Crunching manifested within the woods, leaves and small twigs being stepped on as the two ran like the wind. It was like Scooby and Shaggy running away from a ghost. No one could blame them, but their decision left them forgetting all about the berries.

The running only stopped until they ran into Isaac and Keianna, quite literally. There was a mighty SMACK and a great fall as Junji had forced Keianna onto the ground, having her collide with the dirty ground. The frightened man managed to catch himself so he wouldn’t fall on her.

“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” Junji was very quick to apologize as the fall did seem pretty rough especially with the speed they were traveling at.

“Nngh…” Keianna was obviously a little shaken up by the sudden impact and being sent to her back. Luckily she didn’t land hard enough to cause any serious damage, but she was angered judging by the way she clenched her teeth.

Now Junji’s done it.

“Keianna, here let me help you.” Isaac kindly offered a supporting hand, but she didn’t even take the time to glance at it and instead slapped it away as she stood up on her own accord.

“What the hell is your problem!?”

“I’m sorry, I can explain!”

“There was… a severed head in the river and we weren't going to stick around there to find out where it came from!” Claire said, in Junji's defense, before stepping aside to catch her breath from the quick run they had endured.

Even hearing this didn’t really change what Keianna as about to do. She was a very rowdy girl and once her mind was made up she would follow through with whatever she had hatched. She cracked her knuckles as she stared at Junji. “There’s about to be another head floating in that river.”

“H-hey come on! I said I was sorry!”

“Relax, it was an accident… he didn't mean to.” Claire would intervene, moving to lightly shove Junji away from Keianna.

“Come on, Keianna. Just let it go. We should be more focused about… what they saw back there.” Isaac mentioned, concerned about what struck fear into the hearts of his friends.

“Tch, fine, I’ll let it go just this once.” Keianna folded her arms underneath her breast, her eyes switching from Junji to Claire. “So, you said you saw a corpse?”

“It was just the head… we didn't see the body.”

That’s very concerning… what could have done something like that...?

“It could have been an animal… maybe it was another student…” Isaac released a saddened sigh, he always hated hearing about the news of people dying. No matter how bad that person was no one deserved to die. “At least we got food and a fire.”

“...” Junji didn’t respond, instead, he ran a hand through his ultramarine locks, revealing this to be a nervous tick of his.

“Uhh… about that… I kind of forgot about the berries.” Claire mentioned with a sorry look. On the run away from the river, they had forgotten all about the food gathering.

“Aww man… we could have really used that food. It’s not your fault though.” Isaac admitted his disappointment.

“Let me get this straight? You guys didn’t get any food? None at all? What a bunch of morons!” She was really mad now with the incompetence of her peers. Keianna’s right fist clenched, muffling her skin as yellow sparks of lightning swarmed around her.

Seeing the lightning made Claire nervous, as she spoke to try and fix the situation. “H-Hey, hey! I can always look for more, you guys just go and set up the campfire.”

“Claire’s right, the important thing is that they came back safely.” Isaac tried to calm things down so they could stay on the same page. “Plus, you should be careful with your mana. We might need it later.”

Keianna released a huff of disgust before her swarm of lightning cooled down. Instead of responding she walked away, planning on setting up the campfire so they wouldn’t be cold or anything.

“I-I can help with the fire…” Junji was feeling guilty about things and it wasn’t like a man to just scream like that.

“Can you?” Keianna questioned his usefulness right about now. With the tone of her voice, it caused pain in Junji’s chest causing him to groan.

“I'll meet you all back where we decided to camp. I'll find something to eat, I promise.” Claire declares as she took her leave, by herself this time.

Things seemed tenser without Claire’s presence. There was this unwanted tension which they didn’t need right now. To end this quickly, Isaac approached his buddy, providing him with the support that he needed at this time as he knew if the situation was reversed he’d do the same.

“Hey, Junji, don’t worry about the food. If it was me out there and I saw a head I’d freaked out more than you.”

Junji knew that Isaac was just trying to make him feel better, but picturing Isaac in his shoes made him laugh out loud. “You’re right, you’d probably have pissed your pants!”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“Come on, man. It was a head! A real live head, well dead, but you get the point.”

“I’m glad I didn’t have to see it thankfully. I don’t know if my heart could have taken it.”

“To think we’ll be seeing more of that stuff… I’m not even sure if I’m prepared anymore.”

“Of course you are, we’ve studied and trained too long for this!”

“You’re right, I think it’s time I redeemed myself.”

“Huh?”

“Let’s go make that fire!”

The pep talk appeared to have worked. Now Junji wanted to help Keianna make the fire. First, they had to follow her back to the spot that they had chosen and judging from where they were it wasn’t really too far off.

The duo then decided to follow behind her with Junji carefully looking behind him just in case…

Keianna was angered by what transpired earlier. It was only natural since they didn’t have any food and if Claire couldn’t find any more berries, which already wasn’t the ideal meal, then they’d go hungry. That was a lot of fun to do in the middle of nowhere.

As she returned to the spot they had selected, she made sure to check her surroundings, looking around for any signs that weren’t there before. Because if what the others saw was truly real then that means there was something in these woods with them.

Fortunately for the group, a somewhat familiar figure could be seen sitting on the riverbank. It was the girl who never announced her name but tagged along anyway. And even more, fortunately, a pile of fresh fish sat next to her, on the ground. A decent food source.

Seeing this, Keianna stared for a while, the fresh supply of fish caused her stomach to rumble. Who was this girl again? Unfortunately, she had forgotten all about her until she wanted something this particular person had.

There certainly was enough fish to go around if the mysterious girl wished to share. She quickly approached the young girl, before breaking the ice. “Hey, looks like you had a great time fishing.”

Hearing Keianna's voice, the girl slowly moved her head around to peer at her briefly, before she returned her gaze back to the river. “Mhm.” It wasn't much of a reply, but surely it would be enough to get the message across.

In her hand was the branch she carried before, though the end of it was sharpened, allowing her to go spearfishing, which she was likely still in the process of doing.

Keianna watched the girl who she thought was pretty strange, but she couldn’t tell her that especially since she wanted some of that yummy looking fish. A hand of hers rested idly on her hip as she went for it. “You do plan on sharing, right? I mean, of course, you would there’s about five mouths to feed here.”

The girl does not respond, knowing that Keianna could pretty obviously deduce that she was getting enough to share, as there was around ten lifeless fish beside her, and she was still going. She'd slowly raise the makeshift spear, before thrusting it into the water to stab yet another fish, pulling it out of the river. The impaled creature wiggled and squirmed the rest of its life away, while the girl watched, simply plopping it onto the pile of fish once she deemed it dead enough.

This little girl was quite impressive, she had to have very quick reflexes in order to catch something as quick as a fish. It was hard to tell when she started, but she had already caught so many fish. This would definitely fill them up longer than those berries as well. Keianna remained silent as she just watched, folding her arms under her chest.

Pretty soon Junji and Isaac returned and saw the two by the riverbank. At first, they didn’t know what was going on until Junji saw the pile of dead carcasses.

“Wait… is that… MEAT! Oh, man, who’s responsible for this blessing!?” Junji nearly shed tears after seeing this.

“I’m not keen on eating raw fish…” the girl would simply reply, and it was easy to imply what she meant.

“Hmm, even with the fish at hand we still need to cook them.” Isaac implied.

“Ok! Oh my god, I think I love this girl! She’s brought me meat! MEAT!” Junji shouted.

“Well, let’s get to work. Who knows how long it’ll take to l-”

Junji was really hyped up now, his eyes beaming with determination and passion. Enough passion that it appeared to generate a red aura around him which flowed around his body like a wave of water.

“Whoa! What the heck is happening to you!?” Isaac seemed concerned for his friend.

“I couldn’t be better! It’s time I start pulling my weight around here!” Junji’s aura seemed to burn brighter before he held out his right hand. This strange energy was his mana, the life force that dwelled within all living things. Normally it wasn’t visible to the naked eye, but this was how concentrated the boy’s mana was and how great his control was with it.

Within the palm of his hand, a sphere of energy was formed, growing larger in size as it consumed more of his channeled mana until it floated into the air. With some dazzling lights to show it off, it soon started to take on a solid form… the form of a…

“Is that…” Isaac started. “A fairy?”

Floating around Junji was what Isaac had said, a little red fairy about as big as the boy’s fist.

“Yeah, a fairy. I can summon a fairy.”

Seeing this Keianna couldn’t help but burst into a fit of laughter. It was too funny not to laugh at all of the hype that he had put into this little technique all that he gained from it was a fairy just about bigger than a bumble bee.

“A fairy!? Really? That’s the best thing you can summon!?”

“Hey come on, it’s not funny! If I could summon something else I would! I don’t get to choose what I summon!” Coming to Junji’s defense his little fairy friend stuck its middle finger at Keianna while making some noises.

“Did that little bitch just flip me off!?”

“Oh boy.” Isaac knew where this was going.

“I didn’t tell it to do that. It has some control over itself. Anyways, it’s a fire fairy, so…”

“I think it’s pretty cool, Junji. You can actually summon a partner to help you with things.” Isaac was easily impressed.

“Hah, yeah. After all, I’m a summoner. Summoning little creatures like this is no problem for me.”

A summoner was one of the rare kinds of magic category that certain people had access to. The people of Terra didn’t know much about it and just knew that these kinds of people possessed nearly inhuman levels of mana and in order to make use of their battle aid.

“A summoner. Interesting…” The unknown girl mentioned as she got up from the riverbank, stretching her arms after all the work she had done.

Junji was glad to finally have some respect, it was a very interesting class of magic if he did say so himself.

Keianna walked back toward where she stashed all the wood she had cut which was near a familiar looking tree as she wanted to see if Junji could start a fire without burning everything in its path.

“Can you even control the flame? You don’t want to start any unnecessary fires.” Keianna warned.

“Pssh, I’ve done this plenty of times, Keianna. Just leave it to me.”

With the pieces of wood placed in the center, Junji cracks his knuckles as he looked over at his fairy friend. The bond between a summoner and its minion was strong, the two could hear each other's thoughts and communicate telepathically. They also shared each other’s mana supply with the minion needing a certain amount in order to do anything. For anyone else, this would be suicide.

Without any words being uttered the fairy flies around the pile of wood before rubbing her hands together and then holding them out towards the pile of wood. The sound of a roaring flame could be heard as the wood was lit on fire with a strong, playful flame being shown.

“Way to go, Junji! We finally have a fire going!” Isaac cheered.

“This almost makes up for losing our food.” Keianna chuckled.

“How long is she going to keep that against me?” Junji muttered to himself.

With the forging of the fire, the stoic girl stabs one of the fish with her stick, walking over to sit by the flames. Crossing her legs, she proceeded to extend the fish into the fire, allowing it to cook.

“Claire’s going to be really surprised by this, I’m sure she’ll be glad to see we now have a balanced diet!” Isaac was joyful for some a bit heavier on the stomach.