Supernatural Encounter

Even though he has decided to meet with his new sister, Mathias finds one huge problem.

'I- I don't know how to get home...'

Although he knows that he lives in Pragow City which is an associated city of the Aveorean Kingdom, he doesn't know how to get back. Those people in black robes were the ones that brought him here, and they put a black bag over his head so he doesn't know where he was going.

On top of that, he just realized that problem when he already walked in a direction for ten minutes.

Now that he realized he doesn't know the way home, he makes his way back to the place he woke up in before, 'Hope one of those corpses keeps a map or I don't know how I can get back...', he thought hopefully.

While walking back Mathias looks left and right with his fearful eyes.

Since the sky is still dark and there are some spaces around him that is covered in complete darkness despite the glowing trees, he can't help but feel that something is going to come out of those dark places.

Remembering the Werewolf that killed him, a shiver runs down his spine.

Mathias remembered how he saw the pair of devious eyes stalking him from the darkness, and he can't help but feel paranoid about the same pair of eyes appearing again. Unconsciously, he started to quicken his pace.

"I-It feels different, I'm scared...", Mathias mutters as he tries to keep his gaze forward.

Out of his entire human life living mostly in the shade of trees that shelter him from the Supernatural races, being inside a forest like this shouldn't be any problem for him. But the feeling this time is completely different.

Without Bealey beside him, everything inside the forest terrifies him to the core.

Swoosh!

"Aahh!!"

As he was walking back to the spot earlier he heard the sound of bushes moving which caught him by surprise, he exclaimed in shock and falls to his butt. Looking over to the base of the sound, he finds that it was only the night wind.

Mathias feels the crippling fear gripping him, and he knows that it's going to be one hard night.

In about fifteen minutes he finally reaches back to the spot, it takes longer to get here because him being surprised by anything that moved or makes a sound. Heck, even his own shadow scares him at one point.

Going through the corpses quickly, Mathias tries to find himself a map.

Even though most of the corpses are not intact and submerged in a pool of blood, he forces himself to disregard the ill feeling and probe their clothes to search for a map. About a moment later, he finds a map alongside a short sword strapped on a detached leg.

With him being inside an unknown forest like this, a weapon is definitely needed for protection.

Upon opening the roll of what seemed to be a map, Mathias saw that it was indeed a map with the name 'Vircour Dark Covert' at the very top. Inspecting the map, he finds that there's a magical dot appearing in the center.

Mathias frowned as he looks at the blue glowing dot, he tries to touch it but it was intangible.

Aside from the blue glowing dot he also finds that there are parts of the map shaded with different colors, there are green, blue, and red. Not only that but there's a handwritten sentence in capital letters on the side of the map.

'Stay away from the red zone!'

Just from this sentence alone, he learned that these colors are some kind of marking.

"Based on that the red parts should be dangerous, but what about the blue and green parts? Which one is the safe one?", Mathias mutters to himself, trying to find a way out of this forest. On top of wanting to meet his new sister, he also doesn't want to stay in this forest any longer.

It would be an endless sleepless night if he stayed in this forest for a couple of days.

Mathias decided that he would stick to the green parts as those parts cover the forest the most out of all the three colors and also there's a small town in it, the green part should be the safer route based on this. With that out of the way, he is now ready to resume his journey.

When he intends to stand up, his eyes caught sight of a couple of vials strapped on a corpse.

Although he doesn't know what these vials are, he knows an alchemist in his home world that used to make healing potions using all kinds of herbs that can close up severe wounds in a couple of minutes. Looking at the vials that contain a green substance, Mathias nodded his head.

'It's similar to a healing potion...'

Not wanting to waste any more of his time, Mathias takes off the belt strapped with the vials before putting it on. With one last look at the map, he stands up knowing which direction he needs to go.

Outside of this forest, there's a city called Khosa city which should be quite big.

Even though he doesn't know exactly where he is right now he decided to go to the small town in the green part of the forest, and from there he would go to a waterfall which will lead him out of the forest and to Khosa City.

'I was right to go that way', Mathias thought with a helpless smile.

From the map it seems that he made the right choice in going in the direction he was going before he realized that he doesn't know where to go, he then started walking again before he went past a particular tree.

Taking a couple of steps back, Mathias frowned when he saw a crack in the tree trunk.

Although the crack in the middle of the tree trunk is not big, he remembered not seeing the crack when he left earlier, 'Isn't this the tree that I punched before? or am I mistaken...?', he thought with a frown on his face.

But right after he thought of that, he heard something coming from the other side.

Without even wasting any time he instantly went over to the tree and hides there, the sound of scurrying footsteps can be heard coming closer. Mathias's breathing started to get short as his heart is thumping faster.

Even though the footsteps are ringing in his ears, Mathias finds nothing approaching.

'Am I hearing things?', Mathias thought in confusion, he had already waited for one minute but there was nothing despite he can clearly hear the weird growls and footsteps of these approaching creatures.

Mathias was about to come out of his hiding, but he instantly went back once again.

From the other side he saw a group of creatures that looks humanoid at a glance, but the sound they were making clearly indicated that they are not humans. Peeking from behind the tree, he saw that there are eight of them.

Now that these creatures expose themselves clearly, Mathias realized what they are.

'Ghouls!'

Judging from their appearance alone, decayed skins that expose the bones and fleshy muscles that are supposed to be inside the body, mouths that are filled with gruesome sharp fangs, along with the sharp bones sticking out of their spines clearly indicate that they were none other than Ghouls.

Each of them walks in a crouching manner like an animal, sniffing the entire place excitedly.

Upon looking at the ghouls that already started devouring the remains of the dead people in black robes, it's clear that these ghouls were attracted to this place due to the corpses. It was the same as the Ghouls in Mathias's home world.

Ghouls really like to eat corpses, and their den usually is filled with bones from what they've eaten.

Mathias feels his heart was about to burst out of his chest, watching these Ghouls eating and devouring the corpses gleefully. Closing his eyes, he takes a couple of deep breaths to calm his nerves.

But it was easier said than done as his entire body is trembling, 'I-I need to wait for a chance...'

Not wanting to fight the ghouls at all and rather sneaking away, Mathias waited impatiently behind the tree for a chance that will allow him to escape. Ghouls can be killed by severing their heads, it's plausible but Mathias was not going to take any chances.

In his mind, he only wanted to survive no matter what.

With his experience against the Werewolf that can kill him in a blink of an eye, the thought of fighting a Supernatural is a heavy weight pressing onto his heart. Even in his life of running with his sister, he has never killed any Supernatural before.

Only his sister was the one killing Supernatural, he doesn't have the guts to do it.

Growl!

Mathias jolted in shock when he heard a growl, he peeked at the Ghouls and find two Ghouls beefing against each other over a corpse. This made his eyes light up as this is the perfect chance, most of the ghouls has their attention on those two Ghouls, fighting with one another.

Even though it's the perfect opportunity to move, his body refuses to move at all.

Gritting his teeth he looks to his front to where he needs to go, he fights back the needle rooted his body to the ground as his right leg finally got lifted, and takes the first step. But as exhilaration wailed inside of him, his expression turns pale.

Crash!

Out of nowhere, the two Ghouls crash near him, and both of them wrestle on the ground.

Upon seeing this Mathias was surprised as he falls to his butt once again, his eyes widened seeing the two ghouls bite and clawed each other fiercely. In his eyes, he was the one being torn to shred by the Ghouls if he fought them.

Seeing that vision he crawls back silently, trying to not notify the Ghouls of his presence.

But then another Ghoul lunges at the two fighting Ghouls before separating them, the two growls a couple of times before one of them crawls away. After that brief fight, the Ghouls went back to eating again.

Mathias stay completely still as one Ghoul still remained near him, it seems it was hurt.

Just then the Ghoul suddenly raises its head and started sniffing weirdly, and this sight forces Mathias to hold his breath. It's considered an Undead, and it has a faint ability to smell life force aside from corpses.

'Please don't look here, please don't look here...', Mathias kept repeating the same sentence.

As if the Ghouls can hear his thoughts, it slowly turns to the side which makes Mathias's heart drop. If the Ghoul turns once again then it will definitely see him, crouching behind a tree like a worm in fear.

But as the Ghoul was about to turn to look at Mathias, it suddenly stopped and turns its head away.

Not only the Ghoul near him but the other Ghouls also did the same thing, they raises their heads as if they sensed something. It was a distant grunt which for some reason Mathias also heard, and Immediately after that, the Ghoul near him started running in another direction.

Peeking at the other Ghouls, Mathias finds that the others went back to eating the corpses again.

Without wasting any time he ran to where the distant grunt came from, following the Ghoul, 'Is there another person in this forest?', Mathias thought as his legs keep on running frantically, he doesn't even know why he was running after the Ghoul.

It didn't take long before he heard the Ghoul growl, followed by a man's shout.

Mathias picked up his pace before he crouches down near a bush, he looks forward and saw a man fending off the Ghoul with a sword. It seems the man is hurt as he's fighting while leaning on a tree, his right leg seems to be wounded.

Upon seeing this, Mathias gripped the short sword in his hand, 'I-I can help him...'

Knowing that he can sneak at the Ghouls from behind and slice its head off, helping the man is in the realm of possibility. But as he was about to do that, he suddenly looks down with trembling eyes.

'I'm pathetic...', Mathias thought as he doesn't have the bravery to help the man.

Even though the sound of the man's groan can be heard clearly as he fights off the Ghoul, Mathias decided to turn around to leave. Aside from having no guts to help, he also doesn't want to risk his life, to keep on surviving.

With that, Mathias turns around intending to leave the place and heads to the small town.

But as he was walking away he suddenly stepped on a branch which makes a loud cracking noise, and this makes his blood runs cold as the place suddenly become silent. Slowly Mathias looks back before he saw the Ghoul leaping straight at him with its mouth opened wide.

"Watch out!!"