I'm currently hunting for the first time today with Dad. And as I thought, shooting a ballistic or plasma-based weapon is vastly different than using a bow and arrow. Using a bow is a far more challenging task. I have no trouble sneaking up on my prey. I can often get closer than is necessary, but when it comes time to make the shot. I fail to hit the mark almost every single time. Turns out shooting stationary targets in your backyard with a weapon does not translate well when aiming at a target that can move erratically.

Thankfully, the jungle had no shortage of prey. I can often find something to hunt within a few minutes of a failed attempt. It appears my skills in tracking haven’t degraded since being reborn, if anything they have improved even more. My hearing is far more accurate and long-reaching. My sense of direction is also unmatched compared to my old body. Before I had to rely on my instruments to know the cardinal directions, but now, it was almost like I couldn’t get lost if I wanted to. I always seemed to know where I was in the jungle, as long as I had been there before of course.

My dad was explaining to me that there are protective wards around the village and the jungle. Currently, we are in an in-between zone of the outermost wards and the village wards. This zone is mostly used for hunting and allows less dangerous monsters or animals into it. I’ve never even crossed the first set of wards before. This zone should be the safest, well it’s supposed to at least.

When I was attacked I should have been inside the area of the village’s protective wards, yet somehow those shadowling monsters had gotten through them, undetected. I overheard my parents talking to some rangers, which are apparently the equivalent of a military or police force around here. And their search came back negative. They lowered their voices and said some things that apparently surprised my parents, but I couldn’t make out what they said.

“You know son, the wards around the village were actually created by a friend of your mother and me.”

“Really, Dad?”

“Yup. His name is Bowen, goodman that Human. I think he is a professor now at the university in the capital of Luminar. If you ever find yourself up in that frozen place I’m sure he would like to meet you,” My dad informed me.

“I hope he is doing well, heard he was getting married and everything. Wonder if he has a kid yet,” My dad had a wide smile as he reminisced about his old friend.

Huh, didn’t know my dad was so well-traveled. And friends with an important Human nonetheless. It was also good to see that Humanity was inventing new things even in this world. Although the wards failed me, I’m sure they have saved a lot of lives.

But right now I couldn’t let my mind wander. I had finally found what I had been tracking. It was some kind of large lizard the size of a house cat, it was a brown color that matched the trees and it jumped from branch to branch to traverse around the jungle. This creature wasn’t dangerous but was somewhat difficult to find as it didn’t leave any obvious tracks. But if you knew what you were looking for you could find a pattern in the broken branches from when it leaps from branch to branch. Apparently, the scales would fetch a decent price, if you could catch the thing.

My dad stood behind me, his bow ready to clean up my eventual failure. The lizard was 20 yards away crawling up the trunk of a tree. I steadied my breath and aimed, I released the arrow but I shook a bit at the lost moment from my sore back muscles and fired high. Shit.

But it seems I had luck on my side today. The lizard miscalculated and dodged upwards into my arrow pinning it to the tree with a loud thud.

“Yes! I hit it!” I screamed out, I tossed my hands up and jumped around in pure joy.

Finally. After, 4 long hours of being in this hot sweaty jungle I finally hit something. Of course, it was dumb luck, but I would take it anyways. I turned to look at my dad and he was just standing there with a proud grin. I realized I had been dancing around for a few moments like a fool and felt my face flush with embarrassment.

“You need to finish your kill, son. Only the worst kinds of people let their prey suffer unnecessarily. I can help you if you want,” My father said while walking over to the lizard.

“No, I got it,” I answered nonchalantly.

“Yeah… I guess this isn’t your first time ending a life, is it,” My father said solemnly.

Only if you knew, dad.

Both my parents still blamed themselves for what happened to me no matter how many times I reassured them. I quickly ran over to him and gave him a small hug,

“It’s okay, dad. I can do this,” I told him.

I jogged over and scrambled up the tree. I used a bit of earth magic to create small footholds so I could climb it easier. The lizard was still squirming as the arrow pinned it to the tree. I swiftly ended its suffering with a knife as it let out a final squeal.

“Good work. Got a bit lucky with that shot but you are getting better. Maybe if you want, we can come out again after I get back next week ?” My father.

“Yeah, sounds fun. But I’m starting school soon.”

“Ah, you’re right. Eh, we can figure it out later.” He dismissed with a wave of his hand. “Now then, these little guys are pretty hard to find so you got lucky that we managed to get one today. The meat on it is… disgusting." As my father imagined the taste of the meat I swear I saw a hint of green cycle through his tan skin, but he stayed strong and continued, "Normally I would just leave the meat out as bait and take the scales, but today we are gonna clean the whole thing.”

My dad went into great detail and guided me on how to clean and gut my first kill. I finished the deed and in the end, I had a small bag worth of brown scales and a carcass as a reward. I could tell the meat would be disgusting, it was tough and stringy, but the brown scales glistened with slime in the morning light.

“Now. All you gotta do is take that down to the market and find old Whitehelm. He will buy the scales off of you. And take no less than 5 silver for all those scales. If that old Dwarf tries cheating you, just tell him Alanis is going to go sell to Rodan from now on,” My dad warned me.

“You aren’t coming with me?” I asked.

“Nope, I am absolutely starving, so I'm going home. You know where the market is. If you can do this on your own you won’t need me around to go hunting,” My dad said with a stupid grin and gave me a thumbs up.

I wasn’t sure if a 5-year-old going to the market by himself was the best idea my father had, but it wasn’t my first time going into town alone. I had to get to the center of the village where Grandpa Jacob’s office was, so I was familiar with the layout of the village. I’d also been to the market a few times now with Mom to go shopping. I could do this on my own.

—

I have run into a problem. The roads are awfully congested this morning and I really don’t want to wade through the crowds and get elbowed by all these people. So I’ve made the tactical decision to take some back roads. But this in itself was a mistake. I have never actually been on these back roads before. My keen sense of direction doesn’t help me if I am lost in the first place. These roads zig-zag and just lead to houses and back entrances to shops. I’m just blindly heading in the direction to where the market should be when I turn a corner and 4 people are standing behind a shop.

One of them is wearing a snow-white cloak that covers their entire body. I can’t see their face either as it is just covered in a deep hood. The other 3 consist of 2 Wood Elf boys and a single Human boy. They all look to be a few years older than me and are just standing there, mumbling to each other, surrounding the cloaked person.

Not wanting to get involved in whatever was going on here I turned on my heels on the gravel and began to walk away. But it seemed the Wood Elf boy with brown hair heard me and called out,

“Hey, kid. What are you doing back here?” He asked me.

Kid? He was like 3 years older than me max.

“I’m going to the market,” I said as composed as possible.

I really don’t want to be involved with whatever is going on here.

“But the market is the other way…” The blonde Elf retorted while pointing behind me.

“Oh? Thank you, I guess I’m lost. I’ll just head back then. Sorry.”

Damn. Had I really let myself get turned around that much back here? I should have just taken the main road. I went to turn and walk away again when I heard the Human boy speak,

“What are you two doing, grab him, you idiots!” He barked at the Elves.

The two Elves looked conflicted for a moment as they approached me slowly.

“Sorry kid, orders are orders,” The blonde one said.

What are you a Marine? And what did I even do?

“Listen… I don’t know what is going on here and as far as I am concerned I saw nothing, okay?” I tried to diffuse the situation, this was getting out of hand quickly. But the two boys just kept creeping towards me.

I turned to start running when I heard the sound of rushing water and I threw myself to the ground. A bolt of water smashed into the wooden wall behind me, splintering the wood. What the hell?

If that bolt hit me in the head I might have actually died from that. Are these kids insane? Not only that it wasn’t even the Elf that cast the spell at me but the Human boy. I didn’t take him for a mage, he looked like he has been working in the fields since he could hold a farming tool. He was damn big for an 8 or 9-year-old kid. The two Elves looked back at their de facto leader surprised, the brown hair Elf questioned him. I'm going to call him Idiot1.

“Paul? What are you doing, he is just a kid!” Idiot1 shouted.

“What? I was aiming for his legs. Besides, he saw us. Now stop messing around and just grab the kid!” Paul spat venomously. He looked a bit pale now, guess that waterball took more out of him than I thought.

I have no idea what is going on here or what I even “saw”. I just wanted to walk away like nothing happened, but no. This kid was definitely trying to hit me in the head with that spell and it looked like they weren’t gonna let me go. The two other kids would probably be able to catch me if I ran anyways and turning my back to another spell would be suicide.

“Why don’t you just come here? I promise I won’t let Paul hurt you too much, nothing that can’t be healed, okay?” The blonde hair Elf said while trying to coax me towards him. And this is Idiot2.

How merciful of you Idiot2, I’ll make your pain swift.

I let them close in on me and as soon as Idiot1 reached for me I focused all my mana into my right arm and punched straight for his groin. He spat all over my face as I knocked the wind out of him, he didn’t even have a chance to groan as he began writhing on the ground in agony.

“Wow, wait how are you so-?” I cut Idiot2's sentence off with a swift mana-enhanced punch to the jaw. But he was ready and managed to enhance himself with mana in defense. Go figure, I was hoping only the Human could use mana.

He staggered back dazed and I watched as Paul was trying to aim another ball of water at me. Instead of dodging I just ran straight into Idiot2 and used him as a meat shield. His comrade, unable to stop his spell, now blasted Idiot2 in the back knocking him to the ground.

I could see the Human boy was struggling to stand now. The idiot was going past his limits with magic and was about to get mana sickness from it. I didn’t really feel bad for him, if that first waterball hit me in the head I would have been lucky to survive the impact. Besides, this could have all been avoided if they just let me walk away. Idiots.

“Grab your comrades and leave,” I said coldly. I even leaked a bit of my bloodlust in there to get the point across. I didn’t want the kid to die, explaining that to Mom and Dad would be troublesome. And I don’t think the best son in the world went around killing kids either. I was willing to be the bigger kid today.

I watched as Paul slowly raised Idiot1 who was still taking deep breaths on the ground and holding his stomach. Together they picked up Idiot2 who was still down from friendly fire and they dragged him out of the alleyway, never removing their hateful gazes from me.

I decided today, that kids are stupid. Or maybe just those kids are. Also, for that Human kid to be able to use Novice level water magic already was actually impressive. Too bad he decided to use it against me. And his buddy wasn’t too shabby with his mana enhancements either. Although, I don’t feel all that great about beating up a bunch of kids… even if I’m technically younger than them… kind of… meh.

As I was wondering how I was going to explain this all to my parents I remembered the 4th person. I turned around and they were just standing there, unmoving. They hadn’t said a single word either or even reacted to anything that just transpired in front of them. So I just stared at them. I stared at them in silence for a whole minute, waiting for them to say anything at all, but they just stood there like a statue made of snow. Well, this is getting awkward…

“Ummm… I am gonna go now? Sorry about them. I guess…” I tried to apologize but they once again made no moves.

Okay then. Not wanting to be here any longer I went to take my leave. I only managed a few steps before they grabbed my arm. Wow, they are strong.

They had a vice grip on my forearm, I was pretty sure they were going to snap my fragile little arm in half. I turned around to look at the person and their hood fell off revealing themselves. I took a sharp breath in as I was surprised at what I saw.

A pair of fox-like ember orange eyes gazed right into my face. The person was a Beastmen, they looked like an arctic fox mixed with an Elf. Their hair was snow-white even the eyelashes, it was the same white as their cloak. And I was pretty sure they were a she. She just stood there holding onto my arm not speaking.

I winced in pain as she wouldn’t lessen her grip, “Could you please let go of me?” I asked.

It took her a few seconds and she jerked her hand away from me. She looked at me apologetically but still remained silent. We just stood there and continued to stare at each other. Finally, she gave me a “Wait a second” gesture with her finger and began rummaging around in her satchel.

She pulled out a comically large stone tablet. The tablet was completely black and shined like obsidian. She sat down on the ground and hid behind the tablet. I just stood there waiting as this fox girl was doing something with the large stone tablet. After a few seconds, she turned the tablet towards me, and on its black surface were light blue glowing symbols. It was Elvish, and I began to read what she had written,

Was all the tablet said.

She just had the tablet in her lap and was peering over the top of it. I pressed my finger against the tablet and tried to write a letter but nothing happened. I gave her my best look of confusion and she grabbed my finger and glided it across the tablet. I could feel the warmth on her fingertips as she focused mana into them. I replicated the action and focused my own mana into my fingertips. Now I was able to write on the tablet.

How interesting, you could write on this stone tablet with just a bit of mana, it felt like it was sucking the mana straight from my fingertip. I wrote back to her,

She quickly flipped the tablet back to herself and I could see her smile brightly as she began to furiously swipe her fingers across the tablet.

I gave a nod of understanding and wrote back,

Thinking I was done here I stood up to walk away but she quickly grabbed my leg and looked afraid that I was leaving. I have no idea what is going on and why she wanted me to stay so bad so I stopped and looked down at her. She began swiping away again on the tablet and turned it towards me once more,

She wrote to me.

Huh? This is unexpected.

I was surprised and sat there crouched as I read the letters on the stone. She flipped it back over to herself and began to write some more,

She flipped the tablet back to me as I read this. I could see the sadness in her eyes as stared into them.

So, she’s deaf? A deaf Beastmen must be extremely rare. Not only that she must have been born that way since any injury to her ears could just be healed with magic. I couldn’t imagine being deaf, especially since Beastmen were supposed to have hearing that was just as good as Elves. It must be hard for her. And I had seen firsthand just how stupid kids can be. I began to write back to her,

She quickly read my response and looked up at me. She seemed surprised and kept rereading the tablet. I could see tears well up in her eyes when she suddenly dropped the tablet and lunged at me. She had me in a bear hug before I could even react. She began to sob while squeezing the life out of me. She didn’t even know what I was going to ask of her. How the hell was she getting bullied? I’m pretty sure she could just squeeze kids to death if they messed with her.

I let her have her moment until she finally calmed down and grabbed the tablet again.

Feeling a bit light-headed now I wrote back,

I didn’t have any friends myself and I never had anyone want to be friends with me before. I was friends with Nyx… but she isn’t here anymore. And I could understand her plight of being a pariah. I knew all too well what it was like for everyone around you to not understand you or just outright dislike you for something you had no control over.

So I think I was actually kind of happy that this girl wanted to be friends with me. However, communicating using this tablet was going to be tedious. Also, lugging this dang thing around all day must be awful for her. I knew sign language from my previous life so I could just teach her that. It would be way easier and more practical than using this thing.

She asked.

I asked.

And today, somehow, I went from getting lost on my way to the market, to fighting some random punk kids, to meeting my first new friend Cerila.

Thanks, Dad.