The first difference in Seth’s torture came into his third week. How he knew it was a Tuesday was not truly a mystery, his minds had embodied an unnatural habit of keeping track of time at all times. He could wake suddenly and his mind would know how long he had been asleep.

It was a Tuesday afternoon. The sun was likely high in the sky, though he could not see it through the canopy of leaves above him. The entire forest was cast in white so grand it almost put the color itself to shame and the snow was as high as his knee so he struggled to move through it. Moving proved like wading through swamp water.

He was chasing after a small hare, its white fur making it difficult to follow in the snow. It scurried around, wading the top of the snow like a swimmer in water.

His previous quarry had been larger, a deer as tall as him with brown fur that galloped like a horse with three broken legs. He’d chased it through half the paths of the forest he’d already mapped before losing it. How? He did not know. One moment he was chasing it, the next, it rounded a corner behind a tree and was gone. Now, he was chasing a hare too small to satisfy him.

He waded through the snow in his ghastly chase, his thigh muscles sore from the struggle of the past weeks. He raised his bow, arrow notched in place, and took aim. He let the arrow fly and the hare darted to the side.

The arrow buried its self in the snow and he didn’t have to pay it attention to know it would not have done the creature any harm even if it had met its target. If Emriss had seen that shot, her punishment would’ve borne with it her full wrath.

He followed the hare longer before his minds began picking out oddities, a mark here, an imprint there, a scratch, a smell.

He slowed his pace, cadence diminishing in the snow he discovered was now knee high. Wading slowly, he watched the hare dart another corner, then slow. It stopped where it was then turned to look at him. They remained surrounded by trees, but there weren’t as much as he remembered. They seemed half their usual number now. It made Seth wonder when last he’d seen so few trees since he’d been abandoned here for his test.

Is it… waiting? One of his minds asked.

He cocked his head to the side in thought. It was highly possible. He took a few hurried steps forward, tested the theory, and the hare bolted again. He stopped after a few more steps. Watching the distance between himself and the hare grow when he was so hungry tested his self-control more than he would’ve liked. Again, the hare slowed, then stopped. It turned back and looked at him again, waiting.

Are we being played? another mind asked, bewildered.

Another chuckled. We’re being baited by a hare.

Seth was not amused. He raised his bow and notched another arrow taken from his make shift quiver of twigs and leaves hanging over his chest, eyes never leaving the animal. He took aim, sighted down the length of his crooked arrow, made eye contact with the hare, and released it.

The creature hopped to the side at the last moment and the arrow hit the snow silently.

Oh shit.

Seth’s frown deepened. “It’s not just a hare, is it?”

It’s not, his minds answered.

He let his attention wander now, took command of his senses and garnered the information his minds already knew. He sighed at what he discovered. “And these aren’t hare tracks.”

No, they’re not.

He raised his hand to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. His brain was tired. He was starved. Worse, he was making sloppy mistakes. “Are we that hungry?” he asked.

Silence met him.

It seemed they were. How had he missed the tracks around him? Even now, looking at the tracks in the snow he identified three he didn’t know. There were four others but what worried him was his inability to gauge just how many of each specie were present. Just as one could’ve walked around to make all the tracks, in the same way there could’ve been multiple species.

What of the sizes? A mind asked.

“Shut up,” he told it, tired. “You had your chance to make a difference and you all let me wander in here.”

We were hungry.

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“And I was trying to get us food,” he whispered harshly, the hare still watching him. “And look where you allowed me go.” With another suffering sigh, he asked: “Are we surrounded?”

Yes.

The answer was immediate.

This was going to be a problem. He was in no condition to face off against any real opponent. Still, it did not mean he would simply lay down and die.

He reached for the sword on his right hip with his right hand and listened to the sound of the metal hilt guard against the wooden sheath. He flicked the guard with his thumb, freeing a finger length of blade as quietly as he could.

“We’re taking them.”

Why? A mind panicked. We don’t know how many there are.

The hare took a step towards him and his muscles tensed. Sarcasm dripped from his voice as he asked, “Want to wait and count?”

Let’s leave the sarcasm for after we survive, a mind chided.

Seth cared too little for its opinion right now. “Sure.”

Something shuffled to his right, a quiet sound that could’ve meant anything, and he reacted instantly. He turned, hand reaching across him to draw his sword. It came out smoothly, sharpened metal hissing with the promise of death as it came free of its sheath. He didn’t look. He didn’t calculate. He simply drew the sword free and returned it to its sheath.

In the single draw he felt resistance, it was so little it could’ve been imagined as the blade sang through the air. There was a quiet thud in the snow and something warm splashed on his face.

He turned, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sheathed sword, to find an odd creature. He recognized it on sight.

The beast was feline in nature with a single eye. There was nothing but smooth fur over where the second eye should’ve been. It walked on four limbs like any feline would, the spitting image of a heavily starved and dying leopard. Its red fur, the color of fire, stood on end as if electrocuted, and green saliva dripped from its tongue. It was the personification of malnourished and dying.

That’s a reia beast, Seth’s minds thought. That’ll be one core.

“You sure?” he asked, keeping the creature and the hare in his sight. He hadn’t gotten a complete understanding of what exactly the hare was and didn’t want to be taken by surprise, but that he hadn’t killed the reia beast in one draw was worrying.

The reia beast limped to the side and the hare followed until it was impossible to keep both creatures in his sight. Abandoning the hare, he focused on the creature that looked like a broken dog.

“Don’t let that hare out of your sight,” he said to his minds.

They gave him no answer but he felt their attention shift slightly and was glad for it. Now he focused on the reia beast. It limped with each step and dripped blackish blood all over the snow beneath it as it moved. So the limp was not from him, he surmised. But the fact that it had taken a cut deep enough to leave it staining the snow so much and still moved was daunting.

The creature watched from its one seeing eye. It snarled, and drooled. Its torso expanded and retracted too quickly, forced by a panting mouth and a lolled tongue, but there was no sign of pain. No sign of acknowledgement of the wound he had inflicted upon it. How many of its kind were here? He wondered. Could he take them?

Killing a reia beast of its level was not difficult, seeing as it was most likely not strong enough to even have a rank based on the fact that he had been fast enough to cut it, and so deeply at that.

Normally, inflicting slow damage worked as the pain would force the creature to move slower, to make mistakes. This one would make mistakes, all the same, but if it didn’t feel pain, then it would not move slower.

This worried Seth.

Instead of waiting and reacting, he charged the reia beast. The snow hindered his speed but he pressed on and kept his hand on his sword as he drew nearer.

The beast acted quickly. It returned his charge, a predator unwilling to be cowed by a prey that had chosen to fight back.

They met for a quick moment. Sword and claws clashed in an exchange of blows. The flurry forced Seth to discard the return of his sword to its sheath so that he fought with the flickering slices of Igor’s lessons. In their flurry, he ducked a flying spittle of swamp green, weaved beneath a single blow that forced the creature to overextended on the next, and he claimed the limb in victory. In that moment, the point of his sword in the air, he brought it down across the reia beast’s face, and cleft it in half.

“Where’s the hare?” he asked hurriedly, sword held to his side as he spun around.

Behind us, a mind answered. But we have more pressing matters.

Seth gritted his teeth, not liking the feeling that came with the thought. “How many?” he asked taking his sword in two hands where he had held it in only one.

Too many. The hare led us to a nest.

How had he been stupid enough to venture into the dwelling place of reia beasts without knowing? How had it gotten so bad?

“Fuck,” he spat. “Can you mark this place?”

You want to come back? A mind asked, incredulous.

Seth nodded as he eased back, mapping his retreat. “It’s a nest, which means there’ll be more than enough reia beasts for us to meet our quota.”

It also means there might be a soul beast, another mind pointed out.

It was a high possibility since most nests were actually run by a soul beast while the reia beasts did the grunt work. Still…

“Then let’s hope it doesn’t take a fancy to us,” he added, choking the common sense to flee with a seminarian’s resolve.

He continued to watch himself and his surroundings as he continued his retreat with slow and easy steps, wincing at every crunching sound of the snow beneath his feet.

It wasn’t long before his minds barked a single command.

RUN!

Seth knew enough not to hesitate. Sword in hand, he turned and fled in the snow like a child from a rabid dog. A creature he did not recognize burst out from behind a tree and he cut it down in one stroke. From the feel of the attack he knew it was not enough to kill it. A part of him sought to turn around and end it in a second blow. His minds disagreed with that part and spurred him forward.

In his escape he fought off more reia beasts and realized he’d hit the jackpot. He had barely two weeks left before the end of the test. Hunting down ten cores in two weeks would’ve been challenging. Now, he only needed to garner his strength and return.

He would cut them down one by one when he returned.

This he promised himself.