The Forest at Night

Matthew looked around left and right to see if the other bushes, leaves, or trees were moving like the one near him, but even with his excellent eyesight, he didn't spot any other things that seemed out of place.

Although the bush has already stopped moving, Matthew feels that something is not right, so he decides to quickly run, moving all four of his feet as fast as he could. He literally runs back home with the spider's head and leg still sticking into his tongue, swaying left and right from his rough movement.

And his instincts turned out to be true, after he dashed away, from the moving bush, suddenly a wolf so big that it could even eat the giant spider from earlier in one bite appeared out of the bush. The wolf fur is dark brown at the top and gets lighter in color at the lower part of its body, with its sharp-looking eyes and face the wolf exuded an aura of majesticness and dangerousness at the same time.

Using his 360 degrees vision to look at the wolf behind him, Matthew could surely be calmly admiring how cool the wolf looks like if the fact that the wolf is not currently chasing him right now.

Looking at the huge and scary looking wolf behind him, there is not even a slight moment where Matthew thought to fight the wolf, because there is no way that he could deal with such things for now, even one of the wolf's paws is enough to squash Matthew flat into a paste. By focusing on his four legs and moving them as if his life depends on it, or in this case, it literally is, Matthew succeeded in gaining some distance away from the wolf.

But the wolf realized that his prey was running away from him and he didn't want to miss a chance to get an early meal, so the wolf sped up his run and started catching up little by little.

The distance between the lake and the nest is not that far, but it can't be considered near either, when running, it should take Matthew about 30 seconds to reach his nest which is not that long, but 30 seconds is considered an eternity when you have to run as fast as you can with a beast that can literally end your life with a single attack chasing right behind you.

Seeing the wolf inching closer and closer to him, Matthew tried to think of ways that may slow the wolf down even if only by a little. He then looked at his body, although he currently has the same color as the grass, his tongue is literally out and swaying back and forth still holding the spider part that he just washed which negated the camouflage effect. His tongue also can't help much in this situation because he can't just tear away the wolf's strong, bulky legs that are made out of pure muscle inside, unlike what he did with the spider's thin and sharp legs.

Matthew then looked at the distance between the nest and his current place, then at the wolf behind him, at this rate, he would be caught up and torn apart by the wolf's sharp teeth before reaching his nest. If only he could disrupt the wolf's momentum by a second, he is sure that he will be safe.

'Come on, think Matthew, think!'

'O amazing tongue, can you do any other amazing things that I haven't known yet? If you do, please do it now because we may end up in another's monster stomach if we can't do anything.'

But of course, the tongue is not a sentient being and can't reply to Matthew's plead, just when Matthew about to risk it all and gambled his survival to throw away the sharp spider leg in his tongue and just stick his tongue out as far as possible to try and reach the nest with his tongue and pulling his body with his tongue to get a speed boost, he then realized something,

'Sharp spider leg on my tongue…?'

'Yes, I can still do this!'

Matthew pulled in his elongated tongue back into his mouth and only pulled it out slightly to hold the spider part. He then aimed at the wolf behind him, and using his tongue muscle, Matthew whipped his tongue as hard as he could to the wolf direction, releasing the stickiness in the right moment to let the spider leg launch fast following the momentum of his whipping attack.

The wolf who was focused on chasing down Matthew didn't expect Matthew to shoot out a needle-like thing out of nowhere in his direction. The needle pierced through the wolf's snout and startled him, causing the wolf to jump away out of instinct.

And with that, Matthew succeeded in buying himself time to safely reach his nest. The wolf tried to dig Matthew out of his nest, but Matthew grabbed another spider leg that he stored earlier in his nest and poked any wolf part that got into his nest's hole. And after trying for some time and only to get his body parts poked and failing in gaining anything, the wolf finally gave up on eating Matthew.

After making sure that the wolf didn't chase him anymore, Matthew is finally able to relax his body. Fighting, killing a giant spider, and running away from an even bigger wolf are enough events for a day and Matthew is tired physically and mentally. As the night started to envelop the sky, Matthew thought that it was the perfect time for him to sleep to properly digest the food he had eaten earlier and recover his strength.

But just when Matthew was about to close his eyes, he felt a vibration traveling on the ground, and as time passes he could feel stronger and stronger vibration at the ground. Just when Matthew wanted to go out to check and see what was going on, he started hearing it.

Various sounds of animals, both that he has and has never heard before. Matthew decides to slightly peek outside of his nest, and what he sees is the complete opposite of the scenery of what he knows about the forest.

There's a group of deers eating grass and berries, boars drinking from the lake, Matthew could also hear different kinds of birds chirping throughout the forest.

Matthew decided to see more of the forest, although he hasn't mastered how to change his skin color according to his will, right now his skin color is already green by default so he only needed to lay low at the grass and keep his tongue inside his mouth so that the other creatures wouldn't notice his whereabouts when he's moving around.

Matthew slowly walked out of the forest and looked at his surroundings, the forest that he thought was dead, now is filled with all kinds of creatures that he can't even identify all of them. Some looked familiar with the animals back on earth like the wolf, deer, and boar, but some he had never seen before.

A two-headed turtle can be seen walking out of the lake and eating the grass and leaves near the lakeside, its body is generally the same as a turtle, back on earth. With a hard shell covering its whole body, four limbs, and two small tails at the other end of its body.

Other than supposedly large animals, Matthew could also spot insects that he usually saw on earth, the only difference is that, like the spider, they are a gigantic version of themselves compared to the ones back on earth.

A large mantis with its scythe-like hand could be seen fighting another large horned beetle with it's hard exoskeleton deflecting the mantis' strike.

Matthew, not wanting to get into any conflict or another fight, moved very carefully to stay away from any potential danger. A lot of things are going on right now, and his eyesight that can cover all directions can see how lively the forest really is.

'But why do they only go out at night though?' While Matthew knew that some animals are nocturnal and active at night, it is weird that all the animals in the forest, or at least in this area, only came out at night. In the middle of his thinking, Matthew heard a howl that he can only recognize as a wolf's howl because it sounds the same as the ones he knew back on earth. And soon after the howl, groups of wolves started to come out of the bushes and they seem to be targeting the boars that were drinking at the lake.

Matthew, already knowing how dangerous the wolves are, started to quickly run back to his nest where he would be safe from the dangers. And it seems that Matthew is not the only one who thought of doing that, the other animals, the deers, mantis, beetles, and turtles all go back to where they came from or away from the wolves.

But out of curiosity, Matthew decided to stay at the opening of the hole of his nest to see the fight between the boars and the wolves. The boars are surely outnumbered by the wolves, but they didn't seem to just give up and stayed together in a circle formation to protect themselves from all directions. And what he sees next makes his jaw gape in surprise.

The small boars' tusk suddenly grew in size, its length elongated to be as long as Matthew's body, and its thickness is the same as an elephant's ivory. Matthew looked closely at the boars and a thin white aura could be seen covering their whole body.

'Holy bearded god… What is that!'