As the rays of the sun gently warmed his unkempt face, Alwyn begrudgingly opened his eyes.
'It's already noon, huh?'
He had not been able to fall asleep, but time passed quickly and he now felt reinvigorated. His relaxing rest had lasted for about five hours.
He got up and yawned, taking a quick glimpse of the shovel from the corner of his eyes. Although its concave surface was filled with only a centimeter of uninviting brownish water, he immediately felt the urge of satiating his severe thirst.
So he got closer to his creation and anxiously disassembled it, removing the bag of dirt and feed first, and then the wooden planks that were sustaining it.
'Finally…'
He cautiously grabbed the shovel, closed his eyes, and started gulping down the dirty liquid, trying not to pay too much attention to the substance's flavour.
That, however, turned out to be useless.
Cough, cough.
"Damn, it's awful!"
The minerals contained in the lizard feed were too acid for his body, and caused his throat to feel itchy. Additionally, the impurities made it harder to swallow, as his mind was rejecting that substance with all its might, but he still managed to shove all of the salty liquid down his throat.
He wanted to puke, but he also knew that doing that would only cause a major loss of internal liquids, so he endured.
'Never again!'
He swore to himself, knowing damn well he would need to experience that awful sensation countless times in the next weeks of travel.
'Let's hope there's drinkable water in that forest…'
He now had to prepare for the trip to the Whispering Woods.
'Let's do an inventory check.'
Starting from his bloodsoaked clothes, the white linen shirt he was wearing was now dirty and full of dark red stains. Same went for the underwear and his originally long trousers, which had been torn to resemble short pants.
In his left pocket was the working compass, while in the other one the… rock.
Why did Lynn keep a rock with him? And why didn't Alwyn throw it away the day before? He tried to recall the memories of the old owner of that body, but to no avail. He couldn't grasp the origins of that black rock, it was as if one day it had magically materialized in his pocket. To be precise, on the day of his transmigration.
'Unless…'
Could it be that someone put it on him in between Lynn's death and Alwyn's awakening?
The reason, unfortunately, was still shrouded in mystery, so he put the rock back in his pocket.
The next item in his possession was the locket that he wore around the neck, the one with a mirror and a family picture. It was a memento of his parents.
Then he had a crudely assembled shovel with low durability, which he could use both to dig a shelter and to fend off against wild beasts of a smaller stature. However, against Revenants, it would break without a doubt. He needed to upgrade it to a better weapon, or to directly find another one. Unfortunately, at the moment, he had no available alternative.
The bag of lizard feed… had been emptied from the dirt and immediately put away, as Alwyn didn't want to remember the unpleasant experience he had just had.
'Let's move on.'
He could also dismantle the shelter and bring with him a couple wooden planks, so to use them to build other structures or, in case of necessity, they could even be wielded as a makeshift shield.
And finally, the torn rags. Alwyn took them and tied them all together with tight knots, creating a single rope of five meters, which he then used to keep three squared boards, the feed and, at last, the shovel, tightly held together.
After doing that, he used what remained of the rope to tie the equipment to his back, like a backpack, only this one was really impractical and uncomfortable for how rigid it was.
He was now ready to depart.
The journey was long, he had estimated it would take him four hours by foot and ten by… knee.
Now only the feet were left to regenerate, however Alwyn was still against the idea of walking with his legs. Since it was a relatively peaceful moment, he had to make the most of it. He had to finish healing as soon as possible, because if he found himself in a situation where he had to defend himself, he needed to be in perfect shape.
He had been lucky so far, not having encountered even a single Revenant during his most vulnerable moments, but his luck would eventually run out, especially once he reached the Whispering Woods.
It was common knowledge that the dark forest was dangerous, and now, with Revenants on the loose, it was even worse.
A bonafide death zone.
Even Reapers would only visit it when tasked by the Church. Who could blame them? Everyone was afraid of death.
Everyone but Alwyn.
Although he supposedly didn't have the Regression Skill anymore, he had lived for thousands of rounds, thousands of years, walking every time on the edge between life and death.
To him, fear was an outdated emotion.
So, with his knees, he took a step, and then another one, advancing in the direction of the cursed forest.
But after only a minute, his march suddenly came to a halt. While looking down at the terrain, he noticed chaotic footprints engraved in the hard soil. They belonged to four different people, probably running. They were not that old, as the soil would soften during the day, slowly erasing the traces of the creatures that stepped on it.
'They must be from yesterday… Do they belong to the Reapers?'
But something did not add up. Why were they running, didn't they move by carriage? And why four of them, wasn't there a fifth one?
So he looked around, in search of other clues, and eventually found them.
There were indeed tracks left by the carriage, and also the marks of the lizards' claws, but they went parallel with the human footprints.
Had one of them betrayed the other four and left them stranded? And more importantly, what was his objective? Where was he headed? And where were they now?
Looking closely, he also noticed a third parallel trail, this one human, almost identical to the first one.
And then he remembered about all the objects that the Reapers had left on the porters' carriage. The shovel, the feed, and probably other things that the wind took away. Those items had not been left there for no reason.
Alwyn gradually looked up, following the footprints, and when he saw where they pointed to, his face contorted into a sadic smile.
As Alwyn had regained his humanity back, his newly discovered desires burned fiercely in his heart. He didn't care whose emotions they were. Vengeance was right in front of him, inside the dark forest.
'Just wait for me. I'll kill you all.'