Five days had passed since Grub left the Lacert settlement, and the passage of time felt both slow and meaningless as he continued forward through the wilderness. His boots pressed steadily into the uneven forest floor while his eyes occasionally dropped to the map in his hand, though by now he hardly needed it. The route had been burned into his mind through repetition alone, yet he still checked it out of habit and out of discipline.
From what the Colonel had told him, he was close now—two more days at most, assuming nothing interrupted him. The journey itself had been widely uneventful, almost disappointingly so, especially when compared to everything he had already endured. A few wild creatures had crossed his path along the way, but none of them posed any real threat. He dealt with them quickly and efficiently, taking what little Death they offered before moving on without a second thought. Compared to the grub, the bone creature, or the Leviathan, these encounters barely registered. They were easy, forgettable, and beneath him at this point.
Despite that, something about the past five days had still worn on him, though not in the way one might expect. His body could handle the strain well enough, even with the lingering injuries he carried, but his mind had not been afforded the same relief. His thoughts constantly circled back to the same problem, over and over again, refusing to settle.
That damned bracelet. It sat on his wrist like a constant reminder of his situation, its obsidian surface dull but oppressive, the intricate runes carved into it seeming almost alive when he focused on them too long. He had spent every spare moment of these past five days trying to understand it, testing it in every way he could think of, pushing at its limits with careful precision. Each attempt, no matter how subtle or controlled, resulted in the same outcome. A sharp, immediate shock surged through his arm, stopping him instantly and reminding him of the consequences of pushing too far.
At first, the pain had been enough to make him recoil without hesitation, but as the days passed, something unsettling began to happen. He started getting used to it. The shocks had not weakened in the slightest, nor had they become any less unpleasant, yet his body adapted, his reactions dulling just enough for him to continue testing without the same level of hesitation. After realizing this Grub realized it was annoying him in a way he didn't expect. Becoming accustomed to something like this felt dangerous, as if he were slowly accepting it rather than resisting it, and that was something he refused to do. The bracelet was a problem, not a constant to live with, and he would find a way around it eventually. He just didn't understand it yet, and that gap in understanding was the only thing holding him back.
Its no problem, I will crack this code eventually…..
Grub's attention shifted briefly as a dull ache flared through his body, pulling him out of his thoughts and reminding him of something else he had been deliberately ignoring. The injuries he carried had not fully healed, no matter how much time had passed. His ribs still ached with every deeper breath, a constant, nagging pain that never fully went away, a lingering reminder of The Leviathan and just how close he had come to dying. A thought went through Grub's mind for a second, if it wasn't for Wrighty I would be dead. Grub scoffed, he knew he owed Wrighty a debt he hadn't payed yet.
Grub moved on from the situation, he would figure it out later. The burn from the grub had mostly healed, leaving behind tight, sensitive skin that no longer interfered with his movement. The cut along his neck from the bear had closed as well, reduced to a faint line that would likely remain for a long time. The damage from Yu and Cordylus had faded into little more than memory. The spear wound, however, was different. That injury had not healed properly, and he could feel it every time he moved a certain way, a deeper, sharper pain that pulsed in time with his ribs, as if the two had decided to work together to irritate him at every opportunity.
Grub did not slow down because of it, nor did he allow it to affect his pace in any noticeable way. Pain had long since become something he treated as irrelevant, something to acknowledge but not dwell on. As long as his body continued to function, as long as he could keep moving forward, it did not matter how much it hurt. Because to Grub, he would achieve his goal no matter what. The idea of dying before learning himself, it was something he would never allow to be. Even so, as he walked through the forest, his thoughts drifted somewhere he did not expect them to go. The Ridge and his—friends?—managed to work their way into his mind yet again. It was not a clear memory, not something he could properly picture, but the feeling was there all the same. A place behind him rather than ahead, a place that, for a time, had made more sense than where he stood now.
He dismissed the thought almost immediately though, his jaw tightening slightly as he pushed it away. Going back was not an option, not for any reason. The bracelet alone ensured that much, the constant threat of death hanging over him if he deviated too far from the path he had been given. Beyond that, the idea of turning back simply did not align with who he was. Running away, retreating from a situation because it was inconvenient or dangerous, that was not something he would allow himself to do. That was not a good strategy nor was it a way for survival. It was weakness, and Grub had no intention of becoming that.
A quiet exhale left him as another thought slipped through his mind, one he didn't bother stopping this time. This entire situation felt like a waste. Five days of travel, five days of effort, and yet he had made no real progress toward what actually mattered. He still had no answers. No understanding of who he was, where he had come from, or why any of this had happened to him. Instead, he had been dragged into another situation, forced into another role, sent on another path that did nothing but delay him further. It was frustrating, more than he cared to admit, but frustration alone would not change anything.
It did not matter how inefficient this was or how much time it cost him. He was still moving forward, and as long as he continued to do that, there was still a chance he would find what he was looking for. Giving up was not an option, and neither was stopping halfway. He would see this through, gather whatever information he could from this village, and use it to his advantage. Even this could become useful if he approached it correctly.
His mind shifted again, this time more controlled as he reviewed everything that had happened since the beginning. The fall into the ocean, the chaos that followed, the Leviathan, the Ridge, the Lacerts, every fight, every decision, every death like Chop and Knell. None of it felt distant. None of it felt unreal. Each moment remained clear in his mind. It wasn't quite emotional weight holding him down. Rather, he saw it as information, as pieces of a larger puzzle he had yet to solve. Every experience had shaped where he stood now, whether he liked it or not.
Grub let out a slow breath as he lifted his gaze forward, his expression settling back into something calm, something focused. Whatever came next, whether it led him closer to answers or deeper into problems, he would deal with it the same way he always had. By moving forward and figuring it out as he went.