Chapter 26: Lost and found

It has been 5 hours since Zena's death. Karl has been wondering in the forest, looking for a way for towards dessert.

'We were traveling towards south. If I continue towards north, I should reach back the city.' That's what he thought 5 hours earlier. Since then, he is lost in the forest.

Karl stomach growls in hunger. He ignores it. His body is on the verge of collapse. Every movement he makes his body aches.

On the positive side. Karl looted the body of Sian, Martin and Zena. He is wearing armour only on his legs and forearms which he got from Martin. From Sian's body he got nothing useful, he only got two rings.

Lastly, from Zena's body he found a pouch with strange powder and the ears of the white manned desert wolves that they hunted together. He tried to apply the powder on his wounds but it only made it worse. His wounds started to sting

Before leaving, Karl gave a proper burial to Zena's body. Of course, he left Martin's and Sian's body to rot in the open.

'Things would have been easier if I had my watch.' He glances at his burned hands. The sun is setting down, making Karl anxious. It turns dark too quickly. Due to paranoia, every 5 seconds Karl turns back to see if anything is following him.

He notices that the trees are getting denser as he is moving forward. There is an uncomfortable level of silence around. Just then Karl sees dried blood on a tree. The blood mark is bigger than Karl's own arm. He hesitantly touches the mark. 'It's all dried up, should be few hours old.'

Karl looks up at the moon. He reconsiders his direction. He grabs a nearby purple stick and does some calculation. 'If I was here and walked towards this direction then-'

CRACK!

Karl turns back in reflex, ready to fight.

"Khee. Khee." On a nearby tree, he sees a two horned monkey. It is panting heavily, not moving from it's place.

'Why is he alone? Aren't monkeys are supposed to live in a group.'

The monkey spots Karl and jumps down in a hurry. Karl observes more closely, it is wounded in his left arm and missing a horn. It starts to runs towards Karl in a frenzy.

'Great.' Karl gets ready to fight.

ROAR!

A deafening sound heard by Karl. A black shadow comes out of nowhere and jumps at the monkey. A weak squeal comes from the monkey. Karl quickly gets behind a tree. The shadow belongs to black leopard like creature, its size is twice that of an adult lion.

The monkey only squeal in pain as the beast eats it alive. Karl silently steps back as intense growling sound comes along with the cries of the monkey. Luckily, the leopard like creature ignores Karl. He continues his journey towards north. 

After few minutes walking something flashes in Karl eyes. He crouches and moves closer. He sees a sword in stabbed in the ground. There are corpses around it. 'These bodies!'

These bodies belong to the knights which have been killed by Karl and Zena. Sword is luminating a light due to moonlight when looked from a certain angle. There are body parts along with armour are scattered around. There is dried blood on the armour. Karl notices claw marks on the armour.

'Looks like they were eaten by some creature.' 

With caution, he slowly creeps towards the sword. It looks magnificent in the moonlight. The metal is shining slightly blue. Karl grips the handle tightly and pulls it.

"HMPH!" The sword comes out rather roughly.

'Oh! It's a short sword.' He moves the sword around like a stick. Even though it is a short sword, it is long enough to reach Karl's waist. It is styled in a european way. A metal handle at the start and a straight blade which looks alot durable. 

'Bit heavy.' Karl complains, as his standards for swords are very high due to the Gale rapier. He carries his sword in his left hand. He also checks out the left over body parts for anything valuable. But his efforts were in vain. Again, Karl continues his journey but even after walking for 40 minutes straight there is no sign of sand.

Karl starts to question his senses. He has been hearing some sounds since quite some time.

'I am just exhausted.' That's the excuse he told himself. Of course, he did not dare investigate those, not alone. Karl is starting to believe that he has been moving in circles. Every tree, every bump and every corner look same to Karl. Ultimately to challenge his sanity, Karl decides to climb a tall tree trying to reconfirm his route.

He picks a random tall tree which has less branches so that no creature would inhabit it. Karl stabs the sword into the tree's trunk, then he steps on the sword and pushes his body up. His entire body aching, his head slightly spinning. Once up, he continues to climb with his hands only. Leaving the sword at bottom.

At the top Karl is greeted by the beautiful valley of stars. The wind smoothly hits Karl's body leaving a cool sensation. The direction where Karl was heading is filled with countless tree and mountains. No trace of sand.

'Looks like I was wrong. Maybe I just travelled into the heart of forest or sun doesn't go down towards west in this world.' Karl sighs as he realizes his mistake.

The wind touches his skin leaving a smooth sensation. Tiredness kicks in and he decides to sleep on top of tree. After coming down a few meters, he sits on a large branch and closes his eyes.

6 hours passes every slowly for Karl. Every second felt like an hour. He hardly slept for 12 minutes. Rest of the time he was looking at every very possible corner because of his paranoid personality.

Sun came up just half an hour ago. Karl's back aches due to his bad posture. Dark circles can be seen under his eyes. He somehow stands up and stretches. Looking at the sun, he decides to climb back up. 'I might see something which can tell me how far I am from the dessert.'

At the top he sees the same scenery like yesterday. A black trail is seen by Karl. 'It's a smoke. Somebody is nearby.'

The trail of black smoke is not too far away from Karl. He decides to go there as he doesn't have any other option. He slowly begins to go down, step by step. Half way there, he slips and falls straight to the ground.

THUMP!

'Ouch.' His back hurts even more. Karl somehow gets up and takes his sword back. Starting his journey towards the smoke. Karl always keeps his sword in hand, ready for any fight.

On the way, Karl encounters a small stream of running water. With his throat dry and stomach empty. He risks it and drinks the unfiltered water. It tastes bad, like stale milk. But as each sip is going into Karl's mouth it gives him a feeling relief and a sense of dopamine. He drinks it few more times.

After feeling satisfied he continues his journey. He notices that trees are changing, the colour is same but now these looks like a yellow cedar. Earlier they were just normal tropical tree.

'This smell. Is something burning?' Karl's nose catches the smell which is similar to burning charcoal. He realizes that he is close and starts to his proceed more silently.

Just a few hundred meters ahead, Karl spots an extinguished campfire. The area around the campfire is unusually flat with no grass or no rocks. There is only a single tree besides the fireplace. Karl finds it odd. He observes the area but there is no sign of people here.

When people are pushed to their limits both physically and mentally their decision making gets affected, same thing happened to Karl. In a desperate situation where he needs help, he lets his guard down. He gets up and walks straight towards the campfire.

Suddenly his leg gets caught in a metal wire, a trap which looks similar to a modern bear trap emerges from the ground.

CLANG!

"AHHHHHHHH!"

Karl screams in pain as his leg almost gets ripped in half. He clenches his jaw and puts his sword into the trap. He tries to force open the trap. His hands get covered in his own blood.

"HUMPH!" Karl pushes the sword with all of his strength. It moves little bit.

'COME ON!' Karl tries to breath mana but he doesn't gain any. Instead, his chest starts to hurt a lot.

"Ara. I didn't expect you to be here." A sweet voice come from the bushes ahead, revealing Serena. She is covered in plate from neck to toe.

Karl notices her but doesn't reply. He is trying his hardest to keep the trap from closing. Noticing this, Serena swiftly moves her left hand and the trap opens up. Karl slowly takes his wounded leg out.

"Now, what are you doing here?" A string of metal wraps around Karl's neck. He looks up and sees Serena glaring at him.

'One bitch after another.'