"Hey what are you doing?" Rina walks out of the tent and what hit her was the aroma of a well roasted meat.
Vondrel didn't reply her, but she continued walking and sat opposite him.
"Here have some" He passed a piece for her.
She looked at the meat trying to inspect it, but the aroma kept drawing her, making her salivate.
"Stop checking and dive in already " Vondrel said after noticing that she was hesitating.
"You can as well just take a bite to check how it tastes" he added.
As if she was waiting for his permission, she took a bite almost immediately.
"Hmm...." Rina hummed and began to consume the meat like an hungry beast.
"So how does it ta...." Vondrel was about asking how the meat tasted, before stopping half way. He was surprised at the speed at which Rina ate the meat, just for him to check the piece he is smoking and raise his head to inquire if she likes the taste, she already consumed the meat. The moist dripping down her arm as she licked it off with her tongue.
'What a sight.' Vondrel thought
"Wow i wasn't expecting you to eat it so hurriedly, you're so fast " Vondrel said awkwardly
"So how does it taste?" He asked
"Hmm....great " she limited herself to answer curtly.
"OK, do you want m....." Vondrel continued but was interrupted by Rina's immediate answer.
"Yes" Rina answers before he could finish his question.
Vondrel...."_"
Seeing his puzzled expression, she immediately lowered her head in embarrassment. "Eh, I'm sorry for acting that way, i want more" she said with a low voice.
"Cough...it's okay, I will just have to leave some for the rest of the team, u can have as much as you want" He said.
"Really....i can have as much as i want? " Rina questioned, her eyes shining with obvious gleam
"Yup, just don't forget about the rest. " Vondrel replied.
Rina began to gobble the meats, till she had her fill and decided to join Vondrel in roasting the remaining meats.
"Do you mind teaching me how to roast meats?" Rina suddenly asked
"Hmm...you don't need it, it will just make u look like someone from the village " Vondrel said refusing to teach her
"Pleasesssssssssssssssssss" Rina pouted making it hard for him to refuse.
"Emm...okay just watch me" Vondrel said finding it hard to get his words out.
"Someone is in love" the blade said sarcastically, if it had a face, it would have been grinning.
"I'm not in love, I'm just surprised she wants to get her hands dirty" Vondrel replied while teaching Rina
"Her petite and smooth hand right? You know i have lived long enough to know when someone has a crush on the other" the blade joked.
"I won't call that hand of hers petite, though it's smooth and the way she carried it look gentle, but she used that hand to kill a beast. "Vondrel said not knowing he was staring at Rina's hands unconsciously. The blade was aware of this but it didn't voice that out.
"Don't you think the hand will be soft and good to caress, how do you think it will feel if it touches you?" the blade said
"Well, i don't know about that, i guess you are dying to know how it feels " the blade teased.
'Why is he staring at me like that, is there anything on my face? Wait he is actually staring at my hands ' Rina thought to herself when she noticed Vondrel was lost in thought.
' Is he trying to make sure i'm doing it correctly? What is he actually thinking right now, hmm...why did he crease his head. He's frowning, he just smiled, no he frowned again, he widened his eyes, did i do it wrongly??" numerous thoughts were going through her head. She has also gotten carried away and was busy commenting on his constant changing expressions.
Then a burning smell entered their noise jolting them out of their thoughts.
"Omg....i burnt it!" Rina exclaimed.
" Don't worry I'll take care of that" Vondrel said before taking over.
"hahahaha!!!" the blade laughed loudly .
"You will pay for this" Vondrel said before taking one of the blades from its sheath and used it to scrape the burnt piece of the roasted meat.
"Hey kid, how dare you use me as a knife. What happened to the one given to you by the academy.' The blade bellowed
Rina watched as he did it gently.
.......
Inside the tent, two people were watching the leader and member pare staring at each other, with different expressions on their faces.
"Did you see that?" James asked
"Yeah, there is something between them " Noah answered
"I guess they have a thing for each other " James continued.
"Hmm....i guess so, that explains that weird moment they spent staring at each other." Noah said with a smile.
"Do you think they are a good match?" James questioned
"Yeah, they both have great potential, something is telling me something is going to change soon " Noah said calmly
"There is something different about them, but i can't pinpoint it" James thought out loud
"What are you guys talking about? " Timmy asked.
"What's this smell, sniff sniff " Sam sniffed the air.
In response his stomach growled, and he immediately jumped out of the bed spread and went outside searching for the source of the aroma.
"Hey Vondrel, morning Rina... What is this can i have some?" Sam asked but didn't wait for reply before taking a piece and biting it.
"Hmm...this taste great" he also began to dive into it.
"Won't you guys come and join, else i'll finish it all" Sam shouted
The rest came out and they all enjoyed themselves, they ate to their fill and decided to store the rest. When they were done, they all stood up, clean the place and get ready to continue their journey.
"We need to get a river or stream to wash ourselves " Rina stated.
"Here take this " Vondrel threw the peak mediate crystal at Rina who caught it and inspected it.
"How did you get this? " She asked confused
"From the panther" Vondrel replied and packed the rest of the things they needed, he then cleaned his blades and return it to its sheath.
" What? What panther? " Sam asked the question on their minds.
"Yeah, what you all ate was a panther" Vondrel said not bating an eye.
Everyone... "_"
"What?" he asked
"Where did you get the dead panther from?" Sam asked.
"Must you have to make me look pathetic, well i killed the panther myself, i guess it was a panther with the shadow ability." Vondrel said casually.
"You mean you killed a peak mediate tier shadow panther on your own?!!!" Rina exclaimed
Vondrel then decided to tell them what happened while they were asleep, but omitted his battle and just said.
"I fought against it and defeated it, it was a tough fight though" and as prove he showed them his torn cloth as prove.
They all studied him for some time, but choose to say nothing.
"Let's get going then, we need more crystals " Rina said
' He is injured, but choose not to let his friends know.' She thought while stealing glances at Vondrel
They moved and hunted beasts like skinny hound, bats, cat snakes and more. They came across a vast land and came across another group led by another gifted.
"Who do we have here, isn't it the Ice princess? " the leader of the new group said.
"We meet again " Rina limited herself to say.
"Yeah, and this time no sergeant or instructor can save you" the leader said sarcastically.
"Larry just stop this, i don't want to fight you, take your colleagues and leave this place. " Rina said
"And why do you think I'll obey you?" Larry frowned.
"I'm not commanding you, it's simple I'll lead my group to the other direction " Rina stated before proceeding to leave.
"Well, since we met here, i wasn't planning to let you go until you beg to be my whore" Larry smirked
"We can actually avoid this you know " Rina said.
She then decided to leave but Larry and his group stopped her.
"Where do you think you're going, didn't you hear our leader ?" one of Larry's member asked
"Is it until we force you before.... " he continued before being interrupted by Vondrel who suddenly wield his sword.
"I sense something ahead " Vondrel said immediately wielding his weapon.
"What, how dare you interrupt me?" the boy asked with anger written all over him.
"Do you really think you could actually play that petty trick on us??" Larry said while glaring at Vondrel
Vondrel ignored him and slashed forward aiming directly at the side of the previous speaker's face, the slash was too fast for the boy to block the attack. No one expected him to attack, but instead of the slash to hit the boy it passed his side and divided a black raven into two halves.
Everyone was surprised, they all showed looks of horror because if Vondrel hadn't attacked, the raven would have clawed on the guy's face and removed his eyes.
"An eye eater" Larry said.
"There are more coming " Vondrel said and immediately began to slash.
Multiple slashes went into the distance, they followed the attacks and could see ravens numbered in hundreds flying towards them. Though they were much in number they are a weak beast.
As prove Vondrel's slashes wiped out a good portion of the eye eater, the beasts closed the distance between them and attacked them. The students began to attack and multiple abilities clashed against the beasts, in few seconds the beasts were all killed.
They all began to harvest the crystals and a fight between the two groups almost break out.
"We need to get out of here!!!" Vondrel shouted, not bothering himself with the crystals.
The ground shook and made them lose their footing then more wave of eyes eaters surrounded them, their number made it hard for the students to kill them. They were all attacked in multiple directions.
"This is annoying " Larry said
angrily and prepared to unleash his full aura.
The ground shook again and cave in, Rina and Larry were at the center where the ground caved in, they weren't able to escape.
'Swoosh'
Vondrel dashed straight to them and pushed his hands forward, he pushed Rina away and used his leg to kick Larry from the center. As he tried to save himself from falling into the cave floor. Suddenly a tentacle whacked him to the edge of the hole.
'Bam'
He hit the ground heavily and the eyes eaters unending wave swoop down at him, ripping his skin, making blood gush out. His blades fell into the hole, he tried reaching out to it but his hands were grabbed by a tentacle.
The tentacle swung him at the eyes eaters that was attacking it, injuries kept on piling up on Vondrel's body. His bones were broken as the tentacles was using him to swat away the flying beasts and at the same time slamming him on the floor as a bat used kill tiny insects and his body were full of claws, he could do nothing about it.
The others tried to save him but the situation grew worse. More and more eye eaters flood the place more of them targeting the beast with the tentacle while others targeting Vondrel and the rest targeting the others.
Then suddenly the eyes eaters became too much that the rest of the students had to run away from the area, Rina and Larry had to form a mini alliance and unleashed their full potentials.
Instead of the attack reducing, more stronger beasts came at them, multiple beasts at the ranker tier and few mediate tiers and even some peak mediate upper tier level beasts were attacking the group, making them have no choice but to leave the area and run for their lives.
Vondrel's friends tried their bests to reach him to no avail.
"Give up trying to reach him, let's get out of here first." Rina ordered
Seeing their hesitancy. She shouted "He is long dead and I am sure he would want you guys to leave him and save yourselves first."
They had no choice but to leave him and run for their dear lives, albeit with heavy heart.
Few eyes eaters gave them a good chase while the others tried to kill the quasi-intermediate tentacled beast, the beasts swung it's tentacles wildly, it didn't manage to stop the wave of eyes eaters.
It decided to retreat into the ground dragging Vondrel along, it was chased by few eyes eaters, Vondrel lost his eyes to the eyes eaters and his flesh was ripped in several places.
"Ahhhhhhh....!!!" He screamed till his mouth became sour and till his voice became hoarse.
The tentacled beast kept retreating downward till it got to a place that looks dark and weird, it then relaxed a bit and ten frantically looked around. After confirming that there was no disturbance around, it decided to consume it's meal which was Vondrel and few eyes eaters it brought along.
First off it broke the bones of the eyes eaters by tightening the tentacles around them before putting them into its mouth that was located under its cone head.