Burning Soul

…

After about two hours he was finally able to clean up the rooms just enough to be able to live in just fine. After cleaning up he gathered up some firewood that was lying around the hut.

“Hey, Kid!

We gotta go catch some food too!

You ready?” Lumiere asked while getting prepared to leave the house, he was holding on to a bow.

He then stretched his hand and asked Theo to take it.

“Bow?

Won’t that be a difficult weapon for me?” Theo asked him to which Lumiere replied,

“You can’t possibly catch the prey with those flimsy daggers,

it’s a headache and I’m hungry!” Hearing this he grabbed the bow and started following Lumiere while Aeneas stayed behind to watch over the place.

Lumiere along with Theo walked out of the cave to capture some animals for preparing food.

“Listen, this world is not like the one outside the painting,

the creatures here are much more dangerous and difficult to hunt, capture, or even defeat,

right now, where we are staying in a much safer region than others, as it’s relatively easy to hunt for food.

The creatures that you are going to hunt are much more agile.” Saying this Lumiere stood right there and looked at him walk,

“You, not coming?” Theo asked him to look back,

“Nup, you are going to catch it alone and get it home to cook,

I’m quite hungry and that friend of yours is already melting!” He replied while pointing towards Aeneas who had turned into a slug already!

Looking at him Theo started walking, “I’ll be right here so if anything happens come running home kid!” Lumiere yelled at him as he walked in the dense forest.

There is still some time for the nightfall, so it was quite safe to say that Theo had some time to deal with the food problems.

“Why didn’t you tell him about everything?” Aeneas asked Lumiere to which he replied with a smile,

“I want to see how good he is!

If he is just a Blood Sorcerer, that’d mean he’d have difficulty dealing with this one but if he’s something more than just that, it’ll be interesting.”

Hearing him Aeneas looked at the forest and wondered what Lumiere meant.

…

After walking around for a while Theo realized that there were indeed some creatures, but he was able to spot none.

He was looking around for traces such as the footsteps and marks but there seemed none, also he looked for them on trees yet there were no traces of any being up there.

‘Where the heck are, they?

Is there anything or am I doing it wrong?

He mentioned they are fast, maybe I should speed up and look, walking around won’t get me anywhere!’

Thinking this to himself he looked around for a preferable direction.

He remembered something very important when he was studying hunting, his father had taught him how to use,

Mana sense: Upon casting allows user to sense mana in nearby beings,

this, was a lifesaver for him in this situation.

He sat down crossing his legs and joining both of his hands in a praying pose, slowing his breaths and heartbeats allowing him to hear much clearly.

‘Enhance!’

‘Mana-Sense’

A quick low-level spell combined with the enhancing and his senses felt a boost, he could feel every being nearby.

The leaves that were drifting with cold breezes of air,

Small fishes swimming in distant water streams.

Suddenly he felt a relatively big prey,

Its signature was similar to that of the wild rabbits,

he opened his eyes and looked in the direction.

‘There!

Boost!’ He stood up and started running through the forest with lightning speed.

…

After running for a while, he realized something amiss, he was back where he started!

He was running in circles.

This short running had him exhaust his stamina and he was breathing heavily.

“That’s all you got!

Hahaha!

I thought they trained you enough to at least begin with!

You forgot what I told you the very first thing, nothing here is real,

it’s all illusion,

You can’t rely on your everyday senses, what you see and hear is not reality,

Try to use your Mana Sense to its fullest.”

He heard an echoing voice in the forest, it was indeed Lumiere’s voice, but he was nowhere to be seen,

Theo couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the first place! He looked around in every direction and everything looked just the same.

He was lost in that forest.

Forget the food, he had no way to head back. He looked for the marks he left behind while entering the forest, but every mark was wiped off clean.

“These are the basics, kid. Find your way home, and yeah!

Don’t forget the kill, you have just a little time left, in a while, the light will fade and there’ll be no visibility to search your way!

Hurry up!”

Lumiere’s voice echoed again and with it, a wave of chill ran through Theo!