4 Escape and Sanctuary

The group of men could be heard conversing around the death pit. Kai was completely frozen in panic.

"Have the beasts shown up yet?" Asked one of the men

"No signs of their tracks, but something seems to have been dragged out of the pit...or crawled out of it" Another man said

When he heard this, Kai lambasted himself for being too relaxed. He should have known that crawling out of that place would have left a trail, he should have gone further away!

"Luo, follow the trail and see where it leads, the rest of you check the other pits, we need at least one Corpse Eater before we can return".

"Understood!", answered the men in unison before they dispersed as quickly as they had gathered.

The man named Luo was the only one left. He slowly followed the trail which led him to a small clearing where Kai's bush was.

During this time, Kai was sweating bullets trying to figure out what he should do. He had miraculously escaped that farm of horror by almost dying, but now some strange person was tracking him.

'I wish I had more time to get a more powerful manual...' Kai thought to himself.

While Kai having these thoughts, Luo was slowly approaching the bush, weapon at the ready.

Just as Luo was a few steps away, a blood curdling roar was heard along with the sound of people and battle. Luo immediately stopped in his tracks and ran in the opposite direction of Kai towards the sound of the roar. Kai breathed out a sigh of relief and realized that his back was completely drenched in sweat. "Who knows what they may have done if they found me. I'm too way weak to defend myself".

Kai waited for a few more seconds to make sure there wasn't anyone out there then quickly got out of the bush.

He could finally stand up properly, however his legs still had a massive gashes from the earlier whip attacks, so he still could not run.

Kai hobbled as fast as it could in the opposite direction of the roars and sounds of battle.

He didn't stop and just kept moving as fast as his wounded legs could carry him with the frightening sounds working as motivation for him to keep moving. Along the way he tripped and fell numerous times but he ignored the pain and continued dragging his broken body as far as he could

Eventually, Kai found himself by a river bank with a gentle river flowing by, but he did not stop there. He picked up a random piece of driftwood near the shore of the river bank and jumped into the river, using the drift wood to keep afloat as the river moved him along.

"This is probably a terrible idea but I need to somehow get rid of my tracks, and this river is going in the opposite direction of the roar which is good". Kai was thinking all this while trying to ignore the possibility of monsters being in the river. One had to think positively in these situations.

After an indiscernible amount of time, Kai was floating on the shore. He spotted what looked like a ramshackle shack and decided to have a look. He carefully angled himself so he would drift over to the shore and got out a few dozen meters away from the shack.

He had been traveling for a while and had long since left the forest a while ago and was now by a riverbank facing a large open clearing. He estimated that he should be far away from the commotion by now and they should not be able to track him...Or so he hoped. The sun was setting and Kai desperately needed a safe place to hole in for the night.

"This looks like an old fisherman's hut, but what's it doing all the way out here in the middle of nowhere...is there a village nearby?". Kai looked at the obviously abandoned shack. He decided to be careful and waited a few minutes before slowly approaching the place.

He then peeked through the broken windows to see if anyone was home but sighed in relief when he saw the amount of dust and cobwebs inside the place, suggesting that it must have been abandoned for a long time.

Kai went in and saw the place was rather small, but had quite a bit of furniture inside. There was a little bed in the corner as well as a wardrobe on the opposite side. Apart from those, there was a small dinner table right in the middle with an old lamp on top of it and a broken chair on the side.

Kai immediately went about searching the place for anything useful. If the place wasn't abandoned, then he would need to run away so might as well take what he needed now. In the wardrobe, Kai found a pair of old torn pants, as well as a rough course shirt. There was also a classic straw fisherman's hat and cloak made out of reeds and hide which helped protect the body from rain. He took off his wet rags and quickly changed into the clothes.

Once he had completely changed, he got a surprise notification from the system.

==[New Equipment Recorded]==

[Equipment]:

[Headpiece] = Old Fisherman's hat (Grade-1: External Defense 1)

[Necklace] = Old Fisherman's Cloak (Grade-1: External Defense 1)

[Body] = Old Course Cloth Outfit (Grade-1: External Defense 2)

[Feet] = None

[Ring] = None

It seems the system counts these terrible clothes as equipment.

"Well, I couldn't find any shoes but this will have to do for now." Kai mumbled to himself.

He also found it odd that the system counted the cloak as a necklace, but it technically went around his neck so it kind of made sense.

Kai continued searching the house for loot, but all he found was an old unassuming wooden fishing rod under the bed…