Hunting And Not Hunted II

Stab.

The dagger went beneath the neck and stabbed out of the top of the unsuspecting beast.

Luke dropped the dead hound to the floor and turned to look at Kyne. "Yeah, I'm very very careful just so you know."

Luke moved his bloody hand close to his nose. "Ugh… still stinks as usual."

"What did you expect? That it'll stop smelling just because you've eaten some of its meat?" Kyne asked.

"Don't remind me of what we've been eating." Luke complained.

"Yes, yes, I won't. You brought up the topic and now you're making me the bad guy. Now let's keep moving." Kyne urged him.

Another jackal appeared from the tall grasses and attacked Kyne this time. He let out a yelp from shock.

Luckily, Luke was close to him and attacked the hound. With a fist filled with mana, he punched the beast, sending it flying back into the bushes with broken bones.

Luke chuckled and turned to look at Kyne. "And that's why I told you to be careful."

"That's not fair. When it happened to you, you didn't even bat an eyelid. Are you saying you're immune to shock and surprise attacks?" Kyne protested.

"I'm not immune to it. I was just on guard against such attacks. This is a dangerous place for attacks and I was well prepared for it." Luke explained.

"Are you really sure this is your first time exploring this place?" Kyne asked again. Luke kept doing things that made it seem like he had been here a lot of times.

"Yup. It surely is." Luke nodded and continued down the tall grasses.

As they walked, Luke and Kyne killed more of the beasts.

"That's four now. The other two are for you to train." Luke sat on the floor.

"In here. I'll be training with two fully healthy ones in this place?" Kyne questioned Luke.

"Where else?" Luke replied with another question.

"That's basically saying I should fight with a blindfold and only take it off when they're a few feets away from clawing me to death."

"That's your concern. You'll be hunting them here. Now move along and don't return until you have the corpse of both beasts with you." Luke urged him to leave.

Kyne grumbled as he left. Obviously, he wasn't satisfied with Luke chasing him away.

*****

Two people were on the branch of a giant tree. The male sat down while the female lay on the branch, her eyes staring at the branches of the huge tree.

"Where did they go?" Aurora asked.

"They didn't tell me. They only said they were going to train my lady." Sihlon answered, hesitant to complete the message Luke had told him.

"I see. Hopefully, they come back safely, but I keep getting the feeling that that's not all he said. Is it?" She replied when she saw Sihlon lost in thoughts.

"Pardon my lady. The rest seemed rude to you my lady, so I withheld it." Sihlon hurriedly knelt.

"Speak!" She answered in a high voice suggesting her authority.

"I'll be the judge of that." She chafed at his behavior.

"He said we'll be safe as long as we remain on the tree, and do not do anything 'stupid'." He answered hurriedly, emphasizing the last word.

"I see. It does seem rude. He must've had a good reason to say so." Aurora spoke after fiddling with her hair for a few seconds.

"I believe he has a good reason, but his choice of words were–" Before Sihlon could finish his statement, Aurora interrupted him.

With a sigh, she said "It's fine. I'm not really angry at what he said. I just want to eat and that's all." As if her stomach was siding with her, it growled.

"Ah, sorry my lady." Sihlon turned to a box beside him and opened it up. He pulled out a baked bread from the box, along with a bottle of what seemed like wine. It was red and the bottle itself was transparent and colorless.

"I didn't know you guys had brought this fruit wine." Aurora was surprised to see the bottle.

"It's a favorite of yours my lady. How could we not bring it?" Sihlon's face was visibly filled with pride.

Aurora noticed and with a smile, she continued. "If I'm not mistaken, this should've been Rhon's idea."

"Ah, yes. It was Rhon's idea, my lady. Too bad he didn't live long enough to get complimented." His smiling face reverted to its normal look of coldness.

Rhon was Aurora's second guard. The one who had died to these deadly beasts just yesterday.

"Watch your mouth!" Aurora warned the guard.

"I'm really sorry my lady. That won't happen again." He bowed then stretched the bread and wine to her.

"It better not." She received them and walked towards where Luke had stored the meat to get a slab of meat. "The food is good enough but it'll be better if I eat it with this."

They slowly climbed down the tree and set up a fire. She took some plants, cut them into shreds, and applied them to the meat before she began to roast it. The smell of the meat wafted over the whole area inviting the uninvited.

*****

Kyne slowly walked back to Luke's location, pulling along two dead beasts. His blue shirt was in shreds and his body was badly injured and stained with blood but he had won. That sense of victory kept Luke moving even though he was totally exhausted.

"I bet he didn't expect me to win this quickly." Kyne smiled as he walked forward, step by step.

*****

Luke was lying on the floor, his hand beneath his head and one leg placed on the other. The sun was already shining so bright it made everything hot but Luke just stayed there, covering his eyes from the sun with a wide grass plant.

While he was deep in thought, the surrounding bush made the sound of something approaching.

Hearing this, he began to complain as he pulled off the leaf blind.

"Hey, hey, didn't I say not to return without–" With the leaf fully removed from his eyes, he could now see what had been approaching.

"Where did all you bastards fall from?" Luke cussed.

Around him, stood a dozen rabid jackals. Two had three rings on their fangs while the rest had two.

"It's not bad for me though. This should serve as a way to compare myself against other Chosens I guess." He said to himself.

He stretched his body. "You guys better be–" He dashed at the closest one.

"Prepared." His last word for the sentence left his mouth and his fist descended on the two-ringed hound.

Crack.

The skull of the beast shattered when Luke's lunch landed on its head.

Without wasting time, he launched himself and the second one. His dagger was now in his hand and it stabbed six consecutive times into the body of the animal and it dropped dead.

When the hounds seemed to notice that he was killing them one after another, they all attacked at once.

"Too late, you dogs." He scoffed and took the legs of the two dead beasts.

Like heavy swords, he swung the dead beasts and they collided with the living ones, throwing them away and in pain.

Thud.

He threw the dead beasts to the ground and attacked the two leaders.

Killing the two leaders took much effort but since he had dealt with it before, he finished with few injuries.

Before the remaining beasts gained full control of themselves, he had tied them with the leash and killed the ones the leash couldn't reach.

Now, Kyne had six training dummies to train with for three days. He planned on making Kyne train once a day from today henceforth because he already had a feeling that Kyne wouldn't show up in good shape.

Maybe nature heard his call and decided to summon Kyne, Kyne walked out of the towering bush with serious injuries.

Luke saw two dead jackals being pulled along and smiled.

Kyne also smiled. "I won, but what the hell is this?" He was injured, but it didn't affect his ability to yell at Luke.

"I was also training." Luke laughed. "And those will be your training partners for the next few days." Luke pointed at the captured beasts.