We greeted with bright sunlight after coming out of the cave, I have to shield my eyes for a while to let them adjust to the light. "We will follow your plan of the searching outskirt of the forest, it is the very good and safe plan," she said, when I told her about my plan searching the only outskirt of the forest, she accepted without any objection. "It will be very, with you here," I said, I really meat it when I said it. In the outskirt of the forest, there are only private and specialist grade monsters and she is being at the peak of specialist grade, very few specialist grades could harm her. Even if we come across Corporal grade monster, I will have a minute chance of survival because of her, that is what I am most happy about. "Ashlyn, don’t eat unknown fruits!" I admonished Ashlyn, this palm-size chubby monster really glutton, this is her third time today eating unknown things. She never listened to me, especially when it comes to food, it hadn’t been more than two hours since she ate lunch and she is still eating hungrily. I heard many people got poisoned or dead by eating unknown in the forest but I don’t want something happened to her, there no hospitals here nor did I have anti-poison potions, she will be in quite a dire state if she as something poisonous. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢 ’’Chew chew!" She chirped in defiance and ate another berry while looking at me. "haha! This little birdy of yours is quite a glutton," said Rhea as she laughs seeing Ashlyn antics. "Yeah, she loves to eat!" I said even rheas panda monster who is quite big is not as glutton as Ashlyn as stone pandas are known to be gluttonous. We talked as we were walking, I come to know many things about rhea, she one and a half year older than me and also come from a small town like me. I notice some sadness as she talked about her home town, I think she also misses it. She said that she reaches a peak of specialist grade one year ago and trying to level up Corporal grade many times but failed. I felt sad hearing this because of my condition worst than her, Ashlyn is only had class 2 strain, forget about the corporal grade, even leveling up to Specialist grade will be difficult for me. The only solace I have that Ashlyn is mutated grey spark sparrow and despite her being having class 2 strain but being mutated will help level up quicker than her peers. As we were walking, we saw something that stopped us on our track. I didn’t think we will discover the dead person before alive one. It looks too male from what left. it was already eaten by the monsters, all that left of the body was little flesh and broken bones, it was quite a gruesome scene to see. I shuddered to see this scene, I didn’t think I will find dead before finding someone alive, especially at the outskirts, as long as one is little careful, one can stay alive at outskirt despite being at Private grade. Either he must have not careful enough or has the bad luck to come across a powerful monster. Seeing the condition of Armor he wearing, it is probably a Corporal grade monster that had killed him because only corporal grade monster could damage Grade 1 artifact this much. looking at corps, it seems to be day old and was killed quite brutally seeing broken and splintered bones here and there. Covering my clothes, I picked out shoes near the body, thank god the shoes were not attached to the body or I wouldn’t have emoved even if they were Grade 1 shoe type artifact. Seeing faint teeth marks on them, some monster must remove them to chew and left them here after having it’s fun. I stored them at my backpack, I currently can operate more than two Grade 1 artifact, I will only able to activate them when I reached the Specialist Grade. When I looked at Rhea, I saw her rummaging the dusty backpack. The backpacks look fine except for some dirt on it. Throwing out useless things, she wore a backpack on her shoulders, without wasting any time we left the scene silently after burning the body. If I was back in westblood, I would have definitely buried the bodies but here I don’t have the luxury to do that. We didn’t judge each other taking things from the dead body because we need them, even if I didn’t need it, I still would have taken it to sell it later. We walked in comfortable silence without talking, both of us not is mood talk after seeing the body. Seeing that body made me realize the cold hard reality of this realm, being in outskirts doesn’t mean you won’t come across any Corporal level monster. Every step has to be cautious, lest you get noticed by the dangerous monster, we change our course a little after seeing the body, we were little inside the forest when we were traveling but now we were walking in the boundary of wasteland and forest for the safety. Ashlyn also controlled herself seeing our mood, she still flew way and ate unknown things but this time she stayed within my vision range. Hours passed by soon it is afternoon but we did not see the shadow of the person. We expected this, the area of this realm is very large, not seeing the single person normal but still, I hoped that we will come across some person but that didn’t happen. Soon the passed and next come but that was also without any result. After dinner Rhea and I studying the map, "This small lake here it is nearly outside of the forest, it is a best possible spot for any large group to gather, it has water and monsters they can hunt for food." Rhea said. What she said right, it is the closest spot where large people could gather, ’’What you said right but it would take us four to five days to reach there." I said. We discuss it some more before deciding to walk toward the small lake from tomorrow.