Jira led the band of children deeper into the forest, explaining types of vegetation and pointing out trails left by animals along the way. He also showed them the traps left by humans. He taught them how to spot and disarm them.
Jira continued along, the children soaked up all the information greedily. Aisrin was circling the end of the grip of his dagger with his finger as they walked. Eventually, around late morning, two or three hours after they left the cave, Jira stopped the group and began studying the ground.
"Oh perfect. A small herd of wild boar has been through here, less than an hour ago. Be vigilant of your surroundings. They may still be around. Step carefully and stay downwind if possible. Though they aren't terribly formidable and scare easily when alone, in herds they can prove to be very dangerous and confrontational." Jira warned the group. The children all began to manually try to be silent, which made them louder and clumsily.
Aisrin immediately slipped into stealth and practically erased his presence. Jira instantly turned to him, a look of worry and concern mixed with a little terror, was on his face. As soon as he saw Aisrin, relief replaced his expression.
'I guess he thought I disappeared for a second or something. Better tone down on this skill from now on.'
The others began to imitate Aisrin, with very little success, but at least they became quieter. Jira seemed very pleased by this.
Jira tracked the boar herd for a few minutes longer and then motioned for the group to stop. Before them was a fairly big clearing with a small watering hole in the middle. Around the water source was a herd of wild boar, around ten strong.
"Okay, we only need two or three, so I'm going to try and break the herd up. When I do this, the smart thing to do, is go after the slow ones. They'll be alone as the herd will abandon them as sacrifices, as long as they don't choose violence instead. If you can use magic, use it. A dagger will only do so much to their tough hides." Jira explained. He split them into two groups and assigned them to hunt one boar per team each.
Jira warned them to wait for the signal and to act only when a boar was alone and then crept from the vegetation that hid them and approached the boars who were lazily grazing, sleeping, and drinking respectively.
As soon as Jira got close enough, he transformed into a giant wolf and barked, startling the liberal fuck out of the boars who stumbled and trampled over eachother and scattered. This was the signal and the two groups ran from the cover of vegetation and selected their prey respectively.
Aisrin went of on his own, or attempted to, but Sira herded him back to the group.
"This is why I made sure we were together." Sira smiled at Aisrin.
'Gee, thanks.'
Aisrins group chose a particularly slow boar and started throw magic attacks, though very small and practically harmless, at the boar. Derma was the first to reach the boar physically and stabbed it in the shoulder. The boar squealed and slammed into Derma, launching him. Aisrin immediately ran to him and checked on him. Derma was winded and bruised, but otherwise fine. Aisrin sighed in relief and took off towards the boar, with intense vigor.
'Fucking pig. Scare me will ya? I'll show you!'
Though Aisrin distanced himself, he did care for the pups. They'd been together six years after all. And they kinda reminded him of his siblings on Elrim. So he had a slight protective streak, though he'd never admit it.
Aisrin sprinted past each of his siblings, receiving looks of utter surprise as he reached the boar and sprinted past it a ways before spinning around, bringing his arm back and solidly punching the pig in the face.
The force of the boar slamming into the force of Aisrin's punch resounded with a loud thumping and cracking noise as Aisrin's hand, wrist and forearm broke as well as the skull of the boar. The boar flew three or four feet to the left from Aisrin's punch. Aisrin grabbed his arm and blew air as the pain hit him.
"Mmmm!" Aisrin groaned finally. Sira ran up to him and looked him over.
"Jira, Red broke his arm!" Sira called for Jira. The other two kids on his team stated at the dead boar with slacked jaws. Jira came trotting over, a boar in his giant mouth. He dropped it next to the one Aisrin suckered punched before returning to his human form and ran over to them. He knelt down and looked at the swelling arm.
"What happened?" Jira asked Sira.
"He... He punched the boar as it was running head on. The boar died." Was all Sira could say. Jira looked at Aisrin in concern and pride. Impressed.
"That's unexpected, but great." Jira nodded to himself. Aisrin left the two of them and approached the boar he killed, something bothered him. A simple punch to the head wouldn't kill a boar. Using his good arm he inspected the boar. He saw the gash on its right shoulder, made by Derma, but it wasn't deep enough to be fatal, barely enough to be maimed.
But once he flipped it over, his suspicion was confirmed. The shaft of an arrow had been buried in its side. Though the wounding around it looked older, the fresh blood the flowed freely from it, told Aisrin that the force of it landing on said arrow, caused it to pierce its heart. Meaning it died from impacting the ground, not Aisrin's fist.
Jira noticed what Aisrin was looking at and paled.
"Let's move, grab the boars. Let's go." Jira called out. The other group heard and came running back. One of the boys had their boar over his shoulder. Jira picked up his and Derma picked up theirs. Jira led the group back towards the forest they came from, but an arrow flew and landed in front of him.
"Fuck. Human Hunters." Jira cursed. From the foliage, around eight or so men with bows drawn, exited. They were a laughing and jeering.
"Well, well. What we got here? A little following of beastmen? Lookie, there's a couple girls here. Say, how much would they sell for with that white hair?" Rhese sentences were spoken separately by different men.
Aisrin used earth and water magic to begin regenerating and fortifying his broken arm.
"I'm just teaching my village's kids how to hunt. There's no need for violence. I can give you these boars instead." Jira tried to talk the men into a deal.
'That won't work. I know these kinds of men. I've been in the care of these kinds of men.'
"Hmm? Sure, we'll take those. But we're also taking them girls... Unless, you want to be exposed... Fenris?" As soon as the, debatably, ugliest of the group, as they all were fairly ugly even for human standards, said the last bit, Jira flinched.
'So that must be what species they are. Fenris Wolves.'
"We are just humble beastmen." Jira continued.
'Why dies he cower before... the bows... they're imbued with something... it feels similar to that tiny orb I have.'
Aisrin was beginning to get irritated. The group of men had surrounded the group. All of their bows were drawn fully. One of them approached Sira and lowered his bow. He then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her too him. Sira screamed and begged to be let go.
'Oho? You dare do that in front of me?'
"My suggestion for you my good man, would be to let her go." Aisrin warned the man. Everyone, including his 'family' stared at him, his family more so. The man tossed Sira ro the ground and approached Aisrin. He towered over him.
"And what're you going to do if I decide not to?" The man was more boarish looking than the boar was, and smelled worse than one too.
"You already did. It was a smart move. But, I didn't say throw here. That, was a dumb move. And I do hate dumb people, they don't learn. So allow me to educate you." Aisrin, who had been practicing nightly for two years, had succeeded in forming a Mana Core a few months ago, his magic was ten times that of his siblings. Red circles formed around the Irises of his Eyes, giving him a debatably evil look.
"D-Demon?!" The man stumbled back and exclaimed. The bows left the others and were now solely pointed at Aisrin.
'There's demons here too? They don't seem well liked though, in this world.'
Aisrin activated one of his created spells from Elrim. Shadow Blades. Wind and shadow magic. It was the only attack spell that could take multiple targets. Eight black crescent moon shaped objects appeared around Aisrin.
'Man, am I going to get an earful... or maybe they'll despise me and throw me out... either way, I refuse to lose my family. Never again will I suffer that pain.'
"Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Either way, me and my family, are going home together, safely. The choice is yours. Choose wisely." Aisrin threatened. Silence greeted him. The Shadow Blades floated around him, intimidating the men.
"You're just one child. Those things probably couldn't hurt us anyway! Just shoot him and then deal with the others. His body will fetch a nice price dead or alive!" The ugly man ordered the others. They hesitated, giving Aisrin all the time in the world.
"Poor choice." Aisrin snapped his fingers and the blades shot out in all directions, taking the heads of each man flawlessly.
"I will never hesitate to kill my enemies." Aisrin muttered. The headless bodies simultaneously fell to the ground.
Aisrin walked over to Sira and held his hand out. Sira looked at him with fear in her eyes, which undeniably hurt. Aisrin returned his hand to his side and spun away. He was greeted with the same look from the others as well.
'So it was the latter.'
Aisrin turned and ran off. At least they were alive. He could live with this.