Chapter 17 - Hunting

After a bit of idle chat, they both decided it was time to get to work.

"Yuki, you should go with Scarlet. I'll be okay on my own."

Now that Scarlet knew of Yuki's existence. He can have Yuki follow Scarlet to keep her safe and help her collect branches for their campfire.

As for him, he can go hunting with peace of mind.

From his prior idle chat with Scarlet, he learned that Gaia Forest is separated into three layers, the outer layer, the middle layer, and the center.

The area where they are now, is the outer layer of Gaia Forest where regular animals stay and live.

Thus making it possible for carriages with guards to take this road.

With Mana Sense and his buff spells, hunting would be easy.

Haste

Boost

And Elemental Resistance just in case.

After getting ready with a last wave to the two girls he went left towards where Scarlet said the Dragon Empire was located.

Not that he was going to walk or run there. It was because he knew due to the commotion caused by their earlier battle, the animals must have escaped to either side of the destroyed area.

After years of living in Gaia Forest, the animals had developed a keen understanding of the hierarchy and would not trespass where they shouldn't otherwise only death awaited them.

Even if Arthur couldn't find the escaped animals it's not like he couldn't find others with Gaia Forest being humongous.

And just as he thought, within ten minutes of running with his Mana Sense he could see three deer drinking water from a stream which housed countless red striped fishes.

After hesitating Arthur waited for the three deer to finish drinking before he made his way over to the stream.

If this was back in his previous world he would have used a fishing rod.

In this world… he didn't even know if fishing rods existed.

Probably not with magic being prevalent fishing poles would be obsolete and not needed.

Anyway, back to the fish. 

How is he going to catch some fish?

It's simple, when he previously watched the battle he realized not everyone in this world can use magic, but that doesn't mean that they aren't born with mana.

According to Scarlet, every living creature is comprised of mana.

Which led to his current ludicrous idea.

What if he uses Mana Drain to remove every drop of mana within a living being?

Doesn't that mean he could easily hunt food for them?

That is another reason why he let Yuki go with Scarlet because even if a magical beast ventures into the outer layer he would be fine, but what about Scarlet?

With his buffs, he could easily escape or even fight. 

And with his Mana Sense he can be vigilant of his surroundings. 

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Mana Sense

With that, he can now close his eyes to concentrate.

The reason why he had failed in casting before was because not only was it his first time casting Mana Drain, he was trying to cast it on multiple people at once but most importantly he was worried about his companions' safety.

But now there was nothing for him to worry about.

There were no enemies,

No injured allies.

Just me and nature.

Me and these fish.

No, fish!

One singular fish!

A few seconds later

Mana Drain

As soon as he uttered the spell's name, with Mana Sense he could see one of the hundreds of red striped fish started emitting black miasma and he knew he had succeeded.

But before he celebrated he knew that now that the fish started emitting black miasma the other fish would escape so he had to hurry and cast more Mana Drain.

Mana Drain

Mana Drain

Mana Drain

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A few minutes prior to Arthur's mad fishing escapade.

"Yuki, do you think this would be enough for a fire?" Scarlet said unsurely looking at the literal small hill made of branches and twigs with Yuki still in her arms.

"It should be, it's not like we will be here for days right?"

"Hopefully, I don't want my parents, cousin, uncle, and auntie to worry." Scarlet replied a bit sadly.

Seeing Scarlet sad, Yuki thought of something perfect to distract her from such thoughts, "How about we go find some seasoning?"

"Oh, what a wonderful idea!"

"I bet Arthur didn't even think of seasoning for our food."

"Heehee, for some reason, I think you would win that bet."

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While Arthur was almost done "fishing" and the two ladies started looking for seasoning, the triplets had finished burning the last of the remaining gangsters.

Previously they were going to have one pile before setting them ablaze, but Jiang thought it would be too much of a hassle.

Ren, being the smartest of the three, came up with a plan of having two piles.

One pile had the mages who were hiding in the outer layer of Gaia Forest and the second pile consisted of those who besieged the wall and Leo.

They first started with the mages, piling them up before Jiang set them ablaze, leaving only the armors and wands of the Dragon Empire.

Quan and Ren then chopped down any trees that were damaged leaving stumps behind for Jiang to burn later while Jiang, who has a secondary plant element, sprouted grass and small shrubbery.

After burning the destroyed trees and shrubbery they went to where the battle took place and realized that the craters were all gone and even the bodies of their enemies were piled up into a hill…

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As for butler Albert and Leo, their job was quite easy since Albert unlike his son had an aptitude for magic. Although it was wind magic and not earth magic, using his ingenuity he can utilize wind magic to obtain the same results.

With a simple Bubble spell which encases anything he wants in compressed wind, he lifted all the dirt and basically squished it back into the giant craters making the road as good as new.

Within a few minutes, he was already done.

Knowing he had time to spare and not seeing the triplets anywhere Albert decided to help them out as he used his Bubble spell once more to lift up their bodies and put them into a pile not even letting their blood fall.