Correct Use of the Inventory

"Big brother Deniel, when will you come back?"

"Don't worry Bella; I'll be back on Saturday of next week. I'll also bring lots of chocolates for you."

Bella was an eight years old girl in the orphanage. She was holding the right arm of Deniel. She had black eyes and brown hair. She was so cute and chubby that whenever anyone met her the first thing they would do was to pull on her cheeks!

Although the kids loved spending time with Deniel, the most important thing they liked about him was how he would always bring special chocolates for them every fortnight.

As everyone surrounded him and was laughing heartily, Deniel's smile suddenly increased and started to reach his ears. He then took out two daggers from nowhere and held one in each hand as he said, "Do you know what is better than chocolates, Bella?"

As he asked the question, everybody looked at him with surprised expressions. Without wasting any more time, Deniel plunged his dagger into Bella's stomach and said, "FP!"

***

Huff!

Gulp!

'It was a dream!' I thought as I suddenly woke up.

I placed both of my hands over my face as I contemplated on the nightmare I just had.

Sigh!

'It was just a very bad nightmare! You need to calm down Deniel. If there is no other way than to kill in this world, you need to set a rule for who becomes FP and who doesn't. I will never even hurt the people that I care about!'

I sat there in the dull and warm sunshine. The smell of the rotting corpse behind me was giving me nausea.

'Wait! Sunshine?'

I looked around me and noticed that everything was very bright. The sky was blue instead of black. No more stars were visible. They were replaced with a single sun in the sky. Its brightness was very dull, as if I was looking at the sun during a foggy winter morning.

'So today is one of the five days when the sun shines over this land? Considering my dilemma and the nightmare, shouldn't it be raining now? This much light is dangerous for me!'

Amidst the sunlight filtering through the dark green leaves, I stood up and started to move in the opposite direction the dead Lakéqus was facing. The longer I stayed, the more the chance of me getting discovered increased, due to the brighter light that the sun was emitting.

I limped deeper into the forest. Although I had increased my Health stat, and most of the wounds on my body had healed, leaving multiple scars, my ankle still hurt while moving.

'After the life and death battle, my ankle had probably fractured severely. The increased Health stat did heal the severe fracture but it wasn't enough to completely heal it in a single go. Therefore a small muscular sprain is still left. If that is the case, it would heal on its own within a week.'

I thought of a possibility. Eventhough I was moving with difficulty while also getting myself accustomed to the sudden bright light, I was still happy. Luckily, nobody came to search for me and no monster appeared while I was sleeping.

'The monsters probably didn't appear because of Kurkhaza. I might still be in its territory. However, I don't understand why the other Aastra Guards didn't come looking for me. They must have realized that something was wrong when Carlo didn't return even after the whole night!

'Now that I think about it, will the princess be safe? She did tell me to escape conspicuously but I just did a whole performance. No matter how much I thought, I could never find a plan where I was able to escape without alerting anyone.

'The knights were obviously faster than me so I had to run on a Lakéqus but I never realized that I'll be chased and will have to actually kill someone while sustaining some serious wounds!'

Putting my monologue aside, I looked at my Health Points.

[Health Points (HP): 136/160 ]

There were some more effects from increasing the Health stat. My height had slightly increased. My heartbeat became slow and calm. I was also feeling more energetic.

Although I had significantly healed, I was still not in my top condition.

'Atleast I've escaped from the brink of death!'

***

Huff! Huff!

I was breathing heavily. Walking continuously for 3 hours straight with a sprained leg was not a good idea. Even more so when one didn't know where to go in a forest supposedly filled with monsters.

Looking back, I noticed the sunlight that had grown brighter and warmer. The deep forest, filled with trees of varying heights having dark green leaves, was now clearly visible.

Haa!

The stick was placed beside the tree where I sat down. The long and sturdy stick was my support for the 3 hour journey. I picked it up on the way when walking started to feel very difficult to do.

Eventhough my speed was nothing short of a joke, I still had walked quite the distance.

'I hope nobody from the village would be able to catch up to me now. I also hope that I'm walking in the right direction! Just imagine if I were to walk into an opening thinking that it's a safe haven when suddenly a guard from the village catches me! Ha-ha!'

I gave a self-deprecating laugh in my head. Despite thinking like that, I knew that I was walking away from the village. The reason being that I had Carlo's memory, he knew the forest around the village and everybody knew that the sun rose from the east, even in this world. Also, at noon, it would never be overhead but it will be noticeably inclined towards the north.

Since I ran into the forest which was south of the village, I just had to go opposite of the sun's inclination to go further into it.

From my inventory, taking out the 'Candela Clock', I looked at the time. It was 11 o'clock in the morning.

After resting for a while, I noticed that my clothes had been severely damaged. I hadn't changed them yet, afraid that if I would stop for a single second, the knights would catch up to me.

'It's strange how even my blood and sweat soaked clothes didn't even attract a monster! It probably worked out because I was still in Kurkhaza's territory but as I will move further away, I will be in trouble if I didn't wash up.'

The temporary cast that I had placed on my right leg right after the battle was still there as I hadn't yet removed it. My right leg was not yet able to hold all of my body's weight; it could only hold a portion of it.

Grabbing back onto my support stick, I stood up. I limped slightly north of the place I was sitting on. The stick was placed vertically on another tree when I placed my right hand on it for support.

Then, I looked up and murmured in the air, "Space 2, Slot 1, eject gently!" Just as the words left my lips, a blue vortex appeared above me, where I was looking. A gentle stream of water started to come out of it as I closed my eyes.

'In a deep, mysterious forest in an accursed world, Mr. Deniel is able to take a shower. This right here is the correct use of the inventory!'

Not knowing when I would be able to find a water source, I was conservative of the water in my inventory.

After washing all the grime and the blood from my body, I also washed the clothes that Carlo had 'gifted' me and my old, torn clothes. I was planning to use them as rags for cleaning and miscellaneous purposes.

As for the leather armor, it was wiped clean with the wet rag I had just made. It was just like how leather belts and shoes were not washed but thoroughly wiped.

After being done with the cleaning, I hung the wet clothes on the tree branches. Then, I wore the clean white shirt and gray pants that belonged to me, which were earlier placed in my inventory. I only had one more set of those remaining. I then moved away from the muddy puddle which was just created.

As I reached back at the tree, this time instead of sitting under its shade, I climbed it. Sitting on a branch, resting my back on the tree trunk, I pulled out the jacket from the inventory. As it was placed on the branch by the vortex, I started to check all its pockets.

It had a total of ten pockets, six on the outside and four on the inside. Amongst the outer pockets, four were filled with darts; one was filled with metallic bullets while the other was empty.

Amongst the inner pockets, two were filled with first-aid like cloth bandages, scissors, a knife and some pills. One had some bronze coins in them. The last one had two big rings with a black small stone attached to each of them and a parchment which marked the route to the Kurkhaza's den.

These stones were nothing but flint, called 'Pyres Pebbles'. The rings were used to light fire. One was supposed to wear one of the rings in the thumb and the other in any other finger they liked. Then they just had to flick those fingers such that the stones would strike and a spark would instantly generate.

Then I looked at the small parchment pouches, three in number. These pouches had different kinds of pills in each of them. As I looked at them, my brain felt a sudden jolt of electricity and a memory of Carlo was triggered in my head.