Mr. Marion and Taloress emerged from the forest while dragging several monster carcasses behind them. They had tied the bodies with thread and connected it to their backs so they could drag them easily.

“Thanks for your hard work,” I mumbled tiredly as I went to meet them. After binding the intruders and dumping them in the cave, I had sent Mr. Marion and Taloress to fetch the monsters they hunted earlier before I called them back to help deal with the intruders. There were no longer any threats, but I didn't want to spend one more second without any excess fabric I could use for an emergency.

As I began plucking the fur from the monsters and began spinning them into thread, I spoke to Mr. Marion and Taloress, who had taken seats near me. “Are you guys alright? I heard both of you scream earlier when I got stabbed, and when I woke up, you were both going batshit crazy.”

Mr. Marion and Taloress exchanged glances and gave me a nod.

“That's a pretty lackluster response after seeing both of you act like rabid animals,” I muttered while shooting them a dissatisfied look. Taloress cocked her head in confusion before giving me a cheerful thumbs-up while bobbing her body up and down as if to replace her lackluster response with a lively one.

“Stop, you didn't have to do that Taloress,” I said with a sigh. “Anyway, a lot of things happened but I want to address something important first. When I got stabbed, I heard both of you scream in my mind. Even Spider did, but his scream was more like a monster's shriek. Can you guys actually speak?”

Mr. Marion and Taloress exchanged glances once again before shrugging at the exact same time.

“How will you know if you don't try it?” I said in exasperation as I massaged my head. I knew I was starting to get grumpy, but I was so tired already and I still had to interrogate the intruders tied up in my cave. All I wanted was to get some sleep, but I knew I had to finish things first. “Can you guys at least try to speak to me?”

Taloress went first. Her head morphed until her white comedy mask was gone, replaced with her cute face. Her lips started moving, but no sound came out. She pouted in disappointment.

“Well, I didn't hold much hope with that anyway,” I said. “But what if you try speaking with your mind? Like, imagine speaking to me, but mentally.”

Taloress nodded and stared at me with a look of concentration. It felt a bit awkward to see a cute girl like her staring at me with so much intensity, but I attributed those feelings to my puberty. Damn hormones…

Ma… ter… Master…

I suddenly heard a faint feminine voice in my mind, and when I saw Taloress' face slowly brighten with a large smile, I immediately knew it was her.

“You can talk!” I exclaimed excitedly before pulling Taloress in for a hug, which she returned enthusiastically. Maybe a bit too enthusiastically as I felt my ribs creak in protest.

When Taloress finally released me from her bear hug, I saw Mr. Marion stare at me as well, and a moment later, I heard a deep masculine voice echo in my head.

I… greet… the Master…

“Woah, you sound so manly, Mr. Marion,” I said as I hugged him as well. His voice was deep and refined, like that of a perfect gentleman's. When I heard it, I definitely wasn't clenching my teeth in jealousy.

My puppets began talking nonstop as they practiced their voice, and as I listened to their random words, I realized that I wasn't only hearing their voices, but I was feeling some of their emotions and intent as well.

I love you, Master! Taloress suddenly said to me out of the blue. If a normal girl said that to me, I would have blushed and stuttered, but since I could feel the emotion and intent behind Taloress' words, I knew that her love for me was the familial type of love, although I sensed a hint of fanaticism in there as well…

“I love you too, Taloress,” I said with a big smile. Being able to finally talk to my puppets was a very pleasant surprise that would make communication far easier compared to the gestures and sign languages we'd been using.

In my fabric sense, I felt Spider smack the bound woman with a tentacle inside the cave. She must have been trying to escape from her bindings again.

I sighed. “Well, I guess it's time to interrogate our captives. Let's go, guys.”

I picked up the newly-created threads with my Authority and hid them inside my clothes, where I could quickly summon them in case the need arises.

Mr. Marion and Taloress followed behind me as we walked to the cave. They were happily conversing with each other, their voices leaking into my mind as they did. I checked if I could prevent myself from listening in on their conversation, and it turned out I could. I could choose to listen in anytime I wanted, but since I wished to respect the privacy of my puppets, I tuned their voices out of my head. I didn't want to constantly listen to them reminisce about the times I didn't know they were sentient yet, anyway. Taloress, you didn't have to brag about the time I kissed you on the lips just so I could proudly tell other people that I already kissed a girl…

As I cringed at my past actions, we finally arrived at the end of the cave where Spider and Tedd were waiting for us. When I fixed Tedd earlier after he got bisected, he immediately ran to the intruders and kicked them angrily. He may have been kicking with all his might, but an ant bite probably hurt more than his kicks did. Tedd must have realized it too, because when we arrived, he was seated atop Spider with crossed arms, sulking.

I greeted them with a gentle pat on their heads before facing the intruders. The man was still unconscious, but the woman was very much awake, although instead of the fear I expected from her, she was glaring at me with pure hatred. Where did the trembling woman from earlier go?

With my Authority, I removed the gag that Mr. Marion put on her mouth earlier, although she didn't speak, only continuing her heated glare.

“So, who are you people and why did you attack my home?” I asked, cutting straight to the point.

“I don't answer to a vile necromancer like you,” the woman said harshly. “If you're going to kill me, just get on with it.”

Her response was very passionate, but when I looked into her eyes more carefully, I saw fear. She was afraid, but she was hiding it underneath a mask of anger. “I'm not a necromancer. Whatever kind of rumor you heard it from is wrong. I'm just a kid living out here in the woods.”

“You cannot fool me with your juvenile appearance, necromancer. Cruel demons like you often wear the skin of the innocent, and I will not be fooled,” the woman replied angrily.

I sighed in exasperation. “It doesn't matter if you believe me or not. All I need to know is who you are and why you attacked my home so I know who I'm dealing with. I have a hunch you have an organization backing you up. There's no way some random augmenter and a mage happened to hear rumors of a necromancer out here in the middle of a goddamn forest and decided to kill him out of the goodness of their hearts.”

The woman pursed her lips as she glared at me, refusing to talk any further.

“Fine. If you don't want to talk, then you have no use for me anymore,” I said darkly. “I intended to find out whether you deserve to die or not based on who you people are, but if you're not going to talk, then I'll have to kill you now. Attacking my home to slay me is enough reason for me to kill you anyway.”

The woman's defiant expression immediately paled in fear as I transformed the threads I created earlier into a threadtacle with a sharp spike at the end. I was serious about killing her. After all, they tried to kill me first, so I had all the justification I needed to return the favor.

But as I prepared to strike the cowering woman's head with the sharp threadtacle like a scorpion stabbing its prey, I felt a nagging doubt in the corner of my mind. Yes, they tried to kill me, but did that make them evil? They thought I was a necromancer, one of the most evil types of mages out there, and so they tried to eradicate me. If I ignored the fact that it was all a misunderstanding, didn't that make them heroic? People who would risk their lives to fight evil for the good of the kingdom. But they tried to kill me.

The woman was crying silently now, and as I watched her tears slide down her cheeks, I realized she was so young. The man looked like he was in his early twenties, but the woman was even younger, maybe in her late teens.

The realization made me falter. Fortunately, before the young woman could notice my hesitation, the man woke up and immediately started begging. “Please, don't kill her! It's all a misunderstanding!”

“Kazimir, are you alright?!” the woman shouted in concern as she tried to face her partner, but with her limbs bound by threads, she only managed to wriggle like a worm.

“We made a mistake, Samantia,” the man said quickly. “He's not a necromancer.”

“He's lying!” the woman, whose name turned out to be Samantia, shouted. I immediately plugged the gag into her mouth as I faced the man who she called ‘Kazimir.’ The conversation would be more productive if I talked to him, so I ignored Samantia's muffled screams as I addressed Kazimir.

“I'm going to ask this question for the last time. Who are you people and why did you attack my home?”

“We're Night Wardens,” Kazimir answered as he squirmed uncomfortably in his position. I sent a mental message to Spider, who was surprised to hear my voice in his head for the first time, to prop Kazimir up. Spider obeyed and repositioned Kazimir so that he was resting his back on the wall.

“What's a Night Warden and what do they do?” I asked.

“We belong to an organization called the Keepers of the Night, and our sole purpose is to cleanse the world of the evil that haunts the shadows,” Kazimir said in a practiced voice. I had a hunch he said that on a daily basis.

“So in short, you hunt necromancers?”

“Not only necromancers, no. We hunt all sorts of unholy monsters that aren't supposed to exist. Werewolves, vampires, the undead. But our foremost enemy is the Eldritch.”

“So you go around hunting supernatural monsters,” I said as I nodded in understanding. “But how did you end up here? Wildpost is in the middle of nowhere, and just a week after I settle here, you immediately hear the rumors of a necromancer. Your organization must have a pretty impressive information network.”

I felt worried at the existence of an organization with an information network that covered even the most remote of villages. If their information was that good, then there's a chance that my status as an Ascendant might already be circulating among the upper echelons of their organization. It was only a chance, but it was still a risk that could well lead to my enslavement. Should I pack and go looking for another place again..?

Before I could even consider running away, Kazimir spoke again. “No, our information network didn't find out about you. Our organization is good, but even we can't see and hear everything everywhere all at once. We learned about you because we got a tip two days ago.”

My eyes widened in rage. “Who?”

“I-I don't know, we were just told that it was an anonymous tip,” Kazimir replied nervously.

I felt my blood boil at the revelation that someone tried to get me killed, and that person could only be from Wildpost. They purposely reported me to an organization that hunted necromancers even though Bran already announced that it was just a misunderstanding. Who could it be?

The first person that entered my suspicions was Ned, the one who initially spread the rumors. He was the first one who showed hostility to me and it was plausible that he hated me enough to report me to the Keepers of the Night. But a corner of my mind was telling me that it wasn't him. Ned didn't strike me as someone who would purposely kill someone just because he hated them, although that didn't mean much when I barely knew the man. I'll have to observe him closely in the future.

“Are there more of you coming for me?” I asked Kazimir.

He looked nervously between me and Samantia, licking his lips before answering. “Our captain knows where we are. If we aren't able to regularly contact him, he'll assume we've gone missing and send more Night Wardens to investigate this area.”

I felt Samantia's challenging stare at my back as I considered my options. If I let them go, my status as an Ascendant would spread and my life would become even more challenging. Everyone would start hunting me down and I'd have to be on the run forever. That was why I wanted to build a company and become rich so that even if my secret went out, I'd have some measure of influence and power to keep those that wanted to hunt me down at bay. But I haven't even officially started building my business yet and my secret was already at the risk of getting revealed.

My other option was to kill Kazimir and Samantia, which was a whole new can of worms on its own. If they went missing, I have no doubt that more Night Wardens would come looking for them, and what place was more suspicious than a cave in the middle of nowhere with a masked man living in secrecy and solitude? I'd be their first suspect, and if I had this hard a time already in fending off two Night Wardens, I could only imagine the futility of fighting off an army of them. And killing them doesn't sit right with me…

“Killing us would be the wrong choice,” Kazimir said as he stared desperately at me. “If we disappear, our superiors will send Night Wardens more powerful than us.”

“But if I let you go, the knowledge that I'm an Ascendant will spread. I cannot allow that,” I said. Samantia's eyes widened in realization at my words. She must've really thought I was a necromancer, only to realize that I was something far worse.

“If you let us go, we promise not to tell anyone about you! We get to live and you get to keep your quiet life out here!” Kazimir said quickly.

“I don't believe in hollow promises made in desperation. Nothing will stop you from breaking it once you're out of here. It will be far easier for me to kill you and run away rather than deal with an entire kingdom hellbent on hunting down a rogue Ascendant,” I said seriously.

“No, please! Samantia is an Occult mage! She can make us swear a Blood Oath to keep us from talking!”

I had no idea what a Blood Oath was, but if it was similar to the Oaths that priests like Mother Betha took that would punish the person if he or she violated it, then it was a far better alternative than having to kill Kazimir and Samantia.

I turned to Samantia and removed her gag. “Is that true?”

The defiance in Samantia's eyes was now replaced by fear as her lips trembled. “I-I c-can't. Blood Oaths are fifth-circle magic, and I-I can only cast up to the third circle.”

Kazimir and Samantia stared at me in horror as I prepared my threadtacle to kill them. I couldn't afford to let them go. If the kingdom learned of me, I was as good as dead. There was nowhere else to run to when everyone saw me as a walking bounty. I have to kill them.

“Looks like that option is gone now,” I said with a coldness I didn't know I was capable of. “I'm going to have to kill the both of you.”

Kazimir screamed and struggled in his bonds as I approached, but with his weakened body, he couldn't escape the threads I bound him with. Samantia was crying, her sobs echoing loudly throughout the cavern with her mouth no longer gagged.

I need to do this to defend myself I reasoned. They attacked me first. If they didn't come here in the first place, they wouldn't have to die. It's not my fault.

As I tried to justify myself, I mentally reached out to my puppets to find reassurance. Should I kill them?

Whatever the Master desires, that is what we desire as well, Mr. Marion replied.

If the Master thinks they deserve death, then that is what they should receive, Taloress said in her cute voice.

They hurt the Massssteeer. Death is a fitting rewaaard, a creepy, raspy voice replied, which I realized was Spider.

I looked at the last puppet that had yet to speak. Tedd stared at me, whose button eyes seemed to see into my very soul. Whatever the Master does, we approve.

I swallowed as I turned back to the two captives who were struggling and crying to escape their bonds. If I wanted to survive, then I was going to have to kill them.

As I raised my threadtacle to stab them in their heads, Tedd added something to what he said earlier. After all, the Great Helen raised You as You are. Whatever you do, surely the Great Helen approves as well.

I looked at Tedd in horror, then looked at my own hands. I rubbed my thumb over my palms. They were dry, but somehow, I felt the sticky blood of all the people I killed. Soon, they will be dyed in crimson yet again with the blood of the two people before me. Mom would never approve of this.

My threadtacle went limp as I fell to my knees, my head bowed in defeat. I loosened the bonds on my captives, who looked at me in confusion, but I just pointed in the direction of the exit. “Just go. And don't you dare disturb my mother's grave again.”

I didn't have to repeat myself as they quickly freed themselves from the tangle of threads and rushed towards the exit, warily keeping their distance from my puppets. Samantia had to assist Kazimir in walking since he was too weak.

“Thank you,” Kazimir said sincerely before they limped away, but I didn't bother responding as I stared at my hands. I didn't have to stain them with blood today, but why did they still feel so sticky?

●●●

“Slow down, Samantia,” Kazimir huffed as his partner rushed him through the Wild Woods. “My body can't keep up.”

“We have to leave this place as fast as possible and tell Captain Kairon about what we've seen,” Samantia replied grimly as she assisted Kazimir through the thick underbrush of the Wild Woods. In her hand was a piece of paper that was slowly burning. It was one of her talismans that repelled monsters.

“We can't, Samantia. He's not a necromancer. We were wrong, we shouldn't have attacked him in the first place.”

Samantia looked at her partner incredulously. “Are you stupid? Yes, he's not a necromancer like we thought, but he's something worse. He's a rogue Ascendant!”

“I know,” Kazimir said. “But that doesn't make him evil, Samantia.”

“Just because he's a child doesn't mean he's innocent and kind.”

Kazimir stopped walking and glared at her. “Then if he's the evil Ascendant you're so afraid about, then why did he let us go?”

“Because if he killed us, he would have brought the wrath of all the Night Wardens upon him!”

Kazimir shook his head. “Killing us would have been more convenient for him and you know it. He could have easily run away if he killed us, but instead, he chose to spare us even if there was a chance that his secret would go out. He gave us his trust, Samantia.”

“Then are you saying we should keep quiet about discovering a rogue Ascendant that could potentially threaten this kingdom and countless innocent lives?” Samantia asked angrily.

“Yes,” Kazimir replied simply, much to Samantia's shock.“Villains aren't born, Samantia, they're made. The child is not evil, but what do you think will happen if we betray him? He did nothing wrong, and yet he'll be hunted to the ends of the earth just because of his power when he didn't choose to be like that.”

“Are you serious right now?!” Samantia shouted in incredulity. “We almost died by his hands and you still want to side with him?”

“He was only defending himself, Samantia. We attacked first,” Kazimir said seriously. “And if sparing us still wasn't enough to convince you of his morals, he healed my wounds earlier while you were unconscious. Why do you think I'm able to walk around with my innards still inside me?”

Samantia pursed her lips. Everything Kazimir said was reasonable, but she couldn't figure out why he would side with the child. Even though she knew everything Kazimir said was true, she couldn't find it in herself to side with the child who was this close to killing her.

After several seconds of silent deliberation, Samantia sighed. “If, and I say if, we decide to keep the rogue Ascendant a secret, how will we explain your current condition to the Captain? Look at yourself, you're all skin and bones. It's obvious that you were just healed from a mortal wound.”

Kazimir shrugged. “That's easy. We'll just have to stay in this area until I'm able to go back to my previous condition. We'll keep in contact with the Captain and tell him it's taking us longer than expected to find the necromancer. Then when I finally get back into shape, we'll return to the Captain and tell him the tip was a false one.”

“What if the Captain asks for details?” Samantia asked nervously as she imagined herself lying to the captain right to his face. It was enough to make her legs wobble like jelly. “You know I'm bad at lying.”

“You're not lying when we're telling the truth, Samantia. That kid back there wasn't a necromancer, was he?”

“But the Captain will realize that we're hiding something,” Samantia said as she paced. “What then? You know how paranoid Captain Kairon can get. If he finds out we're not telling the whole truth, he'll send investigators to gather all the details himself.”

“Then we'll leave behind clues that would prove that we're telling the truth,” Kazimir replied, not perturbed at all. “Since we're going to stay in the area until I recover and get back to my former condition, I suggest we stay in the nearest village. We'll tell the people there that we're investigating a suspicious character in the area, which would justify our stay there, and before we leave, we'll announce that it was a false alarm. If the Captain does send investigators, they'll learn from the locals themselves that we're telling the truth.”

Samantia continued her nervous pacing, still unsure whether she should agree with the plan. Kazimir was silent as he watched his partner dig a shallow trench on the ground with her pacing, but after a minute, Samantia finally stopped and faced him. “I agree on one condition. If the plan fails, we confess the truth to the Captain.”

“Sure,” Kazimir replied. “If our plan fails and the Captain finds out about our lies, he'll have us interrogated anyway. I don't want to experience first-hand the expertise of our own interrogators.”

Samantia shivered at the mention of the interrogators. The monsters that Night Wardens hunted were on a whole different level from normal humans, which meant that if one needed to be brought in for interrogation, the methods would be different from the ones normally used on a human. They were infinitely worse, and the interrogators of the Keepers of the Night were the best at what they did.

“Alright, I agree with your plan,” Samantia finally said. “Now we have to get going. This is the last repelling talisman I have and I don't want to experience first-hand the recent news of the increasing monster levels in the Wild Woods.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Kazimir replied as he accepted Samantia's offer of assistance. “Now if I remember correctly, the nearest village should be that way. I think its name was Wildpost or something.”

●●●

Several days had already passed since the Night Wardens' attack. The first day after I let Kazimir and Samantia go, I stayed focused on my fabric sense, keeping myself aware of any suspicious movement inside my territory. During that day, I regretted my choice of letting the Night Wardens go and spent the entire time buried in my own paranoia as I kept all my attention on my fabric sense to detect any possible intruder. There was none.

On the second day, my puppets convinced me to eat and sleep while I kept my focus on my fabric sense as I did so. They hunted game and cooked food for me even though I told them not to create fire without my supervision, but I was too busy paying attention to my fabric sense to scold them. I didn't even realize that Clip and Clop already returned from wherever they fled to when the Night Wardens attacked.

When the third day came, some of my tension left my body and was replaced with overwhelming fatigue. I slept throughout the third day, occasionally waking up when I thought I felt an intruder in my fabric sense which turned out to be just some wild monsters roaming in the night.

A full week had now passed after the attack, and I was starting to believe that nobody was coming for me. I had a hard time accepting it, but Kazimir did honor his promise of keeping my secret.

When I finally accepted the fact that nobody was coming for me, I returned to my daily routine before everything went apeshit. I sent Mr. Marion and Taloress to hunt monsters, Spider was delegated to patrol my territory along with Tedd who rode his back, while I stayed in my cave and spun monster fur into threads. Occasionally, I would shift my attention to my fabric sense to detect intruders, but none came. Good riddance, Night Wardens. I hope I never see you again.

With no more problems bothering me, I decided to get on with my short-term goals, which consisted of creating clothes to sell in Wildpost as well as accomplishing the deal I had with Belka regarding the armors I was supposed to provide her with. Since I needed to drop by Luth's tannery first to pick up the leather I needed to create the armors, I decided to focus on creating clothes for now.

For the rest of the day, Mr. Marion and Taloress hunted monsters in the surrounding area and brought them back to me so I could spin their fur into threads and weave them into clothes, only stopping every now and then when I had to regenerate my mana. As for all the meat they were bringing in, I wrapped them all in thin cloth before casting Preservation on them to keep them from spoiling.

By the end of the day, I had enough clothes to fill my wagon twice over and enough meat preserved to last me for weeks. There was actually so much meat that I had to dig a large hole where I buried them just so they wouldn't fill up all the space in my cave. Well, at least I wouldn't have to worry about food for the foreseeable future.

Before I went to sleep, I checked my fabric sense again and…

…was glad to see that there were no intruders. I couldn't help but smile to myself as I realized that I would be able to sleep soundly tonight without having to worry. If my secret went out, the King's men would have been crawling all over the mountain already the moment they learned of me, but a week had already passed and the place was still quiet. It was proof enough that my secret was safe. For now.

“Good night Mr. Marion, Taloress, Spider, Tedd. See you all in the morning, stay out of trouble while I'm asleep!” I said to my puppets before I lay on my bed. I had no idea what they did when I was asleep, but as long as they didn't cause problems, I didn't care one whit.

●●●

When they were sure that the Master was asleep, the puppets convened. Since they were now able to speak with their minds, their conversations were now much more efficient and had fewer misunderstandings.

So, who will be staying here this time? Mr. Marion asked the group.

I volunteer! Taloress said excitedly as she raised her hand.

The last time you did, you spent the whole night staring at the Master, Tedd said. When He woke up, you startled Him. I will not allow you to keep watch.

The Master was not startled! Taloress exclaimed angrily. He was impressed with me for my devotion!

I shhhhaall take up the role, inssstead, Spider rasped as he wiggled his tentacles. I am enouugh to keep the Master saaafe.

Unfair! Taloress exclaimed. The last time you guarded the Master, He got stabbed!

Spider's entire body shivered and squirmed in shame and displeasure. I will not allow the sssame thing to happen agaaain.

Taloress pouted underneath her mask, but she reluctantly agreed. Fine. Exploring the outside sounds fun as well, anyway.

All right, with everything decided, let us go forth on our adventure! Tedd exclaimed as he climbed up on Taloress' shoulder. The place we shall explore tonight is the area southeast of the Master's domicile!

With their destination decided by the eldest, the three puppets ran through the Wild Woods. The skies were clear and the moon was bright, but most of the light was blocked by the forest's thick canopy. Mr. Marion and Taloress had to extend strands of thread in front of them to act as feelers, informing them ahead of time of any obstacles as they ran through the Wild Woods at an unnatural speed.

When they arrived in unfamiliar territory, Mr. Marion and Taloress slowed their pace to inspect their surroundings. Their goal in these kinds of excursions was to scout the nearby area, but in truth, they just wanted to explore the world. In a place like the Wild Woods, there were so many things to discover that every plant and insect they saw was always a new type of discovery.

Oooh, what is that? Tedd asked as he pointed his arm at a bright red flower on the ground illuminated by a sliver of moonlight that managed to pierce through the gaps of the thick canopy above. Go closer!

Taloress went closer, but when her foot stepped a few inches from the red flower, the ground suddenly burst as a large worm with a round mouth full of teeth emerged, the flower attached to its head. It bit Taloress' foot with its huge maw and tried to pull her into the hole it was burrowed in, but Taloress barely budged.

Waaah! Tedd exclaimed as he hid behind Taloress' head. Taloress, get it off!

The girl in question simply giggled in amusement, and with her strength granted to her by her body made of a Grisly Bear's fur, she pulled her foot up and yanked the worm out of its burrow.

The worm turned out to be more than a meter long, and even though it was completely out of the hole, it still refused to let go of Taloress' foot.

Taloress giggled as she waved her foot around with the worm still attached while Tedd screamed in disgust.

Mr. Marion arrived by Taloress' side and bopped her on the head. Get rid of that, you'll attract other monsters.

Taloress pouted underneath her mask. She sighed and was about to stomp the worm to death when it suddenly let go and crawled back to its burrow with surprising speed.

Wow, you scared that worm off with your mere presence. That's impressive, Tedd said to Mr. Marion.

That wasn't me, Mr. Marion said before he suddenly felt something brush against one of his feelers. He quickly turned around and froze at what he saw.

Brother? Taloress asked in concern before following Mr. Marion's gaze. When she saw it, she froze as well while Tedd cowered behind her head.

Facing them was a hunter whose fur blended with the night. Its glowing yellow eyes gazed at them as it stepped forth from the bushes it was hiding in. What little moonlight there was illuminated a coat of pure black fur that reflected no light. A black panther stared at them.

Let's kick its butt! Taloress exclaimed and began to move, but Mr. Marion immediately placed his hand on her shoulder.

Don't. Mr. Marion said simply. It is stronger than us.

Taloress scoffed but obeyed nonetheless.

After several seconds, the panther sank back into the shadows with nary a sound. When he was sure that it was gone, Mr. Marion pulled Taloress as he walked back in the direction of the cave. We're cutting our adven— I mean, excursion, short.

Whaaat? But we just started! Taloress exclaimed.

Mr. Marion is right. Let's save our adventure for another day, Tedd said with a subdued voice.

Taloress grumbled, but she comforted herself with the fact that at least she'll be able to stare at her Master all night instead.