A Monster

Warily looking towards the monster Kai met its gaze making the beast screech in rage and scratch the cave's entrance even more profusely.

Kai noticed that the creature's nails were now dull, because the beast kept using them to slash the rocks for an entire day.

Clenching his harpoon Kai tried to calm down, it wasn't everyday that he met a monster that could talk.

' Kill... Kill... '

He could hear the lizard's whisper while it was using its already bleeding limbs to further try to open up the entrance to the cave.

Kai was confident that the cavern wouldn't be breached, but he had another problem - food and water. None of the two could be gathered while he was stuck in the cavern, the same went for the monster. It was basically the battle of attrition.

Sighing, Kai took a seat on the cold ground and closed his eyes. Since he was already used to the monster's produced noise he was able to meditate normally.

Concentrating and looking around the endless space he couldn't see any Black dots and only Mana particles surrounding him.

' It's only available in the white desert... '

Thinking along such lines Kai started pulling blue dots towards his abdomen. One by one mana particles kept sticking onto the 'Lunar' particles and turned black. After his concentration was lost he had 18 black particles in total.

Clenching his palm he felt that his grip was stronger than yesterday. Throwing a glance to the tenacious Lizard Kai started doing push ups trying to match the rhythm of the monster hitting the wall.

Scratch... Scratch... Scratch...

Every push up was hard, but Kai's body was already adapting to being pushed above its limit. Even though his arms were aching they were not trembling like in the first day.

Today Kai managed to do 30 pushups while two days ago the count was barely 8. Regaining his breath he started doing various exercises matching the sound of the monster clawing the cavern's entrance.

After his limbs and muscles were numb from the exercises Kai laid down on the ground, looking towards the annoying lizard. He was pretty sure that the lizard was already reaching its limit, because of its rough breathing and sluggish movements. The monster has also dropped its guard with its head being fully visible from within the cave.

' Maybe I should try it? '

Looking towards the harpoon propped against the wall Kai started contemplating if it was an available option. The monster was considerably weakened, that was no secret, but will a simple weapon be enough to deal a critical wound and kill it?

Scratching his neck Kai took the harpoon to his hand.

Watching the lizard's movements he started waiting for a perfect opportunity to strike.

Such an opening appeared when the lizard was retracting his limb after successfully hitting the cavern.

Whoosh...

Kai's thrown weapon flew through the air and hit the lizard's belly.

Screech...

The monster screeched in pain stopping to hit the cavern for the first time in a day.

" At least the noise stopped... "

Kai thought, looking towards the monster who was struggling to remove the harpoon deeply pierced into its belly.

From the quantity blood gushing out of its wound Kai could already tell it wouldn't survive for another hour.

Taking a seat on the cold ground he looked towards the monster who was on his last legs.

' Ki.. ll.... K.. ill... '

Kai could still hear the lizard's voice even when he was on his death door. Kai didn't know why it could talk, but wasn't interested to find out.

' The less you know the more you live '

Shrugging his shoulders Kai started scribbling on the ground trying to pass the time.

Finally after another 15 minutes the monster took its last breath and died with its red, eerie eyes wide open, glaring towards the direction of Kai.

' He really didn't like me '

Approaching the dead monster Kai retrieved his bloody weapon. Since the sun was yet to set he started chopping off the meat from the lizard's body. Since the monster wasn't poisonous, Kai could eat it.

He made sure to only take enough meat for a single meal, he had no way to preserve it in the wilderness.

Looking at the cavern from outside Kai saw its walls severely damaged by the claw marks. He didn't even dare to think what would've happened if he was hit with such a force.

After taking some meat Kai went directly to the pond intending to wash away his sweat and clean his bloody harpoon.

Moving back through the forest he heard some kind of growls behind him and guessed that the monsters had already caught the smell of blood and were fighting for the carcass of the lizard.

Not planning to come back any time soon Kai grabbed a bunch of bananas and started eating them while sitting on the rock nearby. He felt refreshed and after eating started to collect dry branches and moss for the fire.

As he saw the sun slowly disappearing from the horizon he made sure to wait a little bit longer, just to make sure that monsters near the cavern would be gone.

Even though they mainly hunted when it was dark they could also operate even in the middle of the day. Carefully moving through the greenery Kai made sure not to step on any crunchy branches or other stuff that'd produce sound when stepped on.

In his last life the only thing that kept him alive was his strong precaution. He didn't go to areas with high risks, didn't trust many people, kept hunting alone and provided no information about his whereabouts. Kai was also strictly prepared for every hunt making sure to always have an extra bandage, weapon or other important object that'd be crucial in a critical situation.

His strong sense of danger was also not something one could belittle. Countless times he survived, because of listening to his gut. One of the best examples would be him declining to participate in a dungeon raid. Even though the dungeon itself was easy, Kai listened to his gut feeling and skipped it.

Later on he found out that the boss monster went on rampage, killing the whole group in a matter of minutes. Only one person managed to survive to tell the tale.

Now the gut feeling of Kai's was telling him to run as far as possible, because something was approaching him from the direction of the cave.