Deep in the forest, a roar broke the serene atmosphere, followed by the shaking of the ground with the beat of the creature's feet, which made the small animals scurry away to their homes. It was a wild boar the size of an elephant running fast past the trees as if scared of what was chasing behind it.
An arrow flew and caught up to the wild boar. The animal's pace was not enough to outran the arrow. While it missed its target, a few arrows followed soon after the first, the whizzing sounds clashing with each other. One struck the hind leg of the animal while a few grazed its hide. The wild boar roared loudly and slowed down but did not stop running.
Suddenly, a man coming from behind jumped up and kicked on a tree trunk to launch himself to the wild boar. Still in the air, he gathered his 'energy' on his right arm and raised it once he flew directly on top of the boar. He made his 'mist' push himself down for him to fall faster until his spear pierced the animal's neck.
The roar this time was the loudest sound Ling has ever heard, making him wince despite the hand covering his ears. It was the same for the other children watching on the high branches of the surrounding trees. They saw the wild boar still struggling to walk with the man now riding on its back.
The next moment, the boar was whimpering while exuding some dark 'mist' which was being controlled by the man until the boar stopped moving. Other men soon surrounded their catch, with a few lagging behind to absorb the 'mist' on the path exuded by the boar while it was still running.
"This one is too small but it's 'energy' does not match its size. Maybe you should have killed it faster, chief."
The chief was silent so another man answered for him. "Hmm.. It turned its head a little so the strike was not directly on a vital part. I think it smelled the children in that direction."
After listening for some time while still helping to skin and bleed the dead animal, the chief nodded, agreeing to that explanation.
As if just remembering, the chief changed the topic, "Oh, how was Agis's wound?"
A hunter laughingly explained that it was still not healed but at least better than the status of the dead animal it gallantly fought... and lost to.
"I don't know what was making that guy so brave when he knows it was not easy to heal yourself even with all these 'mist' in the forest," he finished while shaking his head.
Meanwhile, the other men continued preparing the animal, unconcerned as their wounded member will heal in a few days. By now, he should be returning back to the village to rest.
The preparation of their hunted animals includes skinning for their fur or hide which they take to other villages for trade or use as sheets and clothes by their family. Meanwhile, bleeding would make the meat better for storage as well as the blood would be good for drinking since it contained residual 'mist' from the beast.
When they were done with the initial preparations, one hunter looked at the chief to report. "We're done with this, chief. It's enough for now."
Satisfied, the chief nodded and looked at the trees. "Children, come down! Lunch!"
When another man saw the horrified look on the children's faces, he spoke to continue after the chief's command, "He means we have to find a place too cook it for lunch. Get down here so we can set off early."
After running again for a while, the hunting group finally reached a safe grove. The trees here were older than most trees and there was a protection around it made by the hunters from the village to stop the harmful 'haze' from entering the grove.
They were already deep in the forest, several kilometers away from the village but still did not reach a fifth of the way to the volcano. Most large and ferocious beasts were near the volcano but they did not plan to go much further that morning because of the children.
The ferocious beasts did not go near the village teritory since the resources were more abundant near the volcano. Some hunters who wanted to get resources from there even spent more than a week outside the village, exploring these vast areas.
Only this first group had children accompanying them that day so the next group might have brought back more yield than them this time.
After the group had their lunch, the men left the children with their food and unneeded tools in the area so they would not be burdened by carrying too many things.
Since the older men were going to start hunting the bigger animals in the forest, they left the children in the grove for them to take a nap. The excitement from the activities of half their day already exhausted them while the absorption they acquired from the 'energy' of the forest and the meat they ate also made them sleepy.
The hunting group managed to catch a few larger animals since they divided their team into three with five men each. Doing this took their hunt longer to finish and the fight were very intense but they thought of having more to compensate a little with the zero they have left that morning. However, this wasn't seen by Ling so he will be disappointed. 'How is this an adventure if he can't see these kinds of fights?'
Fortunately, Ling was still in his dream land,fighting his own enemies in his imagined adventure. The problem is, Ling was a restless sleeper but Mahina forgot to remind Bobo of this. A grave mistake if the situation was regarding this man. You see, once Ling dreamt of punching an enemy, he punches his pillows too. Same when he dreamt of peeing. So, as he was dreaming of running through the forest on his own, he was actually rolling a little farther away from the grove until he was blocked by a warm body.
He shivered with the changed in temperature of his sleeping place but continued to sleep more comfortably now. After a while, a mother bear came to carry its children one by one, by biting the fur on their backs, to a place far away from the humans.
When the hunting group got back to the grove with their hunt, it was not readily noticeable with how small he was, they saw that one boy was missing.