Origin Seeker

Chapter 3: Forest

*Scratch!* *Scratch!*

When the sound of sharp objects grinding against rocks filtered into his ears, Dream's eyes shot open. 

When he brought up his head and looked to the entrance to his fox hole that was blocked off by rocks, he saw that it was still night out. Despite that though, there was something outside that was attempting to claw through the entrance. 

*Click*

Grabbing the pistol that was holstered on his hip, Dream flicked off the safety and pointed it to the rocks. He didn't want to use the rifle as that might blow his ears out if he fired it inside the hole. If he fired with the pistol, it would be a bit more manageable.

While he couldn't see what was outside and trying to get inside, he had his guesses. It was probably a wolf. Those things were nocturnal after all. 

'Let's just hope it doesn't insist on getting inside. I don't wanna go deaf yet. Actually... Savant.'

[Listening...]

Savant responded to Dream's call.

'Get me some earplugs.'

[Understood.]

The next moment, earplugs appeared on his chest. After putting them on, while he couldn't hear as well, it would at least protect his ears.

With that, Dream just continued to aim the pistol at the entrance. However, even after a minute or so, the animal outside just kept on clawing. 

With that persistence, the rocks finally tumbled, and a big gap was opened up. The animal outside, which was indeed a wolf, stuck its snout through the gap and laid eyes on Dream.

*Growl!*

With a clearly hostile snarl, the wolf lunged its head in farther and tried to bite Dream's foot. Before it could though, he fired straight at its face.

*Bang!*

*Thud*

<You have killed a level 14 [Forest Wolf]>

<You have gained Experience!>

<You have leveled up!>

The bullet tore straight through its head and killed it instantly, prompting its lifeless body to collapse. Dream's heart pounded nervously as the rest of the rocks fell down, leaving his fox hole wide open. 

"Shit."

Dream cursed, but he didn't move from his spot. He also disregarded the notifications.

'If there's one, there's 10 more. The rest are probably gonna come investigate. I can't go out though. That's a sure fire way to get hunted.'

With that logic, Dream decided to just stay put. He could shoot all he wanted from where he was at. And they would all have to come to him. He didn't need to worry about getting surrounded. 

And sure enough, after waiting for a minute, more wolves started to come over. With Dream's enhanced senses, he could feel their light paws on the ground around him. He also took out one of the earplugs so as to hear their advance through the bushes. 

'At least 6. And that's just the ones in the vicinity.'

Dream's heart beat faster as he could feel the looming threat. Soon, some wolves started approaching their dead friend. Upon seeing the corpse, a couple started to howl while the others investigated the fox hole. 

Another wolf bent down and poked its head through the entrance. It quickly met Dream's eyes and snarled immediately after.

*Bang!*

<You have killed a level 13 [Forest Wolf]>

Just like last time, Dream put a hole in its head. All the other wolves spun around and watched yet another one of their kin collapse dead. 

*Howl!*

A few wolves started to howl to the moon, and as if it were a command, all of them ran over to the fox hole. The entrance was totally surrounded.

Two of the wolves grabbed their dead kin and pulled them away. The other looked down into the hole, but as with the wolves before them, they were only met with bullets.

*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*

Dream fired a few rounds at the wolves peeking in. Two of them immediately died while a third was hit in the chest. All of them collapsed on the floor, and the wolves around them jumped a bit in surprise. 

Seeing that, the wolves finally started to get the hint and no longer approached the hole. They just growled toward it while keeping an eye out for anything that might come out of it. 

However, Dream didn't have any thoughts of leaving. Over time, more wolves showed up, and leaving now would be suicide. He didn't even plan o sticking his head out. He just kept his eye on the entrance and shot anything that came. 

One consolation though was that the bodies stacked up near the entrance and blocked it pretty well. With that, Dream was a little less paranoid and settled down. 

'This is gonna be a long night. Savant, how much longer until sunrise? I'm pretty sure this world runs off the same day-night cycle as Earth.'

[There are aproximately 5 hours and 24 minutes until sunrise.]

'Sigh, alright then. Just gotta stay awake until they go away. Then I need to get out of this area. I'm probably in their territory.'

Saying that, Dream propped himself up a bit and got comfortable. It was gonna be a long night.

...........

.......

6 hours later, Dream was poking his head out of the fox hole. 

Throughout the night, the wolves had constantly stalked his area, not leaving him alone for a second. Thankfully they could never get to him, and any that tried to get inside the hole was met with a bullet to the face. 

Eventually, they backed off after dragging their dead kin away. For the past two hours, Dream hadn't heard anything, but he still didn't dare to poke out his head. He waited until morning to do that.

And after poking out his head, he found that there were no wolves that lunged to attack him. After crawling out with his rifle in hand and scanning the place, he still didn't see anything and relaxed. 

Actually, he had never been that nervous anyway. After the first hour or two, he had gotten used to things and just laid back, even dozing off occasionally. While he wasn't any less vigilant, he at least wasn't paranoid. He trusted his senses that were naturally on guard. 

Despite that though, come morning, Dream decided to get away from the area quickly. No matter what, he wasn't gonna stay at that location a second night, and getting out of the wolf territory he was in was for the best. 

So after eating and taking care of himself, he packed up everything in his big military backpack that he summoned and trudged off once more. 

As he walked, Dream decided to continue summoning items that would help him in the long run. As he decided previously, he summoned out a heavy caliber rifle. 

This rifle was a 50 caliber, and just summoning the gun sucked up all his mana. It was worth it though. The rifle was long, but not too bulky. It was designed as a rifle-sniper hybrid. You could carry it and fire it like a normal rifle, but it still performed like a sniper at long ranges. 

After he summoned that sniper, he waited a few hours for his mana to regenerate before summoning the magazines, bullets, and a digital scope. The scope was another attachment that almost required his entire mana pool. It relied on a high powered camera and could act as both a short range and long range scope. It also had thermal and night vision capabilities, making it a truly all rounded scope. 

With that, Dream now had a pistol, a rifle, and a heavy sniper. The sniper was hooked up to his backpack for easy carrying while the rifle was held in his arms. His pistol was holstered on his hip as well. The whole getup made him look more like a soldier going to war than a man hiking through the woods. It also looked very heavy. 

Dream didn't mind anything though. The weight was surprisingly negligible to him. While it would make running difficult, hiking was easy. It was definitely due to the new magical boost he was given. If this was on Earth, he would be having a much harder time. He marveled at the wild quality of life improvement here. 

"Do all people on this planet have this kind of strength and stamina? Things must be easy here."

He shook his head as he thought about how different Earth would be if this magic system were there. He couldn't even imagine the upheaval. 

For the next several hours, Dream continually hiked through the woods. The sounds of rustling bushes and crumbling leaves underfoot quickly got old. The only thing that kept Dream occupied was constantly giving orders to Savant, the tasks of which quickly grew in complexity. 

He also planned out what to do and summon in the future. He couldn't carry many things, but since he also didn't need to stock up on things like food either, he could survive rather easily. The most dangerous part was sleeping at night, but even that was relatively safe with his fox hole method. 

Just for quality of life though, he decided to summon small things like hiking shoes, a hat, and some pants. These things helped traverse the forest while protecting him from annoying things like poking branches and little bugs. Apparently ants also existed on this world, and he had problems with them crawling all over him multiple times while eating. 

There was one thing though that really bothered him in all this though, and that was the dirtiness. Dream didn't have anywhere to bathe, and after not cleaning for a couple of days, he was sweaty, sticky, and dirty all over. While he could wipe himself down with water bottles and a cloth, he wanted to find a water source where he could properly wash. 

However, even after all the hiking he had done, he still hadn't found anything. No civilization, no streams, rivers, or lakes. Just endless forest.

He did find some animals though. Occasionally he would run into a small rodent. One rodent he saw looked like a cross between a squirrel and a rabbit. He also saw an animal that looked like a lemur. Then there was the single horned deer that he saw. He almost mistook that for a unicorn, leading to a short bout of disappointment. 

But that was only interesting for a bit. It still didn't solve the main problem he had, which was finding civilization. 

"If I don't find anything within a month, I'll consider building a cabin and settling down."

This was the plan that Dream had. If walking in one direction for an entire month didn't get him anywhere, then he would try and find a single spot to set up a proper house. Preferably by a lake or stream of course. 

So with that in mind, he just kept walking in a single direction while using savant to continuously map his surroundings.

...........

3 days pass...

During this time, Dream had never stopped his hiking. His schedule consisted of sleeping in a fox hole, eating, hiking, more eating, digging fox holes, and sleeping. 

Those two nights were also not at all peaceful. The first night, he had been met with even more wolves. These ones were also around level 20, and his pistol started losing effectiveness. Body shots wouldn't do much, and while headshots still worked, after examining one of his kills, he found that the bullet barely got through the skulls. One time, the bullet was actually stopped.

That particular scenario made for a scary surprise. A wolf survived his headshot, and just when he had thought it was dead, it went and lunged into his hole again. Only after firing 5 more shots did he relax. From then on, he vowed never to stop until he saw the kill notification. 

As for the second night, nothing much actually happened. He slept soundly for once. but during the day, he was surprised to see that there were lots of boars roaming around. Apparently he had entered another territory, and he discovered that the hard way. 

That day consisted of running from 3 foot tall wild boars leveling around level 20. For them, he used his rifle as the pistol couldn't pierce through them no matter where he shot. Thankfully, the rifle always made quick work of them. Plus it was automatic, so whenever he came across small packs of 5 or 6, he could quickly kill all of them off. Like this, he never got gored by their menacing tusks. 

And since they weren't nocturnal, he didn't have to worry about them at night. He slept soundly once more, and the third day consisted of hunting more boars. 

After all that hunting, Dream had actually made decent gains when it came to his levels. This was his status:

|Profile|

Name: Dream 

Species: Human Male

Titles: [Origin Seeker]

Class: (unassigned)

Level: 17

Stats: Strength- F-      Agility- F

           Stamina- F-       Magic- F

Passive Skills: [Visualization] Lvl. 19, [Savant]Lvl. 24, [Copycat] Lvl. 1, [Awareness] Lvl. 15

Active Skills: [Summons From Another World]

His own level had gone up quite a bit from killing all the high level boars, and all of his skills had gone up several levels, with Savant having leveled up the most. His Agility also went up a level to F. When it did, he could notice his speed increase. It wasn't just speed though, but his reactions. Somehow, it sped up his brain's ability to think and send signals. It was definitely a surprise, and Dream spent a while getting used to it. 

All was well though, and the third day passed smoothly with no injuries. This led him to the 4th day. That day consisted of hunting more boars and hiking, as usual. However, this was also the day that Dream finally discovered a water source!

"Water!"

Dream's ears perked up as he heard the sounds of running water. Although they were faint, he definitely heard it. 

Turning and running, Dream headed straight to where he heard the water. And sure enough, after running for a bit, he found a stream!

"Hahaha! Yes! Water! The sweet flowing juices of mother earth! Oh, I am so taking a bath!"

Getting excited for the first time in a while, Dream threw down all his stuff and started stripping. After going fully nude, he summoned out some soap and set his guns down by the edge of the water for quick access just in case an animal came by. 

With that, he quickly ran into the stream. The stream was only 5 feet deep at its lowest, so it made a very good spot for washing. After diving around, Dream got himself wet and lathered up with soap. 

As he washed, he also looked into the water. It was surprisingly clear, and he could see some fish swimming with the water. In general, the stream and everything around it was very beautiful. The running water, the wind blowing the leaves, the bright sun, the colorful fish. Everything painted a serene picture, and Dream found himself getting lost in the relaxation as he cleaned for the first time in nearly a week. 

"Sigh, I always loved nature, and despite it trying to kill me all the time, nothing can beat these experiences."

Dream spoke as he trudged out of the water, fully cleaned. After summoning a towel and drying off, he looked to his previously injured leg. 

He had obviously taken care of his leg. Every morning he would clean it and rebandage it. However, as the days went on, he found that it was healing exceptionally fast. By now, he only had big scabs. And while they were already leaving some ugly scars, it was healing fine, and that's what mattered. He didn't mind scars anyway. He had plenty from his days back on Earth. 

Now, he could operate perfectly fine. It would still hurt if it got hit, but that was normal. It didn't hinder him anymore. 

After getting dressed with some freshly summoned clothes, Dream sat around on a rock near the stream and enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere. He was already thinking about sticking around this place.