Chapter 3

The wolf was an old looking one, but that didn't make it look any less menacing. It had its teeth bared and was slowly stalking towards him. The wolves on earth alone could maul an unarmed person to death, but this one was even bigger than the wolves on earth.

It was about one meter tall, but it was the muscles on it that really differentiated it from their earthly counterparts. It looked with slight wariness at Drake, opening its maw and letting out threatening growls.

Theo drew the knife out of its sheath once again and tensed himself, ready for it to pounce on him. The wolf was still slowly stalking towards him, maw wide open.

The wolf's patience ran out first and it pounced on him. Theo was ready and side stepped. While he did that, he tried to strike the wolf by sweeping the knife on its right side. The result was disappointing as it only left a small mark on its fur, it did not even penetrate the flesh.

The wolf completely ignored the harmless knife and bit down on the hand holding it. Theo felt how it ripped the flesh out of his hand. He felt how his blood started to burst out of the wound as the wolf chewed its way to the bone. He felt how his pain receptors were going into overdrive, sending signals like mad.

The pain was excruciating. It felt like nothing he had ever experienced before yet he was able to ignore the pain in favor of trying to escape from the wolf's grip. A successful kick to its stomach set him free.

The kick forced the wolf to let go of his right hand, which was now unusable, and made it take a few steps backwards before it lunged at him again.

This time he didn't even try to fight back, instead he tried to evade its attack and escape. Alas, it was not meant to be as he failed to avoid the lunging attack. The wolf leapt at him and swiped its claws across his chest, ripping open a massive wound.

He felt the pain, but he was still able to remain calm and ignore the wound. Yet, he could do nothing against the kinetic force that knocked him backwards, making him stumble and fall onto his ass.

He was already starting to feel dizzy from the blood loss and could only watch helplessly as the wolf pounced on him and started ripping pieces of flesh out of his abdomen. It wouldn't take long for him to die even if the wolf left him alone, he would still die of blood loss.

His final struggles proved futile, as nothing he did harmed the wolf in any way. That was until he accidentally poked it in its eyes while trying to hold its snout at bay. Though that did nothing to help him and only enraged the wolf.

It broke free from his hands and lunged towards his neck, maw wide open. It started ripping big bites of flesh from his neck and he could feel the blood filling his lungs. He just watched helplessly as the wolf continued to rip out pieces of his flesh. And as unconsciousness claimed him once more, there was a message.

[You have died]

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As Theo regained consciousness, the world looked different than it had when he was in the forest. Everything seemed cold, lacking warmth and color.

Everything he could see was blurry, like a flickering light. It was hard to make out details of his surroundings.

What he could make out included the fact that he lacked the physical form he had had in the forest and that he was in front of a platform. He could feel a pulling sensation towards the platform, but there was another, slightly weaker pull, that seemed to originate from behind the platform.

He willed his form to move around and inspect the surroundings, which proved to be a time intensive effort as he had to get close to inspect anything.

The result of his investigation such as the discovery of blurry murals on the walls of the place and the rows upon rows of benches led him to believe that he woke up in front of the same platform he had appeared on earlier today.

After confirming his current position, he moved to investigate the other source of pulling he could feel.

During his investigation he found out that despite not having a physical form, he could not pass-through solid objects. So, it was with great determination that he floated around the temple looking for a window to confirm his suspicions.

When he finally found a window on the back of the temple, he could see the blurry outline of the forest in the distance and felt the pull originating from there.

"So, this is the resurrection mechanic? Feels a little familiar." He wondered as he floated back down to the platform.

He looked around the temple one last time, there was nothing new there. It was to be expected, after all he had been here just earlier in the day. The only thing different from the time he had first been here was that the priest was nowhere to be seen.

The platform in front of him continued to emanate the same pulling sensation and he wondered how it would work, as there were no notifications informing him of anything.

He floated around the platform for a little bit, before descending upon it. He expected to be denied passage as he had been by every other solid object he had tried to land on. Instead, what greeted him was the sensation of sinking and the feeling of pulling getting stronger, before he once again lost consciousness.

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Regaining consciousness once again, Theo found himself atop the very same platform as before. The world had regained its color and warmth, no longer feeling cold and dead.

The priest, whose name he now knew to be Gething, was still praying piously with his hands clasped together in front of the steps leading up to the platform while kneeling.

He seemed to have noticed the return of Theo as he raised his head and opened his eyes.

"Ah, you're back already. I expected that it would take you more than an hour to experience this."

By now, Gething had risen to meet with Theo as he descended from the platform once again.

"Experience what?" Theo asked as he now stood in front of Gething.

"Why, death of course." Gething closed his eyes once again. "You have the magnificent gift that the gods granted your kind that prevent you from losing your soul once you die."

Gething turned and began to walk towards the temple doors while he followed behind.

"While your physical body can still die, your soul will be preserved and carried into the nearest temple." Gething patiently explained. "The divine gift of the gods can grant you a new body inside of the temple, as you have now experienced."

"This divine gift doesn't necessarily require a place of worship, though it is the most common and fastest way to regain a physical body." By now, they were halfway to the doors.

"You can also occupy your previous physical body, granted that it still exists in a form suitable for the soul. In this case, the divine energies will heal your physical body to an acceptable form." Gething stopped walking, as they now stood in front of the huge doors of the temple once more.

"I see." Theo muttered as Gething pushed open the doors once again.

Walking outside of the temple, he could see the village down by the hill and the forest behind. The sky had a few clouds drifting peacefully, while the sun was slightly higher than it had been before his apparent death.

"Could you tell me what was written on that piece of parchment you gave me?" He asked as he turned around to look at Gething.

"That I can not do, it is the will of Habul." He just smiled and closed the doors once again.

'It's a test?' Theo wondered as he made his way back towards the forest. While the resurrection did not carry over any of the items on his person. It did grant him the same set of ragged clothes as before.

Navigating his way through the forest towards the spot where he had previously died proved to be slightly challenging, due to the fact that he had not memorized the route he had taken upon his first entry.

It took him nearly twenty minutes before he found his place of death. And it was quite a striking place to find. The ground around his body had a pool of blood, with chunks of flesh littered around. The clothes on his dead body were ripped and soaked with blood. A few good chunks of flesh were missing from his abdomen and neck where the wolf had quite obviously taken a few bites.

'Guess I wasn't too tasty, huh.' The rabbit carcass that was previously attached to his belt was now gone. The skinning knife remained lying on the ground next to the body. He picked it up and stole its sheath from the belt of the body.

The piece of parchment that Gething had given him was soaked in blood, but it was still whole, and the writing did not look terribly smudged. He pocketed it inside of the same pocket as before, this time only in a different set of clothes.

Breathing out a sigh of relief, he gathered the sticks from the trap and set out to find another spot where he could set up another trap. Staying in that blood-soaked place would only attract more predators and scare away the prey.

Finding another location to set up proved to be slightly more time consuming than it had been the last time since he had to walk quite a distance away from the previous spot.

But he found a suitable spot after around twenty minutes of walking that was very similar to the previous spot. A little hole that was partially covered and hidden behind a root was a perfect place to set up the trap.

"Third time's the charm, I guess." He muttered to himself as he stepped back from the trap and looked at it.

It looked much better than the first one had and only slightly better than the second one.

Theo began climbing up a nearby tree that overlooked the trap and sat down on one of the bigger branches once again, waiting for some small game to fall into the trap.

The process of waiting took slightly less time than it had before, in under five minutes, the first rabbit had fallen into the trap.

Performing the same actions as he had done to the first rabbit, he attached the rabbit carcass to his belt and climbed up to the tree once more.

This process repeated itself twice more over the next thirty minutes, adding two additional rabbit carcasses to his belt before he decided to head out of the forest.

He left some small markings in the tree with the knife and started to head back into the village.

While the trip to the forest, death and subsequent return had taken around an hour or two, the sun was not yet high up. That meant that he had many hours yet ahead of him before it was night.

The fact that he was walking around with three slightly bleeding rabbit carcasses, and a slightly blood red knife sheath around his waist drew a lot of attention from the few villagers that were now starting to appear on the streets. Most of the villagers appeared to be either female or children, the only males he had seen around were old, really old.

Theo did his best to ignore them as he made his way towards the smithy, to the blacksmith he had received the quest from.

Opening the door to the blacksmith's shop, he once again saw the blacksmith himself behind the counter. Scribbling something onto a wooden placard.

Theo coughed once and gained the attention of the blacksmith. The man slowly looked up from the placard with a worried look before seeing Theo and gaining a slightly excited twinge to his expression.

"Did you have any success?" The blacksmith had now stood up and was eagerly awaiting Theo's response.

Theo removed the three rabbit carcasses from his waist and put them down on the counter. "I got three."

"One rabbit for the information on the parchment and two for equipment, that was the deal, right?" Theo said as he took the bloodied piece of parchment from his pocket and placed it down onto the counter, too.

"Yes, yes, that was the deal, indeed" The blacksmith was looking at the rabbits intently while nodding.

He then directed his gaze towards the piece of bloody parchment and took a slight step backwards. "Gods, why is it all bloodied?"

"Uh… I died once to some wolf. Luckily it left most of my body alone after it took the rabbit carcass I had." Theo rubbed his head awkwardly.

"You died!?" The blacksmith's eyes were now wide as saucers as he looked at him. "How are you still here if you died!? Are you a ghost?!" By now the blacksmith was scrambling backwards.

"I resurrected at the temple; I'm not a ghost." Theo placed his hands up in the air as he tried to reassure him.

The words seemed to trigger something in the blacksmith, as he started to visibly calm down and after a while, he stood behind the counter once more. He reached for the bloody parchment and read it again.

"Yes, yes, of course, you're one of them after all." The blacksmith muttered to himself.

"Sorry about that, it's not often when someone claims to have died and comes back after going into the forest, usually they just stay dead." He looked at him with a slightly guilty look.

"What do you mean?" Theo raised an eyebrow and asked while staring at the blacksmith.

The blacksmith averted his gaze and looked at the ground. "The wildlife of the forest has gotten out of hand in the past half a year, there aren't enough hunters in the village anymore to keep the populations in check."

"I'm sorry I sent you out there without warning you about the wolves, but you have to understand. We don't have much in the way of food in this village anymore and I have to feed my family somehow." He was looking at the backdoor of the shop. "If I had told you of the dangers associated, I wasn't sure if you would still risk it."

"Forget about it, I'm more interested in what that piece of parchment has written on it." Theo waved his hand and asked.

The blacksmith coughed and started to read what was on the parchment while still wearing a guilty look on his face.

"Welcome, adventurer. To the world of Draphen, a land with many mysterious wonders; a place where you can achieve what you thought you never could; a place where the only limitation you have is your ambition." At that point, the blacksmith cleared his throat before continuing

"You and your kind have been selected by the gods themselves to help humanity in these trying times. The gods have granted you the ability to preserve your soul in the case of your physical demise. They expect great things from you. Do not disappoint them."

The blacksmith laid the piece of parchment back onto the counter just as a slight headache hit Theo, followed by a notification appearing in front of him.