CHAPTER 13 - 13: THE DAILY STRUGGLES OF A RAT 2

Core region 

A body washed up on the shore of the lake, Vice was still alive but barely breathing. He was unconscious for a while.

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"AAGH!" he tried to move but he failed miserably, his fur was burned with his skin when he looked at one of his limbs he was disgusted the skin seemed as if it could be peeled off with little effort, everytime he breathed he was in pain.

'I need to move' he didn't have the time to waste resting at the shore he needed to move before any predictors could find him.

"Aagh" he moved his eyes looking for shade any shade he finally found it [Shadow hop] he appeared in the shade he was looking at he did bother to see what the shadow belonged to, it would cause too much pain to check.

He looked for next shadow, he needed to get far from the lake before any predictors came for water, the process continued until he was under the shadow of rocks sitting on top of each other, when he felt safe he went to sleep

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It been 3 weeks since he was hiding in the shade of the rocks and so far the experience has be horrible

When he got hungry he had to eat the meat in his storage in the first few day it wasn't that bad but then the smell could not be ignored, the taste could not described

And then he had to move every muscle in his body, it always seemed that his own body was fight against him this was painful but he always tried to move as much as possible in a day so he could regain his mobility.

His skin could no longer grow fur this made most of his nights unbearable as he had to go to sleep shivering.

He was no longer an ugly rat now he was an ugly bald rat

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"Those fucking wolves are dead and why did that snake run?" Vice was still fuming about how he almost dead he was even blaming the snake for not following his script all he wanted now was blood and he wouldn't leave this forest without having it.

"I need figure out where is this place before I get revenge" Vice for the first time was now leaving his stone shade

The part of the forest he was in seemed to have a life of its own everything was green he could find a single dead plant.

He wanted to climb a tree but he was seeing multiple flying beast so he stayed on the ground.

Vice's body was currently dehydrated he's been drinking blood as a substitute for water and was a horrible so now he was heading to the lake.

After a while the lake was in sight but it had a guest

"That's a pantig" Vice looked at the beast drinking water it was a hybrid of a tiger and a black panther, although it didn't have any elemental ability it was the strongest beast he had seen so far

"That's C-Rank beast, where on earth am I?" Vice was confident that he was on earth he simply did know where.

"The Association would never allow any monster stronger that D-Rank to roam around in a forest where people could come" although Vice hated the Association they alway did their best to remove any risk to humanity so seeing C-Rank monster roam around raised a lot of questions.

The pantig left seeing this Vice ran to the water as fast as he can "yes finally some water" the taste of water brought a little relief to his troubled life.

As Vice drank the water he felt as if he was in danger but he had already looked in all directions especially the sky and he could see nothing

'Shit I must be losing my mind' as he thought this an open mouth suddenly appear in front of him he did have time to move so he looked for anything.

His eyes landed on the creature shadow it was a risky gamble but it was better than certain death he the vanished from the creature open mouth to its shadow as its body flew to where he once stood.

"Thud..thud."

The creature body violently hit the ground and rolled, it was now visible it had the body similar to crocodile it was 20 foot 3 inchs long.

Vice stood frozen as he watched it's massive body

It got up looked at him then turned invisible he could only see its footsteps on the ground getting closer to him at a speed he couldn't dodge.

"Thud.. roar thud"

The pantig then suddenly landed on the invisible crocodile creature he simply stood there as he watched the pantig bit through the creature thick skin

The creature tried to fight but failed it seemed that the pantig was well prepared it died in a few seconds and then the pantig rose from the creatures maimed body and looked at Vice

"Good job, see you next week" it spoke it didn't wait for Vice to respond it just ate in front of him.

'It used me as bait' Vice thought then he ran to the tree's he didn't need to respond to the pantig he understood what it wanted from him.

'Fuck I'm it's bait' Vice thought as he ran past the trees to his rocks. He was demoted from snake employee to pantig bait.

'Fuck if i run it'll hunt me down like those wolves but this time...' the thought made him tremble as he ran to his stones

Vice understood that he'll die the next time he faced that creature and if he wanted to survive he needed to increase his stats fast, he only had one week.

"Huff huff huff" he finally stopped running but he was still scared no terrified

"What the fuck I'm I going to hunt the weakest beast in the core region is peak E-Rank I'm barely a fucking F-Rank" he was now fuming about his situation.

After he was done fuming he cried his life was only getting worse and he needed anything to relieve the stress and at this time crying was the only thing he could do.

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"Sniff"

He was now done with crying, he got out his shade to see the sun set but then he saw flying beast he got a thought that put a smile on his face.