8 Chapter 8

Both of us kept walking towards the south east direction up the hill. There were a few more lizards we came upon and we happily dispatched them. Although we killed a few, none of us leveled up. A while later I felt an interesting presence near us. It was one strong presence and three very small ones.

The Ranger spell was an extremely useful one. When I became level 4 my Mana refilled at the rate of 2 per minute. The Ranger spell used 10 Mana and lasted 5 minutes which meant that I could keep the spell active indefinitely. The draw back was that my usable total Mana dropped to 15. This wasn't that bad considering I only had two others spells, Reinforcement (used 5 Mana for 2 hours) and Healing which I only needed to use in case of injuries.

"I think there's a beast with its young ones near us"

"How strong?" Oscar asked.

"I feel if we approach this properly we should be able to kill them fairly safely, this could be what we're looking for. If the animal has kids then it must have a safe place to keep them"

We slowly sneaked towards the four animals. After a while I asked Oscar to climb a tree and stay while I activated Camouflage and moved closer. Sure enough I saw a small cave, and the four animals were inside. I tried to get a view of what was inside but it was too dark.

I climbed a tree and decided to stake the cave out. A while later I saw some movement and I aw a huge bulking figure slowly move out of the cave. It looked like young female bear. It trudged out of the cave and one cub followed it out as well. It nudged the cub back into the cave and then simply patrolled the entry of the cave looking out earnestly before going back inside the cave. The female bear was level 3 and although it would be hard but we could still kill it without losses if we could lure it out."

I had seen what I needed to as I got down from the tree and moved back to where I had left Oscar. Once I recounted what I had seen to him he felt that there was no easy way to take control of that cave.

"I think we should try to find some other place. I don't think I want to walk into a dark cave and fight a Mama Bear with her back against the wall. I've seen a grizzly maul a deer on a safari once. Those things are huge and you said this one is even larger than the ones we had back home"

"You're right but we don't have to go fight it in the cave." I said to him.

"What do you mean?"

"Well with the way the mother bear was looking out of the cave it looked like its got a partner that's gone hunting while it stayed back to protect the cubs."

"How does that make it easier, that means we're fighting two bears. We'll die"

I paused and spoke, "Not if we plan properly".

"Alright, I'm all ears"

"First we'll need to level up-"

———————

One hour later, both of us were hiding in the trees and I had my Ranger spell on. when I felt a prescience move near.

"It's here, east of us. Seems to be moving slowly, its probably dragging food for its family. We need to move quickly, the farther away from the cave it is the less likely the female bear willl be alerted"

Oscar nodded and we both jumped down and sprinted towards the direction I had pointed towards.

Both of us were level 5 now and moved a lot faster than before. I leveled up once and used my 2 Skill Points to level up my Pole Weapon Mastery and Oscar leveled up twice and invested the Four Skill Points he got level up Stun even more. In order to level up a skill from 1 to 2 you needed two skill points and it required 4 skill points to move it to level 3.

As we moved through the trees Oscar spoke out, "We're strong enough to easily kill the Mama Bear. We should have gotten rid of it before we fought its partner."

"The female bear would never have come into the open and we would have had to kill it in the cave. That would mean the cave and its surrounding will smell of blood and from what I saw of that beast it seems very likely that it or something else could show up from the scent. I don't want to wake up in the night and watch a pair of jaws lunging for my throat"

"Ah so that's why. fair enough", remarked Oscar.

Soon enough we were close to the Bear and we slowed down to a stop. I felt the bear pause a bit away from us. There were still a few trees and shrubbery blocking us from each other but it seemed to have sensed us. I stood still for a while then having come a decision it moved towards us purposefully.

"Get ready its coming towards us" I whispered to Oscar. He moved behind me and tiptoed farther and farther. The leaves in front of me pulled apart a bit and I caught a glimpse of a large bear, it was larger than the female and a level four. And I also caught a glimpse of the food it was bringing for its family. It was a human. A young girl from the hair and the size of the body, although it was a bit hard to tell from the dried blood on it and the mud because the bear had dragged it all the way here.

I only managed to catch a glimpse of the bear and the body before it was blocked by the shrubbery again. Then all movement came to a still around us. I could sense that the bear was close but my skill didn't let me pinpoint its exact location. It refused to come out in the open and I could only hear the rustling of the bushes around us.

I crouched down and tightened my grip around the spear. Oscar held the knife in one hand and the other outstretched, ready to cast instantly.

The leaves suddenly parted to my left and the bear lunged out at me.