Chapter 9 - Wind

Feeling that she genuinely accepted my proposal, I smiled brightly and held her hands.

"Please take care of me from now on, too, Kareena. Even though I would love to hold a wedding ceremony for us, let's treat this soul bond tying us together as proof of our marriage until we find civilization or stability in this forest."

Looking at her beautiful pinkish face that was also smiling happily, I slowly lifted her chin and brought my face closer to hers.

Seeing that my lips were approaching hers and anticipating what will happen, she closed her eyes and pouted her lips. Her demeanor and soul core practically displaying excitement.

Pushing my lips onto hers and imprinting the textures on my brain, her lips were soft and warm, making me lose myself in their warmth. After a few long seconds, I pulled myself back.

Still pouting her lips but feeling that my lips were no longer on hers, she opened her eyes and saw that I was staring at her, smiling amusedly.

"Were you expecting something like a French kiss?"

Seeing my wide smile, she flushed and turned away with her cheeks looking bloated.

"*Chuckle, not now, Kareena. Let's continue it further later tonight. I might not be able to hold myself back if we went further. Since the sun is up, we should start our day. It's not good to have downtime when we haven't found stability in the forest."

Pulling the still crimson Kareena up, we headed to the river to clean ourselves a little. The morning air was crisp, and the cool water felt refreshing against our skin.

"Can you eat meat, Kareena?"

Turning towards me with her face dripping with water, she furrowed her brows and pondered.

"I don't know, master. And even if I can, I don't think I'll like it."

"You haven't tried eating one yet. It's delicious. I like it a lot more than eating plants, at least. Well, we don't know if you can eat meat yet. Give me a big smile, I want to see if you have any fangs."

Showing me a big lovely smile, I saw that she had four sharp canine teeth like normal humans do.

[Wow, I don't think even I can smile that good. Well, maybe cuz I'm usually expressionless.]

Seeing that I was gazing intently at her face, she asked.

"Do I look good smiling like this, master? My face feels a little stiff. Does it look weird?"

It looked like she thought it was because her smile was unnatural.

"You have a beautiful smile, Kareena. Don't worry about it. And there, you have fangs. It looks like it won't be a problem if I catch an animal. Try eating meat, Kareena. They taste so much better than vegetables."

"Nn, I'll try."

After getting clean and refreshed, I brought Kareena back to the cave and saw that it was just as I left it.

"This is where I've been living since two days ago. I want to find civilization soon, if there is one, but since this forest is huge, we need a place to stay for a while. So I've made this our shelter for now. Since I'm gonna go hunt, you should um... maybe get used to your new form and try to improve your control of wind magic. Here, I'll transfer all the information I know about wind. I don't know to what extent you can control the wind, but I'll transfer all I know and anything related to it."

Putting my forehead on hers, I transmitted to her everything I thought would be useful to improve her wind magic using the most energy I could without going unconscious.

"I'll be back in at most three hours with whatever I've gotten since you still haven't eaten breakfast yet. So just stay in the cave. I'll set up the spike fence when I get out, so don't worry about anything, and that is one of the short spears I made as an extra in case something happens."

Showing her the extra short spear I made, she blankly nodded her head, trying to digest all the knowledge I transmitted to her.

"Take care, master. Please be careful. I'm a little dizzy, I need to digest this information master passed on to me."

"Okay, Kareena. If you don't understand anything, then just ask me when I get back. I'll go bring some berries so you can eat it while waiting for me to bring a proper meal."

Leaving the cave after giving Kareena some berries and making sure that nothing could endanger or even get close to her, I left to find some animals to hunt.

Walking slowly through the forest with my short spear in hand, I thought of animals that I could hunt.

[There should be hares and wild turkeys in this forest, but they're keen, and they are extremely agile. I don't know if I can be silent enough to get close without them noticing. If I don't find any, maybe I could find a bird's nest that's easy to reach and eat cooked eggs for breakfast. But I don't have a stove to cook the eggs... I'll figure it out when I face the problems.]

After an hour of walking in a straight line and taking mental notes of the trees with fruits, I found a group of rabbits that was foraging in a bushy area.

[I should at least be able to catch one, right?]

Trying to approach them as silently as possible with my bare foot gripping the ground, I tried to get as close as possible to a rabbit that had brown lights floating around it.

Feeling that getting any closer would guarantee it noticing me, I slowly pulled my short spear back into a throwing stance.

With a swing of my hand, the short spear flew and stabbed itself loosely into the rabbit's rump.

*Squeal

As the squeal resounded, all the lights of different colors in the vicinity started moving, yellow, blue, and brown lights started congregating around their respective manipulators.

With this happening, only milliseconds passed after my throw, seeing that the ground around the injured rabbit started to shake and it was about to jump away, I quickly rushed towards it and pushed my hands towards the short spear, trying to push it in deeper.

Pushing the short spear, it went deep in the rabbit, causing it to exit the other side and strike into the ground.

Seeing that the rabbit is now extremely injured and weak, I was about to pull the spear and run away with the rabbit in hand when I suddenly felt like I was electrocuted and blanked for a second.

Being dazed momentarily, I felt the ground beneath me rise and fall, making me lose my footing, and I felt myself getting pushed around by the wind.

After a few seconds, I was finally able to stop myself from rolling as I headbutted a tree.

Looking around, I saw that all the rabbits had fled, with only the dying rabbit left behind.

"Sorry kid, it looks like there's no hope for you anymore."

Pulling out the spear, I slashed the rabbit's jugular veins, giving it a quick death.

After letting it bleed out and all it's soul energy has finished leaking, I followed my trail back towards the cave.

Arriving at the cave, I saw that the concentration of blue lights was higher than before.

[Did an animal pass through here? I don't feel anything unusual from Kareena, so she's safe. Is this her doing?]

Entering the cave, I saw that the concentration was higher, looking at the source, I saw that Kareena.... was levitating.