NOVEL NEXT Chapter 39: Abundant Energy
Zach looked at the stone crocodile's bloody corpse
"Huh. Would ya look at that?" Zach stood with his hands on his hips and admired Yanael and his classmates' handiwork. After the initial panic faded, the students managed to put some dents and cracks in the monster. Yanael had still done the most, but it wasn't as bad as it had been with the bronze-toothed ape.
Zach turned around after booping the crocodile's nose. He faced his classmates' stares. He raised his eyebrows in confusion and was about to question what was going on when he realized.
"Okay, there's no way you're blaming me for this. Anyone could have woken this bastard up."
"But you did it." Anerias stepped up and glared at Zach. Zach was beginning to wonder if Anerias had been hit with a paralyzing poison or something since he hadn't seen his facial muscles do any other moves.
"Now, that's just not fair or reasonable," protested Zach.
"You were walking behind everyone. If you hadn't woken it up, no one would have. That thing was trouble, Zach." Anerias continued blaming Zach, regardless of the latter's protests.
"That's—"
"You called yourself a misfortune magnet." Anerias crossed his arms and looked down his nose at Zach.
Zach sighed and slumped his shoulders.
"Fine. But what do you want me to do? I haven't seen any four-leaf clovers around."
"Oh, I have!" The student with green hair bent down and picked up a four-leaf clover, which he handed to Zach.
It withered as soon as Zach grabbed it.
Zach threw it away.
"That didn't happen."
His classmates exchanged glances, worriedly wondering what the fuck it was supposed to mean when Zach could make a symbol of luck wither just by touching it. But it was something they didn't want to think about, so they agreed with Zach.
Anerias relaxed his arms but didn't know what to do with them so he crossed them again.
"Just…Be careful, okay?" Anerias hung with his head in resignation. He wanted to blame Zach for the crocodile and maybe a couple of other things, too, while he was at it. But he had to admit that there wasn't much Zach could do when it was a matter of luck, or rather, a lack thereof.
Although the situation was still tense, it was better than before after Zach promised he would be careful and try not to bring disaster to the group. Once again, the students set out in search of the camp. They only had a few days left now.
However, Zach's attempts at reigning in his bad luck were futile. It was like he wasn't even trying.
The first monster after the stone crocodile was a large snake wrapped around a tree with perfect camouflage. It was asleep and completely unnoticed until Zach took a rest and put his hand against its eyelid.
It wasn't as fierce as the bronze-toothed ape, but it was more slippery and harder to kill than the stone crocodile since it slithered around and used the trees as cover, striking from its perfect cover.
Zach's Blessed Defense and Yanael's strength greatly helped the class defend against and bring the snake down.
The students made it almost an entire day after that before entering a different part of the forest where spiders as large as skulls swarmed them.
Several students passed out from fear. Zach was almost one of them. But the spiders that didn't die passed right by. It was like they weren't even attacking the students.
The students soon found out it wasn't far from the truth as they proceeded in the direction the spiders had come from.
There, they chanced upon another gigantic spider with legs disguised as tree trunks and a body that looked like the trees' canopies from below. It was as still as a mountain until Zach tried to climb one of its legs to get a higher perspective.
Maybe if they got up above the trees, they could find the camp.
Needless to say, they didn't find the camp, only a big spider with an appetite for smaller spiders and humans. It probably ate other things as well, but the students only saw the remains of smaller spiders on its legs as it tried to skewer them.
Almost as if Zach's misfortune thought they had a too-easy time with the spider because they just needed to chop its legs, it didn't take long before a herd of smaller monkeys with pouches for stones came hopping from branch to branch.
Unlike the spiders, they were cute, so no one passed out.
But the monkeys stopped being cute as soon as they started throwing the pebbles from their pouch at the students.
Reminded of Drupesch's lesson, the students went all out and left neither hair nor hide behind.
The students had several more encounters along the way with barely enough time to rest and eat their fills. As soon as they relaxed or felt like they could relax, Zach stumbled, bumbled, fumbled, or rumbled forth another dangerous monster, which, if they weren't careful, would take casualties or leave injuries.
It was a week of non-stop hell. It was to the point where the students didn't care or worry that they had missed the deadline to find the camp. All they wanted was safety and a comfy bed. That was all.
The food they got by butchering the monsters was more than delicious enough when paired with the flora they found nearby. The monster meat was also highly nutritious. So, despite feeling like shit, the students and their bodies were actually in a great state of abundant vitality.
That abundance of energy, however, wasn't a good thing. It happened more than once that people tried to take their anger, tiredness, and frustration out on Zach, the perceived cause of all the troubles they ran into without pause.
It had been nowhere near this bad before Zach joined.
The morning after he stayed the night with them, they ran into the most dangerous monster yet. And with every passing day that he stayed with them, the number of monsters attacking them only grew.
However, the slight possibility that it could be a coincidence kept anyone from asking Zach to leave.
After all, he and Yanael especially were the only reasons they were all still alive. That fact also made it difficult to leave Zach with more than a few angry words.
Zach was tired.