124 Survival of the fittest
Soon, Luke felt the buzzing go away, and the pain of the sword running through him came back into the foreground. A little amount of blood dripped down the sides of the Tank’s mouth, whose eyes Luke couldn’t even see because of the shape of the helmet that covered them.
‘This guy was strong…’ Luke thought and pushed the man’s body back, which already appeared to be lifeless. The thud of the corpse was metallic and raised some dust.
The half-wolf looked at the sword on his chest and analyzed the situation.
‘I think because of the shaking he ended up missing my heart… How damn lucky I am.’
Claymore had gone through two of the half-wolf’s ribs and came out the other side, where the root of one of the trees was. Despite the pain, Luke was feeling, the fact that the sword had not been removed immediately ensured that he did not lose much blood.
A healing potion has the power to heal the vast majority of simple injuries, but a potion will never magically add more blood to someone’s body.
“ARE YOU OKAY!?” Nathalia questioned him, approaching him in desperation. She looked at the wound and quickly looked into his eyes to see if he was still alive.
“Yes, I’m fine-“
“Come on, drink this!” The Elf pulled from one of the small pockets of her armor a medium potion, which instead of the characteristic wine-like hue of the simple potions, this one had a more vivid reddish hue.
Luke grabbed the girl’s wrist before she could shove the vial of potion into her mouth and spoke:
“I said I’m fine. Now focus on the battle Nathalia. There’s still one left. Keep this, I have one for myself.”
The girl’s eyes widened, but she understood the message, evoked her Panspermia spear, and ran towards the wizard, who was bravely resisting Shiro’s sword blows.
“OH, I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I swear I won’t torment you anymore! Just leave me alive!” The wizard shouted. He was wearing long clothes, and a hood covered his face.
“What’s the point of leaving you alive? How would we know if you will want to follow us or not?” Shiro shouted and hit the wizard’s magic shield again.
“Shiro, let him go. If he tries to follow us, he knows what he will find. We have no more time to waste. Now that we are together, we have to focus on the goal.” Nathalia approached, and although she wielded a spear, she made the smart choice.
“As you wish, Miss…” Then Shiro lowered his sword and walked away.
Jilly and Livia were the only ones who stayed away from the situation looking horrified by the bloodbath. Jilly had never killed someone in her life, and Livia couldn’t do anything about it.
Only after Nathalia approached him did he recognize the three girls’ white hair, high-class robes, and pointed ears.
“You are from the Strogueher Family, aren’t you? I swear I will be eternally grateful to you!” The man said and knelt once more.
At Nathalia’s request, Shiro chose to leave the wizard alone. As soon as the strange man had a chance, he threw himself into the tall leaves of some bushes and abandoned the swordsman of his group, who was passed out on the ground.
“What are we going to do with him?” Shiro questioned Nathalia while pointing at the swordsman.
The Elf flickered her eyes but quickly made a decision. “Leave him. He’ll have a better chance of staying alive if he’s not walking around.”
From afar, Luke watched his group taking action, and he usually would have killed the wizard to prevent future problems, something he always did, however now he didn’t want to go against Nathalia’s decision.
As soon as Luke removed the Claymore from his chest, he stored it in his inventory. He resisted the pain until he took a simple healing potion. When he did, the pain immediately went away, and his skin tissue in seconds regenerated.
Taking a healing potion is always a risk because it can heal wrong or trap bacteria inside the body. But in inhospitable regions like the Dungeons and the Skdødsgen Forest, this may be the only alternative that will keep someone away from death.
Before anyone could say a thing, Jilly showed concern as always. “What are we going to do now? We’ve been here for almost an hour already…”
“After all, this is an endurance test. Now that we are united, we have to choose between dominating a region of the forest or walking through it.” aimed Shiro, while tapping his heels on the ground to remove the excess dirt from his boots.
“First, let’s get out of here, and we’ll discuss it in a moment.” Luke proposed, and everyone nodded firmly.
Thanks to the tear in his clothes, everyone could see that another scar had formed on Luke’s chest, but no one asked about his state of health because they knew he was strong.
With such a large group, it would be impossible to walk through the branches of the trees as before, even among the thickest ones, because Shiro was wearing very heavy armor, so they had to walk on the jungle floor.
After a short time of walking, they came upon a hollow trunk. Livia tripped over a rock, tried to lean against the tree, and ended up breaking its old, parched bark, which eventually revealed their future shelter.
“Oww! This is spectacular!” Nathalia said, looking at the inside of the tree. It felt the same as looking up from the ground at the bottom of a well or a very tall building.
“So, what’s the plan now?” Jilly inquired, not even caring about the scenery.
“First, how did you get the golden bird, Shiro?” Luke had already noticed that the big guy was feeling uncomfortable about something as he walked.
Shiro was not wearing any protection around his waist, so all it took was for him to pull the armor pressed against his abdomen a little for the golden bird to fall to the ground. As he made this movement, he explained that he found the bird as soon as he arrived in the forest. However, he did not have to hunt the bird as he thought he should; the bird flew towards him and with a single attack on the head, it died.
“All right… the woman said we had to kill it to pass the test, but then killing isn’t enough…”
Skillfully, Luke opened the small golden bird to see anything inside it.
“Of course, the Tournament of Legends would not be so simple…” He said as he opened the animal’s chest and found a golden sphere. “I guess that’s the exit door to the outside, but it’s still an individual trial, so…” Luke held out the orb to Nathalia.
The Elf was unresponsive but quickly denied it valiantly. “We’re here together, so we should get out of here together.”
“I understand but, keep it with you… if things get as complicated as before, promise me you’ll get out of here. There’s a little button here, see?” Luke pointed to the activation button on the sphere.
So, after hatching a plan, the quintet decided not to stay in that area. They didn’t know how the golden birds behaved or how to find them, so they thought it would be better to not park in one place.
The screaming had stopped, and the Skdødsgen Forest was as silent as ever, but that didn’t mean there was no more danger. Luke and Livia still feared the legends about this forest, that ghosts often lurk its visitors.
After walking for an hour and feeling their bellies growl with hunger, they finally found something encouraging. Fifty meters up, in an even more enclosed part of the jungle, where there were only huge branches and leaves, they found a flock of golden birds. There were at least thirty of them.