Chapter 5: First encounter.

Daniel did not want to give the enemy a chance to attack. The first thing he did was to swiftly dash towards the macaque, swung his leg, and kicked the monster as hard as he could. Daniel hoped that his strength would be enough to throw the damn macaque off the cliff, but unfortunately, his strength was insufficient. Daniel's kick only sent the macaque a couple of meters back. It calmly rotated its body in the air and landed on all fours of it`s paws.

Meanwhile, Daniel's leg felt excruciating pain, as if he had kicked an incredibly heavy boulder due to the stone layer of the monster. The pain was unpleasant, and he might have even broken a couple of fingers, although his facial expression remained unchanged.

But Daniel was not concerned about the pain right now. Although it was just a little, he managed to push the macaque away. He tried to kick it again, but this time the macaque calmly dodged. The monster jumped behind Daniel and abruptly threw a couple of stones at his nape, causing him to lose balance for a second and fall to his knee.

The macaque immediately seized this opportunity and lunged at him from behind, aiming its sharp stony tail at Daniel's neck. However, Daniel quickly turned around and grabbed the macaque by its neck with one hand and its tail with the other. Naturally, he pretended that the stones had caused him to fall on his knee. The macaque fell for Daniel's trick.

The guy immediately intended to throw the audacious creature away, but suddenly, the macaque went berserk. It started twitching and wriggling like mad and began emitting furious and terrifying cries.

"Ah! Ah! Uuuu-Ah!" the macaque roared sharply and dug its claws, which had suddenly grown from its paws, into Daniel's hands. Despite the pain, he almost brought the disgusting creature to the edge of the cliff, intending to release it. However, the macaque did something that Daniel could never have expected.

The macaque abruptly opened its mouth, and a stone flew out of it at an incredible speed, hitting Daniel right in the forehead, in the same spot where he had a wound. Due to the unexpected pain, Daniel could not hold onto the macaque anymore. He quickly let go of it, stepping back a couple of steps and clutching his forehead.

Without any delay, the macaque immediately pounced on Daniel, leaping high and latching onto his face with frenzied cries. It immediately began scratching Daniel's face with its sharp claws. With its hind legs, it tightly wrapped around Daniel's neck. It also attempted to pierce his neck with its tail, but Daniel managed to react in time and quickly caught the creature's tail, gripping it tightly in his hand.

Daniel's health instantly dropped from 74 to 41. His energy reserves also plummeted to three.

"Motherfucker... I won't die so easily from a damn macaque." Daniel fiercely headbutted the macaque's forehead. The forehead and face of this creature were not as sturdy as the rest of its body. This slightly stunned the monster, and Daniel immediately took advantage of it.

"Since I can't throw you off, I'll just smash your damn head into tiny pieces." Daniel calmly said, quickly approaching the tunnel wall and forcefully smashing his head into it, along with the monkey's head. The monkey let out a frightened and piercing screech, as it was the one feeling the most pain, not Daniel.

It continued to viciously scratch at the boy, but he also fiercely continued to bash his head against the monkey, smashing the vile creature onto the tunnel wall. Daniel didn't know what the wall was made of, but it could easily be guessed that the material was much stronger than stone, given how easily it absorbed lava. The protective stone layer of the monkey couldn't withstand the blows from the hard unknown material. Cracks started to appear on the mountain monkey's back.

The monster's strikes became even more furious and desperate, trying to scratch the boy's eyes, but Daniel protected his eyes with his left hand. The monkey desperately started spitting stones from its mouth, but due to the minimal distance between the monkey and Daniel's head, he hardly felt any pain from these stones.

Daniel forcefully slammed the monkey into the wall once again with incredible strength, finally cracking the protective layer on its back. The monkey's anger and rage abruptly turned into fear. The monster quickly released Daniel and was about to run away, but Daniel still tightly held onto its tail. As soon as the monkey let go of him, he took advantage of it, grabbing its tail with both hands and with wild fury boiling inside him, he began smashing the damn monster against the floor…

OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER…

AND OVER…

Multiple times until the piercing screech of the monster silenced and all that remained was a bloody mess and stones that had completely detached from the monster's body and lay on the floor.

Finally, a message appeared in front of Daniel.

[You killed the Filth Monster, Mountain Macaque.]

Daniel immediately threw the remnants of the monkey aside. There were still many messages from the system popping up, but he wasn't interested in them right now. He would check all of that later, if he survived...

Right now, he needed to catch his breath. He leaned his back against the wall and sat on the floor.

His energy was just a step away from reaching zero. His health had dropped to 24. And finally, his sense of coldness reached 80%. The air outside and at the end of the tunnels, where this air reached, was much colder than deep inside the tunnel. The sense of coldness increased much faster here, so Daniel understood that he had about 5 minutes at most to restore his energy.

He had been feeling sleepy even before this, but when his energy dropped to 2%, he felt such strong fatigue: his eyes started to close abruptly, and he felt as if he hadn't slept for three days. But he couldn't sleep now. He had to endure. Five minutes. He just had to endure for five minutes.

"I was almost killed by that damn little monkey, what the hell. Good thing no one saw that." Daniel took a deep breath and glanced at the corpse lying on the stone tongue. It was completely covered in black blood. The darkness in its eyes was gone, replaced by two empty black holes. The rest of its face was too gruesome to look at. There was no way to call this creature cute anymore.

"But the main thing is that I survived. And you didn't." Daniel stood up abruptly and turned his head back to the tunnel. He needed to keep going. Faster. He needed to find at least a source of heat and somehow restore his health. Of course, the chances of achieving both were minimal. But he had to at least try. It was definitely better than sitting here and waiting for his fate.

Daniel started walking. Slowly, but he began to move, swaying slightly. Due to extreme fatigue and low health, everything around him became blurry. His head was spinning heavily. And after the sense of coldness reached 80%, his body started trembling, his teeth chattering. But Daniel didn't care.

Leaning slightly against the wall, he slowly moved forward. He was on the verge of collapsing and falling to the ground. But he couldn't. Hope still lived within him. Hope for a miracle and also stubbornness. Since childhood, Daniel had been a very stubborn and spoiled boy. Perhaps that's why his father didn't like to communicate with him. However, this stubbornness and sense of pride were the main reasons why Daniel didn't want to give up so easily and accept the harsh reality.

If he were to die, it would be from the damn lava, from the damn huge monster, but not because he was injured by a damn monkey that was barely bigger than a street dog.

No. No. No. No. No. Keep going. He needed to keep going. He had to keep going. Just go.

Daniel didn't know how much time had passed and how far he had walked, but his energy, which consumed the least amount of energy when he walked, dropped to one. This meant that he had covered a decent distance. His sense of coldness also reached 95%. However, strangely enough, even though his body was shaking and his teeth were chattering, he hardly felt anything.

`Maybe this is death.` Daniel thought. Everything darkened in his eyes. Even before, he could barely see where he was going, but now he couldn't see anything at all. He continued walking forward, leaning on the wall. He no longer believed in anything, he no longer hoped for anything. He just kept moving forward.

`Even if I die... At least I tried. Even if it's at the very end, I tried...`

Suddenly, the wall beneath Daniel's hands disappeared, and he fell to the ground. He didn't understand what had happened. Was there a turn to the left, or right? It didn't matter to him. Daniel simply began crawling forward.

He crawled. Slowly. His legs and arms felt so heavy, as if they were not his own, but heavy weights attached to his body. But even despite the heaviness of his limbs, Daniel stretched them forward and continued crawling. He knew that his energy was about to drop to zero. He could no longer resist his drowsiness. It was unbearable. His journey was coming to an end. He would die somewhere unknown, in an unknown way, and that would be all his family would know. Maybe, if he was lucky, other players would find him, lying on the ground with a bare ass, crawling from where the monkey's corpse lay.

`Although, of course, it would be better if no one found me.` Daniel thought and decided to make one last push, reaching out his arms and pulling himself forward.

And as soon as he did that, several windows with messages immediately appeared in front of Daniel.

[You have entered the Safe Zone, the Cave of Sorrow.]

[Monsters cannot enter Safe Zones.]

[In Safe Zones, players can rest and replenish their energy.]

Daniel didn't really rejoice or attach much importance to the system messages that appeared. What he was truly happy about was that somewhere nearby, warmth wafted through the air. He felt a faint source of heat.

Without wasting a second, Daniel began crawling forward like a madman towards this source of warmth. He didn't care that he had entered a Safe Zone. And he didn't care that his energy could run out at any moment. The warmth was much more important than anything else.

He crawled as fast as he could. The ultimate goal gave him strength and motivation to keep crawling forward.

`Please… Just a little more… I'm so close…`

But his energy suddenly dropped to zero. He could no longer move even a finger…

However, he had crawled close enough to this source of warmth. He couldn't see it, but before succumbing to oblivion, Daniel could clearly hear the gentle, pleasant and soothing sounds of crackling flames, which sounded like a friendly whisper, as well as the crackling of wood, which silenced all worries and all the pain that Daniel had felt all this time. With a calm expression on his face, Daniel drifted off to sleep.