stressful.
If he hadn’t been used to stress working in hellish kitchens for nearly two decades, maybe he’d have gone crazy(ier) with all this chaos.
That said, he didn’t know when he started believing this was all real, but considering how hard his heart was palpitating and how heavy that mission was weighing on his mind, he had to adjust his mentality.
If he believed this was all just a figment of his imagination and relaxed, where would he end up? Since this was his reality now, he had to accept it, whether or not other people saw the same.
He stood up and shook his body, wringing the bit of water from his clothes. He also realized that the numbing in his hands had lessened, but only to a degree. There was also some mild reddening left behind.
Hopefully, it wasn’t anything deadly.