Sean had fallen unconscious many times in the span of two days, his body was not in the best condition, his clothes were tattered and he was covered in dried blood. If anyone saw him now, they could assume he had gone through hell. But Sean wasn't in the least bit exhausted in fact he had gone through things much, much worse in the past.
Sean woke up. This time his memories were a little hazy, he didn't remember how he had become unconscious but he remembered his meeting with the statue.
"I can't die. Huh... will to live?"
Sean muttered as he stood up.
"Sorry, don't feel any...."
Sean observed his surroundings. He was next to the pit he had fallen in, the peculiar tree with berries was still standing, and the giants surrounding it were screaming for attention. The statue had probably sent him up here before dying. Looking down into the pit, he found no statue perhaps the talk about dying was akin to disappearing.
Taking a step back, Sean took a deep breath.
Time to end this shit.
Sean was done with his side adventure, it was now time to end it. His life.
Just as Sean was about to jump, he felt a force, a force that stopped him from jumping. It took him a second to realize the unknown force was not external, it was his own... fear.
'Wha...!?'
Sean was not afraid of heights, and he had already attempted suicide twice, so such fear was unreasonable.
Just as Sean was considering why he felt this way, someone's words dawned on him.
"Th—The Lady of Wishes...!"
He finally understood the reason, the statue had cursed(blessed) him with the will to live.
"No way."
There was no mistaking it. Sean internally felt a will which itself had created a fear of death he didn't have before he met the statue.
The feeling felt like his own and not at the same time.
Sean felt like screaming, his face was one of absolute horror. He looked back down into the pit, sweat clearly forming on his forehead from a feeling called fear.
Sean made a last ditch effort and ran straight toward the forest, thinking some beast might spot him and end his life.
'I—I can still do this, this place is certain death, I just need a beast to spot me.'
But it was all for naught, as soon as he thought something lurking there might threaten his life, fear caught his legs and stopped him.
Sean fell to his knees, realizing what had been done to him.
"Shit."
But the will was not finished Sean still knew he was in danger just standing there.
His will made him go toward the only safe place he knew, earth.
"Sh—Shit, no, I don't want to go back!"
Sean was extremely hesitant yet still moving toward the rift that had sent him here. For the first time in his life, he cursed his sense of direction for being so good he was easily able to navigate back to the rift. Just as he saw the rift from afar, floating in the air in a huge clearing surrounded by trees, Sean realized there was hardly any way for him to jump high enough to pass through it.
This realization gave him both relief and fear, causing him to sigh at his fate and curse the Lady of Wishes.
But Sean saw something else, two beasts of the same kind he had encountered in the past couple of days, and they stared right into his soul. Fear crawled into his mind the only way to survive was to run toward the rift and somehow get into it.
No thought of giving in came to his mind because of his forced will, as if the universe was commanding him to struggle until the end.
With a quick movement, Sean sprinted toward the rift, observing the beasts and his surroundings for a way to get high enough to go through it. As if in response to his movement, the beasts also started to run toward him.
Their speed was inhuman, but Sean realized something peculiar instead of running straight at him, they were moving in a circle toward his direction, as if avoiding something. At first Sean reasoned they might be trying to corner him from both sides, but he quickly dismissed the thought their speed was over ten times his.
Sean was running full speed toward the rift, still thinking of how he would get inside and completely ignoring the part of him that wanted to die. The beasts roared at him, which made Sean falter a little, but he kept running. As to why they were circling the huge field from both sides, the only conclusion Sean could come up with was that they were avoiding the rift.
Whenever rifts appeared, monsters poured out of them not just because rifts appear in places swarming with monsters, but because these cracks draw creatures toward them. But this rift was different, there were few signs of monsters nearby in fact, very scarce.
'Perhaps this is why there are no monsters, because instead of drawing them, it repels them!'
Sean was finally under the rift, and the beasts were circling him. If the distance between him and the beasts had originally been equal to the rift, he certainly would not have been able to reach beneath it but fortunately, they were much farther from the rift than he had been at the start.
Being a few steps away from death, Sean felt a strange refreshment his forced will wasn't pushing him forward even though it still blocked him from taking any more steps. The beasts were roaring at him while he considered his options.
Sean knew the rift would not always protect him. Then he heard another roar from the forest, and then another, and another, and another...
"How did we... end up here...?"
Sean was laughing at his luck, because now four additional beasts were running toward him or so he thought until he realized their attention was not on him but on the two beasts circling him.
Sean quickly glanced at the beasts that had been surrounding him just seconds ago their attention was now drawn to the new arrivals.
While wolves are normally known for howling, these wolf like monsters were roaring with a deeper voice than any animal on Earth.
The parties showed aggression to opposite sides by roaring and baring fangs as Sean watched, bewildered.
Something snapped in Sean's head.
'If they're having a dispute, this... this really might work in my favour...'
The four beasts were now facing the two circling Sean, their backs toward him.