“Hum Humm Humm….” Renji hummed as he made his way toward his neighborhood, he was jumping with extreme joy as he was running.

‘I got a huge piece of meat today; I hope Hana likes it. Although this is just a cut-off that most people don’t like this is all I could take from the butchers. I will someday somehow bring better meat for her to have.’ Thought Renji as he was clutching the bag that contained the piece of meat that he stole from the butchers. he had managed to grab a bag on the way so he decided to store the meat inside the bag.

He knew his capabilities well enough not to risk getting caught, the place where he stored all the best pieces of meat was the freezer inside of the butcher's shop. Whereas the piece like the one he took was just thrown toward the back of the shop, where nobody cared much about looking. Unfortunately for him today, somehow the butcher who was chasing him just happened to take a stroll towards the back of the shop to smoke a cigarette.

The back of the butcher’s shop had a huge empty grassland so it was a perfect place for them to keep the off-cuts as well as relax in breaks. So, just as he was about to go away, he was seen.

‘I wish I could become a hunter like my parents soon. Dad and Mom after the accident aren’t able to work much, Mom uses all her strength to cook for us every day, that’s all she can do nowadays. Meanwhile, Dad does odd jobs like helping around the kitchen and helps neighbors with their problems now and then for some money when he has some energy in his body.’ Thought Renji as he remembered about the condition they are in right now.

A few months ago, Renji's parents Ichiro Ishida and Aiko Ishida, went on a hunting mission where they had to venture into the outskirts of the Grove of Grudges. Grove of Grudges was the forest which was on the other side of the Ironfang fortress city, the purpose of this fortress was to keep whatever that was inside the forest remain inside it. This was the frontline of a short few years back to fight against the monsters that poured out, it was to protect the cities and people beyond the fortress city.

But now, its purpose has changed drastically as not many stray monsters pour out of the forest, as the first layer of the Grove of Grudges now only contains mostly shard-level monsters which awakeners below level 50 can easily defeat. So, the city wasn’t as dangerous as it used to be.

1st shard-level monsters were even easier to deal with as they weren’t much more powerful than normal humans. A group of trained people without the powers of mana were able to easily defeat a 1st shard, many of those groups operated inside the fortress and hunted edible 1st shard monsters for their meat and skins. The meat of monsters was a delicacy for most of the awakeners as they tasted very good, but the meat was inedible for non-awakeners as they would not be able to handle the mana-infused meat that the monsters had.

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Renji’s parents were also members of a similar kind of group, they used to go into the outskirts to hunt monsters. Even though they went to hunt monsters inside of the Grove they never dared to venture too deep only 1-2 kilometers inside of the forest was their hunting ground, as you never know when a disaster may happen. That wasn’t all to minimize the risk they used the left-over parts of the monsters to be used as baits for their next hunting mission.

As the saying goes “Disaster never comes knocking at your door steps.” The same happened to Renji’s parents one day while they were on their usual hunting trip they stumbled across a 2nd shard-level monster which was a poison-type monster. The monster that attacked them was called Misty Frog; it was a rather rare type of monster as they were killed as soon as one was spotted. These Frogs were just in name 2nd shard, in actuality even awakeners who are level 40-49 even they are extremely uneasy about fighting these monsters.

Although these frogs don’t possess that much strength or defense, they use a very dangerous type of poison that affects even awakeners with high levels. Misty frogs usually release toxic fog that covers a few meters around the frog itself. If a person stays inside the fog for an extended period of time, they begin to become paralyzed. So, if one starts to get surrounded by fog they should immediately run away.

On the mission, Renji’s parents had just defeated a monster and one of the members of their group was injured on their leg. It was the worst possible situation for their group as one of their member's mobility was compromised. When they realized that if they ran away without looking back the one with the injured leg would surely die. At that moment Renji’s father made a bold decision to stay back and hold back the monster as long as possible to stall time for the others to make a run for it.

While many were opposed to this idea there was nothing they could do as the fig had already enveloped them, and they had no choice other than to run everyone had just one thing in mind they hoped for Ichiro’s safe return. When everyone got ready to run away Aiko turned towards the frog and drew her sword with a look of determination in her eyes. Although Ichiro had nothing to say after seeing her, he couldn’t utter a word as they stood there looking into each other’s eyes and in that brief second everything was said and understood.

There was no way Aiko was leaving Ichiro alone to fight the monster, she had decided to die or live together. Others just started to leave with tears in their eyes as this might be the last time, they were seeing the couple.

Although the monster was fired it wasn’t strong enough to harm a human with its physical attacks, and defense was also very low but what made this creature a headache was its speed. The speed at which the frog could move was not something a normal human without any powers could comprehend. So, the few minutes that they were able to earn by staying behind were spent becoming the punching bag for the frog.

After getting hits for what seemed like an eternity to the couple, they started to become drowsy, they knew if they were to get knocked out in the middle of the forest this would be the end of their life. So, they still struggled they were swinging their swords nonstop hoping for a miracle to happen.

The miracle did happen but it was a little too late, while they were swinging their sword mindlessly the frog accidentally came in contact with the sword. Combined with the speed of the frog and the swing of the sword the frog was cleanly cut through the middle. Blood spattered everywhere and slowly the mist started to disappear. They felt like finally, the nightmare was over.