"It's definitely not ideal," Omilaena said. "The thugs weren't wearing any kind of insignia?"
Kai shook his head. "If you don't see anything on the items I have here, it was eaten."
"Probably just a gang, not a more significant group. This isn't catastrophic, just... not ideal."
He'd waited outside the city, going through his familiar exercise routine while alert for an attack. Omilaena had been the first one to arrive, wondering what had gone wrong when he didn't co back on ti. Apparently Zae Zin Nim had been even more eager to go charging into the city and only reluctantly restrained herself out of caution.
At least the wait and Omilaena's cautious approach had confird that he wasn't still being tailed. People died fairly frequently in the bad end of the city, so his fight hadn't caused any waves. Her estimate was that the fact that their attack team just disappeared would make the gang both more curious and more apprehensive about taking any actions.
"So what do we do now?" Kai asked. "Did I screw this up for us?"
"Honestly, I think we could take the whole gang. Might even be rewarded for it." Omilaena sighed and made a gesture of futility. "But this is exactly the sort of thing we shouldn't do, if we're trying to keep a low profile. At least since you got out and didn't lead anyone to us, we should have good options, if you're willing to rough it."
"When have I done anything else? But I'm not sure what you an."
"I didn't make progress on my own goals today, but I did learn sothing useful to you. We're just going to use it sooner than I expected. Here, co this way. Zae Zin Nim can et you later with so of the stuff you'll need out here. Let show you first."
He followed her away from the outskirts of Roseport, into the depths of the continent. To the east of the city there was a large, well-paved road that seed to receive a lot of traffic. Smaller villages spread from it as the city sprawled south... but it didn't sprawl north. The jungle didn't seem denser here than it was in other places, so he wasn't sure quite why.
"You haven't figured it out?" Omilaena asked when she saw him looking around the jungle. "Here's a hint: it isn't that people can't settle this part, it's that they don't want to."
"Oh." When he sensed more carefully, he realized that while the overriding flow of chakra from the land was constant, mana and qi were dwindling. "It's an area with limited energy, by Rosemount standards?"
"Exactly. The chakra here is strong, but not strong enough to make up for what it's lacking, so people move out and monsters move in. It's a perfect place for you to adjust to chakra, plus maybe do so monster hunting. Assuming you're careful, you should be able to survive out here."
"And anwhile you and Zae Zin Nim can make progress in the city. Makes sense."
"You're giving up the bath and the luxury and our lovely company for a while, but-"
"But I deserve it, I know."
Omilaena put a hand on his shoulder, for once not seductively. "That wasn't what I ant, Kai. The strong eat the weak on Rosemount. If it hadn't been this, soone else would have run into trouble. You did about as well as you could, it's just bad luck that you're the one who will have to suffer through the consequences."
"I... thanks." Kai nodded to her, probably too curtly, and she withdrew her hand.
She gave him more information about the jungle region and they set up plans to et periodically. Maybe he was just trying to convince himself, but Kai could see the upsides. No more extrely awkward tis at the inn, and this way he could focus on his training. He trusted the two of them to help him get what he needed from civilization, which freed him to take as much as he could from the wilds.
Even though this was presumably one of Rosemount's least dangerous jungles, he couldn't relax. Within the first hour he ran into a pack of monstrous monkeys, not so different from those he'd been able to kill easily even as a novice hunter. But these had been soaked in potent chakra, so they were more of a threat. They hurled pointed seeds and rocks hard enough to bruise, and when one got close and managed to bite him, it left a nasty wound that would have been trouble if not for Behemoth's Heart.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The monkeys weren't powerful enough to satisfy his new hunger, but he ate the entire pack and managed to preserve so of their essence. If he kept this up, maybe he would finally build up enough monsters to do further experintation. Tracking down the most powerful monsters had worked for him in Krysal, but it ant that he couldn't take any destructive risks when it ca ti to work with his abilities.
At the end of that day Zae Zin Nim found him at the site and handed over various supplies, in addition to so qi pills and a healing potion that she claid had been lying around but he was fairly sure that she had actually purchased for him. He was grateful for most of the supplies, particularly the fire and water stones, not to ntion a cleaning stone that would keep him from slling too rank.
He declined to take the magic tent, however. In a jungle he barely knew, it wouldn't offer much protection and might get torn apart. Instead he went back to relying on old skills he hadn't used in years, including so he'd trained before he'd even awakened his Class.
Surviving out in the jungle was oddly nostalgic, despite the unfamiliar environnt. It reminded him of the old survival trips Gunjin had taken his orphans on, teaching them all kinds of skills they might need. Back then he'd been sure that he'd co of age and uncover a grand Class that would define the rest of his life, so he needed to prepare every possible skill in order to prepare for what fate would grant him.
Well, that had ultimately defined his life, just not in the way he'd expected. Now he had very different skills than he'd anticipated, and he was maybe even a different person, but he could still use these old skills. Even though he barely needed weapons anymore, he still fashioned so spears and set up a few pit traps, just to confirm the principles would work in a foreign jungle. As he regained his confidence, living in the jungle was almost relaxing.
The first night, he was nearly suffocated to death by living vines.
They'd been completely motionless during the day and he'd checked them enough he thought they were just chakra-dense plants. When they crept around him, they moved so slowly that his instincts hadn't imdiately woken him. Then his hunger kicked in and he jerked awake, thrashing against the vines that sprang around him, trying to drain his strength.
Tyrant's Claw and Isulfr's Bite proved more than equal to them. Clearly the vines were ambush predators, subtle but not capable of dealing with his destructive force. Once he'd destroyed or eaten a significant number of them, the others retreated.
Kai sat in the ss of his camp, too alert to sleep. The fibrous taste of the vines was still thick in his mouth, which made him reflect on the fundantal hunger. Despite all the trappings of a carnivore, the hunger wasn't specifically interested in at. It seed to be hungry for everything, which he reflected was actually another strange aspect of it. Outside of the worst starvation, people usually hungered for sothing. Hunger was an urge that could be satisfied. Yet his hunger seed to have no inclinations and no bottom, just an endless desire for more.
Where had that hunger ultimately co from? Monstrous Hunger had been in his soul from the earliest ti he could see those abilities, but he didn't think it could have been there from the beginning. If he'd been born with it, surely it would have erged earlier. Yet he couldn't pin it to any specific event, not like his other early abilities.
Though he could still see his abilities as statues within the island of his soul, Kai had thought he'd grown beyond that visualization. Now, in the middle of the dark and strange jungle, he returned to it and stood on the dark shores.
The island was far more filled with statues this ti, so many monsters he'd eaten scattered as statues of different sizes. Those he actually held active stood in a circle around the center of the island. It seed like there was just black sand there, and yet when he approached, he felt as though sothing was trembling...
Surely he couldn't be afraid or unwilling to accept himself. Hadn't he embraced his whole self as a unified being long ago in order to advance? So he forced himself to dig, seeking the vicious presence he'd felt in the center so long ago.
It seed to rush at him, roaring in endless hunger, but the sensation vanished a mont later. For just a mont, Kai thought he saw a new statue in the center: himself. Just himself, standing on a dark plinth. That vision of him had chaotic hair and wild eyes, but it wasn't fundantally different.
When the image vanished a mont later, Kai drifted out of his internal vision, suddenly disaffected. So the Monstrous Hunger in his soul was just himself? That almost seed like it was the sa lesson: he wasn't a human that had harnessed so monster essence, he had abandoned much of his human soul to beco a sort of monster himself.
That couldn't have been the case from the beginning or every single adult would have identified it - he probably would have been killed in the crib. And after being rejected by fate so many tis, Kai would have been dissatisfied if that first power had been granted to him by destiny. Yet he didn't really have an answer, or at least not a satisfying one.
Maybe on so level he'd chosen to beco a monster, despite the fact that his entire life had been built around the mission of saving his ho from the monster incursions. Kai sat in the darkness and wondered what that ant.
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