Earth was already blanketed in snow, but the Otherworld remained as mild as spring.
Chen Shouyi carefully concealed himself among the plants, keeping low as he slowly crept forward. Dense, thorny leaves and tangled vines around him hid him well.
Shell Girl crouched on his shoulder, gripping Chen Shouyi's clothes tightly. She seemed even more nervous than he was, her little face taut and her breathing held.
A little over a hundred meters ahead, an animal resembling a sika deer was leisurely eating red berries from a thicket.
Its body was covered in brown-black fur with yellow-white spots for camouflage. Its coat gleamed faintly, as if it had been oiled. Its coarse, slender tongue deftly avoided the thorns, then swept up a whole cluster of berries and curled them into its mouth.
That thing looks so fat!
Thinking of how delicious Otherworld Creatures were, Chen Shouyi couldn't help swallowing.
Ever since Chen Shouyi had boldly tried eating Otherworld meat once, he hadn't brought food with him again.
But he didn't hunt just any creature. He ruled out reptiles and amphibians. On Earth, most poisonous creatures belonged to those two groups, so he usually hunted herbivorous mammals.
He moved even more cautiously, slowly closing in.
A minute later, it seemed to sense something. It stopped eating and began looking around. Its snow-white hooves stamped restlessly, and its alert ears pricked up, swiveling this way and that.
Chen Shouyi immediately flattened himself to the ground and didn't move a muscle.
The creature watched its surroundings for a while but found nothing. After a moment, it resumed eating the berries.
Chen Shouyi continued crawling forward. When he was only sixty or seventy meters away, he rose silently from behind a large tree, took the Bow and Arrow from his back, and quietly aimed.