Is this really a Game?!
Chapter 70 Ironbark Woods

As they enter the forest they feel a sense of tranquility wash over them, they could hear the low rustling of the leaves, the chirping of birds, and the sound of insects in the forest, making them feel as if they entered a normal forest for a nice walk. The forest was beautiful, the trees grew tall, seemingly piercing the sky, bushes were everywhere, most of them filled with berries that were ripe.

The grass was swaying softly as the wind passed through it, cooling everyone down. The only odd thing about the whole sight was the trees, or to be more exact the tree barks. They were a weird grayish-brown color, and they had a metallic luster to them. Wolf came to a tree and tapped it with his sword, producing clanging sounds as if he was hitting metal.

[ + 7% defensive power, +7% resistance bonus from the present location. ]

Looking at the notification everyone exchanged glances, they weren't surprised to be honest, as soon as they found out the name of the forest they thought the monsters here could be more defense-oriented. So far the party has gone to 3 forests that had different specialties, the black forest was more stealth-oriented, with the shadows that were almost impossible to see at night or shadowy places, the wolves with the dark attribute, and the wood folk who could simply stand against a tree and look almost invisible. The blood forest was a more brutal place where the enemies were always in a bloody frenzy, and this forest, one that was seemingly peaceful, and was more defense-oriented, with till now, unknown enemies.

They try to climb the trees but find little success in that, the metallic texture of the tree bark made it incredibly smooth and hard to find a grip on, they would usually slide down after only climbing a bit. The trees were incredibly high, which was not a good thing for the party, they had to climb a full 5 meters before getting to the branches, and even higher if they wanted to travel from tree to tree, which made ambushing enemies harder.

There was another problem, and that was them not knowing what types of enemies they would face here, if any monsters were in the trees then the battle would be incredibly disadvantageous to them, as the branches left them with little space to dodge attacks, and slipping would have catastrophic results.

Thus, the party opted not to use their usual approach of using the high ground in this forest. They stuck to bushes, moving around carefully from one to another, always observing their surroundings and staying vigilant for any enemy encounters. They didn't forget to check above them either, the ambush by the shadows back in the dark forest made sure of that.

As they slowly made their way forward they were confused, they were in the forest for half an hour now and they were yet to encounter any enemies. The peace and tranquility of the forest slowly made them lose their vigilance, luckily Wolf was the first to notice that and reminded everyone of where they were.

"This forest is incredibly weird, not running into enemies till now definitely has something to do with it, the atmosphere and peacefulness of the forest is a trap, making us lower our guard and believe everything will be ok before it suddenly changes," Wolf tells everyone with a stern look, inside he was shaken, none of the forests before were like this, even the newbie forest had a bit of pressure that it would force upon the players, making them stay vigilant at all times.

A forest that was completely calm and made you relax completely while inside of it, for Wolf this was terrifying as even he almost fell inside the trap. Imagining the possible outcomes of them lowering their guard made him grim, it was completely possible that something like this would happen again, if any enemy was to strike and catch them off guard it would be disastrous.

"We have to try to not relax here, if an enemy was to attack while we are off guard we could die, remember, the monsters here range from level 20 to level 25, they will be much stronger than any we faced before, the bosses here are probably on the level of the white tiger back then." Wolf's reminder made everyone nod their heads seriously, even with their current strength they knew they wouldn't be able to defeat a monster of such a caliber, even a monster a bit weaker than it would be too much for them.

They all continued after that, the forest still hadn't changed, even after 30 more minutes, they were now inside for over an hour and nothing has happened so far, with their current speed they probably moved about 3km from the beginning of the forest. They knew that such a distance was a short one here though, they had seen the forest's size on the map, it was a bit bigger than all the previous ones put together.

"I don't think it's a good idea to continue like this guys, if we don't start moving faster soon we might not make it out of here before night comes, even though the captain said we would need 1 day of traveling to get to the town that was based on our average speed, he didn't factor in sneaking and fighting in it," Reign tells everyone as they sat down below a tree, all of them looked troubled by his words as they were now faced with two choices.

Continue being cautious and risk staying here at night, or move faster and risk running into monsters while not being prepared. None of the two choices were good, it was simply the question of choosing the lesser danger.

In the end everyone agreed that being here at night would be far too dangerous, after all, even the newbie forest changed a lot during night time, becoming a more dangerous place, a forest with higher-leveled enemies would be the same as hell for them.

They all pick up the pace and move, they weren't crouching and moving from one bush to another anymore, they were simply walking now, still staying a bit vigilant.

It wasn't until 10 minutes later that they finally came across an enemy, it was a bear, a giant gray freaking bear that was rubbing his back against a tree. They all started breathing much more quietly as they looked at it, the bear was standing on his two hind legs as he rubbed himself, his height in such a position was a huge 4 meters, his thick gray fur glistened in the sun as his rubbing produced loud noises to the surrounding area. Reign quickly used his Inspect skill to find more details about it.

[ Iron Fur Bear ]

Level: 24

Race: Bear

Strength: 5?

Agility:?

Endurance:?

Vitality:?

Willpower:?

Spirit:?

Seeing the bears status screen everyone got nervous, only a part of its strength stat was shown, and even that was enough to make them tense up, a strength stat of over 50 was huge, even more so when taking into account that the monsters here should be defense-oriented, which means his endurance and vitality should be higher, probably being over 60 points each.

The size of the monster together with his high level made everyone certain that they were not its match, slowly they move around it, giving it their best to get far away from the beast without being noticed.

Luckily the bear was more focused on rubbing his back against the tree and never even tried to look around, making it incredibly easy for them to slip away without alerting it.

As they move some 50 meters from the bear everyone lets out sighs of relief, their eyes not filled with uncertainty, what if the other enemies they come across have stats and a level similar to the bear, they probably wouldn't be able to even run away from them.

Steeling themselves they move forward, passing through thick shrubs and bushes in the forest while giving it their best to stay calm and vigilant. They came across 2 more beasts while they were moving, for some reason lady luck was on their side today and they managed to remain unnoticed through both encounters.

One of the beasts they came across was a fan favorite, in fact, it was a big ass wolf, something you can never have enough of in forests of course!

Similar to the bear the wolf was large and imposing, his fur being gray in color and shining at that similar metallic light. The other enemy they came across however was something new, something they had not seen till now. It was a pony ( no I'm joking there was no pony actually).

The second beast they came across was a huge deer, the deer stood at a whopping 3 meters, his whole body covered with muscles that showed his incredible strength. The antlers on top of his head were equally massive, having 50mm or 30/32 inch beams (quarter diameter), and has about a 30-inch outside spread.

The deer's antlers didn't look normal at all, the usual white color was not there, it was replaced by a gray color. The antlers looked like they were a work of a blacksmith, their size and shape incredibly and the metallic glint made them even more imposing, they knew that it would be bad news for them if they got hit by those.

The party was still safe however and slowly moved closer to the center of the forest, unknowingly heading towards the one place they were told not to go, the lake.

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