Chapter 167 - Guardian Angel.

His eyes burning for sleep and even letting out cold tears, this can be considered the worst day of his Journey yet. Luckily, it was dark enough down here to hide his tears, there is no one to see him cry in pain after all. Or is there? He is curled into a ball, rubbing his legs, arms and his toes too for as much he could reach. With such forced effort, he managed to survive through the first hour in this hole. Through the coldest part of the morning, and fairly the coldest part of the day if a Blizzard doesn't fall upon him.

Breathing hard due to shivers in a way is a park in this isolated place, breathing helped him warm up even if he didn't notice it at all. The first hour became even harder when his body started cooling down from the hard work that he put in throughout the night. He was shivering so strongly under a short period of time, it felt like the cold was forcing his soul out of his chest. That feeling calmed down after he fell asleep mostly, yes he finally managed to call it a day and fall asleep.

It isn't easy to pull an all nighter in a Forest in these dangerously low temperatures without the proper equipment and proper use of manpower. If it wasn't for this little hole just happening to be near the Ghost Tree, death would be certain this morning, he would have never reached noon.

He fell asleep once he felt slightly warmer, his feet also started warming up after continuous rubbing. Removing the wet shoes and socks, really helped. If he didn't do so, he wouldn't amputate just one or two toes, but all of them. Since warmth was roughly a problem anymore, his body just gave up and fell asleep.

Yet again, even after considering the added Warmth, amputation doesn't seem completely avoidable. This warmth is Vital for Survival, but not good enough for this particular matter, specifically fighting off Frostbite. To his luck, after around 4 hours, his small toes became fairly better but not completely reversed. There was warmth on them, but not enough. The skin wasn't too pale and his lush of green returned on his toes here and there. Taking off his shoes before he shivered himself asleep saved his toes, the rubbing he put them through helped more or less.

6 hours passed and he was still knocked out Cold, he is too exhausted to wake up without getting the sleep he needs. Pushing himself beyond limits for days became the usual for him ever since he started this Journey, however last night caused most of this tiredness. Sleeping for this long burns less much needed calories because he doesn't move around, yes that's true. But this will also dehydrate him!

Due to, let's call it a "Guardian Angel" deciding to be bountiful with its capabilities, warmth can no longer be considered a vital problem for our Dear Chan. In fact, he was sweating! How? I mean, Okay he isolated himself in here, a life saver as mentioned before. This hole can't nearly provide enough heat for him to actually start sweating, unless something went wildly wrong. So what's happening, is he dying? Even if he was, he wouldn't sweat his way to death in this blistering cold. The fact that it is noon now, can't be it either. This environment just can't equal to him sweating.

9 hours passed, he woke up to a damn Fire near his feet. A Fire? What? How? When? How is it even possible? Did he die? Is he hallucinating or did he simply go completely nuts? Not at all, apart from being thirsty and hungry, he is AOK. The one possible problem that could of stupidly damage him, was Frostbite. But he got rid of it. Well more like, the provided Fire standing for possibly hours near his feet, got rid of the chances of Amputation. The warmth did the trick. Warmth always does the trick, unless you put it inside of a Food Storage Building.

But again, Fire? Whatever started a Fire here, it would still lead to suffocation in this isolated place due to the smoke of which a Fire would cause being trapped in here. Interesting enough, the rock he isolated this hole with seems to have shifted just a small bit, enough for a speck of light to push through and enough for the smoke to make its way out without making the atmosphere inside deadly cold, untangling the smoke concept.

What could of caused this? Who would come all the way down this hole and not wake up Guard Commander Chan to communicate with him? I mean, whatever got down here, even placed his socks and shoes near the fire, completely dried them off thanks to that effort.

When grabbing his shoes to put them on in fears of Frostbite, he found a Parchment on one of them! A Parchment! He got perplexed and even a bit creeped out. What force of nature would be able to do this? If it was a Human we can consider them completely unstable. Puzzled indeed, but happy that he got to keep his toes. It's not easy to simply let a body part go. It would be an emotional game as much as a physical one. He could feel them once more and wiggle them.

Opening the parchment, he found the sentences few and very short but massively impactful. "Son, I saved your ass this time. Keep the Coal Fire going with the bag behind you." Right after reading that highly specific sentence, he turned around and actually found a bag of Coal behind him, heavy even! It looks like it weighs around a hundred Kilograms. This is insane! "How the hell is this possible? My father is dead!" Chan whispered as he shed a couple of tears of both grief and gratitude.

Turning his attention back to the letter, he continued to read its contents. "Please enjoy the food and water too, I tried to cook the Venison just the way you like it son and the water should last you for days." Taking another glance around the hole, he found the food and water at the edge of this little place, likely put there since its a bit colder compared to standing close to a damn Campfire. With a dry mouth he whispered, "Whater!", then dashed towards it and drank a huge amount. 

But drinking a lot of water is never good if one didn't drink any for a long time. He puked it all out! Luckily he had a bit of energy to handle it. Then he drank a mouthful of water, and found out that "his father" left around 15 Kilograms of Venison meat. 15! What the hell is going on? His father is supposed to be dead and not be bringing a barrel of water along with bottles and leather water containers!

Taking a piece of meat and a liter of water with him near the Campfire, he continued to read the last part of the letter. "If you treasured me as a father, take time to reconsider your beliefs." And just what could he mean by that? What could this seemingly invincible and unpredictable creature mean? Is he trying to shift Chan's life plans? Well, he would need to do a lot more than that. Chan isn't the type to commonly use reason.

We should take it into consideration that Chan didn't cut down enough branches for any Ghost kind to approach this close. So if his father isn't just a soul roaming the afterlife, then what is he? Because it's not common for spirits to be this helpful. Setting his back on the wall to get comfortable, Chan even found a set of fur clothing! This will make him invincible throughout the cold!

Although he has enough gratitude for this unusual but yet very helpful act, he is still perplexed. Apart from trying to figure out what happened and what his father is, he also tried to figure out the. "Take time to reconsider your beliefs." Part. What could he mean by that? It's confusing because Guard Commander Chan believes in a lot of things.

Ale would probably be the main one. But these days he has also believed in gratitude, he didn't have such emotion for years in a row now. His main belief was burning down his sorrows with spiraling down a bottle of Ale. Did his father possibly comment on Chan's Alcohol habits?

It really isn't certain, but for this case he will have a lot of time to think due to the situation he put himself into. He doesn't plan to leave this place anytime soon, especially before cutting down the rest of the Ghost Tree's branches. With gratitude as his motivator, he can't quit, he simply just can't. The Dense Forest Kin shall roam freely once more.