The worst part about this climb wasn't the sheer height I had to go, the problem was just how slippery it was with all the water condensing on top of it. I wasn't afraid of falling.
Well no that was a lie I was absolutely terrified of falling but I knew it wouldn't kill me. Hell it wouldn't even be painful since my brain would turn to paste long before it could begin to feel the pain. Despite the fact I logically knew I wasn't actually in any mortal danger, my mind refused to listen to logic.
I dreaded looking down and each rock I clung to was wet. Most of my time climbing felt like it was spent seeing which rock would actually allow me to climb.
I wondered how long it would take for me to get to the top.
'Guess I'll have to wait and see.'
---
"It took less time than I thought" I said to myself while sitting on the cliff edge.
It took almost an entire day in Earth's timescale but here the sun hadn't even set yet. The sun had been up by the time I began, evidenced by the fact when I woke up all the way at the bottom I could actually see anything at all and it was still up now.
The sun wasn't even setting yet either though it was going to relatively soon. The river was easy to find and my clothes were sitting there just as I had left them.
I even had some meat with me, though most of it wasn't intact and had shards of bone inside. I was going to need to fish out all the bone fragments from the meat which would take a while but once that was done I could cook and eat it.
I would have loved to cook and eat it down below but all the wood was just simply too wet to do something like that and I didn't even have a good way to start a fire anyway. No mana system within my body certainly made survival significantly harder.
I was incredibly filthy after all that climbing but the stream of water was still there, waiting to be utilised. This time however I was much more cautious about my surroundings.
After I was done I let myself dry off and put on my clothes before walking back over to my hammock. All I wanted at this point was to just lay down for a few hours and decompress but it would take some time to get over there.
Before I set off I dropped the knife sheath attached to my belt. The knife I had down there was mostly missing. It had broken and while I could find the tip of the blade I couldn't find the handle.
Even if I had gotten the handle I don't have any way to repair it so I decided to ascend the cliff without it.
'Now the only weapon I have is a gun which I can't even use.' A few moments later a thought occurred to me. 'Wait I might actually be able to use it.'
I wasn't able to charge the thing, sure but if it had been charged before and hadn't been shot yet then maybe, just maybe it had enough charge for a single shot within. That would have been nice to remember during my fight with the creature but that was all in the past now.
As time passed however it irritated me more and more.
'I could have gotten the whole animal for meat, kept my knife and not have had to do the whole climb.'
I continued to walk with the irritation eating at me.
---
'Any second now.'
I didn't know exactly where I had set up my hammock but I knew it would be visible so long as I continued.
It was nice to have clothes back on, the clothes I had on were tight fitting and very high quality. It made me feel much more safe and confident in my ability to take damage. I knew it wouldn't matter anyway, physical injuries didn't mean anything but this was a matter of feelings not logic.
In the distance I saw it, my hammock still among the trees, no different than last time I saw it.
"Ah its good to be ba-" I quickly became quiet.
There were two beings right below my hammock, looking as if they were searching for clues about me. They looked somewhat human but their skin was ashy grey and they had horns pointing up above their head coming out from around where their ears should be.
The demon lord looked somewhat human but these two looked almost exactly like human women minus the horns and grey skin.
I ducked behind a bush in line of sight and retracted my will from the surrounding area, afraid they would be able to sense it somehow.
In the brief moment where my will had been close enough to touch their mana I felt power like nothing I had ever felt before. Even the demon lord themself was nothing compared to these two.
'What the fuck? Why do I have these absolute monsters after me?'
I didn't know if they would be sensible people I could talk to but considering how everything I had met from this place wanted to kill me my hopes weren't exactly high.
I needed to hide, that was obvious. Long ago Laura had explained to me how to use her technique but I was so bad at it back then I actually had made myself even easier to find by making my mana even weirder in its movement.
I didn't really have a chance but to do it properly right now. I could run away sure but I had no idea how long they would stay here for, if they would track me down nor if I would be lucky enough to be able to get my hammock while getting past them.
I needed my hammock and running away only presented more unknown possibilities so even if it was potentially more dangerous to stay here to observe I decided that was what I was going to do.
One seemed to have climbed up to investigate my hammock and began to climb inside but flailed around in there. It reminded me of the first time I tried one, I suspected they have never used one before. The other one was still on the ground looking for trails to lead them to me.
Weirdly they hadn't said a single word to each other, it remained silent the entire time. Not that I would be close enough to hear them anyway but it was definitely interesting.
'Now that I think about it I don't think I've heard any creatures here make noises intentionally, there was never the sound of birds or crickets, the creature I had just fought only made breathing sounds but never any growls and these two didn't seem to speak either.
It hadn't occurred to me until now but the moment the idea came into my head I knew it was almost certainly true.
'They don't speak through the air, they speak through mana.'
It was obvious, we had never heard the demons speak on earth and nothing here did either it seemed.
'That's also why their horns are coming out of their ears. They don't have ears, their horns likely detect mana in a very similar way so what would be the point of evolving ears which also probably means they speak though mana in some way and that's why I can't hear them speaking.'
It was weird though, the demons who invaded earth definitely had ears but thinking back on it the demon lord didn't have ears either. I wondered if it was only powerful demons which didn't have them.
'No its probably got to do with intelligence, sensing with mana requires an immense amount of brain power. Much more so the further you wanted to sense around you.'
Already my mind was poking holes in that logic but it was the only explanation I could come up with.
The human-like demon searching on the ground paused for a moment then turned to the one still trying to figure out about the hammock. The one on the ground then proceeded to continuously tilt their head into various directions. A moment later they stopped while their horns were pointing vaguely at me, then their head snapped up.
We were making eye contact.
'Shit.'
Seems my gamble didn't pay off, I'm sure my stealth was somewhat successful. At least it didn't make me get detected easier I knew but it seems it wasn't good enough. I didn't hesitate for even a second and sprinted away, pushing my legs harder than I ever had before.
I had called the beast I fought incredibly fast but both of them launched after me at speeds which were just simply ridiculous. In just a couple seconds one had caught up to me, the other one was further behind because it had to jump out of the hammock but they ran at such horrifying speed that it hardly mattered how far it was behind.
The first one didn't seem all that hostile to me, they ran beside me and simply watched me for a few seconds with a slightly confused expression on their face.
I swung my arm trying to strike them. I had a deep hatred for these monsters after all, their kind had wiped out my entire species. However that didn't mean it was a good idea to try swinging at them.
They dodged my swing without even trying right before tripping me over and letting me tumble on the ground for a few seconds.
The other demon had caught up by that point and they were both standing over me now. They didn't seem offended by the fact I had attacked them, only looking confused with what I thought was a little pity on their face.
Seeing them this close only made the comparison to humans even weirder. They were indistinguishable from a human if you disregarded the horns and grey skin. Their horns came out from a bit further back into their heads than where their ears should be but they in fact did not have ears.
Their lips moved as if they were speaking to each other but strangely no sound left their mouths. I had begun using my soul sense once again to see if I could potentially sense what was happening but nothing came of it.
They both turned and acted as if they were speaking to me. I couldn't even hear that they were saying anything, let alone understand what it was.
"Hello, I'm Apollo. Please don't try to kill me. It won't work but it will definitely be painful for me."
The first demon looked confused and turned to the other demon. The second demon seemed to realise something; it looked as if they explained it to the other one. The first demon then seemed to understand.
The first demon then turned to me...
She then swung her hand through my skull.