Theo waited until it had its back turned to him, with sure movements and as quietly as he could he rushed the ape. He was nearly upon it when bad luck struck. Off to his side, he heard the tell-tale sign of a flower revealing itself. Theo turned his head just in time to see another of the large apes looking right at him. A flower sticking over its shoulder like some kind of cannon.

  It was larger than the other flowers he had seen so far, though its coloration was the same. It was faster too, it reared back and spit. Theo threw himself into a slide, panic surging.

  He turned to look at the first ape, seeing it was now focused on him as well, and the sound of its flower revealing itself filled the air. Heart pumping he pushed himself up. Fumbling with his spear as he swiped at the creature's leg with [strike].

  The blade of his spear cut cleanly through the front of the primate’s leg and it toppled to the side even while its hand reached out to grasp at him. The flower on its back barely missing him with a globule of goo. Its aim thrown off by the ape’s sudden shift in posture.

  He felt a wetness hit his back as the other flower took the opportunity to spit at him a second time. Theo hissed as he felt his skin start to sting, thankfully not as badly as the first time he had come into contact with the brown fluid. But distracting enough that the ape in front of him was able to grab a hold of his leg. He screamed as it squeezed. The flower on its back rearing to spit yet again.

  With animalistic fear and the desire to survive, Theo somehow managed to use [lesser body enhancement] to move his spear in a blur. [Striking] the flower clean through its middle.

  Immediately he felt the crushing pain on his leg lessen, but something was broken and his back was beginning to burn. Still, adrenaline numbing the pain, he enhanced his single good leg and kicked off the ground throwing himself forward and behind the now still first ape.

  The second ape, losing sight of him, quickly ran in his direction. As Theo tried to grab his spear. But he had forgotten it in his jump to cover, and the angle was bad. Quickly giving up on that idea, he forced himself to move, screaming again as he put weight on his injured leg.

  Grabbing the first branch his hand found, he scooped it up. It was long and unwieldy. But it was better than nothing as he threw himself to the side yet again to avoid a glob of flower spit from the approaching ape.

  Fight or flight kicked in and Theo yelled in rage, charging the ape. If he could just hit the flower he could avoid the slow lumber of the ape long enough to retrieve his spear or smash the flower to bits.

  The ape reached out its arms and tried to grab him. But using the length of the branch he swung over its head, clubbing the flower with a well timed [strike].

  It didn’t give him the rush of essence he had come to expect from killing them, so he knew it wasn’t dead. But the stalk must have torn as it seemed to hang limply off the ape's back, and the motor control of the monkey faltered just long enough for Theo to twist away from its grip.

  It was still moving, but erratically now and Theo hurriedly limped over to the first ape and retrieved his spear. Repeating the process for the first ape, he used the bladed edge of his knife to cripple its legs before he went around to its back to spear the hanging flower. It was spitting wildly as he approached. But Theo used the bulk of the monkey’s body to provide himself some cover as he delivered the finishing strike.

  Eyes wild he looked around for more threats. But he seemed safe for the moment. Ripping his shirt off he wiped his back as best as he could before retrieving his bag to better clean the gunk off of him.

  The pain in his leg flared to life as the adrenaline left him. He was panting and exhausted. Having used more of his mana over the course of a few moments than he had for his previous practice.

  ‘This is bad.’ He thought to himself as he finished throwing on the last of his spare shirts. He needed to find a place to rest. He could feel the toxins entering his body from his back. He was sure he had cleaned off everything on his skin. But some must have already sunken into him, and he had no idea what kind of effects it would have on him.

  The place he found to hide wasn’t as secure as he would like. But it would have to do. His face was flushed with fever and his body felt cold. The toxins had stopped seeping into him, but what had was wreaking havoc throughout him. The only place it seemed to not be was near the core of his body, where the most concentrated portion of his mana was.

  An idea came to him, and he rallied his unfocused mind to grab the mana inside of it. He pushed it into some of the toxin near the mana and felt a flash of relief when he saw that while it dwindled his energy, where the mana passed. The toxin was scrubbed free.

  With a goal in mind, he found himself focusing entirely on his task. Time passed in a feverish haze as he methodically cleansed himself. Finally expending nearly the last of his mana to remove the last traces from his back. He was still sick, but he now hopefully wouldn’t die.

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  He tried to keep his eyes open, but exhaustion claimed him once again and darkness took hold.

  Theo felt like he had the worst hangover in his life when he awoke. He had gone through the process of binding his leg to a straight sturdy branch, but with no clue how or even if he needed to set it properly he was out of luck.

  The monkey had grabbed him just above his ankle, the joint itself avoided the damage and the break instead happening just above it. It had made his leg swell up while turning a nasty looking purple, but as far as he knew it was as straight as it was going to get.

  With enough duct tape to trap a car, he managed to hold it well enough in place that he was able to at least walk on it. Though doing so caused jolts of pain to spike upwards from his leg. Running was out of the question.

  His back hadn’t fared much better, the plant’s attack causing it to blister and boil. He half expected it to start peeling soon. But if any of his previous burns back on earth were anything to go by that was at least a few days away at his best estimate. He was already dreading the itching that these kinds of injuries caused.

  To top even that off, his spear was wearing out rapidly. The blade of the knife was dulled to almost butterknife levels of sharpness, and the tape binding around it was loose and worn. Clearly rotting from where the various fluids the flowers leaked had corroded the material.

  He ended up having to break off the end of the broomstick he had used, which left him with what was effectively a short spear, but still lacking in quality. He had already decided to keep an eye out for a branch he could use, but so far all of them had been much weaker than the processed material that had transmigrated with him from Earth.

  He was still good on food for a few more days, but he was now beginning to worry about not finding anything edible after that. He was not willing to risk eating one of the animals the flowers had taken over, even if he could get past their rotten smell.

  The best he could do for now was to hole up and try and hope the swelling went down. But he wasn’t comfortable sleeping somewhere so open and was now stuck with the choice of traveling back towards one of his previous camping spots or finding a new one.

  Thankfully his mana had returned over the course of his abrupt nap, and he was able to reinforce his injured leg. It didn’t seem to make it better, but drastically increased the amount of weight he could put on it while walking. Turning an excruciatingly painful endeavor into something he could tolerate through clenched teeth.

  ‘Makes for good practice too…’ he lamented.

  Theo made the decision to try and find somewhere slightly better to recover as much as he could. He didn’t want to risk running into more creatures, but so long as he only found one of them at a time he could safely dispatch the flowers. Maybe get another tier up which might help with his leg and back.

  His leg throbbed with a constant ache and the constant use of [lesser body enhancement] was draining. He had nowhere near enough mana to use it for every step and had started to use his spear as a walking cane.

  He was moving perpendicular to his path towards the tree, unwilling to risk the increased monster density in his injured state.

  Time dragged on as he walked. He encountered more creatures, but none were in any shape to pose any real threat to him. He also gave up on harvesting cores for the moment. His bag was already heavy enough with the canned food inside of it and his injured leg protested with every movement.

  The shirt brushing on his burned back was irritating beyond belief. Theo could handle pain, not that he enjoyed it, but the constant irritation was almost unbearable.

  He tried using some of his ointment to cover it, hoping to prevent any infections. But the tube of medicine he had found was not burn cream, and did nothing for the pain.

  Theo thought he was hearing things at first, the dull blow of wind shifting to carry a low roar to his ears. Not the kind that left the throat of something living. But the sound of fast running water.

  He paused his steps and listened carefully. The wind shifted again and he could hear it so faintly he had to hold his breath just to be sure.

  Even the faint hope of running water filled Theo with vigor. He still smelled terrible from his purge, and soaking his leg would feel incredible. Hopefully reducing the swelling too.

  His pace picked up, following the sound that was carried on the wind it didn’t take long for him to grow close enough to follow the sound more directly. The dead trees had bounced the noise around, distorting the direction it came from making it seem further away from him than it had been.

  It was almost a surprise when he rounded one final tree stump and saw a wide shallow river, flowing so quickly that the rapids sent sprays of damp mist into the air.

  The river’s path mirrored Theo’s before his injury. The flow of water coming away from the living tree in the opposite direction Theo had been heading.

  He might have never discovered it. But Theo took the lucky find for what it was.

  Carefully Theo made sure there were no monsters lurking around before he approached the river. It took him a little while to find a location that was deep enough and still enough that he wasn’t fighting the current to stay up right before he shed his clothes and began to clean himself.

  It was awkward bathing with a spear in his hand. But he refused to let go of it. Unwilling to risk being caught unarmed in case something wandered up on him.

  The water was blessedly cool. Clean from the rapid movements it felt incredible on his leg and back.

  Using the sand from the bottom of the river, he scrubbed the gunk from his body and hair. He still smelled, but without soap to wash himself he would have to tolerate it.

  While he was bathing he noticed the small flashes of rainbow scales in the deeper parts of the river. Fish. He grinned.

  Theo had never been one for fishing, but the idea of hot food and clean water was such a relief that he almost thanked the ape for breaking his leg.

  Almost.