A coincidence and a change

After the call was cut off, Aren didn't attempt to call again but instead increased his pacing. He had to stop that girl before it was too late.

Aren again powered his legs with runic force while casting haste. He wanted to use his speed to the fullest and reach her. With her slow moving speed, Aren was sure that she wouldn't be able to reach that near the ogre village.

Thinking about the shortest route he'd have to take to reach the Ogre settlement, Aren pushed his legs against the ground.

Whoosh!

Immediately, his figure turned apparitional as he dashed forward in high speed. This time, his speed was only a little lower than Cowen's when he fought against the Orc leader.

Threading through the numerous large trees, the wind blown due to his speed managed to attract the fallen leaves on the ground which tried to touch his black robe only to be left behind.

Falling slowly towards the ground, due to their miniscule weight, the red and yellow coloured leaves waved around in the air and fell at the sides, making a curved track without any leaves.

Running without pause, Aren maintained his speed for about 15 minutes but was forced to stop suddenly.

A Python had appeared out of nowhere and the fact that troubled Aren was not the python's abrupt appearance, nor its threatening aura but the hostility it showed towards him the moment it appeared.

Hisssss...

Immediately as it saw him, it suddenly shot out Petrification ray from its greenish yellow eyes and even casted several earth spikes at the same time. If that was all, then with the ''Soil wall'' he had activated from the yellow earth bracelet he was wearing, Aren could still fend off these attacks.

However, tripled with those was the dangerous bite attack this Python did. It seemed as if this damn snake was totally pissed off for some reason!

As soon as Aren saw those two fangs filled with green poison, he promptly stepped backwards from where he was, narrowly dodging the lethal attack. Even so, it's fangs still managed to graze his black robe, making his already torn clothing all the more tattered.

Fortunately, he didn't get poisoned. Otherwise, without the antidote, he would really be in a bad shape.

This was also thanks to him being on guard. Ever since he had an encounter with that death knight, Aren had learned to always be on guard in unfamiliar places.

'This is a Nekismis Python... a very tough opponent indeed.' Seeing the hard black scales and it's two earth elemental attacks, Aren had already figured out which magical creature it was. Recalling its strength, weakness and its attack patterns from his eidetic memory, Aren prepared his attacks.

In truth, there was not much of weakness in this Python if matched against apprentices. It's body was protected by hard scales so most of the spells of apprentices directed at its body would have very small to none effect. Even though it's body was also big and long, if the spell would do only small amount of damages then there was no point in attacking.

As for its eyes which would usually be the weakness of most beasts? Sorry but it was protected by dense amounts of earth elements. So the only thing left was its inner body which was actually soft and was its biggest weakness. But to attack its inside, he'd have to get near its mouth and if he did that, with its high reaction speed, even Aren was not that confident he could escape its bite next time.

As he didn't have any ''reliable'' offensive spells, Aren took out a plant elemental enchanted scroll and tearing it apart, activated it.

Vines of Entanglement!

Immediately, the surrounding plant elements gathered to form thick dark- green vines which entrapped the snake for some moment.

Seeing the binding spell holding that python for a moment, Aren didn't hesitate to carry out the plan that had formed in his mind.

It's name: Plan rapid escape!

Who would want to fight with such a troublesome monster? And he also didn't even have time to fight. If it was possible for him to kill this Nekismis Python in a short time, he wouldn't make such a decision but this damn snake was very difficult to kill. So when he realised that there was no way he could defeat it without a long fight, Aren didn't hesitate to do a ''tactical retreat''.

Yet, as Aren tried to get away from it, the snake seemed to want to play a game of tag instead. It kept persistently chasing him around.

A normal snake wouldn't be able to keep up with his speed but this snake would always attack him just as he gained some distance, forcing him to dodge and cast defensive spell from time to time. This interruption frustrated him and greatly reduced his speed, making him unable to shake off that snake in a short period of time.

As he kept going towards the ogre settlement, the monster gradually lost him. After a while, when he finally didn't any signs of it, he stopped.

But now, a lot of time had already passed and looking at the sun's position, Aren roughly guessed that it was about 16th and half hour of the afternoon of the day. Only a little more than an hour was left for the sun to set and evening to come.

As his spirit was now mostly drained from casting spells while escaping, Aren had no choice but to take out a spiritual power recovery potion and drink. He had to be prepared for any circumstance inside this forest. If another beast like that snake abruptly appeared, then he wouldn't even have a chance to recover his spirit.

After he gulped down the bitter potion, his spiritual power started recovering rapidly followed by a cool sensation in his head. As his spirit recovered, Aren noticed something and took out his spellbook.

Katty's spiritual imprint was finally giving good signals! Not only good, but it was giving excellent signals. It seemed that he was less than ten kilometres distance away from her.

After his spiritual power fully recovered, Aren started sprinting towards where the signal was coming while trying to contact katty.

...

Walking for whole day, Katty was very tired. Even after taking ''some rest'' along the way, her tiredness was still not gone.

After separating from the smelly Uh... she meant a little less smelly boy, Katty had been hoping to quickly find the moonspring, beat the bad guardian and take the moonstones. However, she didn't consider how she was going to defeat the guardian of a large moonspring if she even had difficulties defeating a small moonspring's guardian.

She just knew that bad guardians needed to be defeated. But even after she went down the path Chauv or maybe ''late Chauv'' had pointed at, she didn't find any moonspring.

Instead, she came across some strange poles with bones and skulls of monsters and humans hung on it, enclosed firmly on the ground. As those poles gave her an ominous feeling, Katty blasted them with her water spells and continued walking.

As the day was about to end, she was also trying to find a place to stay for the night. Suddenly, her spellbook started feeling hot.

Someone's call? She opened her spellbook and turned to the last page. Seeing big brother Aren's name again glowing in red light, She poured some spiritual power and was about to say something when immediately Aren's urgent voice sounded in her head.

"Katty, turn back now!"

Turn back? She was confused, however, she quickly got her answer the next moment.

"It's dangerous! There is a tribe of ogres settled ahead! If you go any further they will kil- Uh... eat you alive!"

She didn't have any reaction when she heard what he said but when she heard the full sentence and especially that ''eat you'' part, Katty, not minding the awkward pause of Aren when he said that, heeded his advice and turned back.

If Chauv could see her now, he would surely notice that this brat's walking speed had increased by two to three times for some reason.

...

After a day of hunting, the hunting team of ogres lead by the rank 1 captain, returned carrying bodies of large beasts. Although they didn't go that far, their hunt was went pretty good today.

So the other ''young and youthful'' ogres were also satisfied with their hunt. While making the same and yet somewhat different indistinct sounds or maybe that was their language, the ogres continued marching towards their village.

When that yellow circle of light in the sky was showing signs of turning red, their ogre captain suddenly signalled them to stop.

Stopping beside him, they saw that another blue coloured prey was coming... No at this point she was ''really running'' towards them.

Seeing Katty run over, they put the prey that they had hunted down and equipped their weapons. The Ogre captain also held his large club and made a gruff sound.

Seeing that the prey was so small, the ogre captain rushed towards her making a barbaric shout.

Only now the running Katty stopped as she heard the shout of a monster. As she prepared to cast a water spear, she saw that a large and tall... huh, an ogre!?

A real ogre was coming towards her!

As she was just running away from the tribe of ogres with the timely warning of big brother Aren, she was momentarily stunned encountering the same monster now.

She panicked and cast a water spear a little earlier which was of course, dodged by the charging ogre.

Coming before her, the ogre captain swung his large and weighty club down at her, intending to smash the head of this prey.

At this moment, Aren who still holding his spellbook, suddenly appeared from another direction.

Seeing that Katty was about to be killed by an ogre, his expression changed to that of shock as he cried out.

"Ah no! don't you kill her!"

His voice was filled with the same desperation and unwillingness he had in the vision he saw, yet he didn't notice that there was also a minute change in there, which he had knowingly or unknowingly managed to make.