When they reached their destination, the birds didn’t land. Instead, they hovered above the open field, and because of that, Rost let Jude drop on his back. They had passed the treeline completely. It seemed to Jude that there had been tall trees there once, but no more. He could see shards of wood on the ground, but something was writhing on top of them, like an infinite number of termites chewing through them. From the distance, however, he couldn’t tell what it was, and the birds weren’t getting any closer.

Jude looked around to see if there was anything else there, and that’s when he saw the herd of creatures he hadn’t noticed in the distance. The same writhing red on top of the wood splinters was coursing through their bodies. The creatures seemed to be some sort of deer from that world. Some had antlers and others didn’t, but it looked like the antlers were made of wood, and the largest of them had branches with leaves on them. The antlers’ leaves were red and decaying.

The herd had all kinds of deer, but Jude knew that the birds would be hunting the weaker members. Rost angled its body in the direction of the herd, folded its wings and dove at the animals. The bird king would be the one to announce their prey that day.

As Jude, who was on Rost’s back, got closer to the herd, he could see that the animals were nearly as big as the birds. On average, there was no difference between the two sets of creatures. Nevertheless, the deer could not attack flying creatures, so they were entirely at a disadvantage. When they saw Rost diving at them, they broke into a run.

Rost chased them continuously, relentlessly, while the rest of the flock hit the flanks of the herd to break them apart. Eventually, a single, much older deer with cracked, leafless antlers was entirely separated from the herd. The flock of birds kept pressuring the stronger deer so that they wouldn’t come back to rescue the one left behind while Rost and Jude descended on it.

Rost never landed, but Jude had wanted to join the hunt, so before leaving, he had asked Queen Millicent to request that of Rost. The bird king hovered low so that Jude could jump down, and now Jude could see what was writhing on both the creature and the wood carcasses on the ground. It was liquified rot bubbling up from the creature. It wasn’t everywhere on the creature though. It was mainly on the deer’s head, but the rest of the body remained relatively intact. That made Jude wonder whether the deer were somehow related to the nature of the forest itself, but it wasn’t the time to figure that out. He knew that was something he could ask the queen, and that it might actually help with Iris’ research into the rot.

Right now, however, he was face to face with the creature. It didn’t tower over him, but was still taller than him. The deer’s eyes were entirely red, and the liquid dripped off its head from where the antlers came out of its skin. There was a line of red going from there straight into the creature’s mouth, so it looked like it was poisoning itself.

The creature kicked the ground with its front legs, preparing to charge, and Jude hunched down, fists raised in front of him. He didn’t have any weapons that might pierce the creature, but he wondered if that might actually be a good thing since piercing the creature would mean that there would be a greater chance of the liquid getting on him.

The creature charged, but Jude just waited. He held his position until the deer was ten feet from him. When that happened, he triggered Fly and instead of going up, he launched himself sideways from the charge. The deer passed by him, missing him completely, but with another beat of his wings, Jude launched himself against the deer’s left flank. He used his body weight and the momentum to land a massive punch against the deer’s stomach, just behind the front legs.

Jude was living in the city now, but he had lived half of his life in the South. There, he had learned to hunt from the friends he had made. Because of that, he knew that the hearts of Earthly deer were located just behind their front legs, lower on the body, hidden by their lungs. He was trying to stop the creature’s heart in one blow so that it would not suffer anymore than it was already suffering.

The sound of the impact rang across the open field, and the creature fell to the ground, lifeless. Jude had not hit the creature’s heart directly, but the impact of his fist against it had been such that it created a shockwave within the creature. Because its body was already rotting from the inside, everything around the point of impact exploded from within.

Since he had used Fly, Jude wouldn’t be able to return to the Fae tree by himself. So when Rost descended to pick up the body of the creature, Jude flew up to land on the bird king’s back. For Rost, hunting with Jude had been an unexpected boon. Because they were birds, normally they would hunt the deer with their beaks and talons, which would get the liquid rot on them. In fact, some of the birds Iris had treated had been some of the most skilled hunters before, but the constant exposure to the rot had left them in that state of near death. For the entire flock, however, it was necessary that the hunt happen. They would die of hunger much earlier than of the infection if they didn’t eat. But with Jude there, none of the birds had had contact with the liquid. The carcass of the deer was intact, and the bird king hoped to request a cleansing from Iris before they ate any of it.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Rost rose to the skies with the carcass between its talons, and the flock of birds that had been keeping the herd at bay joined the king. Jude waited until they were halfway to the Fae tree to start his flight training again, repeating the process from before, when they first left the tree.

They arrived early, just around noon, so Iris was still in the middle of her training. Not wanting to bother her, Rost stashed the carcass of the deer in a massive hollow trunk that had been prepared beforehand for food storage. Jude had used nearly all of his mana, so he was exhausted. Knowing that Iris would be training until nightfall, he went back to their nest and fell asleep.

He woke up to Iris collapsed next to him, breathing heavily.

“This… is so hard,” she said. She wasn’t infected anymore.

Iris had spent the entire day battling the rot within her body. Eventually, some of her organs had shut down as she prioritized what she would need to live in the short term, until she could heal herself. By nightfall, she had only had her brain, heart and lungs functioning. The rot had even blinded her, but it was then that Queen Millicent had raised her hand to touch Iris’ head again. Something she had not done the entire day. Iris felt her mana replenish with the touch and started to heal and purify herself one organ at a time, which also helped with mana control.

When she had finally returned to her original state, she left the queen’s nest to find Jude. She saw Rost perched outside and decided to check her own nest first to find him passed out when she entered. She collapsed as soon as she saw him.

“How are you?” he asked.

“Not dead, at least. But almost,” she replied, her breathing had settled now.

“You sure you wanna do this?”

“I’m getting better at controlling my mana, so it’s beneficial. I don’t know if I’ll manage Mana Life, but the training is working. What did you do today?”

“I flew above the forest and hunted a deer. There was something wrong with it, so I think Rost will want you to purify it before they eat it.”

“Oh, great… Give me a second to rest, will you?”

“I’m not telling you to go right now. In fact, I want to talk to you about the deer first. It seemed to be secreting rot straight off the connection between the head and the antlers. Actually, the deer in better health had antlers with leaves on them. The antlers are also made of wood. I think they are related to the forest somehow.”

“Liquid rot?!” Iris asked, perked up by the new information.

“Yeah, and I hadn’t seen that before your injection stunt. It was on the splintered wood around the herd too.”

“Why would it act differently from everywhere else?”

“No clue. Maybe we should ask Queen Millicent.”

“Let’s go right now. This could be a massive breakthrough for us.”

“Aren’t you dying?” Jude asked.

“Death can wait another day,” she said. She struggled to stand up, but she did so on her own, and just as she was about to storm off, Iris turned back and asked, “Aren’t you coming?”

Seeing her excitement, Jude smiled and stood up. It was already night out, but they were protected from The Devourer on that tree. Sleeping before the howling could start was just a way for them to maintain their sanity, but answers felt like an even better way.

On the way to the queen, Jude noticed that he had leveled up.

[Name: Jude Masters

Occupation: Linguist

Sub-Occupation: Unknown

Weapon: Gloves of the Lunar Eclipse (Unique-F) - Strength: 50, Spell Power: 2

Armor: Adapted Fae Chrysalis (Unique-D) - HP:300, MP:75

Lvl. 2

Health: 550

Mana: 125

Dexterity: 15

Strength: 70

Agility: 25

Stamina 25

Intelligence: 30

Notice: More status options available at level 5.

Translation/Interpretation lvl. 10 (Max)

Fly lvl. 2]