Nathan was completely stunned, staring at the sharp thorns in front of his eyes. Then Abel pushed the calamity away from him and crushed it as well as the rabbit.
"You failed and died. Do you understand the importance of following your instinct?" asked Abel.
Nathan simply bit his lip slightly. "I could have defeated the rabbit?"
"No" Abel quickly replied.
"Huh?" Nathan was surprised by Abel's answer.
"You wouldn't have been able to beat either of them. I never said there was one you could beat" Abel said, turning and starting to walk into the woods.
Nathan was momentarily stunned and then reacted and followed Abel.
"I doubt there is any calamity in this forest that you can defeat" Abel mentioned, to which Nathan didn't know how to react.
"Then why am I here?"
"Not to kill calamity, that's for sure" Abel scoffed.
For a while longer, they both walked until they came to a small lake with an island with a fruit tree in the middle. The fruits of the tree were golden and shone beautifully, beckoning anyone to approach and take it.
Nathan frowned at the sight of the tree, while Abel sat on the ground crossing his legs. "Bring me one of those fruits"
His gaze shifted between Abel and the fruit, then Nathan set off towards the small island. He walked to the edge of the lake and stuck his feet in, feeling the icy water.
'Ugh... Why is it so cold?' thought Nathan as he began to walk. The depth of the lake was about half a meter, so the water reached just above his knees.
Suddenly Nathan felt that he was stepping on something and was about to use essence to strengthen his legs.
"No essence!" shouted Abel, causing Nathan to grumble in annoyance.
'What's the point of not using essence' he questioned Abel's methods but complied and stopped using it.
Nathan walked slowly until he reached the small island with his legs intact, and finally stopped in front of the tree. There were four golden fruits, and he was supposed to take only one to Abel. Nathan was about to take one but stopped abruptly.
'Something is wrong... Why are there still fruits if we are in the middle of the forest?' Nathan took a couple of steps back, carefully studying the tree. He didn't really see anything strange about it, but he knew something wasn't normal.
He looked around, especially at the lake. But he had already reached the island, so he knew that the problem must be in the tree.
Nathan looked back at Abel, who was yawning and staring at the sky, as if he was ignoring it on purpose.
Then looked at the fruits again and tried to see something different in each of them, but to no avail. He ruffled his hair in annoyance and concentrated again.
'Instinct... What am I supposed to feel? Damn it' Nathan sighed and gave up, taking any of the fruits.
Nathan waited for something to happen, but instead nothing changed. He looked at the golden fruit in his hand and returned quickly before anything happened.
When he returned to the shore, Abel was looking at him neutrally. Nathan simply tossed the fruit to him, and he caught it before looking at it. "Appreciated"
Abel took a bite of the fruit and savored it before swallowing. Nathan just looked at him blankly.
When Abel finished eating the golden fruit, he separated its seeds from the remains of the fruit with a light wave of his hand, as if controlling nature itself.
Without saying anything, Abel closed one of his eyes and pointed one of the seeds towards the tree on the island. With a flick of his finger, he threw the seed and it crashed into one of the other fruits, then from it appeared a large mouth with sharp teeth. The fruit's mouth bit the air erratically before it calmed down.
When the fruit closed its mouth and returned to normal, he threw the other two seeds at each of the other two fruits and they, as well as the other fruit, opened their hidden mouths and began to bite the air erratically.
Nathan paled as he saw that somehow he had chosen the right one, otherwise he would have lost a hand. 'Instinct? Bullshit, that was pure luck'
Abel smiled seeing Nathan's expression. "You figured it out"
Nathan stopped looking at the fruits and looked at Abel. "Of what?"
"That you still have your hand by pure luck" Abel replied with a light laugh.
"I would have lost my hand if I had made the wrong choice!" shouted Nathan angrily.
Abel stood up and shrugged. "If you made a mistake just learn from it"
Abel turned around again and repeated the same thing as before. he started walking into the forest without another word to Nathan, who had no choice but to follow him.
Nathan did not understand anything about instinct. Ever since he had known that he had the power to see his death, he had always depended on these premonitions. But he also had the problem that if it was not a lethal attack, then it would be useless.
Against the centipede, he could certainly have dodged it by using the premonition of death, but if he had chosen the wrong fruit, nothing would have saved him from losing his hand... again.
There had been times when Nathan had felt an instinct before, which had helped him. But this was rare and almost never happened, so he could not depend on it.
But if he learned to sense the instinct, then he would be able to defend himself against attacks that he was vulnerable to without his premonitions. For this reason, Nathan followed Abel... besides, he had nowhere to go in the forest.