Without looking back we started to run up ahead at full speed. The monster made rattling sounds and chased us, with occasional hisses. At one point I considered that it could be a snake. Any normal human being would come to that conclusion from all the evidence till now. But what kind of snake would be so big that it leaves a shadow hundreds of times bigger than humans? I didn’t care if its shadow was amplified by the setting sun but even with that it was long, and I knew it.

Unbelievably, Lianne kept the conversation going even on the road. “Don’t, look back, just keep going!”

“Alright!” I screamed. Of course, I had no plans of stopping either.

Some part of me was curious. Any curious fellow would want to know what they are running away from (At least I would). There was a broad path in front of us. I was almost out of breath. Not being able to breathe wasn’t enough; I had injuries to cope with as well.

But while going down, the path became twisted and there were cliffs here and there. This was still a good excuse to look back (it wasn’t). I was not prepared to see, what I would see in the next few seconds.

It had a long body like an anaconda. Two eyes which looked like diamonds. Two massive horns and fangs were sticking about from its temple and mouth; with two massive wings which probably wasn’t enough to sustain flight, it looked magnificent- in the least… If this is a super boss, I wonder how many lives one must have to beat something like that…. And yet my mind was going crazy.

What staggered me most was that it was made of grass and plant like features. I had heard of green colored snakes before but this one would put every other snake to shame. And then there were the skeletons which hung from its grass textured scales. I wonder how many souls it has ripped! I might have wondered a bit too much.

The sheer size of it was larger than a four storied building. My running speed slowed down. I couldn’t breathe. Can we even run from something like that?

“Yet again you trample my home. How much must you claim! Hiss!”

I was taken aback by the voice in the air. “Huh? What was that?”

“Hey! Didn’t I tell you to not look back?” Lianne shouted as she held my hand and pulled me out of the trance. But the monster had already caught up to us; it didn’t attack us straight away.

There were plenty of other monsters here. Everything was running just like us. But the poor things behind us were either being eaten alive or squashed to death. And I wanted to take part in neither of them.

“Do you trust me?” All of a sudden Lianne stopped dead in her tracks and glared at me.

“Yes!” Without even the slightest of doubts I replied. Of course at this point doubting her meant death anyway.

She grabbed my hand again and we jumped off from the cliff. It was like my heart had come out of my mouth. Huh? I didn’t have time to question my choices, but I guess I could have been a little more careful.

I wouldn’t lie: falling down the cliff can be quite amusing when a beautiful half dead elf has one of your hands clutched onto hers. Time really felt slow but I didn’t get any flashes of memories.

However my logical brain was screaming the entire time. Trees came in sight as we fell. They seemed like mashed green potatoes to me. This is not going to end well… I never thought my earlier sarcasm about jumping on her orders would come back to haunt me.

My body quivered. I was about to meet my doom. Was it really better than being eaten alive by a damn snake? Probably?

Before we fell on the trees, Lianne grabbed onto me and we landed perfectly on a branch- and luckily didn’t break any new bones. The ones that were fractured before fractured anew. It was painful but worth it. Who was I kidding; it hurt so bad that I felt like rolling off another cliff to end myself once and for all. But unfortunately that wasn’t an option.

I clenched my teeth so hard that if they had broken down I wouldn’t have blamed them. I felt like I’d faint but I still thanked her. Anything seemed better than ending up in that snakes stomach. After the amount of pain I just experienced, I was starting to doubt that though.

“We should keep moving… how’s your condition?” Lianne asked.

Was she going senile or something? I couldn’t even stand properly yet she had the audacity to ask me how I was. “I’ll live,” I managed. I didn’t show any temper, i didn’t want to get on her bad list after all.

Satisfied Lianne nodded. “Good. But we’re not out of its domain yet. We should be careful. ” Lianne knew the woods- at least, that’s what I thought. Although she too appeared hurt, it didn’t bother her as much.

My back was killing me though. I was thanking my luck- when I landed- as neither of my legs broke. But perhaps my shattered ribs and the wound on my chest suffered a little too much.

With great pain and agony we kept moving. However, within a moments delay, Lianne found some rare herbs. There were different than typical herbs as they could be applied and eaten as well or so Milai had told me. Dune and Milai really helped pave my way and yet all I brought was their destruction. Even so, I was glad to have met them.

These herbs were supposed to be rare yet Lianne found them so easily. Aren’t these, what the potions are made off?

“Eat these and apply them wherever possible,” she said. She was unnerved. The herbs didn’t really matter to her even a little.

“Are you sure you want to give something this valuable to me?” I said.

I was still, doubting my worth. Why would she go through so much trouble for a worthless human like me? She could have easily ditched me and probably that was the logical choice. But why didn’t she? I mean, I was just dead weight at this point.

“What are you saying? Of course! That’s why I searched for them in the first place,” she said without any delay or doubt. She acted like it was the most natural of things to do.

“Thank you,” I replied with gratitude and while tears welled up in my eyes. I don’t know if this is an act or genuine kindness but I don’t care anymore. Never in my life had I been that glad. Upon eating and applying the rest to my broken body, most of my flesh wounds healed; this rare herb really lived up to its name (I didn’t know the name though). I was still in pain and needed rest but I felt better than before. But near never ate the herb. “What about you?”

“Healing medicine and spells have opposite effect on the undead. In my case however, they won’t work unless they were at least imperial grade material. Moreover, my wounds aren’t that severe so they’ll heal on their own.” She didn’t flinch.

No wonder Milai wanted to come to the forest… Perhaps things would have been different if she had come to the forest with me that night but I stood by my decision. But now that I thought about it, I didn’t know the grading of potions either. Guess I’ll ask that later.

It was already evening. So we needed shelter. We also needed to get off the mountain quickly as the other side was supposed to be filled with stronger monsters yet we never encountered even a single one till now which really made me suspicious.

“We need to be more cautious,” Lianne said.

“But I don’t see any monsters…” There were none.

“That’s why we should be careful…look…” Lianne pointed toward the ground. There were signs of struggle and a few drops of blood- crimson black in color!

The tracks were fresh. Something must have killed all the monsters. I most certainly didn’t want to meet that something. “Lead on…”

In a short period of time Lianne found a cave. I was amazed to see, how many caves this mountain actually had. This one was larger than the last and seemed uninhabited. Hopefully the snake hadn’t dug holes leading to this one- at least I prayed for that with all my heart.

“We can rest here,” Lianne said.

“What about food? My supply is nearly exhausted.”

I didn’t have much on me. Lianne had dropped most of her supplies on top of the mountain. She said they weren’t important, but I got the hint that they were.

“I’ll look for something.” Lianne readied her bow and put away her sword. She was perfectly in hunting mode.

“Then I’ll go with you,” I said. I can’t just make you do all the work…. I wanted to be useful if only a little.

“Don’t bother; as you are, you will only slow me down.” I knew she probably thought something along those lines. But I never thought she’d say it out loud. Perhaps she was just saying it to keep me out of the danger, but honestly, it hurt.

She could have been a little fore tactful and choose her words precisely. She was totally right though.

“A-alright.” I said. I didn’t have an excuse. She was right and that was it.

Lianne went out alone. I was feeling ashamed for my weakness. I’m relying on her too much. Is this really alright? She has her own problems too. I needed to repay her somehow. I was thinking of ways to help Lianne. But as weak as I was, I really would have just gotten in her way. I gathered some woods from the trees nearby. Though Lianne told me to stay put, I just couldn’t. All I wanted was to be not so useless. My body was pretty broken but it was fine as long as I didn’t try to run. The herbs were pretty effective. People would have paid millions for instant healing medicines like these back on earth.. It did still hurt like hell though.