"Oh, you are finally awake? It took you long enough." David said to Renji as he slowly opened his eyes. They were still in the middle of the jungle and the moon shined brightly above them, the first thing that Renji saw was the beautiful moon, but even after seeing that moon, his eyes remained lifeless.
"HYAAAA….AHHHH" Without thinking even for a second Renji launched an attack towards the old man, although the old man didn't block the punch from him, when his hand landed on the old man's body he felt a jolting pain on his hand. Renji couldn't help but scream out of pain.
"Boy, I'll tell you this just once if you don't want to see your family die just keep quiet and come with me." with a solemn face David turned around and started walking, he didn't even look if Renji was following him or not.
'I'll kill you… ill kill you…" Renji's mind was filled with such thoughts and nothing else as he followed the old man.
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After some time they finally reached the cottage from where Renji had run off. They didn't say a single word on their way, but Renji was still thinking of killing the old man in his head. That was all that he was thinking.
"Ahhh thank goodness you are finally back, let me see if you are hurt somewhere…huh what happened?" the old lady as soon as Renji and the old ma entered the cottage, she hugged Renji tightly and started inspecting his arm looking for any wounds. But when she grabbed Renji's hand he jolted his hand backward and stared at the concerned old woman with his lifeless eyes.
"Huffff Clara I can explain." Said David while rubbing his eyebrows, as soon as he said that the old woman whose name was Clara looked at the old man with anger in her eyes, and she could immediately tell something was wrong.
"Oh, you can? Let's hear it then." Said Clara with anger in her face.
David then started to explain what had happened in the forest when he was trying to retrieve Renji. As he continued his story David's expression started to change out of fear because Clara's face was slowly becoming solemn and he knew something bad would befall him.
"So, that's what happe….AHHHHHH" In the middle of speaking David screamed, as a mirage of attacks was hitting him all over his body. Even though he was under attack he couldn't do anything but just block. Even though it just seemed like she was just punching him, Renji could feel the ground beneath his feet shaking as well as the cottage. It seemed like there was an earthquake.
All of the birds that were sleeping on the trees outside of the cottage started chirping and flying away as even they started to feel the earth-shaking, sensing the danger they didn't dare stay there any longer. This continued for a while and only stopped when the old man's face was all black and blue.
"Hahhh…. No dinner for you today, the first thing you will do when the sun comes up is to take the kid to his parents." Said Clara as it seemed like her rage had finally resided a little, then she looked towards Renji who was still half-conscious, she was about to say something to him but she was suddenly interrupted by David's meek voice.
"n…no dinner? Pl….please honey don't be like that." Said David with a meek voice as he didn't want to anger her any more than he already had. David wanted to plead with his wife but he shut his mouth close as soon as Clara turned around and looked at him with furious eyes. He didn't want to get hit anymore so he went towards the sofa in the corner of the room, he just sat there with teary black eyes. He knew he was going to be sleeping on that sofa for the night, so he accepted his fate.
"Don't worry darling your parents are safe, they have been taken to an academy a little far from here. But you don't have to worry as the director of the school is one of our friends. As an apology to you, we will tell him to take extra care of your family alright." Said the old woman with a gentle smile, but she was still feeling a tinge of pain in her heart as she looked at Renji.
'I can't imagine what you must be going through, even with this little body that has been torn and broken you still worry about your family. God, please show me a way in which I can console this little boy.' Clara prayed in her heart as she was heartbroken after seeing the body of 8-year-old Renji who had so many broken bones and wounds on his body just a few days ago and now even after not being fully healed he just wanted to see his family.
"What do you mean they have been taken to the academy? How do you know that they are safe? How do you know who my parents are? Who took them away from the wasteland? Was it you?" Renji had thousands of questions but he just asked these, he was still confused with all that happened just today. He wanted answers he wanted proof, he wanted something that can prove that his family is still safe.
"Huf….. how do I best explain this, although it looks like we just live inside of this cottage and know nothing of the world. We can look at everything that has been going on in the world to some extent, not the entire world but just some regions. Anyway, you come from wasteland we found out after using our trinket." Said the old lady as she waved her hand on thin air and a screen suddenly popped up, the screen was still showing the map but she started moving things around.
"Look we had your DNA and we used to look for your parents and these came up. After doing some digging I found out that they are both out of commission. When you become a hunter you resister your blood and DNA to make sure even if you die in a mission your family gets compensated. Through this network, we also found out that your sister was recently registered at a very prestigious school. The school she has been registered to is very renowned, she had been taken as a student of one of the world's top 10 schools. It seems like she has a very good aptitude for mana.
Here look this is them when they entered the school, I am sure they are well taken care of. Anyway, you can see them yourself tomorrow don't worry. If you go by regular mode of transport it will take you a day to reach the school but, tomorrow we will take you in a special vehicle it will only take 2 hours to get there." Explained Clara, as she showed Renji a video of his family. Clara thought it might be able to calm the little boy down. She was right on that part, Renji seemed a little relieved when he fell to the ground unconscious.