The pointy-eared human, whose hands were soaking wet with sweat, firmly grasped an arrow from her quiver, drew it, and then reloaded it onto her bow, took a brief moment to think before stretching her bow.
In her first shot, she hit the animal in the hip. In the second shot, she missed, leaving her with a total of three arrows including the one on her bow.
If she continued trying to aim for the deer's neck, she might eventually have found herself out of arrows and having failed to hit the deer a second time.
She, thinking all of this, decided, 'this time I will aim for the deer's side abdomen. If the arrow hits the deer's organs, there will be no need for close-range combat or fleeing.' Then she drew her arrow.
Taking a deep breath, she leaped again towards another tree's branch, holding her breath as she slightly turned to her left in mid-air and released the arrow from the bow she had drawn with all her strength.
This time, instead of focusing on landing on the branch of the tree and trying to hide behind its trunk, she directed her attention to the arrow released from her bow.
SCREAM...!!!
The arrow hit the target successfully for the second time, but unexpectedly, it didn't pierce any organs in the animal's abdomen.
Although it appeared to be stuck in the abdominal region, that spot was the area between the animal's right hind leg and the abdomen.
Right at that moment, she began to fall due to the effect of gravity, trying to focus on safely descending to a tree branch.
As soon as she released the arrow, she focussed on where she was going to land, but it was too late.
Her right ankle, the first part to touch the branch, twisted into a strange position and got injured.
Her expression quickly changed to pain as she narrowly avoided falling from the tree.
As she tried to regain her balance, she noticed the approaching heat and tried to hide behind the tree to shield herself from the incoming fireball.
While she moved behind the tree, the fireball struck the ground where she had just been a moment ago.
This time, the fabric on her left side caught fire and burned a small area of her waist.
AHHHH...!!!
She let out a scream in pain. In fact, she was too late to hide from the fireball.
She clenched her teeth and took out a small green bottle from her bag, then poured the liquid from the bottle onto the spot where the fire had touched, groaning.
While a slight cooling sensation spread to the area where she had just poured the liquid, she felt relief as the pain diminished.
However, before she could rejoice at her narrow escape, another fireball came towards the tree with an angry, high-pitched animal scream.
Fearing that any part of her body might be left outside the area covered by the tree trunk, she shrank slightly. The fireball hit the trunk of the tree but didn't harm her.
As she gathered herself to attack again with hatred, the deer, suffering from two arrows lodged in its body, moved continuously in pain and frustration, unable to kill its prey.
It continued to send fireballs towards the tree where its prey was located.
Realizing that she couldn't jump from tree to tree again and shoot arrows at her target like she did a moment ago, the situation prompted her to consider alternative ideas.
Recognizing that she didn't have many options, she decided to lure the deer.
She took out a small pile of fabric from her bag which looked like clothes and prepared to throw it with all her strength towards another tree in a way that the deer would see.
After taking out the fabric, she took her bow in her right hand, drew another arrow from the quiver, and held the bow and arrow with one hand by sandwiching the arrow between her index and middle fingers.
Meanwhile, she held the fabric ball she had taken out from her bag in her left hand, furrowed her eyebrows with a tense expression, held her breath, and swiftly threw the fabric towards one of the trees opposite her with full force. Shortly after, she leaped in the opposite direction onto a branch of another tree.
The deer, noticing something being thrown into the air from behind the tree, immediately launched a fireball towards the target without seeing what it was. The object instantly caught fire and fell to the ground.
In the meantime, in mid-air, she held her bow and arrow, seeing that the deer was focused on the fabric as desired and hadn't noticed her. She drew her bow all the way back and released the arrow.
As the arrow left the bow, the animal sensed something on the other side, but it was already too late. The arrow pierced the animal's abdomen at full speed from the side.
SCREAM...!!!
The deer, screaming loudly enough to startle all nearby small animals, had been dangerously wounded by a third arrow hitting its body.
The blood dripping slowly from where the arrow was pierced indicated that the deer didn't have much time left, regardless of whether it would catch her as prey or not.
But none of this mattered to her. She had safely descended onto a branch of the tree she had jumped towards and hidden her body behind the trunk of the tree again.
While drawing her bow in the air moments earlier, her vision briefly darkened, and she almost fainted.
In that moment, she didn't care about anything, feeling so bad that she couldn't even find joy in the hunter's condition after chasing her all day.
All she wanted to do was find a safe place and sleep as soon as possible, but even though the deer was on the brink of death, it was still hurling fireballs at her.
She clenched herself to rid herself of the terrible urge to vomit, but it was no use. Thinking that the danger didn't pass yet, she bit her lip until it bled.
If North were to see this person in her current exhausted, sweat and blood-covered, burnt, and even torn clothes, he wouldn't feel threatened at all.
Although she might have appeared to have won the battle, this wasn't the appearance of someone who had actually won.
After coming to herself with pain from biting her lip, she couldn't understand why the deer, which had been following her since yesterday, wasn't fleeing.
Normally, this type of deer was smart enough to realize when things weren't going well for it and would run away, but this deer was behaving strangely.
She, not finding this situation too strange considering the approaching disaster, waited for the deer to die, thinking she should return home before the disaster began.
After angrily hurling fireballs at the tree for a span of an incense stick, the deer's body became heavy, and as the fireballs diminished, its body began to lose balance.
She, feeling relieved when she noticed that the deer was close to falling, gradually realized that the feeling was fading and her body was becoming heavy, despite having felt good for a while.
She continued to wait anxiously, hoping for the deer to die soon.
While she still had the energy to move, she needed to quickly get away from that area, which was emitting the scent of blood, clean herself, dress her wounds, and find a safe place to spend the rest of the day and night.
After the span of one more incense stick...
Upon waiting for a span of two incense sticks, the deer collapsed to the ground. Although it blinked its eyes and tried to move its legs, it could no longer pose a threat.
Even though she saw it, she didn't come down from the tree right away.
After waiting about one-tenth of a span of an incense stick longer, she decided that it was safe to come down and jumped from the tree.
When she landed, she suddenly groaned in a low voice due to the pain in her right foot, remembering that she had injured her right ankle.
She approached the deer's carcass with a slight limp. She looked at the animal's head and, upon seeing that its horn was missing, she searched around the carcass and found the horn.
In this world, although not all predators left behind specific things when they died, many predators did.
This type of deer typically left its horns behind. The deer's horn, as solid as rock until a while ago, had broken near the base upon the deer's death and fell to the ground.
Although the likelihood of these valuable items dropping was low, during times of disaster, there was a fairly good chance of acquiring such items.
Upon taking the deer's horn, she lost all interest in the deer's carcass and turned towards the inner parts of the forest, beginning to walk.
As she passed by the dead tree where she had initially left the rodent carcass, her vision suddenly blurred and she collapsed to the ground.
...
On the other side, North, during this entire hunter-prey battle, stood quietly in the tree hollow, trying to listen to what was happening outside, and the sounds that came within a span of a few incense sticks had a great impact on him.
The sounds of animal cries, burning noises, and the scream of the two-legged person greatly startled North.
Initially, he had thought the four-legged animal was the prey and fell into a trap, would easily be killed by the hunter.
However, as the prey and hunter battled almost until noon, he realized that the situation he was in was much more dangerous.
Especially during this process happening outside, when he heard the scream of the two-legged person, he realized, albeit belatedly, that the four-legged animal, which had come right up to the base of the tree, wasn't the prey he had hoped, but there was little he could do.
He waited quietly, hoping to leave this place as soon as there was no more prey or predator around.