Opening her sleepy eyes, Ciare saw that Rei had already left. She sighed slightly, closing her eyes again. But almost immediately, rather piquant scenes began to appear in her memory one after another ... The woman sniffed rather strangely, but still laughed charmingly, and then opened her emerald eyes again.

Lifting her tired body with difficulty, she looked around the room and made sure that she was alone in the house. At that moment, her gaze caught on a skein of white bandages.

“He left without letting himself be bandaged.” – smiling stupidly, the woman nevertheless got up from the bed, heading to another room…

Ray at this moment was resting at home. After a storm of activity, his wounds again made themselves felt, so he decided not to move at all until nightfall, so that he could at least be able to hunt.

This time, the guy decided to slightly change the usual daily routine and go hunting as soon as it gets dark enough.

The body of the woodsman was actually regenerating damage several times faster, and, about an hour after sunset, Rei felt that his ribs could survive the hunt. No, the bones, of course, did not grow together, but they caused much less discomfort.

Turning into a snake, Rei was once again convinced of the practicality of this body. If in the form of a forest, he felt pain with every movement of the torso, now he only had to stop moving the segment of the body to which the bone damage had been transferred. It certainly slowed down the speed, but since he hunted not by the serpent's physical strength but by its venom, the overall efficiency didn't drop much.

Ray decided to leave early for the simple reason that he needed more souls in order to get his body ready for tomorrow's workout.

Ray returned only ten hours later, but this gave the desired result, he was able to catch 24 animals, although now he has only 6 souls left, he spent the rest on restoring energy during the hunt and treating injuries that by that time were already practically normal . The rest will be completed by the body of the forest. But most importantly, such a long hunt passed surprisingly imperceptibly for him. In the body of a snake, this activity became simply incomparably pleasant.

“I think no one will have any questions if I say that such a speed of recovery is just a gift from their Goddess. Besides, it seems to me that Thea thought just that.” Thinking about this, Rei approached the entrance to the training ground. There was still a little time before dawn, but the guy knew that Arvus was coming just at that time. There was nothing of the sort in coming after the Faroese, and given his yesterday's state, it would even be correct, but the guy wanted to at least defeat this strange teacher in this.

Unfortunately, while approaching the entrance to the building, Rey heard the sound of being struck inside and, as expected, when he went inside, he saw Arvus who was training with daggers. But the weapon in his hands was not a practice weapon, it was the same gray daggers made of a strange matte metal. Visually, they seemed worse than blades made of atanite, a green crystalline mineral that Rey knew came from a special type of tree.

The boy knew that Arvus had discovered him, so he did not even try to interrupt this dance, the skill of which made him more and more eager to achieve the same level of mastery. The blades slashed, tearing through the air with a loud whistle. Even by that sound, Rey could tell that they were more dangerous than the atanites, and even more so in the hands of such a master. And the forest still continued his dangerous dance, legs, arms, and the whole body of Arvus was in perfect harmony, each step was a continuation of the previous movement, each stroke led the dance further.

Only after a couple of minutes, Arvus, having completed a long series of movements, decided to turn to the silently standing Ray:

How are your wounds? - even from the voice of the man it was possible to understand that he, in fact, deeply did not care about the wounds of the student, but he still bothered to ask. But Ray was quite satisfied with this attitude:

- I'm fine, we can start.

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Looking at the guy from head to toe, Arvus muttered something silently and left the hall. Only after moving a dozen steps away, he quietly said:

- Follow me.

An ordinary person, no matter how hard you try, could not hear these words, even if he said them while standing next to him, but Rei heard the forest one quite clearly, so he followed the teacher without saying anything.

They didn't have to go far, the building they were heading for was right behind the training ground. Once inside, Ray immediately realized what kind of place it was. Orderly rows of various weapons were laid out along the walls. There was everything from small finger tips, in the form of long claws, to huge glyphs, the size of Ray himself. All of them were light green in color, which is why this picture combined both high aesthetics and mortal danger at the same time.

“Choose a pair of daggers and a bow for yourself, and over there,” Arvus pointed to the far end of the hall, “sets of armor, they are sorted by size, just pick the right one, and if you show yourself well, you will receive personal armor, these you will have to return immediately after return to the city.

- Why do I need all this? - the guy did not understand why they were going to give him weapons, so he immediately asked while his teacher was still in the mood to talk.

“Ciare talked to me yesterday about your first hunt. She said that you can already hit targets at a hundred paces.

Rey's eyes filled with satisfaction, since he could indeed hit the center of the target at such a distance, but the next words of Arvus cooled his ardor:

“Of course, I told her that in this city every second child could do it, but she insisted that you could do it.

"How talkative he is, why would that be?" - the guy squinted, after which he decided to answer anyway:

I'll try not to let her down.

“You will go along with five more brothers,” Arvus minted, ignoring him. - The leader of the squad will be Vearn. I already told him that you'll be stronger than you look, so you can carry more weight.

“He’s angrier than usual…” Rei was a man of action, so he directly asked the question:

Did I piss you off in some way?

- Why do you think so? I just figured that after a "good" day, you should change things up a bit. Arvus' voice was stern as always, but Rey understood what he meant. And even despite his intractability, he always answered the barbs in the same way:

“Do I need to ask your permission before sleeping with someone?”

The look of the forest did not change when he heard the question, but he was not going to answer either. When a few seconds had passed, Arvus, turning to the exit, said instead of saying goodbye:

“Vearn and the others will be waiting at the south gate at dawn. - his voice was as always cold - in this he and Ray were really alike.

Watching the receding silhouette, the guy thought about the reason for such hostility.

"Maybe he likes Ciara?" - only when this thought came to Ray's head, he immediately discarded it. “He doesn’t seem to like anything at all…”

Turning back towards the arsenal, Rey went deeper, looking at the equipment stored here. Involuntarily, he thought:

"These weapons... I'm not an expert, but I'm sure they're not meant for hunting animals."

Thinking about it, Rey realized that either the woodlands weren't all that peaceful, or, more likely, they had another natural enemy besides predatory animals.

It was not long before dawn, therefore, having chosen weapons and armor, the guy immediately went to the meeting place.

“You, as I understand it, Ray?” - a tall and strongly built forest, dressed in the same green armor, immediately turned to him.

“Exactly, and you look like Vearn?” - the guy was still a little taller than this hunter, but he still wasn’t going to stand out. There had to be some courtesy.

“Yes,” the son of the forest chuckled, “I’m glad to meet you, you can’t even imagine how rare the noted ones are in our time.

“Well, I've lost my memory, so I only know what I've been told.

- Lost your memory? Vearn continued, opening his eyes slightly in surprise. “Arvus didn’t tell me anything about it.

“He doesn’t talk much at all…” Ray couldn’t resist. In his character, he successfully ignored this trait. Although, maybe the point was that too often he had to participate in conversations with the forest. Like now, for example.

Hearing his words, Vearn laughed.

“But it was he who found you lying in the woods. Neither I nor Ciare nor Erim could smell the blood, so you should be grateful to him, besides you are both marked, you should understand him better than anyone.

- I respect him. With this laconic answer, Rey let Viern know that he understood his words. And also that he is not going to discuss this topic in the future. And the hunter understood him.

The rest of the squad members were not yet visible, so the group leader decided to continue the conversation.

“I don’t know if this is an appropriate question, but what kind of gift did Tian'Aret give you?”

Ray had already prepared the answer, so he spoke quite confidently:

“My body is stronger than the others. I get tired more slowly, recover faster, see and hear better...

Deciding that such an answer would be enough, Ray fell silent, but Vearn immediately asked the next question, which the guy could also predict:

“And what did the Goddess take in return?”

Ray also prepared this answer, but he was not sure if it would satisfy the curiosity of the forest, because it was a lie:

- I was deprived of sleep.

- HM? - the Faroese did not immediately understand.

- I can not sleep. Even if I want to.

- That's how...

Seeing Vearn's slightly sad face, Rey said nothing, continuing to silently wait for the rest of the squad. He really didn't care. Rather, the silence was even more pleasant. But the forest man clearly did not like this atmosphere, so he decided to defuse it:

– Look at it from the other side. We'll be in the woods for four days, but we won't have to worry about choosing a watchman for the night.

Ray looked at Virn carefully. Lesnoy steadfastly withstood the look of cold white eyes. For a second, the guy, as if hesitating, bored the man with his eyes. He was moderately open and just trying to make contact - Vearn was perfect for the role of leader, so Ray decided to play along with him, even if it turned out a little feigned:

- You're right. Now Arvus won't dare say I was useless.

Seeing the group leader's face cheer up again, Rei didn't think about it anymore.