Chapter 5

As I stepped into the tree, I could see the slope going down and down. It was until the slope opened up into another area in the underground. The area was like an open field, with an altar area at the end of it. The altar area was separated by a lake right in front of it, the area before them was a grass field with some forest that connected to the slope path where I was from. 

I followed the path into the grass field, my goal was the water on the lake. While walking I kept looking through the greeneries, searching for something to eat. 

Before I could reach the lake, I noticed something on the altar area. 

There, I saw a creature lying down. Silver-coated fur covered its body, making it look like a huge wolf. But it also had huge wooden horn-like antlers of moose that grew like branches, from afar I could see the branch-like antlers filled with leaves and silvery-black flower petals.

The sight of the beast was majestic and frightening at the same time even though I was kind of far from it. 

But, there was something weird with the beast. 

It was engulfed with some dark aura, especially on the antlers' part. The aura emitted some sinister feeling from it.

Is this why the other beast didn't want to enter this area?

Now it made sense as to why there was nothing around the tree area above. This was the area where the boss was residing. 

The presence of the beast made me stop on my track. But, looking at the way of beast was acting, maybe it was going to be fine as long as I was not that close to it. 

The choice that I had was to try or not try. I could die if I tried, or I could also die of starvation if I didn't try. So both of the choices could lead me to danger.

After a moment of thinking and seeing how the beast acted during that time, I decided to move slowly and without making any noise. 

Maybe, I could move from the very edge of the grass field to avoid the beast line of perspective if it opened its eyes.

Therefore, I started to stray from the regular path and went to the very left side of the field. I moved inch by inch and tried not to make any noise. Thankfully, there were no other beasts down here. So I could take my time analyzing every possible way to ensure the beast was not getting awakened.

As I moved slowly, I also kept scanning the surrounding area for any edible items that could help us. 

Once I finally reached the lakeside area, I quickly kneeled to collect the water using the face mist bottle that I had in my touch-up kit pouch. 

As I reached for the water, I felt the ground under me rumbling. A thunderous roar could be heard from the area across the lake, where the large beast was. The roar froze my body movement, I could feel fear starting to rise again. 

Fortunately, nothing else happens. I took a glance at the beast, it still lying down and covered with the dark smoky aura around its antler. After waiting for a moment in case the beast did another concerning notion, I continued to store the lake water.

After rinsing the face mist bottle using the lake water, I scooped some in it to bring it to the surface for Mirae. Although the bottle was small, at least we had something to sip on from. 

I stored the bottle back into the pouch, scooped the water again using my hand, and drank it to relieve my dry throat. As I quenched my thirst, I noticed some mushroom-looking thing not far from the lakeside I was in. 

I walked towards it and looked down. The color of the mushroom looked a little bit promising as it had a dull color, so I plucked some maybe we could give it a try. While harvesting it, something else attracted my line of sight again. In the middle of the cluster of mushroom stems some pearl-size beads were lying. 

The bead-like item was really attractive, especially the middle one with a bright silvery color amongst the dull-brown beads. 

Feeling attracted to it, I took the silver bead and saved it in the pouch along with the water. 

Then suddenly, the thunderous roar was heard once again. But now it was closer. Before I could even react to it, turns out the beast already got up and now facing towards where I was standing. 

I was frozen in fear, feeling intimidated and isolated by the roar of the beast. I knew that I needed to run right then as the beast could come after me at any moment, but none of my body would follow the thoughts in my brain. It was as if I was becoming an ice block.

Unfortunately, the beast across me did start to come racing to me. The distance between us kept getting smaller and smaller.

Whoosh!!!

Right before the beast could run me over, a gust of wind moved past me from my back. Followed by a glint of blue fire slicing through the beast.

Slash! The beast was wretched in pain.

Ah., we're safe! The rescuer is here!

Relief ran through me as fast as the fear dissipated. My feet buckled down as my adrenaline had reached the highest point because of the ordeal. 

I could see the awakener easily sliced through the antler, and the pieces flung away to many directions. One of them even landed on the lake water near her. The awakener kept on attacking the beast, the fight was quite one-sided. He kept on slicing the beast using his blue flame sword. From afar, it looked beautiful but also deadly.

Not long after, other awakeners run from behind her. Some of them joined the awakener with the blue flame in dealing with the beast, while the others were helping to evacuate me. As the evacuation was happening, they kept asking about my condition, but I could only answer little by little as my mind was still catching up with reality.

And so they held me up and helped walk me to the slope path I had taken previously, leaving behind the one-sided fight.

Once I arrived on the surface again, I kept looking for Mirae. Turns out, she was lying down on the stretcher while also being questioned by many of the association members. 

After I saw her, I couldn't help but run to her and we hugged each other as we knew that we had made it alive. 

Ah, how nice to be alive!