The Place Where Everything Begins

Chapter 58 - A Certain Stalker

'That's right. I have to find the exit. Then if the exit is really a door, it must be within a house or chamber somewhere within this dimensional space...'

'That simply means I have to find a big, or at least, a conspicuous place.'

Having thought of the likeliness of that plausibility, Jeremy chose another direction to walk in.

Soon, Jeremy disappeared into the whiteness of the winter forest...

...

Three hours later...

Jeremy had been walking without a single rest for almost six hours now.

He walked, walked, and walked nonstop.

Whenever he met lone wolves, he would kill them here and there.

As of now, he reasonably believed this place was a trial that its sole threat consisted of only wolves...

If Jeremy had to count so far, he had killed more than 15 wolves in the span of six hours of staying here.

Considering that he had avoided almost double that amount along the way, he had encountered more than 50 wolves already.

Furthermore, the distance Jeremy had walked till now didn't even reach 10 percent of the total yet. So, if he multiplied the number of wolves he met so far by 10, there would be more than 500 wolves living and roaming in this winter forest.

Then assumed half of those animals somehow came to gang up on Jeremy; there would be nothing left of him anymore.

That was if he didn't use any of his mana...

'Isn't this trial too hard for a single human? Anyone else might starve or freeze to death at this rate...'

Jeremy thought inwardly while shaking his head lightly at the thought of ordinary people taking on this so-called 'normal trial'.

It was akin to an impossible mission for other Earthlings...

However...

Was Jeremy ordinary in any way?

The answer was clear as day, as Jeremy was still walking leisurely while scribbling some marks on the trees along the way like all of this was just an everyday stroll in the park near his house back on Earth.

Regarding the temperature of 20 degrees Fahrenheit or -7 degrees Celsius, Jeremy only felt that it was somewhat cool, that's all.

As for the matter of starving to death, Jeremy had more than enough food to survive more than a month here easily. That's why it was also a no-go.

Thus, the only thing Jeremy had to beware of was actually the 'wolves' as written in the plural form...

As wolves usually lived in 'packs' with each pack led by at most two alpha wolves, one male and one female. Every pack also consisted of the stronger, but few in number beta wolves and the weakest, but many in number omega wolves.

As for the hierarchy, it was clear that alpha wolves stood at the highest point within the pack, followed by beta wolves whose strength and hierarchy were one rank below those of the alphas'. Lastly, the omega wolves were the submissive ones, behaving as obedient subordinates of the former two ranks.

Talking about the number, alpha wolves obviously had the fewest at one or two per pack, while beta wolves had a bit higher in number than the alpha wolves. For the weakest ones within each pack, the omega wolves, their number was usually of that the beta wolves multiplied by ten.

For that reason, if Jeremy decided to take down more than one wolf at a time, it may call forth its own 'pack', which included the alpha, beta, and omega wolves from somewhere nearby.

If that happened, the outcome would not be to anyone's liking at all...

'But why do I only see omega wolves thus far? Where are the beta and alpha wolves?'

While advancing within the snow-white forest, Jeremy could only think to himself puzzlingly.

'Hmm... Wait. Don't tell me that my thoughts are all wrong. Maybe I had overestimated the difficulty of this trial, as it might not be that hard after all.'

Having suddenly thought of that possibility, Jeremy pondered a bit more,

'If I assume there are no alpha and beta wolves in this forest, with only omega wolves scattering everywhere in a group of one to four wolves at most.'

'It means...'

'The wolves wouldn't be able to gather up more than twenty or thirty wolves at a time...'

With those thoughts in mind, Jeremy's eyes suddenly lit up with a crazy new idea,

'Let's try this then. At worst, I will just cast a tier 1 spell to escape.'

Right now, Jeremy had already added one more priority within the list, albeit it was the second most important one next to 'finding the exit'.

That priority was apparently... gathering more SP.

Then Jeremy advanced further to find some wolves as his experimental subjects. Following that, he continued his march on the snowy forest.

Some minutes later, Jeremy finally saw two wolves standing sneakily some ten meters away from him.

It seemed like those two winter wolves still didn't saw him as they were staring into another direction intently.

Right now, both wolves were eyeing a little deer that was eating dry twigs and grasses attentively.

Considering the unaware deer was showing its delicious-looking back towards the two white wolves, it should not be conscious of its predators' existence as of yet.

'Isn't this the quote, the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind?'

Well, it should be two mantises, to be exact, as there were two wolves. While the small deer was a cicada, Jeremy eventually became the oriole behind in the end...

While the two wolves sneaked to each flank of the still-ignorant deer, Jeremy was behaving like a bystander still, chose to stand there nonchalantly, not doing anything at all.

A few seconds later...

"Woolff!"

"Graaa.."

With the wolfing and growling sounds coming from the two white wolves now situating at the left and right flanks of the little deer, both wolves leaped forward simultaneously at a quick speed.

"!!"

Upon hearing those sounds coming from somewhere nearby, the little deer...