Chapter 12: An Idea

That day, the fear of being burnt alive in a wildfire was ingrained into me. I could see why Maria didn't want to set the whole damn forest on fire.

The heat was getting unbearable. When did I get so close to the flames?

I ran as fast as I could away from the flames. I felt that sensation again. That feeling of time slowing down.

I could feel my nihilism cluster towards my eyes. Did this have something to do with nihilism? I didn't care. I just ran.

There was just one tiny problem. I was also moving quite slowly. The world wasn't the only thing slowing down. I was too. It felt like I was running underwater.

On the bright side, the flailing of the roots slowed down by a lot. It felt like a bullet hell now, an easy one at that.

I could see the flaming roots coming at me, and I had more than enough time to dodge. I weaved and dodged about, running away from the thing.

I didn't realize at the time but I actually got injured very heavily. It seemed like I dodged and weaved my way out of there, but in reality, I got minor burns, multiple bruises, and many minor injuries like cuts. The only worrying injury I got was a gash across my calf.

Still, without that time bending thing, I would have been toast.

The moment I was out of the tree's range, my little time bending thing also stopped.

A wave of pain hit me all at once. It was at this moment that I realized how badly injured I was. I still had my sword with me. Why didn't I just throw it away to reduce weight?

It hurt. It hurt a lot. For a person who lived in an ordinary city just a few days ago, this was a new experience for me. And this was certainly an experience I didn't want.

I ran away from the tree as fast as I could. I had messed up. Really badly. I just caused a forest fire, in a forest we have no way of getting out of.

As I ran from that place, I heard someone moan in pain. The first thought that came to my mind was, 'Is that Maria?'.

I rushed there as fast as I could, and that wasn't really saying much considering the injuries I had sustained so far.

There I was greeted by even worse news. Maria was lying on the forest floor, half dead. She was literally just a bloody mess, like as if she had just faced an explosion head-on. She was surrounded by a red aura, which was only what I could assume to be nihilism.

I checked her heartbeat and breathing. Yup, still alive. I wanted to carry her somewhere, but my body was about to collapse as is. So I dragged her ass. Across the forest. She was half dead anyway, what was she going to do? Complain about it?

I kept dragging her feet around until I ended up in relatively the same spot as before. Except, the trees weren't burning. Everything looked normal. The only reason I could even recognize this place was because there were still embers everywhere.

How… the fuck… was the forest not ablaze?? I thought to myself, stopping on the spot. I peeked at the giant tree, and saw that it wasn't in flames anymore.

Did it stop the forest fire? How the hell did it manage to do that?? Many questions raced through my head. All came up with the same answer. Just don't question it and head to base to help the half-dead damsel.

I did just that. I came back to base, and found the water source nearby. It was duck by the time I reached this… base? It was really just a burnt-out fireplace with a river beside it. I laid her on the grass below, and went to get something to eat.

I was getting really hungry. There wasn't much to eat. The only other choice I had was to eat… tree bark. Boiling it in water wasn't really an option, considering the fact that I didn't even have any utensils. I could have roasted it, but some part of me thought it would taste bad, or the whole thing damn thing would catch fire.

I scraped some parts of the tree and tried eating the inner part of the bark. I remember seeing this type of survival tactic in a book my sister read a lot. They said some taste sweet, and some taste like vegetables. But this one. This one tasted like paper. Put simply, it was really bland. There wasn't even any salt to make it better. It coated the roof of your mouth for maximum discomfort.

I really wanted to throw it out, but I was getting really hungry. I hadn't eaten since the plane crash, and I felt exhausted. I ate as much as I could physically stomach, before I got too sick of it.

What was I supposed to do now? I looked at the twigs around and decided to try and light a fire. The first time I failed. The second time I failed. I kept on trying though, I had nothing better to do after all.

After a very long time, I got those sparks on the 'dry' grass I laid down to light up. I looked at the flames, as I slowly started to fall asleep.

…

The sun rose and set about twice now. This place had truly become my personal purgatory. Every morning I would wake up to the same routine.

The routine was really just the same. I got up. Washed my face in the morning. Put some bark in the water I scooped up from the river nearby and fed it to the still-unconscious Maria. Repeat.

Boredom became a real problem. I tried to use my nihilism more often, as a form of training, but it was really just a means to get away from the monotony of this place.

There was nothing to do. I felt like I was going insane. No chirping of birds, no rustling of grass. The stream of water was the only source of noise, and was the only reason I hadn't gone insane yet.

Wait a minute. Instead of waiting for Maria to wake up and make a plan, why don't I try making a plan?

I could definitely control my nihilism a bit better, but I was still too weak for it to be a viable option. I would get killed before I even knew it. Burning down the forest turned out to be another dead end. That reminds me, what happened to the burning forest that one time?

To confirm it, I decided to burn a tree far away from camp. Was it risky? Very much so. Did I care? Not at this point. I was already getting quite sick of eating tree bark all day, and sitting around doing nothing.

I took a burning twig and burnt the tree. I ran away as fast as I could. The fire spread, as expected, but then it died off soon after.

I went back there, and the tree turned back to normal, with just a few embers lying near there. So these trees don't burn to ash huh…? Didn't really help much, but still information was information.

There was just one small lead I had. David's corpse was near the tree. And his corpse was hollow.

It meant that it had absorbed David's flesh or whatever. That didn't matter. What did was the fact that it could absorb things from its surroundings.

The only solution I could come up with was poisoning it. Now for the billion-dollar question.

How do I get said poison?

Poisoning the soil would be ideal. But we didn't have anything to poison the soil. There was supposed to be a village here right? I could hopefully find something useful if I was lucky… right?

I searched around the forest, but there were no signs of it. Shit. Then what other options were there? Gases?

That's when it hit me. We had a readily available poison. One we could make right now. It was quite poisonous for humans, it had to affect plants somehow…

I started gathering a large amount of firewood. As much as I could. I kept doing so until Maria woke up.

I kept doing so, gathering firewood, and 'training' my nihilism. It was really just me wasting the nihilist energy while sitting cross-legged on the ground, thinking I did something cool. Honestly, I did feel the difference, but it was quite minute.

"What the…?", I heard her say while I was arranging the firewood.

"Oh you are awake.", I said, still arranging the firewood.

"How long was I out?"

"About two days, give or take.", I said, trying not to make it sound like a big deal.

She shut up for a while. I heard her mutter, "Two days… I messed up…"

"Messed up? Elaborate."

"I tried to see what it could do. Ended up creating a massive ass explosion.", she said, sounding defeated.

"Thanks for your concise answer I guess.", I said, slightly sarcastic.

"Anyway, why are you gathering that much firewood?", she said, tilting her head to the mountain of firewood in front of her.

"To try and poison it.", I said, bluntly. I am pretty sure she caught on to what kind of poison I was trying to make here.