Chapter 13: Rabbit Season

Tide and Onyx continued further into where the rabbits would be spawning. As they waked further Tide glanced over to Onyx and opened his status screen.

Onyx

Bound to Tide Blackwaters

Black Dire Wolf

Level 1 (34%)

Hp 100/100

After trying out his skills and the fight earlier he was quite confident in his survival in a pinch. The same couldn’t be said for Onyx. Currently, he wouldn’t be a match for the horned rabbits in a one-on-one fight. Looks like he would have to level up his cub first.

It would d be interesting to see how quickly Onyx would level up and grow stronger. Tide took a moment to explain to Onyx what to do when they found another rabbit. The wolf just sat there and tilted its head looking as if he was listening.

Tide had some serious doubt that anything was sticking. Onyx seemed very intelligent and so far, has listened to almost all of Tides commands. He hoped that the plan was simple enough for the pup to understand.

“Its simple Onyx, when we see rabbit hide in the tall grass.” Tide said motioning to long brown grass were almost two feet tall. There was plenty enough to hide the small wolf.

“Once I say so jump out and attack the rabbit okay.” Tide said while making a pouncing motion using one of his hands to attack the other.

Onyx tilted his head a bit further and one of his ears flopped onto his face. Tide let out a sigh and gave the good boy a head.

Making there way forward it only took a handful of moments before Tide spotted another rabbit. He quietly said hide and motioned to Onyx. When he looked backed all, he could see was the tall grass rustling.

Welp, the first phase of the plan was ago hopefully, the second part would too. Tide turned back to rabbit focusing on the task at hand.

He made his way sightly towards the creature.

The horned rabbit was quite dangerous but once you figured out its attack pattern and triggers it was much easier to deal with. Typically, the rabbit would either dash behind you and try to deal damage to your legs in order to immobilize you before using its speed to go in for a lethal blow. In a situation where this wasn’t possible it would launch his self-higher and spear its horn into the upper legs or torso. Once the two attacks were expecting these attacks it didn’t matter how fast the rabbit it was.

The trick to make sure it was always those two attacks was to make the rabbit feel like it was in control. To do this Tide purposely stepped on a branch on the ground alerting the rabbit to his presence. It quickly looked over at him before it dashed into the tall grass out of sight. Tide continued further a couple more feet pretending to be oblivious of the rabbit. As he did in his head, he was counting down from five. By the time the count reached two there was a rustle to his back left. At one he had the ground behind him raise up forming a short wall that reached knee height.

The rabbit who was racing towards Tide’s leg panicked as it saw its target was suddenly blocked. It attempted to turn or stop itself but was unable to due to its speed. The force of the impact rattled the rabbit’s head leaving it stunned.

“Get him” Tide shouted, causing Onyx to jump out of some tall grass where he was hiding and pounce on the rabbit.

The stunned rabbit was now stuck between the wall and the wolf that was tearing it to shred. Now that its mobility gone Onyx has any easy time damaging the poor animal with his claws and teeth. It tussled with he confused rabbit for a decent bit.

Soon Onyx’s jaw found purchase in the rabbit’s neck and with a quick jerk and a pop, the rabbit's health bar quickly emptied.

After harvesting the horn once again, Tide checked the progress of both him and Onyx with this kill.

It appeared that he gained other two percent to his next and Onyx gained forty one percent. It seemed that allowing Onyx to deal most of the damage made it receive the most exp from the split.

Tide using his axe also chopped off one of the rabbit’s hind legs and removed most of the fur on it. He tossed it to Onyx as a reward for doing well. Pup was excited and quickly stopped licking a small wound where the rabbit managed to bight into the cub’s shoulder.

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Wagging his tail furiously Onyx began munching on the treat. Tide let him have bit of break and began to start to look for the next rabbit.

This pattern continued for the next couple of hours. Over this period, they managed to hunt down seven more rabbits allowing Onyx to level up twice and Tide to level up one more time. When Onyx leveled up the first time, he gained the skill stealth.

It appeared that his growth was catered towards the how Onyx fought. After this it was very hard for even Tide to spot the wolf in the tall grass even with his height and trait. After each level up Onyx also grew slightly bigger and became stronger. Each level seemed to give the wolf cub another pound or two of weight to its expanding frame.

Tide on the other hand only gained his typical five status points and brought his total of horns to nine. The sun was beginning to make its way to the horizon and Tide decided that they would hunt one more rabbit to bring the total to a clean ten kills.

Tide began making his way out of the rabbit’s territory looking for one more rabbit on the way out. This time it took a bit longer to find one, but eventually he did. It was in a small clearing surrounded by the tall grass.

Tide quickly gave Onyx a signal with his hand to hide. He no longer needed to vocalize the commands; Onyx had gotten used to the plan. The wolf cub slinked into the tall grass like a shadow receding in the sunlight.

Just like normal Tide made his way towards the rabbit not trying to stay quite and alerted it to his presence. It turned towards him and let out a loud signature squeak before dashing into the long grass. Tide was perplexed, typically if he acted like he didn’t notice the rabbit it would stay quiet in order to make a sneak attack.

He notched up his guard but continued with the plan waiting to raise up the earthen wall to block the rabbit’s blow. Just as normal the rabbit moved behind him. He began to raise up the wall when he saw something dash out of the grass in front of him as well.

“Shit” Tide groaned as he finished putting up the wall. The moment he did a couple of things happened. The rabbit behind him just as planned smacked into the earthen wall with a thud. Up next tide watched as a rabbit launched itself at his stomach unable to react in time. The force of the impact caused Tide to stumble backwards. Of course, behind him was the earthen wall with a rabbit stuck in it. The wall was the perfect height to tabletop Tide. His weight and the rabbit’s impact were enough to cause the wall to collapse causing him to land on top of the very confused rabbit.

The whole situation was made even worse because the moment the rabbit hit the wall; Onyx who was waiting in the grass nearby pounced towards it.

Instead of landing on its target the Onyx ended up jumping on top of Tide. Much to Tides relief Onyx could tell the difference between him and a rabbit and didn’t use his claws when landing.

A weird pile on had formed. The rabbit covered in dirt was underneath Tide who was underneath Onyx. Onyx quickly tried to scramble off of Tide while he tired to twist around so his back wasn’t pressed against the violently squirming rabbit struggling under his weight.

As he began to turn around, he reaches out and grabbed the rabbit’s head below him. He pushed it down trying to make sure it couldn’t wield the sharp horn on it face against him.

While doing so a sharp pain scored across his arm. The second rabbit wasn’t idle and made another run at tide this time slashing at his side.

With the typical plan spectacularly failing, Onyx didn’t quite know what to do. Once it saw the second rabbit dash in cut Tide, he got angry and began to chase it. They both took off in a flash dashing back into the grass.

Due to the movement of pain from being cut Tide loosened his grip on the rabbit beneath him. It used this moment to slip its horn towards his palm and slice deep in this hand. Letting out a shout of pain Tide push his now bleeding hand back on to the rabbit’s head. With all his strength he pushed it back firmly against the ground.

Not wanting to stay tied up with the rabbit using his hurt hand he quickly sent his mana into the ground underneath him causing it to give way. Using his strength and mana Tide pushed the rabbit head further into the ground. Once it was pushed down a good six inches he pulled his hand away and had dirt replace it, burying the rabbits head into the dirt.

It began to let out its high pitch squeak and its body flailed around trying to free its head. Once Tide stood up and got off it, the rabbit was able to stand up straight and used its strong legs to wrench its head out of the dirt. By the time it did it was greeted by the grey stone of Tides staff hitting it in the face.

It collapsed on impact with its skull fragmented. Standing up once again Tide quickly checked his chest for the initial wound. He had gotten lucky this time the horn wasn’t able to fully puncture his new leather armor and only ended up with a bruised stomach. Seeing that he was fine besides the wounds on his arm and hand, he readied himself.

Tide began to look around for the second rabbit and Onyx. He stayed alert swiveling his head around checking for any signs of their scuffle. In the end the grass in front of him parted and Onyx, a little bit worse for wear, was dragging the corpse of the other rabbit by the next up to Tide. Seeing this Tide let out the breath he was holding and sat on the ground tired.

Onyx continued to walk right up in front of Tide and dropped the rabbit. Onyx was standing tall and wagging its tail a breakneck speed, most likely proud of his first solo hunt.

Seeing this Tide’s mood brightened a bit, and he used his non injured hand to reward the pup with some well-deserved ear scratches.

“Looks like that’s enough for one day” Tide muttered as he brushed himself off. He quickly chopped both rabbits’ horns off and stored one of their corpses in his ring.

Battered and bruised the pair made it out of the rabbit’s territory and found some where secluded to make camp. Once settled he used his water magic to refresh himself, clean out his wounds and wash the blood out of Onyx’s fur.

Before going to sleep Tide used a decent chunk of mana to summon pebble and told the golem to defend and wake them if something or someone alerted it.

It had been a full day with a lot of progress and a lot of lessons. The most important Tide engraved further into his mind. To always be on guard and to not become complacent and lazy due to his previous knowledge. Due to his past experiences, he was overconfident and didn’t take the rabbits as a serious threat. If he did, he would have taken more time to scout out the surroundings and notice the second rabbit.

He made a silent vow to himself not to let it happen again, before he drifted off to sleep.