Author's Corner:
I am looking for your reviews, whether positive or negative.
Anyway, let's continue.
...
As if to remind me that what I was about to do was a sin, God seemed to have intervened to change the weather, and within a very short time, it became cloudy and then started pouring rain.
I had nothing to wear except the clothes on my back. Just a simple t-shirt and
ordinary pants.
Neither of them had any magical ability to keep out the rain. Well, this was hardly a situation for secretly following someone.
Hiding behind the trees, I watched what the man I had been observing for the last few hours was doing.
The man, with his sharp gaze combined with his unkempt beard and bald head, bent his neck and started looking around just as I was watching him. Since I was sure I was well hidden and that he wasn't a ninja, I continued watching him without feeling any tension.
I thought he was checking his surroundings to see if anyone was watching him so closely. He would probably reveal his true face eventually.
The man in his late forties suddenly started taking off his tattered clothes.
Contrary to my expectations, his body wasn't covered in tattoos. In fact, there wasn't even a large scar on his body.
Wondering why he was taking off his clothes, I hesitated to look, but then he quickly removed the clothes underneath and was completely naked.
As I hesitated to look, I saw him start to caress himself in the rain, like an ordinary man taking a bath.
Hmm...
Yes, he really is taking a bath.
"For God's sake!"
[Lilith: Hahahaha. Seriously, you should stop looking for a mountain bandit to ease your conscience and just grab the first person you come across. I don't really like this guy's appearance, but it's not a bad start. Go and claim that flesh garment, Eren. If it makes you feel better, all humans are evil. It's in their nature.]
"He's probably just a poor man bathing in the rain. No offense, Lilith, but I'm happy being human, and I'm not going to ruin that."
[Lilith: Oh, you will, darling. Just a matter of time.]
Could a man bathing in the pouring rain really be a bandit? I don't think so.
He's not carrying a weapon, nor is his body covered in scars from years of war. As if that weren't enough, the man is so thin you can see his bones.
The person I'm following is probably just a man. One of the poor ones.
Realizing I had no business here, I turned around without even trying to tread quietly and headed straight for the main road leading to the capital.
The first thing I need to do now is fill my empty stomach and get to the capital. If I come across a merchant or something, I can easily get to the capital, and it will be easier to find a whore's child to take care of there than it is here.
That's how I was thinking, but reality wasn't as cooperative as I'd hoped.
Walking back to the capital road had already taken an hour. Then, while walking along the road, I waited for a merchant to pass by, and that took almost two hours.
When the birdsong from the forest beside me was interrupted by the roar of a bear, I realized I could no longer resist my hunger.
Although I was no expert, like every person in this world, I knew how to build a fire using materials I found in nature. Combined with my knowledge of traps, the best thing to do was to set a few traps here and wait for the merchants to pass by without moving.
I started gathering branches from the trees along the roadside to set traps, but I knew I couldn't set a trap using only branches.
At worst, I needed some kind of plant that I could use as rope.
After thinking for a while, the only solution that came to mind was to look for rope and try to find a bird's nest. If I was lucky, I could find a few eggs and wouldn't have to go to too much trouble to hunt.
With this in mind, I entered the forest and began to move forward carefully.
I was carefully watching every branch of the trees, trying not to miss anything, while also trying to find a type of plant that could serve as rope.
After walking for a while, I couldn't find either of the two things I was looking for, so I changed my route slightly to avoid straying too far and continued searching as I turned back, and I came across something very good.
A thin wire placed between two trees, barely visible.
The only reason for this to be in such a place was that it must be a ninja trap.
The trap was positioned almost six meters above the ground. After looking at it for a while, I saw that the trap specifically targeted ninjas jumping from branch to branch. If a ninja tried to advance by jumping from branch to branch, they would probably get caught in this trap because the branches of the surrounding trees had been pruned abnormally.
When I climbed the tree and checked the trap, I saw that it had been set up a long time ago and there was nothing at the ends of the wires.
Considering how sharp the wires were, they were probably coated in poison.
And as far as I could tell, the trap had been set up very recently. Because the poison was still dripping onto the ground.
This doesn't seem like a good sign...
"What's up?"