Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 37 In Search Of Shelter

Elizabeth finished what was left of the tartare she had infused with her Cooking Skills, and with the boost, her meal received from adding that core garnish, the pleasant cooling sensation that abated her pain, now overwhelmingly flowed across her entire body, making her feel like she was on cloud nine.

She no longer felt the stinging pain of the bite and claw wounds she previously sustained, rather, a dull numbness took hold across the wounded areas. Her wounds were still bleeding profusely, but her blood was clotting faster, resulting in the bleeding slowing down at a noticeable pace.

Still, suppressing the pain was just a small achievement to Elizabeth as she came to face the harsh reality of where she stood. She had been in the Shadow Realm for less than an hour and already, three powerful predators had sneak attacked her! Eating had only returned her energy reserves to about 225 units after she incorporated the core into the meal, and she was currently much weaker than when she confronted her previous attackers.

She had entered the Shadow Realm thinking all would be well and good, with P's acknowledgment of her current arsenal of skills. Hoping to breakthrough and spend a day getting used to hunting in the entry level forest. But it would seem that just surviving would be infinitely harder than she had estimated.

There were many things Elizabeth wanted to do at the moment, but she was still left in an extremely vulnerable place. Whereas before, she saw a picturesque forest with nice scenery, beautiful trees, and luscious vegetation. Now, all the bushes and trees around her looked to be nothing more than dangerous obstructions to her vision, where potential predators could lay waiting to strike.

After going through the experience of getting ambushed because of her lack of awareness, Elizabeth grew exceedingly vigilant of every rustling noise and quick movement that crossed her senses. She wanted nothing more than to be in a secure location or at the very least somewhere where she could catch any sneaking hostiles before they could catch her unaware. But her circumstances guaranteed neither case.

Thus, Elizabeth stood up and began to move out. She first picked up the other dead dog's corpse, opting to abandon the other carcass, not only to lessen the number of things she needed to carry but also because the other dog had its core intact. She still had no idea where to go, so she picked another random direction.

Before leaving though, Elizabeth didn't forget to load the Iridium bullet she refined before entering the Shadow Realm into her Dawnbringer. If there was anything she could find fortunate about her situation was the fact that her eyes and hand coordination where inverse; meaning, her dominant eye was her left eye, while her dominant hand was her right hand. This allowed her to hold both her gun and blade at the same time and feel completely natural.

Elizabeth began wandering along the forest for minutes, her hypersensitive state left her twitching and reacting to every little disturbance that came across her. Through her vigilant, careful, and methodical moves, she managed to get through the forest while making very little noise. Consequently, she started finding other animals and insects.

At first, because she was halfway traumatized by her previous experience, Elizabeth would dart away at the sight of another living being. Causing the animals she came across to flee immediately, or to activate other defense mechanisms — like hiding in shells or camouflage. But after an hour and a half past, and Elizabeth shocked the fifth animal she came across, she began actively trying to suppress herself from frightening the animals that crossed her.

She reasoned that it would be better to learn the art of sneaking now, for several reasons. First and foremost, up until now, she had only chanced upon other weak prey-type animals; like rabbits, birds, and deers. If she kept exposing herself every time she found an animal, eventually, she would end up encountering another predator and the last thing she wanted at the moment was to invite another fight.

Then there was the fact that being able to sneak by the prey-type animals would make it less likely that predators would go after her, as they would probably start hunting the prey-types she crossed. And lastly, Elizabeth needed to learn how to hunt as she would be stuck in the Shadow Realm for, at the very least, 24 hours every time she used her gateway magic. Unless she planned on getting by with fruits and nets, she needed to learn hunting herself to provide the meat for her meals.

So… Elizabeth continues on her vagrant journey. She walked for no less than five hours before, encountering a creek. Throughout her aimless hiking, she managed to develop a basic understanding of sneaking as she managed to pass by three groups of grazing deer before arriving at the creek. It would have sounded like quite the accomplishment if not for the dozens of times she failed miserably.

In any case, now that she found water, along with resolving part of her survival endeavor, there came additional problems. Naturally, water attracted wildlife as Elizabeth wasn't unique with regards to requiring hydration. Worse yet, it was even more probable that she would encounter predators along the creek as predators tended to claim their territory along stretches of water. But at the moment, Elizabeth didn't care, because right next to the creek, she found a nice little system of caves.

At first, Elizabeth thanked her lucky stars for such a timely blessing, but as she approached one of the cave entrances, she realized again how nothing would just be handed to her. As she peered into the cave, there was seemingly infinite darkness that reflected on her eyes. Now, it was a question of whether or not she should take the risk to enter the cave or not.

"Mhmm..." For the first time in hours, Elizabeth made a noise as she weighed the benefits and detriments to her choices. Should she plunge into the unknown and risk possibly dying a miserable death in the creepy darkness before her, in conquest of shelter and safety? Or should she look elsewhere for the aforementioned benefits?

Elizabeth frowned a self-deprecating frown as she decided to take the risk and enter the cave. If not for the potentially game-changing outcomes establishing the cave as her temporary home would yield, then for the fact that she was running out of time, as it was rather deep into the evening. Elizabeth had not a shred of confidence in her abilities to find a better place than a cave by a creek before dusk settled into night.

So, it was with intense nervousness that Elizabeth dropped the dog carcass she had been carrying with her all this time, as she started pacing into the cave before her. With her finger on the trigger and a halfway shaky form, Elizabeth pushed her senses to their utter limits as she crossed into the area of pitch darkness. Along her journey until now, she had been passively regenerating Inner Strength and her wounds all stopped leaking blood. Thus, allowing her to dedicate a continuous and controlled stream of Inner Strength into her eyes, granting something akin to night vision.

It wasn't perfect, nor was it really that much of an improvement to just having one's eyes adjust to the darkness normally. But given the hyper-aware state Elizabeth was still in, she didn't dare to give anything less than 120% when trekking through a dark and dangerous place as terrifying as the cave.

Elizabeth let her Inner Strength enhanced eyes adjust before continuing to head deeper into the cave. For twenty unbearably tense minutes, Elizabeth continued advancing into the cave until she nearly died of a heart attack. There, at the end of the cave about twenty meters ahead of her, lay what had to be a ten-foot-long snake.

Upon laying eyes on the static image of that nigh-invisible snake, Elizabeth stood more still than she had in her entire life and from the pores all over her body, a cold sweat emerged, causing her to experience butterflies in her stomach. For a second, Elizabeth really thought she died as her mind immediately pictured herself being attacked before she could react. But that didn't happen. It was only after a minute passed with neither Elizabeth nor the snake moving that Elizabeth finally regained enough control to start moving.

And with the pace of a sloth, Elizabeth moved to aim her gun at the snake… Unfortunately, at twenty meters away, Elizabeth's chances of actually hitting the snake were abysmal given her current shaky form. So, with another burst of madness, Elizabeth started approaching the snake. She covered the soles of her shoes with Inner Strength to provide as much control and support to her feet as she could and walked even slower than before.

19 meters… 17 meters… 14 meters… 10 meters… It was only at 5 meters that Elizabeth got close enough to see the snake actually move. Yet even as she watched it move sporadically, there was absolutely no indication that the snake knew of her existence as it didn't react to her approach.

4.5 meters… 4 meters… 3 meters… At 2 meters away from the snake, Elizabeth experienced a subtle sinking feeling as she stepped on the ground, and upon taking a closer look, it appeared that both her shoe and the snake were lying in a pool of blood. At this distance, she could actually hear splashing sounds as the snake flung its body around in the pool of blood, so she guessed the snake was already heavily injured.

Again, one of those insane thoughts of her's manifested and took precedent over her actions as Elizabeth actually continued to approach the snake though she had confidence she could kill it from a distance with her pistol. The reason? Elizabeth thought it would be overall, better for her to kill the snake with her blade if she could help it.

Why? Well, it was already approaching nighttime, and this cave was going to be her temporary home. If she shot the snake, the gunshot would potentially invite even more undesirables. Besides, the snake appeared to be wounded, so it was likely that she could finish it off before embroiling herself in another battle.

Naturally, opting to get handsy with the snake had its fair share of risks, but in Elizabeth's eyes, it would be better to potentially be bitten, suffer more lacerations, and even venomous wounds, than to invite more predators to what she considered to be her temporary home.

Chapter end