A Mythical Journey To Remember - Chapter 3

Chapter 3 - Prowler

My heart pounded like a drum in my chest, but I remained calm as every instinct and thought in my mind acted to deal with the problem at hand.

Something was stalking around my house. Should I wake up my father or mother?

Whoever or whatever it was, it was probably too big to enter through the windows. But that didn't mean my parents were safe. So I went to their bedroom and nudged my father awake.

"Ugh," he groggily woke up and was about to say something, but I put my finger over my lips, the universal sign to stay quiet.

He looked around and frowned. I got close and whispered. "Something or someone is stalking around our house."

His eyes widened, but he stayed quiet and went to one of the rooms to grab his trusty hoe. He was on guard, eyeing the door and glancing at me occasionally. No doubt, he was scared too.

"Stay back," he whispered.

Despite the fear and anxiousness in his eyes, I was his son. Despite his usually harsh words, this man cared for his family.

"Two is better than one," I whispered, equipping the bow the hunter had lent me. Knocking back an arrow, I was ready for anything.

After a dozen seconds, he turned to me. "Are you sure you weren't dreaming?"

"Yes," I answered.

He nodded and asked no more. We both stayed at the front door, which was the only entrance an assailant could come from. Our windows were too small, and if anything small enough to crawl through the window went for my sleeping mother, we had a clear view of her from the living room so we would be able to go and help her. "Shouldn't we wake up mother?" I asked.

"Son, you know how she is. She would scream if there was even a rat. Imagine if it was some kind of beast. She would just give away our position and startle whoever is crawling around to attack us," he answered.

I somewhat agreed with him. Mother always got hysterical at the most minor things. But as we waited, it became more nerve-wracking with each passing second.

With a deafening boom, the door splintered into pieces as the massive, snarling beast tore through it, sending wooden shards flying in all directions. The moon's ethereal glow illuminated the creature's filthy coat, making it seem as if it were made of shadows and dust. Towering over everything in the room, it was a formidable beast, its razor-sharp fangs gleaming in the dim light, and its fur matted with dirt and grime. Its eyes, blazing with a savage, insatiable hunger, glinted with a cruel intelligence as it scanned the room. As the beast drew closer, its lupine features became more apparent, revealing a massive, hulking wolf, ready to pounce and attack.

I was frozen in fear, my body trembling at the sheer presence of the colossal beast before me. Its hulking mass was enough to make even ten armed men cower in terror. The creature let out a deafening roar and lunged towards us. I was too far away to be its target, but my father was directly in its path. With lightning-fast reflexes, the beast swung its razor-sharp claw toward my father, who bravely raised his hoe in defense.

The hoe connected with the beast's thick neck, causing it to recoil in pain, but not before its massive claw made contact with my father's arm, leaving a deep gash that dripped with crimson blood.

As the wolf lunged forward, its jaws gaping wide, I reacted on instinct and let my arrow fly. It struck true, piercing the beast's flesh and sending it yelping in agony. The creature spun around, its eyes blazing with newfound fury, and fixed its gaze on me. I could feel the weight of its rage bearing down on me like a physical force, and I knew that I had just made a deadly enemy.

Despite the danger, I managed to steady my shaking hands and knock back another arrow. My father stood by my side, gripping his hoe with one hand, ready for another round.

Before the wolf could attack again, I released my arrow. The wolf jumped back, the arrow punctured the floor, and my heart leaped!

The wolf charged again, but I was ready. I knocked back another arrow and let it go without hesitation. I didn't know if I had aimed correctly, but my eyes were fixed on the target. The wolf was almost upon me when the arrow pierced its eye, and it stumbled a few steps before collapsing to the ground and rolling a few times. Its lifeless body came to a stop at my feet.

Relief washed over me as I realized the beast was dead, but then I remembered that wolves usually travel in packs. There could be others around, and we needed to stay alert.

I stepped outside with my bow drawn, my heart pounding in my throat as adrenaline kept me from panicking. After checking around the house three times, I returned to find my father sitting on a chair, washing his injured arm with water from a jug.

His eyes showed fear, but he seemed more used to these situations than me. He had lived over three decades in this world and might have had similar encounters before.

"You did well, son," he said with a forced smile that tried to reassure me. "If it wasn't for you today, our family would be over."

As I gingerly lifted the edges of his torn and bloodstained clothing, the extent of his injuries slowly revealed themselves to me in the dim light of the moon. My heart sank as I surveyed the damage; jagged cuts and deep bruises crisscrossed his skin, leaving angry red marks in their wake. But the sight of his bone made my blood run cold, jutting out from a particularly deep gash. The bone itself appeared gnarled and broken, like an old tree struck by lightning, and it was clear that this injury was worse than anything I had ever seen before.

"Should we go see a healer?" I asked. My stomach churned, and I swallowed the vomit that was rising up my throat.

"No worries, we can go in the morning," he replied nonchalantly, as if his arm wasn't about to fall off. This guy was one tough motherfucker. It seemed even farmers in these times were badass.

"Remember, son. A man's duty is to protect his home. Even if you have to lay down your life, never let someone take something from you, or you'll live the rest of your life in misery," he advised.

I wasn't a body language expert, but I could tell my old man had some regrets. I decided not to bring up such memories. Some things were better left buried and taken to the grave.

"The wolf probably killed all the chickens. Can you go check on them?" he asked.

I nodded and went to the small wooden cottage behind our house with seven chickens. We always locked it with a plank of wood over the door at nighttime. Though the cottage was old, and the wood had started to rot a bit, it still stood strong and didn't seem broken.

I peered through one of the cracks and saw the chickens sleeping. When I returned to report this to my father, he sighed in relief and said, "That's good. We were lucky this time. Usually, animals like that eat the livestock first."

Chickens might not sound like a big deal, but they carried us through most winters with their eggs. If the winter was extra long, we could even kill one of them for meat.

Billy the goat was still snoring, unfazed by all the noise. That was when I looked toward my parents' bedroom and saw that my mother was no longer there.

My heart skipped a beat, and panic spread through my body.

Where is she?!

As she came out with a piece of cloth and wrapped it around my father's arm, I breathed a sigh of relief - she was awake. Though I wasn't sure if I considered these people my parents, I did care about them.

"We should get that arm checked at the healer," I told my father.

He snorted at my words. "What more is he going to do? The arm is already washed and wrapped up."

But washing a wound with river water wasn't the best method to clean it - animals and people defecated in that water, leaving all kinds of bacteria. Although I didn't know much about medicine or injuries like this, I knew the basics: a wound like this needed to be cleaned, bandaged, and stitched up.

My mother convinced my father to go to the healer and took him away. She seemed to suspect that if I tried to take him there, he would strong-arm me into not going and simply tell her that we had gone when we hadn't.

With them gone, I stared at the wolf's corpse and something dawned on me - I had killed a wolf!

Excitedly, I immediately opened my status page.

Class: N/A

Traits: [Transmigrator]

Level: 1 → 2

Strength: 0.8 [+]

Agility: 0.8 [+]

Constitution: 0.9 [+]

Spirit: 2 [+]

Luck: 2 [+]

Skills Page ≫

Yes! I finally leveled up!

I held back my excitement as I stared at the screen. Having read enough isekai novels, I knew that saving my status points would be the best course of action. After all, these points could be used in a state of emergency, and once I had raised my stats naturally, I could put the points in for even greater benefits.

Luck: 2 → 3

Did it just get randomly allocated? There was a time limit during which I had to use my stats, or they would have been allocated randomly! At least now I know. Though I’m unsure whether Luck was the stat I would have chosen to increase.

Physically, I was still not fully developed. Since 1 was the average human adult, I still had some way to go and some training to achieve that number. Also, what did the Spirit stat even do? So, it was safe to assume that Luck, in this case, was the best stat for now. Luckily, it was allocated to that stat.

The sun shone over the horizon, waking me up after only a couple of hours of sleep. I was tired as hell, and maybe I would have gotten more sleep if it wasn't for the little goat guy repeatedly charging at my leg head-first.

I got up and hugged the little guy as he struggled in my grasp, but I didn't let him go. Eventually, he got tired and lay beside me, and we both slept.

The next time I opened my eyes, my mother and father were returning. My father had a haunted look on his face, while my mother looked worried.

"What happened? Is everything okay?" I asked.

My father looked at me, and the worry slipped from his face. "Yes, my arm just seems like I won't be able to use it for a while. Today we will skip work and start again tomorrow."

"We-" Mother was about to say something, but my father grasped her hand, which was enough of a signal for her to stop whatever she was about to say.

My father's injured arm was wrapped in white cloth, and there was no bleeding around it. But it was as clear as day that they were hiding something from me.