Spring has arrived.

The originally dead and empty forest was filled with lush trees and plants, the mornings had a refreshing feeling along with the energetic chirping of wild birds.

However this seemingly joyous atmosphere was contradicting with how I'm feeling.

I was out hunting and foraging since Sylvar had not been feeling well these days, when I asked what was wrong, he vaguely said it has something to do about his power, I got no further answers though.

It was not any normal sickness, we were sleeping one day when he suddenly woke up screaming, I was alarmed and tried to calm him down, he didn't, he kept shouting things in a language I didn't understand with cold sweat covering him.

His condition is only getting worse, I feel useless because I can't be of any help him.

He told me to not go out to certain parts of the forest and not to stray too far away from the tree house, also he instructed me to not go out hunting for too long.

If only I w-

ROAR!

While walking around in the forest with my basket full of mushrooms and plants, thinking about the dilemma we were in, I heard a loud roar with my enhanced ears and my thoughts were interrupted, it was far away but the sound was getting closer.

For the first time, there was such a sound in this forest, and from the ground starting to vibrate around me I could tell it was a large creature.

I barely had time to think with the tremendous speed the creature was aproaching, I used sound magic to silence my movement, and asked a tree to hide me inside it's trunk with wood magic, I made a little hole in the trunk to look outside.

I waited, and as the creature got closer I could hear that it was chasing a creature much smaller than it, probably a horned rabbit.

A bush started rustling and then as I expected, a horned rabbit jumped from it and continued jumping away, though it didn't get a chance to run away because suddenly, a bunch of large spikes were shot at it and one of them pierced it's leg, it wasn't enough to kill it, but it started to spasm after a couple of seconds and stopped moving.

poison?

the large creature stopped running the second the rabbit was hit with the spikes, after the horned rabbit died, it started moving towards it, opened it's mouth, and devoured the whole rabbit in one go, I could finally see it.

The first words that came to mind were, grotesque and terrifying, the three meter long creature had a face of human with three sets of large razor teeth, a lion mane and body, a tail like that of a scorpion along with black wings.

what is that?!

The creature lifted it head and started sniffing, then showed a hideous grin on that face that looked eerily close to a human, and made a sound, it sounded melodious like a flute, after that it spoke.

"HumAn. BeG for yoUr liFe and You Will dIe a quIck dEath." It said as it made it's ways closer to the tree I was hiding in

Blood drained from my face, and my heart started pounding, I closed the hole I was looking through, and I used wood magic to carve the trunk upwards so I can get higher while filling the trunk bellow me so I don't leave a tunnel for the creature to crawl into.

Soon after I heard a roar and the tree was being clawed at by the creature, luckily, the trees here are gigantic and have fairly dense and strong wood, so the creature wasn't getting through the tree anytime soon, and I can supply the tree with wood mana to repair itself.

it wasn't safe to go out so I simply made a little space within the tree trunk to sit down and wait until the creature loses interest in hunting me.

One hour, two hours, three... six, I looked at the little device Sylvar gave me that shows time, it was similar to a clock but it's powered by pure mana.

When will it leave? I could stay here for a long time but that doesn't solve anything, it would only drain my mana supply, and it will eventually get to me...

I decided to take a look at the outside, I made a hole and looked down, the creature was still clawing at the tree, but it was in a slow pace, perhaps it got tired after 6 hours, and it didn't notice me.

Can I outrun it? Probably not... what can I do to distract it or hold it down? Since it has keen senses I cannot fool it with an illusion, atleast not with my current level of magic utilization.

sighing, I closed the hole and attempted to make a plan with the little information I had about that monstrosity, it has a ranged attack, it can shoot spines from it's tail and it looked poisonous, it has incredible strength, stamina and sharp claws and teeth, and it seems like it has some intelligence because it can use human speech, and it has a keen smelling sense.

ugh, I can't think of any plan with these unfavourable circumstances.

I have absolutely no chance of winning against it head to head, I didn't wander into the areas Sylvar warned me about so why is it here?

Restraining it is what I want to do, the tree house has protective magic around it so I'll be safe as long as I get to it.

I will try to cast a powerful spell, I've never tried it before but it's my only chance.

I opened a hole once again to take a look at the creature, after that, I let out most of my wood mana reserve into the tree and commanded the tree's roots to wrap around it's tail and limbs.

Rumble!

The tree began to shake severely, the ground beneath the creature cracked, thick roots jutting out of the cracks and stabbing the creature and completely encasing it like a python does to its prey, it was as if the tree was taking out it's anger on it for what it has been doing for the past six hours, the creature immediately stopped moving, not a chance to resist.

I realized ah! that was a bit overkill...

it was almost eight hours of mana absorption, but the spell was destructive, knowing that wood was the weakest affinity I have means that other affinities would be able to cast far more powerful spell, especially if I dedicate my time to use mana efficiently.

Poof.

a white cloud appeared around the creature along with a goofy sound, and the creature disappeared.

"Hm?" I went down to check, and to my surprise, it really vanished, no trace left of it except for a blue marble.

I picked it up and inspected it, I found nothing special about it so I put it in my bag and quickly made my way to the tree house.

It's already quite dark out, I'm worried that Sylvar will come looking for me, he's in no condition to go out, let alone fight off anything dangerous.

"I'm back."

...

"Sylvar?"

...

"Are you here?"

... no reply.

I panicked, I ran all around the tree house looking for him but he wasn't anywhere to be found, so I went out and enhanced my ears to the maximum amount I could not caring about the severe headache it caused me.

'Noah!'

'Noah~! Where are you?'

I could hear him in the distance and I felt relieved, I quickly made my way towards him and found that something was wrong... he was falling and making mistakes while walking and stumbling every couple of steps.

"Sylvar." I shouted as I made my way to him, panting.

"Ah!" He jumped "you surprised me!" He turned to me "Are you okay? You were so late I was worried."

"Why did you go out when you were sick? You should've stayed home. You don't know how worried I was when I didn't find you. I looked everywhere. You can use your ability to make sure that I was fine, even though it doesn't work very well on me, you can still vaguely see. Don't put yourself in danger. Please." I didn't answer his question.

He was a bit dumbfounded and didn't answer.

I continued "I can handle everything by myself, I don't want to put you in danger because of me. And you were even fa-" as I was about to mention him not being able to walk correctly, I finally had the time to notice why, his originally colorful eyes were now... a whitish gray, dull, and they weren't focused, even though he was facing me, it was like he wasn't seeing me, my eyes widened at the realization "what happened to you?"

"Ah, I will tell you after we get home safely..." he smiled and brought his hand out to pat my head, but his hand landed on my shoulder instead, his smile faltered for a bit but he kept it up, and patted my head correctly, "lead the way." He extended his arm.

I made a sound of affirmation and I grabbed his hand, we slowly made our way back in silence.

We went into the tree house, after Sylvar sat down on the chair with my help, he motioned infront of him to the chair at the other side of the dining table "sit down, let's talk for a bit." I didn't respond immediately so he asked "Is something the matter?"

"I'm sorry." I answered

"For what?" Sylvar sounded confused.

"For being rude earlier, I knew you did it for me but I disregarded it and reprimanded you..." I trailed off, and look at Sylvar.

Quickly after I finished Sylvar started laughing loudly... perhaps too loudly.

After wiping away a tear Sylvar said "Oh you! Stop being so adorable!" He stood up a wrapped me in a hug.

huh?

"I'm not adorable. And I really am sorry." I tried to push myself off of the hug but Sylvar was stronger than me.

"Oh you are!" Letting go of me Sylvar looked at my direction "I also know that you said all those things because you care about me, I'm not mad at you, not at all."

"Thank you."

He pinched me "oh don't be formal, how many times have I told you that!" He then got to the topic he was originally going to talk about "As I was saying, we need to talk, there has been some drastic changes in the world, I don't know everything, but- Noah?!"

While he was talking, without any warning, in a sudden flash, black light shone around me, and immense pain like nothing I have ever felt before hit me.

I didn't even have the time to shout or say anything, I blacked out instantly, I was still conscious, but I couldn't do anything, no movement, no talking, no sensing, nothing, I couldn't even muster out any thoughts.