‘Let’s see you survive this one.’ I smirked victoriously, however, just like every other time where I had smiled before hitting my target, my facial expression quickly dropped to one of panic.

Without a second of hesitation, I had already given up on striking the thing and had already jumped back and slid a few meters away from it.

I looked forward once again just to have my eyes land on something terrifying…

It was something that sent shivers down my spine. One could even say that it was my human instinct to be terrified at that very moment, or at least creeped out.

The thing that stood in front of me looked human, dressed as a human, and even stood up-right and bipedal, walking around as if it was a human.

It did not have long ears like those elves that invaded Earth.

No, it looked nothing like them.

However, unlike the elves, the thing in front of me looks exactly like a human. An average, female human barely 5ft 4 chest long black hair, dark brown eyes, and an average outfit one wouldn’t glance at twice.

She was the embodiment of average, almost to a creepy level.

I was not quite sure what was wrong with her, maybe it was her skin, he normal teeth, her normal smile, and he naturally long and straight hair without a sign of being disheveled.

Her clothes as well looked completely clean, as if she had just been thrown into this world, yet not even I had the luxury of keeping clothes that were completely intact since my shirt had a hole in it from when I had died._-.

While at first, I had thought that maybe her eyes were just a dark brown, the hollow bottomless depth within them said otherwise, making me finally realize that not only did her eyes become dark like an infinite abyss, but the area around me had to become visibly dim compared to when I had last remembered it.

‘Wait… Weren’t there a few hours left until nightfall?’ I asked myself visibly confused to see the lunar light barely pass through the canopy of the forest due to all the leaves and branches that were in the way.

However, even though I had looked away for a second, my eyes landed on the woman before me and began looking at her eyes once again.

“What are you?” I asked, taking a step back towards the area where the scent came from.

I hadn’t come all this way to simply go back without having gotten anything, so of course, the least I could do was find the source of the smell so I could maybe return later.

However, as I stepped back, I watched the woman step forward, the shadows somehow being manipulated to keep most of her body from being seen by me from the angle I stood at.

Yet, even though I could barely see most of her body, there was one thing I could see and that was her facial expression.

The moment I had asked the question, the thing had tilted its head to the right by a few angles to express its confusion, just to give out an unsettling motherly smile towards me, as if it was trying to lure me into a sense of comfort by somehow telling me that everything would be ‘fine’.

I did not hesitate to crouch down and put my ax into a battle position, waiting for the thing to get close enough for me to slash at, yet that simply did not happen.

The smile it had was only growing more unsettling, while the corners of her lips perked upwards and creased her face just for those creases to never reach her eyes.

After what seemed like an eternity I finally saw her feet move forward while his head tilted to the right even more.

*Thump Thump*

*Thump Thump*

My heart was beating rapidly, and she knew that.

With every step she took, the sweat on my forehead doubled and my heart rate skyrocketed even more than it had done before.

I was terrified.

Yet, as if it was my instinct. Something I would have naturally done in a moment like this, I smiled…

‘This is fine.’

The smile was awkward and uncomfortable, nevertheless, I still smiled to the dismay of the woman, no… The creature in front of me.

Her smile froze, quite visibly in fact. While before I could visibly see the smile grow wider and wider, now it seemed like it had paused as well as the rest of her body, her foot simply hovering above the ground as it neither twitched nor moved the whole time as if someone had clicked the pause button on it.

‘I’m going to kill it!’

Finally, as if the pause had been lifted off her and the slow-motion effect had been reduced, I watched as her neck snapped to the side in an abnormal manner. I had almost imagined seeing the bone sticking out of her neck, yet I saw nothing of that sort.

Her neck was just bent there as if it was something natural.

‘On second thought, maybe I should run?’ I thought with self-mockery.

In the next moment, I had already pulled out a long stake and had thrown it toward the creature, giving me a split second to run away.

I had felt it before and it was clear what was happening.

After every step, the dread had increased while the pressure around me had done the same at the same rate as the dread. It was as if the air around me was becoming denser and heavier, feeling like I was moving through water instead of air.

With the hatchet back in my hand, I shot through the forest, moving towards the source of the smell until I finally saw it.

It radiated with a bright light that shone onto the area around it. At the same time, the immaculate smell only became more concentrated as I got closer.

The most surprising thing however was not the light or smell, it was how easily I could breathe around what I had finally found out was a fruit.

While at first, it had been hard to get used to the oxygen levels when I had found myself in this world filled with ‘dinosaurs’ that weren’t supposed to exist for another 10 or 20 million years, alongside flies and animals that weren’t supposed to exist at all, I had eventually gotten used to the oxygen levels.

Breathing it in for the first time felt as if my lungs had been cleansed and my breaths had more meaning than before. It was like being introduced to a much more efficient way of breathing where I could make the most out of every breath I took.

Another thing I realized was that fire was something that I had found much easier to make in this world even though many of the trees, greenery, or wood that lay about were a lot damper than the ones in my era, yet that is something for me to talk about later.

Right now I was still being chased by the creature, which even though had been moving at the same speed as me the whole time, was still strolling rather than running.

It was as if I was being pulled back by a mysterious gravitation pull, or that my steps simply meant much less than one of hers.

However, when I had finally gotten within a certain range of the fruit, I felt something other than the amazing breathing I had felt before.

The breathing before felt twice as efficient as my normal breathing in this climate/era, but now rather than just improving my breathing, it felt as if it was giving me a newfound vigor to run faster than I had ever before.

My body was bustling with energy and even felt like it might have exploded at any time if I was not careful, but at the end that did not happen.

When I was finally 10 meters away from the source, I looked right up at the golden fruit that dangled off one of the branches of the trees before me.

Forcing myself to look through the light of the fruit, I finally saw it.

The fruit which dangled off the tree was like one I had never seen before. It had a stem, just like an apple but at the same time, its shape was a little more angular and elongated.

Its shape resembled that of a crystal-like raspberry the size of one’s palm, being split into different sections as if they were scales that could very very easily be cut into.

“REHAAAAAAAAAAAH”

The woman finally gave out a mind-rattling screech as it saw that I was looking at her, before turning into a blur and coming towards me with killing intent visibly radiating off her.

The killing intent was red yet at the same time, it was mixed with a deep black hue that overshadowed the rest of the red making it seem much less crimson than one would think at first glance.

However, no matter how fast she was, it was too late since I had already found my way up the branch and had cut the stem off with my ax allowing me to put away my weapon and grab the fruit before running away at full speed. At the same time, while I might have been too busy thinking of the best ways to run, I heard a distinct ‘ding’ that could not help but ingrain itself deep into my mind.

[Ding!]

[Obligatory Notification: A mysterious energy is running rampant within the fruit you are holding]

[Suggestion: Do not consume the fruit until full analysis is complete]

Simultaneously, I heard dozens of roars, the most prominent one being the one that came out of the woman’s mouth.

*ROOOOOOOAAAAAAAAR*

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