"STAY DOWN-"

*Crack*

"YOU DAMN-"

*Crack*

"ABOMINATION!"

With a final blow, I caved the gigantic wolf head, green ooze that I assume its 'blood' leaked between the cracks. I let out a huff of steam as the gigantic wooden wolf construct stumbled around before it fell to the side with a loud thud and the sickly greenish-yellow light, probably the veins, finally, finally, dimmed down. The fight has taken more time, and my patience, than what it suppose to be, even though the wolves are nothing more than wooden constructs they proved themselves as a quite formidable opponent.

Bob or Sarah really doesn't want me to find wherever the 'virtual gate' is and buffed up the security around it. I was expecting something like a 7 headed hydra or a dragon but not wooden wolves, they might have an advantage in quantity but they're incredibly weak, one or two punch to the head and they become a bundle of sticks.

What I'm not expecting was a group of wooden wolves that possess the ability to regenerate their injury unlike before, they also now able to combine into a larger version. Not only their size is twice bigger than before but it also amplifies their strength and the wooden skin density. In the 'second stage' alone they're able to cut down a tree with a single swipe.

When all of them combined, they became a gigantic wooden wolf, height as tall as the treeline and huge enough to make me like a gnat. Fortunately, this simulation also included something called 'physic' and 'common sense', while the gigantic wooden wolf has an advantage in strength and size it also has its own disadvantage, mainly its slow movement.

I, of course, exploited it excessively, moving as much as my little body can with the help of my gauntlet arm I modified so that it has a grappling hook function. There's a wee bit of problem though, I don't have enough material to make a cable, chain or rope to attach it to the hook so I made a makeshift rope from vines I managed to grab during the fight, barely strong enough to pull my weight, keyword barely.

It snapped every time I pull it too strong or when the wooden wolf jerked its head, so I need to use both of my arms/forehooves at the same time. I was planning to simply punch the living hell out of it with the help of gravity but it's fur, or more like it's hide, is incredibly thick for nothing more than a patch of grasses, its even strong enough to withstand a force enough to knock down a wall.

However, it wasn't strong enough to shrug it completely, every time I landed a hit it leaves a patch of dead grass and visible dent...before it disappeared in less than a minute.

So ridiculously tough and equally ridiculous regenerative ability? Forget wood construct, this thing is at least a C rank monster, at a minimum a full 4 person party seasoned Adventurer of the same rank would be required to deal with it.

I knew I should've to use fire since, y'know, they made out of freaking woods but with the possibility of starting a wild forest fire, thus raises the chance of being found and dragged back to that seizure-inducing village, I refrain myself and use only close quarters combat which is getting me nowhere, might as well pelting it with pebble.

Rather than hitting it on random places, I opted to just focused on a single place. I anchored on its head by embedded my now transformed spiked boots/legs to its snout and proceeded to machine-gun punch its temple. It didn't even have the time to throw me off, besides it kinda pointless the spike is at least 2 inches deep before its head caved in from getting hit multiple times by a rocket-propelled punch.

Its been more than an hour or two since the fight started, power core is overheating with how little I use it, my clothes are tattered, except for the jacket since it is enchanted with minor mending and strengthening rune, and I stand victorious on top of my oppone-

The body moved.

...

[Warning, you are in the vicinity of a forest, by using an incendiary device Gauntlet Flamethrower may cause a wildfire, do you still wish to continue? Y/N]]

I was about to select Y option but on second thought maybe it's not the best decision no matter how irritating it was to fight the same enemy over and over again. The thing I am fighting is basically a wooden construct so it basically falls in the category of non-living things, its just a bunch of grass, branch, and wood that clumps together and held with, I don't know, magic?

If that the case then there's no problem, magic is considered another form of energy and it is one of the things I cant absorb, once inside me any type or form of energy is going to disperse to who knows where.

The gigantic wooden wolf began to light up again so I have to act quickly, placing my right arm on its temple and give it a little flex, there's a slink noise coming from my arm. The wooden wolf jerked for a moment before sagging down, the green lights once again dimmed down.

I transformed the piece of metal I lodge in its head into a liquid state so I can slip between the cracks and goes for its brain. While I can't actually see it I can feel it is like a ball of moss, there's a connection attached on the back of it leading to the spine, feeding it a steady stream of energy.

I coated the ball of moss with liquid metal and cut off the connection, the moment I cut it the head crumbled down and I lost my footing, thankfully there's a pile of sharp pointy stick to land on.

'Ouch'

After absorbing the pile of wood I walked to the main course, the now headless wooden wolf is currently regenerating the missing part, I launch my left gauntlet right in where its core should be, still connected by a rope of vines, I turn it to a drill mid-flight and went straight to the glowing parts. Like the brain it's core has soft, moss-like surface but sturdy as wood oak. It was an odd thing to notice, most construct usually have a crystal-like core, be it artificial or harvested from magi beast, but then again this is virtual reality so most common sense gets thrown out the window.

Coating the core with the now liquefy drill bit, I absorb it and the whole body crumbled down just like its head then absorbed it too because I can never have enough material, though it would be nice if I can get my hands on some metal. I yank back my arm and reconnected it with a 'clank' to the rest of it, then I transform both the arm gauntlet and boot back to its 'original' shape, I still kept it metal in case there's another ambush waiting ahead.

With that done turn around and began walking again to the pinpointed location on the minimap.

I arrived on where the virtual gate is, or rather where it should be, the area sounding it is still the same when I first arrived, no unnatural things such as differently textured surface, codes seen by naked eye or distortion in the air, if I didn't know better I would think this is a whole 'nother world.

Running a scan on the surrounding area, the result I got is the same as any average forest, with a few [Unknown] for some weird glowing flowers and plants, no sign of strange things yet. I scan the area a couple more times with different types of scans: thermal scan, micro-magnetic scan, radiation scan heck I even with the microscopic scan I didn't get a single result I'm looking for.

The only scan that has different results is the magic detecting scan, it was a side project I was working on before the S.A.S got a magic user but was abandoned once the elf got recruited, it's only on the prototype stage but since then I never complete or use it.

Right in the middle of it, there's this small cone-like structure enough for a child to fit in made out of blue dots, the tip of it leading up above the foliage.

'Huh, seems like I was drooped in, no wonder it hurt like shit when I woke up,' I let out a sigh, raise up both my forehooves, unfolded a pair of claw at the tip of it and launch it at one of the sturdy looking high branch 'might as well see how high it is, can't believe they would go this far to keep me in here.'

Giving the vine rope a few tugs, making sure both the claw and rope is secured and strong enough, I pull up the rest of my body and climb trough the foliage. I kept my eye on the blue dots trail that goes up, up, and up, until it disappeared outside my scan distance.

'...You know what, fuck it, I'm tired of being here.'

As I start heating up my power core, I transport the metal on both hind hooves to my chest and back, next I get rid of my wings by converting them to biomass and replacing them with a pair of rocket engine, its a crude, smaller engine based on Stellar TitanTM's second-gen rocket engine so it wouldn't be enough to reach the outer atmosphere.

[Power core has reached the second stage. Alert, insufficient power outlet detected, imminent meltdown in T-minus 3 minutes.]

I ignore the warning and focused on forming a pair of arms and hands with thrusters on the palm, giving it a few bursts along with the engines for a safety check. Both are working as intended so it should be fine.

"Alright, power core check, engine check, thrusters check, what else...oh right the jacket, almost forgot about it."

I attach my skin to the inner part of it to make the jacket a second layer skin and made a whole for the engine to pop out.

[Warning, meltdown in T-minus 60 sec-]

"Yeah yeah whatever, now, time to blow this joint!" with that I blasted off to the sky, there's a bit of wind but isn't strong enough to knock me off course, activating the magic-vision, note to self think of a better name, I followed the blue dots trail.

Currently, I'm above 5000 feet and rapidly raising and still, there's no sign of the gate.

7000 feet, still nothing, don't tell me this thing is way above the atmosphere!

10000 feet, I forgot to cover my hind hooves and now I'm feeling numb down there because of the cold, speaking of cold my power core temperature core stop raising.

12000 feet, I started to stall and power core temperature is dropping, thrusters stop working because of the damn thing frozen, the engines barely have enough power to lift me up.

13000 feet, power core is at the negative temperature, both thrusters and engines are frozen, too cold to ignite them with biofuel, I'm starting to dip down and can see the space, turns out the 'planet' is smaller than earth so no wonder the air is pretty thin already, but the GOD DAMNED TRAIL STILL LEADING TO EMROY KNOWS WHERE!!!

And with that, I started to fall.

I thought this would be the same as the time I got deployed via space shuttle as a part of the 97th Shock Trooper Infantry Regiment but I was dead wrong, at that time I was dropped inside of a space capsule, a container designed to withhold high temperature as it enters the earth atmosphere and keep whatever inside it safe, now however I'm just free-falling without any safety equipment, no holo-shield, no heat-absorbing material on hand, or even a parachute.

Physic already know where this is going, gods already know where this is going, how in the hell did my brain not? Probably the lack of oxygen and said organ is only half of what it originally is.

Thankfully the thin layer of ice give me a few seconds before th-OH GOD IT BURNS! IT FUCKING BURNS! AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!

Author's Note

So...its been almost a year since the last chapter...

I have no excuse except for being lazy, and school, but mostly being lazy...

Anyway, keep an eye out for any typo and grammar errors and let me know what you think about this chapter so I can improvise my writing skills!

Erik, out.