Chapter 17: Journey to the east

A small rat alone on a journey was a scary thing. The fight I had with cat gave me some confidence to move forward, still I'm level 2 so anything and everything can kill me. It would only take a few seconds of carelessness to end my life, but being constantly on guard was mentally exhausting.

It's pretty much going out of your way to not enjoy things. I was walking along a road, it was a risky maneuver but one that was necessary. I hoped that the roads would lead to another farm or other human settlements so I just followed along. The chance of encountering danger on the way was high, that danger was mainly in the form of humans, humans are dangerous to rats I know but I was mostly afraid of other animals, one that would actually go out of there way to hunt a rat, one that couldn't be so easily hid away from. Those animals, form my past human experience, mostly avoid road humans build. That was one of the reason, the other was that I don't want to get lost in the middle of nowhere.

The farms themselves aside this place was filled with the wildlands, it's as if they cut down a small patch of a forest for cultivation and leave everything not for their farm untouched. The road could barely be called a road. If it isn't used for half a year the forest would reclaim it and no one will be able to tell a road was ever here.

It would be really easy to hide from a human here. So I'm mostly on the lookout for carnivores, like a hawk, a cat, a dog, a snake or something along those lines.

From the tracks on the road I could tell horse carriage and other pulling carts were used, like most horse roads there was indeed horse shit just lying about every few intervals.

Hoofs prints were also here so it was very likely to be a horse, I also see human footprints, some even barefoot. These place really is full of the poor. How did they have the resource to brew wine when they don't have the wealth to buy some footwear. The mystery continues.

I could hear a sound approaching, I looked around and didn't see anything. My ears aren't very good so relying on them wasn't very comforting, my eyes still are not at the level of a normal human and due to the excessive plant life here it was impossible to see anything that wasn't on the road. My nose too wasn't of much help, everything here was new to me, I was smelling alot of things and I couldn't really tell which scent belong to which.

Worst of all was that it was really hard to tell which way the sound was coming from in a forest this dense, it's echoing everywhere and the ambient background noise were too loud. The sound of leaf rustling, birds chirping and the sound insects doing whatever their doing wasn't really helping my situation here.

I ran to the middle of the road, even here there were some bush. Only the parts which have a carriage frequently pulled over have some ground revealed and was devoid of grass. I frantically looked around and see nothing out of the ordinary, a small wind was blowing for a time now and all the grass were swaying because of it, making things even more difficult for me.

The sound was getting closer and closer, and I was now completely certain it really was approaching me. I hid in the grass at the middle of the road and moved around to shake it off. That was not working and it was approaching my exact location.

I leaped out of the grass into the opened road and ready my claws. Suddenly the sound was gone, meaning whatever was comming was now hiding and waiting for an ambush, not expecting me to jump out in the open ready to throw hands.

I've beaten my nemesis, a cat many times my size. Whatever it was if me reading for a fight makes it hesitate even a little it could mean that it wasn't that much stronger than me. It could also mean alot of other things, like readying for an attack, currently casting a spell, thinking of how it was torture me before killing me or deciding how I should be prepared before consumption. I shouldn't have a habit of assuming things just because it makes sense to me, not before I see the whole picture first.

A grass was moving and it was not moving along with the wind like other grass. Soon enough a serpentine head poked out. It was from the side of the road and just a few meters away from me, I ready myself to high tail out of here. I was not fighting a snake if I could avoid it.

While I was preparing for my great escape, I was looking intently at its face. Then I saw it blinked. Snakes don't blink. Or was it different in this world. It crawled forward, yes crawled, revealing its body. It was a brown lizard.

I was scared there for a moment but it turned out to be just a lizard, thank goodness. I can't deal with snakes at all, I watch a video of someone feeding live rats to a pet snake and it creeped me out as a human and the feeling multiplied manyfold as a rat.

But a lizard I can deal with, it was slowly crawling towards me. Now that it was much closer I could tell just from the look on its eyes that it was hungry, I don't read lizard face well but I could still see it. Its body was nearly twice as long as mine but I'm wider on the sides. It's claws were smaller than mine and arms were also thinner.

Form the looks of it I could probably run away and escape, something that hungry couldn't possibly keep up with my stamina. If I stay here a fight will be inevitable. Still I chose to stay, I can win this first. And a snack on the journey don't seems so bad.