Chapter 8: 7 – Trophy

After saying what she had to say, Dene went back to her room.

Closing the door, she lightly sighed with an expression of worry on her face.

'My life force... I don't have much longer. I must make sure John is able to survive by himself before it completely runs out...'

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John was very excited about the hunt. For the first time, he would experience real combat, instead of just sparring with his mother.

Dragging the chest, he entered his room. Once inside, as he was in a closed environment, John began to notice the smell of the recently tanned leather, though he was so happy with the new armor that he didn't even mind.

He took off his clothes and put on his new equipment. The pants and boots were custom sized with John's measures in mind. They were large enough to take into account John's growth, and would probably fit him for 1 or 2 years.

The armor, on the other hand, was a standard one, with straps on the sides to regulate the size. same for the arm guards, so they should last for much longer.

Warriors from the northern kingdoms usually wear heavy, full plated armor, that offer much better protection than John's leather armor, but it also seriously impacts their mobility.

All of the southern tribes' fighting styles focused on being light on your feet, therefore such heavy armor would only get in John's way.

John moved around his room to check if the equipment would hinder him in any way. After making sure it wouldn't, he took it off and went to sleep.

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John woke up the next day before sunrise. He got up from the bed and put on his equipment, the sword sheaths strapped to his back.

Leaving the room he saw his mother sitting close to the fire.

"You're awake, good." Dene spoke, then pointed to the table. "Eat your food and head towards the forest. There's a bag by the door for you to store your spoils, along with a hunting knife and a satchel."

On the table was his breakfast consisting of bread, milk and a few fruits. John wasn't allowed to take any of this food to the forest. When he felt hungry, he would have to depend on foraging for fruits and hunting wild animals.

John ate his fill while Dene gave the details about what he'd have to do.

"Remember, not any magical beast will do. You must hunt either a Wind Deer or a Great Boar."

The Wind Deer is a docile and easily frightened species, and receive their names by the extreme speed they're able to reach, easily running away from anyone under the Crusader realm. To hunt such a beast John will have to set an ambush and either kill it in one strike or cripple its legs.

The Great Boar, on the other hand, is an aggressive kind of magical beast which has at most the strength of a level 4 Fighter, coupled with an excessively thick skin. It would be impossible for John to kill a Great Boar with a single ambush, meaning that he will have to fight it out.

This hunt was a rite of passage in the Yao tribe, and from the magical beasts his mother chose, John could see what would be tested. To set an ambush for the Wind Deer will require patience, cunning, and stealth, while the Great Boar is simply combatting power but is much more dangerous.

Although not the same magical beasts from the south, Dene maintained the same principle for this hunt.

John finished eating, took the bag by the door and said goodbye to his mother. Following the tribe's customs, he'd come back as a man, or wouldn't come back at all.

Their small cottage was located on the edge of town. John followed the road west towards the forest.

He walked along the road for 2 hours, while admiring the view of the farmlands and open plains along the way.

Although his mother taught him about the local geography, this was his first time leaving Greenflower and seeing it all in person.

The forest didn't have anything of special, and like so many other forests in the dukedom, it didn't have a name. Extending for almost a 100 kilometers, it stopped a few kilometers from the dukedom's border.

Entering the forest, John followed the road for a few more kilometers before leaving it.

The reason was that the animals and magical beasts learned to avoid the road, as it was too common for people and carts to go through it so it would be easier to hunt away from it.

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As it was autumn, the ground was filled with dry leaves that crackled whenever John stepped on then. He had to make a special effort to avoid them.

Tiptoeing around the forest, he kept searching for tracks of either one of the beasts, when a pair of golden, slitted eyes locked onto him.

'Hmm?' John's ears picked up a small rustle by a tree to his front left.

He kept going forward as usual, while remaining completely alert.

Step by step he was approaching the tree. When he was just 2 meters away, it finally attacked.

John retracted his step, while swiftly grabbing a sword from his back and slashing downwards, all in one single motion.

John felt his sword cutting through something. Only then John saw what attacked him.

It was a green, venomous snake, with almost John's height in length, though now it had been cut in two close to the head.

Different from a magical beast, which has evolved by absorbing mana, this was just a common animal, though its venom could still cause trouble for John.

The snake agonized for a couple seconds before finally dying.

John didn't move, as he checked if there were any other predators around. After making sure there weren't, he wiped the blood of the sword and focused his attention on the snake's body.

Although not a magical beast, it still was John's first kill, so he didn't want it to go to waste.

First, he used the hunting knife to remove the snake's skin and some of the meat. Using the skin to wrap the meat, John stored both inside the bag. As he had cut the snake in a single strike close to the head, there were almost one and a half meters of intact skin.

With the skin removed, John now focused on the head. The snake's venom could seriously injure John, so it could also hinder the magical beasts he was looking for.

John coated his shortswords with the venom before sheathing them back, and then also removed the snake's fangs as trophies.

With everything done, John continued looking for tracks.

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By the sun's position in the sky, John knew it was already noon.

He had lit a fire close to a small lake he found. On a stick over the fire was some of the green snake's meat. As that snake's venom was stored only on its fangs, there was no need to worry.

The reason John chose to rest here, was because there were hoof marks all over the ground around the lake, indicating that there had been a herd of deer here. The tracks were recently made, at most an hour before John arrived.

Just from the tracks, he had no way to be sure if they were Wind Deers or just common ones, but he had to be ready for the second option.

After cooking the snake's meat over the fire, John ate his fill of it along with some berries he had found along the way. When done, he filled the satchel with water and began to follow the deer tracks.

The tracks kept going north, and John followed it slowly, as to make less noise. Fortunately, he didn't run into any other aggressive animal.

After 2 hours, John finally had a line of sight of the herd of deer. There were around 30 of them, with most of them females.

Instead of the usual dark red color with white spots, these deers were all grey, with the spots on their backs forming white lines.

'Wind Deers!' John celebrated on the inside. That was much quicker than he expected.

'Now the tough part, to ambush one of them.'

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