(BL) Hunting The Field Guide novel Chapter 476

Chapter 476: This isn’t quicksand, is it?

Kellen had already had to fight off several plants from trying to swipe him from his feet, steal his bag, and to wrap around him. It was horrifying to realise that the forest he had been walking through during the night had a damn second phase.

It was alive before, but now it was awake.

Kellen just hoped that his peers, his people were aware of it as well, and that no one had been swallowed by the damn thing. Kellen kept himself quiet, his breathing calm, focused, as he continued to fight the forest that wanted to use him as fertilizer.

He wasn’t going to stay around to find out.

Kellen felt his lips curl up in a small moment of victory.

He was almost glad that his Class at the time had been viewed as too low because he probably would have thrown in the towel over shit like this.

What do you mean that the ground became almost liquid? It didn’t even behave like quicksand, and Kellen was very upset about that. The fire pit had even shifted, and Kellen wondered if he was the reason the ground had gone like that, or if it was because of the fire pit?

Kellen just hoped that he could get to the core soon. He didn’t really care what he got to first. His people, or the core. He just hoped that they weren’t wandering the forest, hallucinating out of their minds while the gate fucked with them, picking them off one by one.

He only let himself sleep in small intervals. Something he had trained himself on for years, and even if he had been away for a while, he was still able to pick up. He didn’t set alarms, didn’t want to alert anything else in the forest to his presence, and as he rested a few times, he found that nothing bothered him.

Not anything obvious.

Like how it had been when he’d first stepped into the gate.

It seemed that when awake, the forest knew what its greatest fear should be.

Kellen was a bit curious, wanting to check out what the creature was, but also decided that he shouldn’t take any risks. Not a single one, and after checking his compass, he kept following the marked trail his students had made.

Kellen took a moment to think about whether he should rest now, given that everything was still, or should he keep moving?

Too bad that wasn’t the case, and it had already claimed several lives.

He knew how integrated plants were under the soil, under the ground. He had time to think about what had happened while he was resting. Was it roots? Was it the plant life shifting the roots and thus making the ground sink and shift? Or was it something else? Another creature of some kind?

He noticed on the third cat nap that the ground beneath him was strange, different, and Kellen jumped up immediately, not playing games. He was right. Something had shifted the ground under him, making it more liquid then ground but he’d caught it in time. He wondered what fucked up creature would be capable of something like that, since when he moved, he watched as the ground slowly grew hard again.

That was a good thing. It meant that they were still travelling in a group, and that they were being cautious. Of course, there was a chance that things could go horribly wrong and they could have gone missing in a different way and left no trace of themselves after, but that was the worst case scenario. One of them.

His body felt lighter being able to get more rest, and after taking a moment to eat and take care of some other things, Kellen set off once more. He did wonder how deep this forest was. How big the gate was. The group who had been sucked into the gate ahead of him had quite a bit of time to continue moving, and honestly, Kellen felt grateful that he’d only found two ’people’ so far.

Kellen paused as he needed, making notes on new plants he saw, what he saw, and everything in between during the night.

Kellen froze when he thought he heard something bigger moving in the distance, towards him through the dense forest. Kellen wasn’t sure if he should go lower, or if he should go higher to see if he could observe what was coming at him.

Then, it stopped, and he heard it began to wander in a different direction. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Even though the sun was now high in the sky, Kellen sat next to the fire, setting himself up so that he could have a small catnap while he had the time, and to conserve his energy. He felt good, even after finding the body.

One thing he found out is that there was clearly a struggle of some kind, but no body, and no evidence of anything related to a body. Some torn fabric, but it looked to be too little to say that something major happened. Kellen did notice how the fire pit was much bigger, and not being a fool, he took that as a sign.

He didn’t find another body. Even as he began to see the night fall again, the forest growing quiet once more. The leaves began to rustle less, the stalking became...quieter, softer. Kellen had to defend himself less and less, and then, not at all.

And Kellen, and hopefully the others, had used that to their advantage.

He slung his backpack back on, found the marker that showed what direction the group was going, still west as Kellen had taught them, and continued moving forward. Kellen just kept his head down, making sure he was following their path. Slower, focused, fighting the damn forest around him.

He already knew from the pitcher plants that the gate didn’t care about quick deaths.

2 people found, 10 more to go.