ART Of Survival - Chapter 16

“Who are you?” Gan asked

“I…I am a Morpher” It was impossible for Mal to show any elemental power, so he decided to go with the morphers, ‘I only have my body and nothing else.’ he lamented inside.

“Ha Ha! See I told you he is a Morpher! Now that there is one extra guy with us, We will be going first.” The person from before said excitedly.

Gan nodded and moved to face the elementalists again, “as you can see, this brother here is a Morpher, so excuse us we have some monsters to kill.” Gan said with an indifferent expression as he turned around signaling his companions including Mal to follow him.

“Phew! That was close” Mal wiped the sweat off his head as silently followed the group inside the forest.

“I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Gan I am Lv 8, I am assigned by the Morpher’s guild to guide these kids to level up efficiently and my morphing creature is that of Kraken, the mythical monster of the sea! Gan introduced himself proudly. After introducing himself Gan gestured towards Mal to introduce himself.

‘What the fuck am I supposed to say now? I am the great Lv Nil Morpher with the ability to paint your desires -_-?’ Mal thought for a moment before speaking, “My name is Alex and I am Lv2, and my morphing creature is…”

Everyone looked towards Mal curiously, as all of them wanted to know about Mal’s morphing creature.

“My morphing creature is Bambi!” Mal closed his eyes declared loudly.

Not hearing any reply or something, Mal slowly opened his to see everyone looking at him weirdly. “Um…is something the matter?” Mal asked nervously.

“It’s just, we don’t know what Bambi is…is that a rare monster?” Gan asked Mal with expectant eyes.

“Yeah something like that,” Mal nodded awkwardly, secretly he was relieved that no one here knew about Bambi deer. [Auth:- You guys can search it on the net if you don’t know.]

After a moment of hesitation, Mal said, “I came here to fight the monsters alone, so if you guys please excuse me and also thank you for bringing me with you guys.” Mal was not lying and also he was a bit skeptical about this group of morphers. ‘It would be better for me to stay away from other people’ Mal thought.

“Wait a minute friend!” A voice called out to him as he turned away, it was Gan. “Yes?” Mal replied in a startled voice.

“Let’s exchange our contacts, whenever you are in a difficult situation with the elementalists or even other morphers, you can call me,” Gan said with a smile on his face.

“Okay,” with a moment of hesitation, Mal agreed and both of them exchanged their contact info.

“I shall take my leave.” Mal bowed and started walking in a different direction. “Did you do it?” Gan asked a boy with a small frame. “Yes,” he answered.

“Good!” Gan looked in the direction Mal went and a sharp glint flashed in his eyes. “A Lv 2 noob with a trash morphing monster, wearing top-class magic armor, and the ether weapon? interesting, well it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day all of that will be mine!” Gan said with an evil smile on his face.

Mal thought that they didn’t know about Bambi but he was wrong. As Gan knew about Bambi. His little sister used to love the weak little deer.

“A dear wants to be the king of the jungle pfft? In front of the true monster, it is fated to die.” Gan smirked as he started moving in the opposite direction to Mal, for now at least.

“Thank god I was able to ditch them, otherwise things would have gone the wrong way for me.” Mal sighed as he started looking for monsters around the area. “I at the least want to Level up once before leaving this damned forest.” Mal had made his mind to level up at least once. The most difficult thing about this dream of his was killing monsters and leveling up by using his ‘Can Paint’ ability.

Previously, he had decided that he will fight to gain experience in fighting with monsters, but as the second condition to his ability got unlocked, Mal made some adjustments to his plan. “I will fulfill the third condition and Lv up at least once.”

Mal started wandering around the place, and finally, after 30 minutes he found his first monster. It was a rat, but because of evolving, it had become a foot tall and 2 meters wide man-eating monster, it had sharp teeth and red ruby-like glowing eyes.

“I can sell its eyes for some money.” Mal had read about this monster in the book he was reading in the morning, and he knew its weakness and strength.

The mouse also noticed Mal approaching it. Not sensing any danger coming from Mal it turned around to face Mal and growled, telling Mal to run away as it will not harm a weakling.

Mal sneered and he moved the spear with a thrust towards the mouse, but the mouse was easily able to dodge him because the attack of his didn’t had that much strength or speed. “Once again!” Mal said as he again aimed the spear to attack the mouse, but this time, things were a lot different because now unlike last time, the mouse was ready to attack and kill Mal.

*Sqeeek!* *Squeek* The mouse started squeaking loudly and rushed towards Mal with a very fast speed. “Shoot! I forgot these things are fast, to begin with…I should have fought some easier mob first!” Mal sighed as he again focused on the running mouse.

“Come at me!” Mal shouted wanting to taunt the mouse, *Squeek* *Squeek* the squeaking sound was getting louder and louder, the next moment Mal saw a big black shadow rushing finally rushing towards him with high speed from the right.

Mal wanted to move the spear and his body to the right to counter the mouse, but sadly this was all in his brain, because of his lack of training, his body wasn’t able to follow his brain’s command. Even if his brain was fast it wouldn’t have mattered as his body was not fast enough to match up to his brain.

“Shit!* with a dull thud, the mouse slammed Mal’s body sending him flying.

*Cough* *cough* *Huuup* Although he was wearing the magic armor it was not that helpful in this situation when Mal was sent flying. What Mal felt before was not the pain at the moment of contact with the mouse but, the impact he felt when his flying body touched the ground.

Although Mal was a bit shocked and was breathing heavily, he didn’t have that much time to relax as the mouse started running towards him again, and this time it was coming from the front.

*Fuck!* Mal cursed as he barely moved his body away with the help of the spear. which luckily made the mouse slam into the tree trunk which was behind Mal before he dodged. Taking advantage of the situation, Mal stood up and quickly swung the spear at the back of the mouse.

*Puchi* Blood splattered everywhere as the head of the mouse fell on the ground.

*Blerghh* Not being able to control himself, Mal vomited, after all, this was his first time killing something and also looking at the fallen head and the other parts of the brain made Mal uncomfortable and he puked.

He sat down on the ground, took a water bottle from his bag, and chugged it whole.

“Mom, Dad see I killed a living thing,” Mal started shaking as tears fell from his eyes. He remembered what his Dad used to say whenever he used to come home after crying or fighting with someone, but at that time he was too young to understand all of those things, but now his dad’s words were making sense.

“Even if you have a strong mind Mal, it wouldn’t be much of a help if you have a weak heart. You will truly become strong only when your heart along with your brain will be strong together. Having a strong brain will help you in making better decisions and a strong heart will help you differentiate between good and evil, and you would never hesitate in punishing the evil or doing what’s right at the situation you would be in.”

Mal calmed himself down a bit after remembering these words, he stood up and started cleaning the mouse of its valuables.

“After taking its eyes, Mal bowed as he said, I am sorry I know it’s not your fault but I have to do what is important at the moment and I cannot stop because of guilt. After all, this world follows the ‘survival of the fittest rule.” Mal said as he started walking deep inside the jungle with a true fire of determination in his eyes.