"Huff, huff, huff…" a young man gasped as he dashed through the dark woods as fast as he could, a bear like creature right on his tail.
This young man was Aiden Donovan, an un-awakened 18 year old who would be 19 in a few hours. He had a fit body and impressive physical capabilities. Along with that, he had a sharp mind and good looks as well. His light brown hair swayed as gusts of wind hit his head and his dark brown eyes shined in the moonlight.
One may argue that with all these positive characteristics of his, it didn't make sense for him to be risking his life in the middle of a forest at late night like this. Well, nobody has everything in their favor and Aiden was no exception to this statement.
Albeit his multiple favorable traits, he was un-awakened, something considered worse than a sin in his world.
An un-awakened is someone who hasn't awakened their 'Stigma', a unique supernatural ability which people usually awaken around 15 years of age. After unlocking their Stigma, one's opportunities and potential are increased infinitely, as they acquire abilities normal people could only dream of having.
Needless to say, those with powerful Stigmata are the ones at the top of the world, while those who don't even have one are powerless and have to scamper around doing underpaid, humiliating, and life-endangering work in order to barely get by.
Aiden was one of these bottom feeders and that was why he was in this precarious situation at the moment. He used to apply for the position of a 'scout' in hunting groups in order to make some money. The pay was barely enough for his food, water and shelter, but was still lacking.
This position of 'scout' was one of the rare opportunities for the un-awakened population to earn some money. The reason for this was because the 'scouts' were almost always bait, at least in the relatively weaker hunting groups.
Their job was to catch the attention of the beast and lead it to the rest of the group, who would use the abilities of their Stigmata to kill it.
Since a scout doesn't require any significant attack power or other abilities of a Stigma, it wasn't a requirement to be awakened for said position. Other than that, it was also a pretty dangerous role which most people with a Stigma would avoid as they had many other methods to earn a livelihood.
The position of scout was just a desperate attempt at earning insufficient amounts of cash while risking your life for it. Except for the un-awakened, nobody would even consider taking this option.
Aiden was one of those un-awakened who had no other choice but to gamble with his life for some money, which was the reason why he became a scout.
At this moment, Aiden was being chased by a bear significantly larger than the size of a regular one, which also possessed abnormally large claws and teeth.
The bear growled in rage as Aiden was barely out of its range as it started to speed up.
Aiden sensed this increase in his predator's speed and stayed calm even in the face of death. This wasn't his first rodeo; he had been in such situations quite a lot of times for about an entire year by now.
'It's getting restless because its prey is barely out of its reach. This is the perfect time to change directions.' Aiden thought calmly, while still keeping track of the bear's movements.
Aiden, who was moving in a straight line along the clearing, almost immediately turned 45 degrees and started running through this smaller cavity in between the dense forest of trees instead of the larger clearing which he was already taking.
This smaller path was large enough for the bear to fit, but it would not be able to run at its full speed in there.
The bear, just like Aiden had planned, took the bait and followed him through the smaller path, but its speed had decreased, increasing the distance between itself and Aiden by a couple meters.
Noticing the favorable change in his circumstances, Aiden let out a very slight smile on his usually blank, monotone face.
'It works every time.' Aiden said to himself as he dashed through the forest he knew almost like home.
He continued on like this for a couple more minutes and was finally nearing the outskirts of the forest, where the hunting group had prepared an ambush.
This secondary path ended up merging with the initial larger clearing, which is something Aiden found out during his many scouting endeavors throughout the past year.
He looked in front of him and noticed there were less than a hundred meters left and sped up for this last stretch of the path. The bear was still following him, growling and grunting occasionally along the way, but was at a safe distance of about ten meters from him.
As he exited the forest and neared the camp which the hunting group had set up, he yelled out loudly to alarm them.
"Get ready! The bear is coming!"
Aiden ran a bit more and could finally see the hunting group get into position. He had reached the end of the forested path and quickly exited to the side of the group.
"Haah, haa, haa" Aiden abruptly sat down once he was far enough from the others and caught his breath.
His job was done, what was left now was up to the others in the hunting group.
Aiden gulped down an entire bottle of water and took a couple seconds to stabilize his breathing.
Once he was back to normal, he smiled and diverted his attention to his teammates and the mutated bear.
'This is the best part of this entire job: watching the fight.' Aiden thought as he rested his back against a severed log of a tree and started watching the fierce battle comfortably from a safe distance.