8 Troublesome arrival

My watch ended and yuzzems slowly woke up.

We had for breakfast the same combination as for dinner. Berries with raw fish. I personally remained with berries and left fish for yuzzem.

When everybody has eaten we set up for our journey again. I ordered the same formation as the previous day. I had no reason to alter it.

The day was going fine but around noon problems started to emerge.

One of the scouts rushed over to me while I was speaking with mages about the theory of magic and spoke: "Boss, we have encountered a group of undead in front of us. If we don't change the course we will run straight into them. What are your orders?"

"I like this title. Boss." I said delightedly. Ignoring the rest of the report. "Tell the others that this is the best way to call me till we find some pseudonym for me." I coughed embarrassingly after receiving a look full of expectation from a scout who was waiting for orders on how to deal with the undead.

" Now to that undead. What are their numbers and name the types of undead you are speaking of." I spoke hoping to shift attention somewhere else.

"Boss, we have counted about 10 of them but they are ghouls. These creatures are known for their sense of smell and speed. One is bigger than a horse and the others have a little bit bigger body mass than you, boss. They are quite fast and they seem to be sniffing around like they are searching for someone or something."

"Let's not provoke them. We have to change a course for a little while to go around them. Tell the others."

Scout nodded and went to carry out my orders.

We changed course and guided by scouts successfully avoided contact with ghouls.

This way it went for the rest of the day. Scout came and informed about a group of ghouls and we had to go around them.

At one time it was really close. While I was receiving the report from scouts, the ghouls could be already seen. We had to lie flat down on the ground in the high grass and hope we won't be seen. From all I could see before I dived down for cover was almost human-like head with dried rotting skin and the human body on all four with longer legs and arms than is normal. I had a feeling that I also saw big claws on their hands but I couldn't say for sure. Nonetheless, they scared me.

We were laying like this for more than 10 minutes and we could still hear their growls. After another 10 minutes was finally quiet. I waited for a while and then slowly peeked out of my hiding. They were gone.

I went on the place where we saw them last and asked one scout to look at their tracks. What he said gave me a cold sweat. They were going on a path which was taken by one of our scouts. Thanks to that they missed the main group barely by 100 meters and taking into consideration their keen sense of smell we were very lucky. They may be after us. Next time we encounter them it won't be without a fight.

"We must be careful. I don't know it is a coincidence but it seems they are going after us." I told to scout. He nodded and ensured me that they will be much more careful with concealing their tracks.

At the evening we entered hills. This made our hiding much easier because there were often valleys with forest and there were more and more as we progressed. These forests were more in style of central European or Northern USA forests. Leafy trees mixed with the conifer. This gave me an idea that it is now probably beginning of summer and that the winters here can be with snow.

We camped in one of these forested valleys and waited overnight. This time my feeling of being watched did not come. As for food we had still some remaining fish from our previous camp and also we found something which seemed to be similar to blueberries so we did not starve.

In the morning we set up again. From my guess, we had about 15 kilometers to go.

"If we are lucky we may arrive today. But only if some stupid ghouls won't block our path again." I murmured for myself as we were going.

For today I changed the formation a little bit because our sides were cowered by hills.

Scouts were positioned only at front and back. Also, I gave the ones behind us order to cover the track because I did not want to have ghouls trailing us.

We were again on our way and I was excited. The reason was that I finally had more than 50 Fp and I could upgrade my system. I was already thinking of all the possibilities which could upgrade bring. While I walked I activated the system icon.

[ Name: Grimm

Faith points (Fp): 84

Faith points (Fp) needed for upgrade of the system: 50 INTERACT WITH THIS TO UPGRADE!!]

I activated the button and my Fp went on 32. Also, the system went also through change but sadly not a big one.

When I now looked on my system it displayed more information.

[Name: Grimm

Health: 98%

Mana (Mp): 400/400

Faith points (Fp): 34

Faith points (Fp) needed for upgrade of the system: 100]

I was furious."What?? That's a scam!!! I was scammed by my own system!! For 2 days of prayers, just info about 2 stats and one of them is completely useless since I know what my health status is!!" I was cursing in my mind like this for a while. I was just so unfair. "Yes I get it, to know about having mana is fantastic but it is useless if you don't have a way to get any spells."

I had a very bad mood after that and yuzzem could feel it so one of yuzzem which I recognized as one of the mages approached me, walked beside me and politely asked."Boss, have we done something that displeased you? If so tell us and let us correct it."

"Oh, I was not angry at you just on justice in this world. Don't mind me. I will be ok soon." I said with a smile but it never reached my eyes.

He nodded and left me but I could still see that my answer didn't calm him down.

I was walking alone for about half an hour and then joined the conversation with mages about the information I got about my own mana.

I didn't get any useful information on this matter but I got into a better relationship with mages.

We were on our way without any interventions but the sun was slowly getting blocked by thick black clouds.

Our way lead through another forested valley and I was in the middle of the conversation with the big yuzzem about his possible post as a leader of our warriors when a scouts came from behind the group and one barely catching his breath said.

"We have company boss. It seems to be a pack of strange big wolves. They are about five minutes away from us. They are sniffing our trail. The coverage of our trail doesn't work on them. With their pace, they will catch up with us in 10 minutes. They seem to be on a hunt."

These weren't good news. I was getting nervous. "What to do?"

At the same moment spoke another scout who came from the other side of our group. I haven't seen him coming so I almost jumped out of my skin. He did not seem stressed as the first one but actually happy.

"Boss, just behind the corner is the lake we are looking for."

I did not waste any time. "How long it will take to reach it?"

"From 10 to 15 minutes."

"And if we run?"

"I guess we will be there in 4 minutes but your human body will need about 7. But the lake won't run any..."

"Ok fine. EVERYONE LISTEN UP!!" I shouted.

"Just behind the corner is the lake we are looking for but we have unwanted company. We will have to run for it. Once we get to the lake we will grab everything that floats on water and makes something like a very crude raft. Then we will get at least into deeper water before our pursuers catch up. Because you are faster than me, you will have to leave me for some time so you will have more time to gather needed things. Follow the scout and I will catch up to you in 3 minutes." I stated.

"You please stay by my side," I told the big black yuzzem from before.

"Yes, boss. I will protect you with my life."

This made me somehow feel bad because he is doing this surely only because of Soul oath.

"I must get their trust and friendship," I told myself.

There was no more time for thinking as yuzzem already started running and disappeared into the forest. I had to run too.

We were running. First I didn't set the too fast pace because I remembered how my PE teacher always told me to save my strength for later on longer tracks but after three minutes adrenaline of being pursued by hungry beasts forced me to speed up.

The running wasn't easy because there were branches everywhere and extra to that it started to be gloomy thanks to the dark clouds on the sky and once I even heard thunder in the distance.

As we dashed through vegetation in the dark forest I had a constant fear of the wolf jumping out of shadows and ending my life.

The forest was silent as if everything died and the only thing I could hear was heavy breaths of me and my companion.

Finally, I saw the surface of the lake through trees but my joy was shaken by a horrifying loud howl from behind.

My companion unsheathed his claws but continued running. "How far are they from us?" I asked with a shaken voice.

"They must have reached the place where we started running." said yuzzem with a worried tone at the same moment as more howls full of fury echoed behind us.

"They must have found out that we started to run." said the yuzzem.

We dashed out of the forest and my hope of being at the lake was crushed because the lake was in another valley which was lower than the one we exited and that was the reason why we saw the surface of the lake.

The lake was huge. I almost could'not see at the edge of it. In the middle were the promised islands but they were heavily forested and covered in fog. Those islands took almost half of the area of the lake. They were density packed and relatively flat but one could see wider canals going between some of them. Perfect place for green Jedi master to hide.

I was going to praise how perfect spot for hiding Mafl chose but I was interrupted by another loud howl but this time much closer.

We saw from up there where our group of yuzzem gathered at the border of the lake which was full of the reed and they seemed to be cutting it.

The lake was from us about 2 kilometers so we didn't cheer since we had to still cross that distance through open grassy terrain with some bushes and rarely even trees. I thought we were done for good with my plan building a raft because there was a lack of wood.

We started sprinting straight to the yuzzem and thanks to that it was downhills we could sustain high speed.

Once we caught up with the rest of the group I finally understood their intentions.

Because there wasn't any wood around here they used dry reed and make something similar to the old Egyptian boats.

They had already tied material into rolls and started connecting them.

I couldn't prase their inventiveness more.

It finally started to rain. "If we are lucky our tracks will be soon washed away," I told to yuzzem which looked like I was comforting them but the truth was that I was comforting myself.

As I said that sentence behind us was heard another clear howl. I turned around and saw brown shadows dashing from the forest. They have seen us.

"Grab everything you had finished in time and get in the water, we have run out of time," I yelled and grabbed one of the rolls of reed and pushed some of yuzzem closer to the water.