A Forgotten Hero - Volume 1 Chapter 9 Am I Lost?

Its been 10 days since Jack left the.’den village’.

He has been following the faint blue line from the stone, That Shana gave him, to find some treasure that will supposedly will help him.

Through the journey, as the day pass, he begins to lose hope of ever finding the damn place! He honestly did not expect that this “treasure” hunt will take him far longer then he stayed at the village!

While travelling, he faced some animals like wolves but they were dealt with rather quickly by Jack without much effort. To sustain his hunger he started a fire and started to cook the wolves meat, though they didn’t taste the best and were quite overcooked. He wishes that he asked for the village to cook him a whole banquet before he left. Such a wasted opportunity he thought.

Around day 6 of his “great” journey, he encountered a magic beast. It was a wolf that has risen over level 20. Magical beasts are normal animals that have managed to survive and kill others allowing them to naturally get stronger, once by this age’s term they get passed level 20 they are they seen as magic beasts that are far stronger then animals and people of the same level or two.

Though to Jack, he knew it was a magical beast just from the strong and dominant aura it gives off, making any normal person shiver in fear.

Sadly, it had to cross paths with Jack, as it saw Jack as food, Jack saw him as experience points AND food to make him stronger!

After 2 minutes the wolf died, its agility made it hard for Jack to aim his ice at, but eventually it messed up allowing him to freeze the wolf’s leg to the ground, giving him enough time to slay it. As what happened at ‘den village’ he absorbed the wolf’s essence through his eye automatically, making him feel a little stronger. Though after it was complete, Jack feels as if the essence he gained from the wolf can’t be all of it.

However he is unable to do anything about it as what he does naturally happens without his control. He decided to not eat the beasts meat as once he absorbed his essence, he felt energised and felt no need to eat.

After an hour of walking, he deeply regretted his decision of not eating the wolf since though he does feel energised, the no need for hunger only lasted for 30 minutes!

Day 8 of his “amazing” journey, Jack’s face becomes all puffy and red! The genius in him thought of touching some purple plant, he did not recognise, which released some yellow smoke right at his face!

This caused him to sneeze uncontrollably, resulting in him moving backwards and turning around face flat to a bush with small red spiky needles containing some poison that turned his face to be red and make it all puffy!

Feeling extreme pain from it, Jack cursed out loud. To make the matters better his sneezing still continued.

He tried to stop it but it only made it worse and he ended up sneezing out his ice mist energy, freezing the bush and plants that caused this while also freezing the tress and plant, a few feet around Jack.

His luck did not get any better as this caused at least 20 giant bees around 4ft to appear, all of them classed as magical creatures, to attack Jack. With the condition he was in, he tried to sprint the opposite direction off them, hoping to lose them. Though that was not an easy task as while running, Jack kept on sneezing uncontrollably which basically kept giving away his location to the damn bees!

He ran around the forest in different directions for the whole day while being chased by the bees…

Day 9, Jack has successfully lost the bees once the gas that caused his sneezing finally left his system. Though his face is still red and puffy as a tomato but not as bad as it was the previous day. Is this world basically telling me to destroy it? What kind of cruel game are you playing! Jack thought, while going back to the direction of the supposed path to the treasure. After yesterday experience, Jack made sure to not touch a single plant that he came across in this forest.

Finally day 10, his face fully restored to its full glory, in fact it became more smoother and looks healthier, though Jack wouldn’t realise since he doesn’t have a mirror.

Through the trees, Jack managed to actually locate the treasure room! It isn’t exactly grand or anything, all there is are stone stairs covered in moss and some cracked slate’s which is also covered in moss surrounding the staircase.

So this is it? A staircase leading underground? I thought this was meant to be a treasure room! Where is the ancient buildings or structure that surround the treasure! Or a guardian dog that won’t let you pass through the gate unless you beat it! Jack spoke out in a very disappointed tone.

Well maybe the interior is better then the exterior of this place, he thought in hope.

Jack proceeds to walk down the staircase and after awhile, once he got to the bottom the walls started to light up of a light blue colour. The walls were made of stones but these ones have some writing all over it. Luckily Jack is was able to read the language written over the walls. They were just enchantments for the wall that allowed it to be very sturdy, unable to be affected by nature which explains why they look brand new and to emit light once it senses a presence enter inside.

As Jack continued to walk down, he sees a lot of ash and bones around the area which confuses him as to what happened here before he arrived. Though he also felt lucky as he guessed at least some of these remains would have been things, he had to fight and by how a few of his days went, he was kind of glad to not run into something unknown to him.

The place was quite big, it didn’t have just a straight path. Every corridor he passes, new paths emerge. Though to Jack, it did not matter since he had a blue light guiding him.

Finally he arrived to a double door, without the creatures that used to be here and going to the shortest path, to get to this point it has taken him 2 hours!

There was some words on the top which to Jack said “Do not open without the key.”

Jack wandered if he missed a key somewhere but his stone started to glow without his help as if attracted towards the door.

A loud noise could be heard while the door started to open up.

Through it, was a small room filled with basically….nothing??? All there was in the room was a single chest with a hole at the place where there is meant to be a lock.

I walked for so LONG for this! Jack thought feeling quite sad about this.

He already guessed that he places the stone at the chest, which it then opened up! It revealed another dark blue stone, the size of a medium sized palm and It also had a dark blue ring. This chest really loves the colour blue he thought.

Before he could grab the contents, a blue light started to emit from the stone showing some words.

‘Dear great Hero, I have laid my treasures for you, for the day you would awaken. Around you should be gold to last you a lifetime! However there is a chance someone else found this place but without the key which only activates to you, if they enter then all of it will blow up! Worrying for that possibility, I made sure to store the more important items in the spacial ring. Now you place the other stone at your chest and it will implement itself inside of you, reading your power at real time and converting it into a level. Your probably wandering why I did not store the gold in the ring, well simply because I know you like treasure rooms to be surrounded in gold and artifacts to make it look more treasury. I hope the items I placed may help you and I am truly sorry for what has happened to you in the past.’

Jack was at a lost for words. What could he comment on first? The fact that this entire place was for him to find or this person didn’t mention his name or the fact that he lost so much gold because of his ideals!

Out of all of this, what shocked Jack, was that this person apologised to him for what happened to him. It made Jack kind of happy that maybe not everyone hated him, giving a small smile to his face.