3.

Inspecting the clumps of moss on the cavern walls the next morning, I noticed the wet and floral scent was more potent than the night before.

[Name: Regenerative Bright Moss - Rank: D]

‘Maybe they recharge during the night,’ I said.

I stroked my chin. Its name had regenerative in it, sure. But did I want to risk using it on May? She wasn’t at risk of dying, and if we made it back to the academy, they could patch her up way better than I could. I though on it for a few seconds.

‘She can decide herself.’

I scraped some off the wall. The horizontal sweep of my hand reminded me of the previous night—the way the leather of the dagger cut against my palm. The way the blood spurted and warmed my skin…

Right then, a strong sense of wanderlust assaulted me. I looked around. I wasn’t tall by any means. In the cavern I was smaller still. The lording walls were like a cage, and the absolute quiet the guardian.

It was inviting. So, instead of returning to the hideout, I travelled through the caverns to collect my thoughts. I avoided the dark side corridors, where monsters may be lurking, and tread the main path that was covered in moss and illuminated despite there not being a hole for the sun to reach down here.

My thoughts twirled and danced and landed on a single statement: I’d killed someone last night.

It wasn’t my first time killing since I butchered animals on the farm. But butchering an animal wasn’t quite the same as murdering a human being.

So then why did I feel no remorse?

Was it because May and I courting death moments before reaching Felix had fried my nerves? Or was it Kite, who had taken Death’s hands in his own and requested a dance? Somehow, of everything that happened, Kite’s death hit me the hardest. Even harder now than it did right after he died…

I weakly pounded my trembling legs as I imagined his fading cries and the cloying ash that stuck to my skin and covered my hair.

Yes, I admitted softly. Those emotions had definitely played a role in my swift decision to kill. They had steered my mind towards what I wanted to see. Yet, considering everything with a clearer mind, I found my judgement hadn’t changed. I still thought Felix had been been lying.

The question was: did that truly warrant his murder? It’s either us or him. Our dreams and goals versus his. I remembered the exact moment I had that thought in the study. An intuition, I called it.

I chuckled. Did I even know my goal? To make it through the academy and meet Mother again? Was that the whole of me? And did those aims truly carry weight—enough to take a life? The truth was that I didn’t know.

Doubt is the enemy, Djina, I heard my mother say. Then, I imagined: I sent you here to become a hunter. That’s all you must do.

If only it was that easy to stop the voices in my mind. Whatever the voices said and tried to make me think, however, I couldn’t work up any true regret for what I’d done. The furthest they got me was to hope I was right and hadn’t killed an innocent initiate.

May couldn’t keep out those same doubts. We had barely spoken all morning. She was delirious and bedridden, of course, yet I sensed the foremost reason for our silence was Felix.

I breathed in, and a clump of stale air cooled my mind. I wasn’t sure if she was wrong for that. But I wouldn’t apologise. Not for potentially saving her life.

And that’s what this was all about at the end of the day, wasn’t it? Our lives. We had experienced it ourselves yesterday: a single moment of hesitation was enough to lose your life in this valley—a predator versus prey world. Only, the prey were carp boding their time until they could turn into dragons.

No. I shook my head free of the clutter.

Forget about regret. The time for it was null. If I wanted to reminisce on it, I could do so in the future. I wouldn’t have to do much—just sit still and wait. Then, not only Regret but also Death, its older, scarier brother, would catch up to me and make me pay the price for what I had wrought.

‘Doubt is the enemy,’ I said one last time to my quiet surroundings before I made my way back to the hideout we’d bought in blood.

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4.

I breathed in before entering and prepared. May was lying in bed, trying her damnedest not to touch her wound. Her eyes shot towards me immediately after entering.

‘Find anything?’

I told her about the moss.

‘I’ll take anything right now,’ she gritted through her teeth.

The night of sleep had done her good, but her skin was paler than usual. She needed food. I had not found Felix’s stash, though. He had hidden whatever he was eating well. Going out to hunt by myself was also not the best idea.

I reapplied her bandages. Instead of using our drinking water (Felix’s bucket), I called on my maura nature to create clear water and used that to clean her wound—it helped enhance my skill and saved us resources. Then, I used the green moss as a dressing and secured the whole affair.

I pointedly ignored how May swallowed her grunts of pain the entire time.

‘We’re out,’ I said, waving the tiny stretch of bandage left in my hands.

We would need to use strips of our robes if we wanted to redo the wrapping again.

‘Staying here won’t do us any good,’ she whispered. ‘We should return to the academy and recoup.’

She made to rise. I put a hand on her good shoulder.

‘Rest,’ I said. ‘Allow the moss to work. I’ll wake you in an hour.’

Her mouth opened and closed. Then, she flopped back onto the bed.

For my part, I chose a space on the floor I could call the least dusty…and bloodied, and sat down. The same spiel of thoughts as I had before tried to fight me all at once. I didn’t allow them. Rather, I turned my attention to my status screen.

Stats, I thought.

Status Screen for Djina Marshall.

Hunter Nickname

N.A.

Hunter Rank

N.A.

Affiliation

Hunter Academy

Physical Status

Conflicted

Maura

32/50

Physical

E

Mind

E

AP

E

Talent

N.A.

Abilities

Basic Maura Nature Manipulation (Water) - rank E, Basic Dagger Wielding - rank E, Basic Body Enhancement - rank E

I had not slept long. But the sleep I did get had recovered my maura levels.

Three abilities at E rank. That wasn’t bad, I thought. Would the other initiates have the same? Maybe. May for sure. I didn’t believe for a moment she made that last throw of her sword without enhancing her body. Her maura nature and sword wielding were undoubtedly E rank, too.

Then, there was Kite. Not his death but his feats. I couldn’t wrap my head around how he had blocked that first fireball. He was a water user like me, yes. Yet the elemental advantage wasn’t enough.

…I’d ask Jax once we arrived at the academy. He looked like he knew about it. We had to talk anyway. I wasn’t letting that snake get away for free.

I sighed out the building, negative emotions. My status screen was right on one thing: I was conflicted. Meditation was too far away for me.

So, I trained my shaping ability instead, going through the motions of forming a puddle. First from pure maura, then of water. I continued swapping between the two, trying to make my shaping rotate as I did. When I thought an hour had passed, I woke May.

Though she woke up drearily, she was already looking haler, which made me glad. The moss was working it seemed. I brought her the water bucket and offered a moment to catch her breath.

‘Do you want to try meditating before we go?’ I said.

She shook her head.

‘The pain stops me,’ she said. ‘Are you topped off?’

‘Halfway full,’ I said.

Practise didn’t require much maura.

‘Good. Let’s find the entrance,’ she said. ‘Just to scout.’

‘We don’t have the necessary physiques to open it anyway,’ I said.

If Felix had spoken the truth.

Just like me, my remark reminded her of the dead boy, and May went quiet. Though I wanted to sigh again, I suppressed it. This could turn into an issue. A school’s strength rested upon their cohesion, and ours was dwindling.

‘You were right, you know,’ she said.

A pause.

‘About?’ I said.

She heaved herself to her feet—that was a great sign—then limped towards the initiate’s journal. She flipped to the last entry, the one he’d made last night.

‘Remember how I said he was going to ‘take’ an initiate key?’

I nodded.

‘He needed it for the entrance, right?’

‘Exactly. Exhaustion kept me from remembering the right word,’ she said. ‘It came to me this morning. The correct translation is ‘kill’. He was planning to hunt down new initiates.’

An invisible weight around my neck lightened.

May wobbled towards the bookcase and picked up the pouch at the top of the stack of bags.

‘Then there’s this—’

She removed an entry token.

‘—he succeeded.’

It’s what I must’ve heard him place in the bookcase.

‘That means one of us died already,’ I said.

‘Two,’ she corrected. ‘Kite.’

Right. Him as well.

‘So, he did not camp here long,’ I said. ‘He was waiting for one of us to show up. We just arrived sooner than he expected.’

‘That’s what saved us,’ May agreed.

She glanced at me, and I again wasn’t sure what she was thinking. But I breathed out sharply. We got lucky. Luck was a part of being a hunter, however.

It also explained why I couldn’t find his stash of food. He had never planned on remaining here long. His resources were probably stored at a different location altogether.

‘Any mention of where he was staying in the journal?’ I said. ‘We can look for it. Later.’

First we needed to get home. I also sorely needed a wash. There were dried, red flecks plastered to my skin and peeling them off actually hurt.

‘A place in the second layer,’ she said. ‘It’s too deep for us right now.’

I wouldn’t argue that.

May tilted her head towards the ceiling. There was of course nothing for her to see but the moss.

‘We don’t want to lose daylight,’ she said.

With that, we took off towards the dungeon.