Reincarnated as a Dragon - A New life

3| First Days End

I walked along the edge of the ravine for hours, yet there hasn't been any sign of infrastructure anywhere.

Am I really in the middle of nowhere? I'm sure there was a hill nearby with a road on top of a cliff...though, I'm not sure why I know that. Nevertheless, even though I've been walking for some time, I shouldn't have traveled too far considering my short size and speed. If I get some vantage point, I should be able to spot the hill and get out of this huge forest.

I leave the edge of the ravine and spot a tree that seems to rise higher than the ones around it. After pulling onto its lower branches to test its durability, I deem it safe enough to use.

Grabbing onto a branch above me, I pull myself up, but then hesitated. I don't have a fear of heights, but I do have a fear of falling to my doom.

Alright... I can do this. Just be careful and don't let go.

I hop off the ground, gripping the branches as tightly as I could, and begin to climb. Although my small body allows me to climb branches that would have otherwise broken if I were human, it also makes it much harder to climb as some of the branches are just short of my reach.

During my ascent, I feel a branch bend under my weight and snap. I panic and quickly dig my claws into the bark, cringing as my claws tears a large scar in the wood until I come crashing onto a lower branch.

While it didn't hurt when I was sliding down the bark, the feeling of tearing through wood was similar to scratching sandpaper continuously, so it took me a moment for the feeling in my hands to return. Because of the sudden drop, I had to use everything I had to try to hang on, which included my feet, so I'm sad to see the shoes I worked so hard on became torn and ruined from the aftermath.

After I regain my composure, I resume my climb towards the top. As an added precaution, I check each branch beforehand if it is stable enough to hold my weight. Although this slows me down, it's a small price to pay as I would rather not fall again.

Upon reaching the peak, my hopes drop. Never-mind a hill, all I can see is a vast forest that stretches with no end in sight. There is no town or city nearby. Once again, I feel a pang of hunger bite me, this time with increased intensity. I need to find food soon.

I make my way back down while picking each branch carefully so that I don't repeat my earlier blunder. I exhale in relief when I finally touch the base of the tree. Scaling down the tree felt far harder than climbing up.

I grip my stomach and look around. All I can see are nothing but plants and bushes. Wasn't there this tv show about a survivor that had to go through something similar to this? I remember that one of the things he would do to survive is to gather up some plants to eat them.

Although, didn't he get involved in some controversy and his credibility collapsed? I don't know much about it since I never bothered searching it up. Anyway, credibility or not, it seems like eating plants is my only option.

I pick the greenest bush in my immediate area and make my way to it. My makeshift shoes were destroyed from the climb, and I don't have the heart to create another pair, however, I still don't want to touch the ground, so I compromise by stepping only on rocks and exposed tree roots, sometimes hopping across if the distance is too great.

Ugh... the leaves don't look very appetizing. They are small and covered in black spots. I assume it's just the color of the leaf and not anything other. Still, I would've liked to wash them beforehand, but the closest source of water that I know of is at the bottom of that ravine.

Pushing aside my thoughts, I bite off a piece of the cleanest looking leaf I could find. Immediately, I spit it out, my tongue suspended in air.

My expectations for the leaves weren't high, so I was prepared for it to taste bad, but it is worse than I imagined. Its pungent, acrid, bitter flavor burns my nose, and its rough, rigid texture scrapes the back of my throat. It was like chewing on cardboard. No, even cardboard tastes better than this.