The camp had been quiet for three days.
No ambushes in the dead of night, no scouting parties creeping along the treeline, not even the faint tremor of mana signatures testing the perimeter. Whatever that muscle-headed lord had decided after their little conversation, it apparently involved staying very far away from Atlas and his people.
Good. That was exactly the point.
Atlas drove his blade through the skull of a boar-like beast easily three times his height, twisted the weapon free, and stepped back as the corpse dissolved into motes of light.
[Level 197.]
Close. So close he could almost taste it.
Two months on this island, give or take a few days he'd honestly stopped counting. Two months of forest, monsters, dirt under his nails, and Kurogasa's voice occasionally correcting his footwork from somewhere behind a tree Atlas hadn't even known he was standing near.
He rolled his shoulder, feeling the ache settle in, and looked up at the canopy far overhead.
