CHAPTER 1: STARVE TO DEATH

The birds were chirping happily, the crickets doing their own business and the trees were swaying side by side as they enjoyed the fresh breeze.

It was another beautiful morning and everyone was busy doing their morning chores and preparing breakfast. Smoke was rising in every kitchen as the women were busy cooking, the men were busy cutting firewood and the others were already on the farm harvesting the ripe crops.

It was that season when everyone loves, the time to reap what they have sown. They didn't need to worry about not having enough food as the crops in their farmland will be enough to last them for a while if they don't sell a lot of it.

While everyone was happy and getting ready for this day, a certain forest, known as the Dark Forest, was named like that because of the feisty animals that lived there.

There were several cases of people entering the forest and never coming out. In this world (Niafell) it is a cultivation world where people go against the norms and cultivate to get stronger and live longer.

It is every mortal's dream to become a cultivator as this brings glory to the family and even to the person him/herself.

However, it wasn't in every town or city that you find these clans or cultivation schools, some parts of the kingdoms and more than half of them were filled with mortal beings.

So, for the Dark Forest, there wasn't any immortal to come and fight these animals as it wasn't worthy of their time. This was something that the hunters can do and wasn't part of their job description and they didn't gain anything by doing that.

So, the Dark Forest was quite feared by many as no one wanted to be ravaged by an animal, it was a place where everyone dreaded to go. They didn't even dare to enter the deep part of the forest even for gathering some wild herbs and vegetables.

There were rumors that the forest has a lot of animals but even hunters didn't dare to enter too. However, on this day and this morning, deep down in this forest a yawn could be heard in a certain cave.

A middle-aged woman probably in her mid-thirties or early forties was stretching her sore body, after sleeping on this stone-cold slab of a bed, her body was very sore and aching like crazy.

She didn't have a choice or the mood to complain as one should be grateful for the small things that they have. Since she had a place to live then all complaints were practically useless.

She folded the thin quilt and placed it on the top of the stone bed and rummaged through the few things that she has for some charcoal. She took her charcoal and walked for quite a distance to a flowing river, this was one of the advantages of living in this forest.

She didn't need to fear the shortage of water, the river was functioning very well and it had never dried. She crushed the charcoal and turned it into powder before using the stick to rub this powder on her teeth for a mouthwash.

There wasn't any toothpaste for her to use so she could only choose other alternatives as she hated a stinky mouth. She washed her mouth for a while before rinsing her mouth with fresh and clean water.

When she was done, she took off her cheap and worn-out clothes and took a satisfying bath. She put on the clothes back as she couldn't afford to wash them yet. She was lacking in a lot of things and including clothes.

She was a pauper and life wasn't very easy for her at the moment. After a refreshing bath, she began to take a walk in the forest, her main purpose was to scavenge for some food.

She had finished the batch she collected a few days ago and it was time to look for more. She didn't want to starve to death so searching for food was a must.

As she had gathered a lot of wild vegetables and herbs in the surrounding area, she was forced to move a bit further for the search. She wasn't afraid of meeting any ferocious beasts as this forest can be considered to be one of the safest forests she had ever been to.

Don't just judge it by its name 'Dark Forest', this forest was very friendly and one couldn't find any bear, lion, tiger or any sort of beast' that other people talk about. There weren't even any bandits living in the forest so it was very safe for her.

She walked for more than an hour and rushed happily when she potted a nest. In the nest there were some eggs, so she took all of them and left. She began to collect anything that could be eaten and her harvest was great.

After finding food for around three hours, she returned to the cave and placed the food in the corner. She went to the other corner of the cave that was her kitchen and started a fire.

With the fire up and burning, she put the pot on the stove and placed some eggs in there for her breakfast. As she needed to save some food, she wasn't cooking so much. She didn't know when and how long it was going to take before she finds some rabbit or wild chicken to make a feast.

A while later she was done eating and sitting on a tree trunk looking at the beautiful sky.

'How did it come to this? If I had known that my life will be this awful, I would have left a mark back home! How I miss those ungrateful people!'

She couldn't help but lament about her life. Not only did she transmigrate to this world over three decades ago but her life was just so hard she wondered if this was the same for those transmigrators.

As a person from the modern world, she had read stories and most of them always transmigrate with some cheat or golden finger, and yet herself, alas, just thinking about the suffering she went through for over three decades made her want to go back home.