The weight was lighter than he’d imagined, and he let out a sigh of relief. He happily started walking in the direction of his shelter.

Back when he worked at a restaurant and used his boss’s gym for free, his working weight for squats was 120 kilograms, with a max of around 160.

It wasn’t that impressive, but carrying two 20-kilogram lambs plus a wooden pole should have been easy—it was almost the same as his warm-up weight before leg day.

But after just a few steps, he slowly began to feel that something was wrong.

Carrying a heavy load was far more tiring than he’d imagined. Even though the weight wasn’t enough to burden his legs, it was an extreme test of his core strength.

What’s more, the way back was uphill. Even though the slope wasn’t steep, it was enough to make the journey much more difficult.

After walking for only about five minutes, his entire body was drenched in sweat. His legs began to shake uncontrollably, and he was panting like a bellows, forced to stop and rest.

"Damn it... seventy or eighty... kilograms... shouldn’t be a big deal... never thought... carrying it... would be... so... tiring..."

"Looks like... I’ll have to... do more... farmer’s walks... in the future... *huff*..."

He continued on slowly, walking for five minutes and resting for five, like doing sets with rest intervals. Toward the end, it even became four minutes of walking and six minutes of rest, then three minutes of walking and ten minutes of rest.

By the time the sky had gone completely dark and the forest was pitch-black, he had only just made it back to the vicinity of his shelter, with about three or four hundred meters still to go.

"Can’t... go on..."

"Damn it... next time... I won’t... be so greedy..."

Before he could finish, a hair-raising howl echoed from behind him.

"AWOOOO~~~"

’Wolves!?’

’Shit, did the smell of blood attract a wolf pack?’

As the first howl faded, a second one immediately followed, and it was clearly closer than the last.

The hairs on the back of Lin Chen’s neck stood on end. A bone-chilling cold spread from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.

’Are they after me?’

He couldn’t afford to take that chance.

His stamina was almost completely gone. If he ran into a wolf pack head-on, he wouldn’t stand a chance, even if they were just the timidest coyotes in Alaska.

He glanced painfully at the two dying lambs. With a flash of his military knife, he cut the grass rope tied to the feet of the larger one, then pulled the bloody arrow out and put it back in his quiver.

Then he cut the ropes on the other one, hoisted it onto his shoulders, and took off running.

As for the larger one, he had no choice but to leave it behind for now. If he got greedy at a time like this, losing two kills would be a small matter compared to losing his own life.

He had no idea where he found the strength or stamina, but he sprinted madly up the slope. His heart pounded in his chest, booming in his ears like a drum.

Sweat pouring from his brow instantly soaked his eyelashes. The salty liquid blurred his vision and made his eyes sting and ache.

He didn’t dare spare a moment to wipe the sweat away, running for his life purely on memory of the direction.

"AWOOOO~~~"

A third howl rang out, much closer than before.

Lin Chen had no idea how he managed to make it. When he came to his senses, he was already back in the yard of his shelter.

There was no time to rest. He immediately pulled out his fire starter and began building a fire.

As orange flames slowly rose from the pile of dry branches and CRACKLED to life, he finally let out a long sigh of relief.

He added a few handfuls of dry wood to the fire, using the smoke to mask the lingering scent of blood in the air.

He wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his forearm, pulled out his Hat Lamp and put it on, then used every last ounce of his strength to climb to the second floor.

Before he could even switch on the Hat Lamp, six ghostly lights, like will-o’-the-wisps, appeared wandering nearby in the pitch-black forest.

He sucked in a sharp breath. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Cold sweat instantly beaded on his freshly wiped forehead. The sight filled him with a wave of lingering fear.

’If I’d hesitated for even thirty seconds earlier, they probably would have caught me, wouldn’t they?’

The beam of light switched on.

Sure enough, three powerfully built black wolves were prowling outside his ’moat’, their fierce, bloodthirsty gazes locked onto him.

The sudden white light startled them. They instinctively retreated a few meters, lowering their heads as if blinded by the intense glare.

After recovering, the three wild wolves—of some unknown breed—began to tentatively paw at the ’moat water’, which had largely evaporated. The boldest one leaped straight across, landing steadily on the slanted dirt slope right next to the wooden fence.

They had brazenly followed him home and were now trying to invade his shelter. He thought of the lamb he had painstakingly carried, only to be forced to abandon it nearby. It had probably already been devoured. Anger surged through him, and he drew a bloodstained arrow, nocking it on his bowstring.

Exhausted from carrying his kill for so long, he couldn’t draw the hunting bow very far. Even the hand holding the bow was trembling violently.

’It’s no good, I can’t hit it from this distance!’

He was well aware of his current condition, but he couldn’t just swallow this injustice. After thinking it over, a bold idea popped into his head.

Without much thought, he sat on the floor and dropped through a gap in the second-floor railing into the yard below.

Just like that, he was only about three meters away from the wolf pressed against the fence.

Through the gaps between the branches of the fence, he could even clearly see the individual gray-black hairs on the wolf’s back.

Sensing the strange light focused on it, the wolf glanced over, crouched down, and prepared to leap away.

Lin Chen lunged forward, jammed the bow against a gap in the branch fence, and loosed the arrow.

SWOOSH—

The wolf, halfway through its jump, let out a sharp yelp and tumbled into the ditch.

After two days of evaporation and seepage, the ’moat water’ was sixty percent gone. The sharp branches at the bottom were exposed and impaled the wolf, leaving it a bloody mess.

The gruesome state of their companion gave the other two wolves a huge fright. They tucked their tails tightly between their legs and scrambled several meters away.

The injured wolf, never expecting to be so badly wounded in a single encounter, struggled out of the pit. It staggered away without a backward glance, chasing after its companions and leaving a trail of red paw prints.

Watching the three wolves disappear into the darkness, the heart that had been stuck in Lin Chen’s throat finally settled back into his chest.

The whole world was spinning. He collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily, his body going weak in waves.

Only now did he finally feel safe.

[You have survived an encounter with a wolf pack in the wilds of North America, successfully repelling a formidable enemy and defending your home. Happiness +5]

"..."

He was in no mood to comment. He simply didn’t have the energy to think about it; his first instinct was to pull up his personal panel.

[Congratulations, you have successfully redeemed Basic Bow Mastery]