Rion had a wide grin on his face as he strode past the huts of the Redwood Den.
Karhun, on the other hand, had a tired expression as the weight of the dead dark wolf pressed on his broad frame.
The other trainees who had yet to reach the age of fifteen stopped in their tracks and stared at the dead wolf with wide, awed eyes.
One of the girls with a dark ponytail ran over to Karhun and asked in a cheery tone, "Karhun, did you kill it?"
He ignored the weight pressing on him and gave a bright smile to the child before shaking his head and answering in a prideful tone, "Rion killed it."
The girl turned her head and looked at Rion, "He did?" She mumbled but didn’t walk over to him.
Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t; not everyone liked the child of an outsider, and her parents were among those who didn’t like Lara, even though she was liked by most because of her warm and cheerful nature. There were always a few exceptions.
When Rion had first found out about such a ludicrous thing, he had nearly died from laughter, even though he couldn’t die. In his eyes, it was simply stupid and absurdly dumb not to like his beautiful, warm, and kind mother.
’Turns out your bloodline can’t cure stupidity,’ he remarked inwardly and continued to stride towards the east end of the Redwood Den.
A few minutes later, they reached an open area with white wood stacked at one side and stones and slabs at the other.
He quickly walked over to the stone slabs and easily picked one big enough for the dead wolf. He walked over to Karhun and laid the slab before him.
He looked at him with a grin while crunching beside the stone slab and said, "Here."
"Ggh!" Karhun groaned and placed the dead wolf on the slab before falling back on his butt in ragged breaths, "Huff... huff..."
Rion shifted over to him, patted his shoulder and said, "Good work!"
Karhun gave him a faint smile, pointed at the wolf and asked, "Can you skin it?"
He nodded, pulled the dagger wrapped at his waist and scuttled over to the dead wolf.
He ran his hand across its dark fur and began to cut around its paws and neck, and disjointed them so they couldn’t cause any problems during the process of skinning.
At the same time, Karhun stood up and walked over to the heap of white wood and picked up a thick log. He dug his fingers at the end of it and pulled it apart with all of his strength.
Creak...! Crack...!
The log creaked, and serpentine cracks appeared around the end before it parted into two. He did the same with the two halves and prepared all of the wood needed for timber.
On the other hand, Rion finished stripping the pelt from the blood-covered pale carcass of the dead dark wolf.
He patted the carcass with a satisfied smile and began to look around for the water bucket, only to remember that they had forgotten to get one.
He closed his eyes, rubbed his forehead, and a curse slipped off his tongue, "Blasted hell."
He exhaled softly and rose to get the bucket, but just as he stood up, something hit his head.
Thunk!
"Ouch!" He cried and opened his eyes to look at the thing that had hit him.
Just as he opened his eyes, the bottom of a wooden bucket came into his vision.
He blinked a few times and shifted his gaze to the person holding it — to his surprise, it was none other than Dora.
He frowned and questioned in a puzzled tone, "Dora? What are you doing here?"
Even though the Dhaevrak tribe was different from his previous perception of tribes. It was still under a patriarchal rule; thus, most of the females were only taught to gather herbs, skin pelts, wash leather, and perform other similar tasks that didn’t require them to hunt.
However, Dora was different. She had an awakened bloodline; thus, she was the descendant of the God of Travel, which made her different from the common mortals.
That is why she was allowed to go on hunts just like Haria, who was the first female to become a group leader.
Dora sighed and answered his question, "I knew you would do something wrong, and see, I was right."
She shook her head, placed the bucket beside the stone slab and said, "I just came to give you the bucket, nothing else... You already have other things to prepare the meal, right?"
Rion shifted his head towards Karhun and saw him staring back at him with wide eyes. He thought, ’Guess we forgot to get anything.’
"We got everything," he lied while hammering a forced smile.
She stared into his eyes for a few moments before she nodded and turned to leave, "All right." She said and left.
He continued to stare at her until she was no longer visible. Just as she vanished from his vision, he sharply turned his head towards Karhun and asked with narrowed eyes, "How are you planning to cook this without the herbs and spices?"
Karhun scratched the back of his head with an embarrassed expression and replied, "I’ll go get them."
He quickly dropped the timber at the side and dashed to his hut.
Rion shook his head and lightly rinsed the carcass with the warm water to remove the blood, dirt and hair remnants.
After rinsing it enough, he cleaned his dagger and infused his aura into it.
A thin layer of silver appeared around the dagger, and just as it touched the carcass, it sliced through it as if it were slicing butter.
He gutted the carcass and butchered it into pieces before washing all of them with warm water.
He used all of the water and placed the pieces into the empty bucket while waiting for Karhun to return.
"What’s taking him so long?" He muttered before he shifted his gaze towards the free clouds.