Bab 9: Wild Wood Village
The process was easier and faster than the last time, taking less time to find the connection with the blood essence of the elk to absorb it.
'It gets quicker and easier each time, it's getting to the point where it almost feels natural as strange as that sounds. I didn't expect for it to feel this natural this fast. Interesting.'
I looked at the desiccated corpse of the elk thinking it would be hard to believe that this elk gave me so much trouble if someone didn't see it for themselves. Even I was finding it hard to believe that the elk was still able to put up such a fight after taking so many arrows, much less having the will to. I looked into the top right corner of my vision to see the notifications from absorbing the Blood Essence of the elk.
'Blood Essence of Lvl 1 Unranked Elk absorbed
10 Ethereal absorbed
50% to form completion'
'No wonder that thing was so hard to kill, it was a whole level above me. Though if the Ethereal requirements to level up for creatures are similar to what the system shows for me I need to figure out a more efficient method of absorbing the creatures Ethereal cores.'
I looked over to where Isabell and Ren were when the fight started but they were no longer there. I looked further down the road and I could see them struggling down the road not to far away which I attributed to Ren leaning most of his weight on Isabell, his large frame weighing down her petite one. I went to remove my arrows from the elk like I had done with the hawk and the wolf, which had come out so easily after absorbing their Blood Essence it wasn't even worth mentioning, but this time was different. The arrow that had gone into its neck had snapped when the elk collapsed and the two that went into the front of its chest by its legs were lodged in its ribs and weren't coming out. I was able to remove the one from the back of its chest but that left me with just nine arrows in my current quiver, of course I still had the full one in my back pack. I quickly went over and slung it over my shoulders grunting a bit from the pain in my ribs at the motion. I tried to jog to catch up with Isabell and Ren, but in the end due to the pain in my ribs and the added weight of the backpack with the injury I settled for as brisk a walk as I could. They hadn't made it very far down the road due to the fight not taking very long and their slow pace so I was able to catch up to them about a quarter mile down the road from where I fought the elk.
"Hey Ren, how're you feelin'?" I asked as I pulled his right arm around my shoulders to take the weight off of Isabell.
Ren looked over at me and attempted a smile that was more of a grimace, "Hey Connor, I've been better but over all I'm alright."
Now that I was able to look at him up close it looked like the blood I saw earlier had come from a series of cuts and scrapes, a couple of them needed stitches but none of them were life threatening.
"I don't know, it seems like you got a free make over during that incident with the elk. It definitely couldn't have made you any uglier anyway," I replied.
Ren started to laugh which quickly turned into a groan "don't make me laugh asshole, it hurts to much."
"Fine, fine," I said. "What were you guys even doing out here anyway? And what did you do to piss that elk off?"
"I can take this one," Isabell replied. "We were coming to check on you and bring you to town and we didn't do anything, it just came out of nowhere and attacked us."
"Ok, that just leaves me with two more questions. First, why were you coming to get me and bring me into town? Second, why didn't you just drive out to my house instead of walking? Also, elk aren't really known for just attacking people. I mean, it happens sometimes during the rut, but even that is still really rare for them to come right out and attack travelers for absolutely no reason at all."
"Even with changes so massive there's no way to miss them you're still out of the loop living way out there in the middle of nowhere huh?"
"Hey, give the man a break, he did just save our asses after all," interrupted Ren.
"He knows I'm just teasing," Isabell said with a smirk. "Anyway, we were walking out there because none of the cars work. We would have called but you don't have a phone, and it wouldn't matter if you did 'cause those don't work either. When we figured that out we figured you were either running around fortifying your place or you were headed towards town and we would meet you part way anyway. I was being truthful about the elk also, we were just walking along the road and it came charging out of the woods to attack us. As for why we were coming to get you in the first place, well, you'll see."
"Way to be cryptic as to your reasoning for all this in the first place, and while the elks behavior is abnormal from previous standards for behavior but it does fit with the more aggressive and abnormal behavior I've seen in other animals after what the voice referred to as the Awakening. From what you said about the phones and cars, does that mean that all technology doesn't work anymore?"
At this point Ren jumped back in to the conversation, "Abnormal behavior in other animals?"
"That's a better conversation to get into a little later when Mick and Jenna can be there for it as well, what about the technology?"
"Oh, right," Ren said. "Some cars still work but it's only the older ones that don't use all the computers. From what we can tell all the purely mechanical type technology still works and some of the more rudimentary electric technology, like light bulbs and basic batteries, at least for now. Anything that's to complex electric wise, especially anything that runs off of computers, and anything that runs off of satellites or other signals that go through the air don't work, at least that we know of. We haven't had the opportunity to test things like short range radios or walkie talkies, but phones, satellite radio, regular car radio, even satellite phones are all down so we don't have a lot of hope. That's also why we're not sure if things like lightbulbs and batteries will continue to work forever. We hope that at least mechanical technology will continue working but we may be looking at some pretty rough times while the people smart enough to do so try to rebuild technology around these new particles that got introduced to Treth."
"Interesting, sounds like even more has changed than the world flipping upside down that I already knew about."
By this point Ren had recovered a decent amount and was pretty much walking on his own with just minor assistance to keep up a decent pace. About the time we finished our conversation we reached the edge of Wild Wood Village. It all looked the same with the small mom and pop shops and a couple of small restaurants on the main road and rustic, inviting, small town housing surrounding it. Nothing had changed since the last time I had been here, which wasn't surprising at all, except for one thing.
"Whoa, no wonder you guys came to get me."
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
OneWolfe
OneWolfe Hey Everyone! Please leave me a comment and/or a review to let me know what you think of the story so far, and don't forget to add it to your library so you don't miss out on any chapter updates the story has. I currently do my best to get three chapters out per week though depending on interest I may be able to increase update frequency in the future.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone