Feng Bujue had returned to the castle and harvested something unexpected. One minute after he had knocked on the door, Ivan came. Feng Bujue and the General chatted for a while as he tried to ask for something like torches. Turned out the other was so generous to give him a dagger and a flashlight, also advising him not to waste time running away…
In fact, in this scenario, if players asked, the BOSS would give them these two items for free. One item was to facilitate their journey in the jungle, and the other was used for lighting.
It was easier for players to get these sorts of items as their levels were getting higher and higher. Anyway, to high-level players, these normal quality items were really valuable for them, and they would gradually become like consumable goods. At level 20, players would have at least one or two items ranked Perfect. Even if they couldn’t find one in the scenarios, they could buy some with their game coins and Skill Value they had accumulated up to level 20. Nevertheless, there were various ways to find items in Thriller Paradise.
After acquiring the dagger and the flashlight, Feng Bujue started his escape journey in the jungle.
In his assumption, the area surrounding the castle wouldn’t have any wild animals. As they were all animals, which counted on their instincts to survive, they got it clear that the area around the castle was the King of Animals’ Territory. Of course, here I refer to General Zaroff, not our schoolmate Qin Ze. (1)
Thus, after Feng Bujue had entered the jungle, he traveled in a rush. He quickly moved forward without stopping to rest, wading across a one-meter tall moor of weeds, jumping over the muddy pits, and bypassing the stone cliff. Besides stepping on a large lump suspected to be the wild wolves’ feces, everything was smooth enough.
"Attention please, Zaroff has departed from the Castle."
When the notification sounded, Feng Bujue checked his Quest Menu as it displayed [240 minutes to sunrise].
It was also the time when Feng Bujue had considered to officially enter the stomach of a wild beast named ‘Jungle’.
It was unknown when some leeches had been clinging on his nape. Feng Bujue only knew about their existence when he found his Survival Value was decreasing. He shed some blood using the dagger to remove those vampiric mollusks from his neck. Fortunately, the game’s description also mentioned that under the same circumstances, parasites wouldn’t enter their clothing as they would just attack players’ exposed skin areas. If not, Feng Bujue would absolutely take off his clothes to check his body thoroughly once.
At this moment, he finally recognized the cost of moving fast forward. The effects of the humid tropical weather soon appeared as his Stamina Value was decreasing with an unnatural frequency. His [Dance of the Knight]’s effects were also limited in this kind of rough terrain. At the same time, his clothes also made him feel hot and uncomfortable, but fortunately, thanks to the lesson by the leeches, he didn’t even dare to roll up his sleeves.
Half an hour had passed by and the jungle had finally revealed its ferocious appearance in the dark. Dense shadows of trees towered everywhere like a thick curtain. As the density of trees was becoming greater, Feng Bujue had to climb up to the top of a tree to check for direction. If not, he would gradually get lost.
The deeper he entered into the hinterland of the jungle, the more difficulties the surroundings brought up. The jungle’s vegetation had three to five layers vertically just like a tent in general. In this case, the moonlight had lost it function here, leaving Feng Bujue with the only option which was to count on his flashlight.
"When I’ve watched ‘Man vs. Wild’ (2), I did think that they were just acting in the show. Now, I’m stuck in the jungle just like a little grandson toddling around. It’s true that one doesn’t feel tired looking at other people working. The shows are not able to convey the actual difficulty level of crossing the jungle indeed." Feng Bujue felt rueful; he couldn’t help but to recall the time he had been watching a channel that replayed some classic videos. The host of the show had given him a feeling that ‘it’s not difficult to survive in in the wild’. Now, he truly understood that crossing the wild areas with only a dagger wasn’t something an ordinary person could do.
All of a sudden, animal sounds echoed in the dark from his right. There was heavy breathing, and something sounded ‘wee-wee’. From the sound, it should be a wild boar.
Feng Bujue’s first reaction was to climb up the nearest tree. He didn’t want to compete with something on all fours in this inklike darkness.
The call was approaching along with a wild boar treading on the ground while pressing down and breaking bushes to make way.
Soon, Feng Bujue had climbed up the tree and shone his flashlight in the general direction of the noise.
"No. Sounds like there’s a different sound." Feng Bujue vaguely heard a different kind of noise. Then, he immediately understood why a boar was rampaging in the middle of the night.
10 seconds later, that wild boar appeared in Feng Bujue’s sight. The animal had short limbs that supported its sturdy body. Rough black hair was covering all over its body with dark mane. The energetic boar was storming forward like a small tank. At this moment, the mane around the boar’s neck was rising up as it was screaming nonstop. These were the signs that the animal had been stipulated. Perhaps it had met a very powerful predator.
The hunter, who was chasing after the boar, came right after it. That was a python. Although it wasn’t as big as the exaggerated monster at the northwest of the island, it wasn’t small either.
In fact, many people can’t imagine the way a python swallowed its big preys. A five-meter python can swallow a two-meter crocodile, and an eight-meter python can swallow a zebra completely.
And, the one in front of Feng Bujue was an eight-meter one…
Perhaps the wild boar was running disorderly in panic, or perhaps the system intended to let players see what was going to happen… in short, when the flashlight shone to a certain area, a classic scene was being performed—a wild boar hitting the tree trunk.
However, the serpent didn’t hit the boar as it was slithering forward. Instead, it crossed its enormous body to make a half circle to trap the boar between its body and the tree trunk, which was really big that two adults couldn’t encircle it. At this moment, the tree trunk had blocked the boar’s escape.
The python lifted its head and scrutinized its prey. The wild boar seemed to understand that it couldn’t escape, so it then launched the last counterattack by flexing its limbs and storming forward in an attempt to bite the serpent with its long fang.
The boar hadn’t touched the python’s body, yet the python’s head had dropped right away in high speed, biting the wild boar with just one strike. Right after that, the python released the prey and bit it again instantaneously. The serpent’s speed was so fast that people couldn’t see it clearly, just like someone was using two fingers to grab a bar of soap from a pot of boiling oil.
The wild boar finally got into the python’s mouth, and the latter immediately started to enjoy its ‘dinner’. The ‘swallowing process’ depends on the sizes of the preys. Sometimes, it needs several hours.
Feng Bujue had already obstructed the light from his flashlight as he didn’t want to bother the python enjoying its dinner. Then, he tiptoed quietly as he crawled down the tree. He didn’t have the time to wait for the python to swallow the boar completely; he just prayed that the other was focusing only on its meal and ignored him.
After he had successfully got off the tree, he didn’t aim for the southeast direction; he just ran madly as he decided to leave this place and lengthen the distance between him and this monster.
Unexpectedly, right at this moment, Feng Bujue heard other sounds from another kind of animal, which was an even deadlier threat!
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(1) Qin Ze: Is the Chinese translation name of Serizawa Tamao aka King of Beasts was the leader of the "Serizawa Army" and formerly the strongest senior student at Suzuran All Boys High. He is from the manga Crows by Hiroshi Takahashi.
(2) Man vs. Wild: Man vs. Wild, also called Born Survivor: Bear Grylls, Ultimate Survival, Survival Game, Real Survival Hero or colloquially as simply Bear Grylls in the United Kingdom, is a survival television series hosted by Bear Grylls on the Discovery Channel.
