The rainstorm was slightly weaker on the fourth day than it had been on the third day, but the rain was still falling hard.

  Soybean-sized raindrops would cause slight pain even to humans when nding on their skin. Facing such rain, System felt as if his body was being hammered by fists.

  He was almost washed away by the heavy rain just from sticking half of his body out through the gap between the tree and the stuck leaf. Fortunately, the spurs on his legs managed to hold him in pce.

  System's left leg was dislodged by the rain, but the spur on his right leg was firmly tched onto the wet bark, allowing him to swing around to the bottom of the branch at an incredible angle.

  'What a close call!'

  If his spur hadn't maintained a firm grip on the bark just now, he would have surely fallen into the ke below that had been formed by days of pooling rain.

  Now that System was hanging upside down under the branch, the impact of the rain on his body was greatly reduced. Although the rain dripping down the sides of the branch still passed over his body, the force was lessened enough that he was able to safely crawl slowly along the bottom of the branch.

  He proceeded to inch his way along the bottom of the branch. There were several newly grown pine needles near the tip of the branch, which he could easily reach and eat even from the below.

  System didn't know if his mandibles could bite through these hard pine needles, but he could only try, as they were the only potential food source he could find.

  If he couldn't eat these pine needles, he could only choose to jump into the ke below where the flowing water converged, seeking some slight chance at life in a hopeless situation.

  ...

  Under the heavy rain, System finally ate the freshly budded pine needles. His mandibles were just strong enough to crush the young needles growing on this tree.

  The pine needles tasted both slightly sweet and bitter, and had a certain growth effect on his body, but were also somewhat toxic. It was perhaps due to this toxicity that the tree had always given System such an uncomfortable feeling.

  The toxicity of the pine needles slowed System's bodily functions, as if he was drunk, and a slight pain rose in his abdomen.

  However, the level of toxicity wasn't strong, or at least it wasn't as bad as the trouble caused by his hunger. After feeling the effects of the toxicity for a while, he began to swallow the young and tender pine needles in big mouthfuls.

  Faced with this life-and-death crisis, while it wasn't nutritious meat, even being able to eat this kind of toxic food made System happy.

  ...

  Because of the strong impacts from the rain drops, finding something to eat was very inconvenient. It had been several hours since System had finished eating the small cluster of young pine needles, but he hadn't managed to find anything else he could eat.

  His mandibles couldn't do anything with the remaining retively mature pine needles, so he decided to return to his nest beneath the leaf.

  As if he'd been blessed by the heavens, while he was returning to the nest, the rain was a little lighter. He was now able to withstand the impact of the rain while moving on top of the branch, so he quickly returned to his hiding pce beneath the leaf.

  Not long after he reached his nest, the rain grew heavier again.

  Since then, the rain had begun to alternate between sometimes being strong and sometimes being weak. There were roars of thunder and fshes of lightning in the sky from time to time, and even though the rain was sometimes light, it never stopped completely.

  Finally, on the night of the fifth day, the rain that had been heavy just moments earlier suddenly stopped, and the dark clouds in the night sky quickly dissipated. System looked out from under the leaf and saw moonlight penetrating through the gaps in the tree canopy above.

  The rain had finally stopped, and there was no longer any wind blowing through the trees. Except for the sound of water dripping from higher leaves onto lower leaves, and from lower leaves onto the water's surface, the entire forest was completely quiet.

  System was finally able to crawl out from under his leaf nest again...

  With the continuous dripping of water from the leaves and the two moons and starlight in the sky, the water's surface under the trees seemed to be sparkling.

  The rain in the past two days had caused the water level to rise even further. The rainwater that had gathered in the forest was only about half a meter below the branch System was standing on, and had accumuted to a depth of nearly one meter. Within his range of sight, apart from the trees, only the tops of some tall pnts were still poking out of the water.

  If the rain had continued for a few more days, System thought that the branch he was on might also have ended up submerged beneath the water. Most likely, however, before he even had a chance to be submerged, he would have already died from hunger and cold.

  Five consecutive days of rain had caused the temperature in the forest to continuously drop, and the temperature fell even lower after the rainstorm stopped.

  With a stiff body and greatly reduced physical strength, System slowly crawled along the wet branches using the spurs on his legs.

  Fortunately, as a grasshopper, he could consume a wide variety of food, and even the toxic pine needles could replenish his energy. If he'd instead been reborn as a carnivorous mantis, he might have already starved to death during the heavy rain.

  ...

  The pooled rainwater receded very slowly. By the time dawn broke, the water level had only gone down by about ten centimeters. System estimated that it would take several days for the water nearby to completely recede.

  After a night of eating, his physical strength had recovered significantly. However, because of the toxicity of the pine needles, he felt a little dizzy and had a slight tingling pain in his abdomen.

  Today, water no longer dripped from the leaves of the forest's trees, and the wet bark was only slightly damp. System, who had recovered his physical strength, began to jump and explore.

  The first morning after the heavy rain ended was very quiet. Except for the occasional frog croaking in the distance, System didn't detect any active creatures.

  However, as the sky brightened, he found many signs of life. Ripples could be seen disturbing the calm water from time to time.

  He saw many bck shadows moving underwater, some of which looked like tadpoles, along with many grayish-white things that were slightly smaller than the bck shadows, which might be the rvae of some insects or other aquatic creatures.

  System jumped back and forth along the tree branches. He found that because of the uneven terrain in the forest, although it was all flooded, the water level in some pces was very shallow. Maybe in this vast forest, some high-lying pces hadn't even been flooded by the rain at all.

  After resting for a while to recover his strength, he soon found a vine wrapped around a tree and jumped over to it.

  Compared to tree leaves, his body had an obvious preference for grass. Although vines were a little worse than grass, they were still better than leaves.

  This vine tasted delicious, and its leaves were soft with a faint peach aroma. System swallowed them in big mouthfuls.

  While he was eating, he found that there were slight ripples on the water's surface below. A five-centimeter-long, six-legged, blue and brown insect crawled up out of the water along the vine.

  The insect had a slender abdomen, six strong legs concentrated on its front half, and was covered with a translucent exoskeleton.

  After crawling about ten centimeters up the vine, the insect tched onto the vine tightly and remained motionless, as if it had entered the dormant state unique to insects.

  Although System couldn't see any mandibles in the insect's mouth, it looked strong and was surrounded by an exoskeleton. He had no intention of fighting with it and continued eating the vine's leaves quietly.

  More than ten minutes ter, he suddenly heard a strange sound. A sound simir to an exoskeleton cracking came from the blue and brown insect, and it seemed like something had drilled right out of its body.

  'A molting insect!'

  System's insect face revealed a greedy look. This molting insect must be food sent to him by the heavens!