Min Lest came to a stop and pointed to the area ahead of them.

"This is a territory with lots of wild hares. There are typically only hares here but sometimes, I might encounter a wild boar. If we do encounter a boar we should run away since they are quite aggressive"

"Since this is your first time hunting and you've already recovered, I will teach you what to do and then you should try it yourself"

Heat nodded his head but felt that something felt odd. For some reason, he thought back to his conversation with Fang Lest yesterday as he described his family.

Fang Lest had a son who married at the age of 20 with a neighboring girl when she turned 18. His daughter-in-law birthed Min Lest a year after their marriage. They lived a peaceful life with Fang Lest farming and his son hunting.

A couple of years ago when Min Lest was 14, Fang Lest's son came rushing home one day in an excited mood. He told Fang Lest how he went deep into Spike mountain and found an Earth Knight's legacy hidden in a cave.

Fang Lest didn't know what an Earth Knight was but because his son would sometimes go out to trade with other villages, his son seemed to know. Even though his son didn't describe what an Earth Knight was to Fang Lest, he was able to guess that it must have been important given how excited his son was.

The next day, however, Fang Lest's son disappeared. After a week, Fang Lest's daughter-in-law seemed to know about some secret that she didn't share with Fang Lest and rushed into Spike Mountain to find Fang Lest's son.

Min Lest, filled with worry for his mother, went into Spike Mountain to search for his mother and missing father. Two days later, he came back with neither.

"To find a wild hare or its home, we should first search for some hare tracks or traces of hare activity"

Min Lest was patiently showing Heat how to find wild hares and after a few hours, they locked on to some traces of wild hares leading to a hare burrow.

"Since wild hares are clever, they will flee immediately if they sense danger. They are also much faster than normal people so it would be almost impossible for us to catch them. The best way would be to set up a trap and lead the hare to the trap as we chase"

Min Lest showed Heat precisely how to set up a snare trap with some rope that he brought by setting up some traps in a few directions that surround the hare burrow. Min Lest then showed Heat that as long as the hare came out of its burrow, no matter which direction it ran to it would eventually lead to a trap.

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"Now we quickly create a small fire from some twigs to smoke the hare out of its burrow"

In less than an hour, a hare was caught in one of the snare traps that Min Lest set up.

"Now you try big brother. I'll watch you and help you if you need any help. Let's first go a bit deeper into the forest and see if we can find any more hares"

With Min Lest leading the way, Heat followed deeper into the forest. Very soon Heat found some traces of wild hare activity.

"The tracks seem to lead back toward the way we came from but in a slightly different direction" Looking at the ground, Heat deduced that a wild hare must be close.

"No, those look like fox tracks, foxes are too cunning and we won't be able to catch them. Let's go deeper into the forest and see if we can find some other traces of wild hares" Quickly shifting the focus toward the inner parts of the forest, Min Lest moved forward gesturing for Heat to follow.

Heat was diligently following Min Lest as he went deeper and deeper into the forest. As Min Lest suddenly changed direction, Heat wanted to inquire on why they weren't finding any wild hare traces when suddenly, he heard the sound of twigs snapping.

"ROOOOAR" as soon as the red colored lion appeared, it roared loudly at Heat.

"Oh no! This is a Flame Tailed Lion, it's a class 2 Demonic Beast! RUN!" Shouted Min Lest as he quickly ran to the left.

As soon as Heat realized they were in danger and heard Min Lest shout "RUN!" Heat turned around and ran.

The Flame Tailed Lion ignored Min Lest even though he was closer and chose to only chase after Heat.

Feeling the danger of the Demonic Beast approaching, Heat knew that he would not be able to outrun the Flame Tailed Lion and quickly surveyed his surroundings. The Flame Tailed Lion would reach him within 5 seconds and with nothing but a rope on hand, Heat figured that there would be no way to survive.

Since he was going to die no matter what happens, Heat thought to at least stall and maybe injure the Flame Tailed Lion so that Min Lest might have a chance of escaping.

Steeling his resolve, Heat charged at the incoming Demonic Beast holding out a rope with both hands in front of him. The Flame Tailed Lion opened its jaws to roar as it closed the distance and swiped forward with its paw instantly cutting past the rope attempting to cut Heat in half.

The moment the Flame Tailed Lion's claws touched Heat's shoulders, he instinctively moved backward and managed to prevent being sliced in half. The impact of the Flame Tailed Lion's paw still caused Heat to fly backward and crash into a tree causing the tree to break.

As Heat rolled on to the ground, he noticed how he had a bleeding wound from the Lion's claws extending diagonally from his right shoulder down to his left ribs.

The sense of danger ignited Heat's survival instincts as he felt his wound bleeding.

Without waiting for Heat to get up, the Flame Tailed Lion immediately rushed to finish Heat off. As it leaped forward to pounce, Heat knew he had to do something, anything, or he would be dead in the next moment.

Without a moment of hesitation, Heat rolled underneath the airborne Flame Tailed Lion when it jumped and punched the Flame Tailed Lion from underneath it.

The moment Heat's punch came in to contact with the Flame Tailed Lion, a hole was blasted through its body as Heat's fist pierced right through.

Heat was stunned. What happened? The threatening class 2 Demonic Beast was killed just like that?

Removing his arm full of blood from the Flame Tailed Lion's dead body, Heat shuddered as he realized that this isn't the first time he's killed. The feeling of taking another living being's life felt extremely familiar, as natural as breathing.