Chapter 6

It was a quiet morning. One could hear the birds whistling a happy tune, brightening the atmosphere of the forest. And in one such forest, located at the top of a tall tree was a young man nested peacefully in a small hammock. As the

bright morning sunshine peered through the leaves, casting an elegant shine on the young man's skin, he had no choice but to wake and observe the magnificent scene that had descended upon him. It was so peaceful that he had no choice but to try to roll over a bit, indulging even further in the state he found himself in.

All that was immediately erased from his mind the moment he noticed what almost happened, he had almost rolled off the hammock and towards the nauseatingly scary ground and he didn't know just how many bones he would have broken if he did land in one piece. Like a sudden tide on a calm sea, fear overtook him as he felt a rush of memories from the previous days overwhelm him at that moment. In addition to that was a sudden stink that threatened to numb his sense of smell with its pungency. He could almost swear that even though not a drop of water has touched his skin for more than three days, it should be impossible for him to be the source of the stench.

He soon realized the source. As it turns out, some the flower stalks of the banana weren't dried out enough, therefore they started to rot earlier than predicted. This can be attributed to his lack of knowledge regarding how to properly dry plants.

Regardless of this inconvenience, he had to proceed with his plans. As he took a look at himself, he couldn't help but to marvel at how his life has taken a sudden turn. At the same time, he had to choice but to halt his reflections for another time since they would take a long while and time wasn't exactly on his hand. His next step was to start experiments. He didn't know what kind of place he was in, but all he knew was that the answers could be found on that mountain. It wasn't just intuition or hope, but rather he had seen a fire and smoke on the mountain the night he arrived in this world.

He climbed down the tree slowly and proceeded to check out for any prints in the soil. Other than a few small depressions, there were no prints indicating that an animal passed near his tree. That confirmed one thing he has been thinking about.

He's in a starter zone of some sort. Now he could sigh in relief and thank that psychopath that she didn't want to kill him quickly, otherwise he would have no chance of survival had he landed in some dangerous zones at become an evening snack for one of those beasts in the forest.

Shrugged off those distractive thoughts and climbed back up the tree to untie his hammock. As soon as he did that, he climbed down and sprinted as fast as he can out of the forest. This had become his habit after he knew of the dangers that lurk in the forest. What even depressed him more was the lack of natural instinct towards danger that all fantasy main characters seem to have, but he doesn't. That's why he had no choice but to always sprint like his life depended on it. He knows the common saying.

'You can ambush what you can't catch.'

As for whether that was true or not, he paid heed to that advice and hoped it would protect him for a while. After arriving outside the forest, he quickly captured a few miserable creatures that were weaker than himself and tied their feet with whatever plants he had find in the three days when he was scouting out the forest.

After he did that, he apologized for the future misery he will inflict upon them in the name of experiments. They were only four creatures as he couldn't find more restrains in his vicinity.

As soon as he was done with that, he began to act up taking short breaks, sprinting in and out of the forest and coming back with whatever weird plants he could find for a few days. He tried to feed his beasts with the safe looking ones, and monitor what happens to them. If they die or something horrible happens to them, he discards the plants as far as possible while keeping the relatively safe ones. Then he would try to touch them for whether they would sting or not. If they did, he would make the little beasts eat them and check how their tongues would swell.

If his original idea was to swell his tongue while inhibiting his communication skills, the other reason was that in case he decided to stay at the tree forever, at-least he would have what to eat other than animals. This continued for a week till he found what he looking for. In his hand was a strange black berry looking fruit with two peduncles on opposite sides. It had been eaten by a rabbit and its tongue swelled for five days straight until it suddenly healed and there were no after effects for the next week. He had monitored and made sure that there were no changes to its squealing. Of course it wasn't the only animal he tested with, but it didn't affect other animals while it affected the rabbit that shared its omnivore characteristics with him, maybe it was how strange these animals of this world were that even a rabbit ate meat.

Without any further ado, he ate the strange fruit and immediately regretted it. It was ridiculously spicy and his tongue felt like it would swell into a balloon in his mouth and burst, he didn't care about that as he was only the ground rolling back and forth from the pain he almost passed out. After the pain cooled down, he wiped off a few tears and decided to never do something like this again.

He kept a few berries just in case. He felt it was ok to be a bit hypocritical when it comes to his life.

After he was done with that gruesome event. He now started to think of how to cross the forest and reach the water stream as he now had no choice but to find out if he had got some hidden effects from the berries.

He hurriedly run back to the forest and climbed the tree as fast as he can. Then started to really monitor the forest for what it is.