As Ark just sat by himself, ti quickly passed, and noon soon passed. As Ark was about to give up his endeavour, that sa familiar sll was slowly approaching from a distance. With a smile on his face, Ark just sat and patiently waited for about 5 minutes before he could hear the underbrush rustling. The cub ran out of the underbrush with fervour and jumped on Ark the mont it saw him.
Behind the cub followed the mother, so concern evident on her face.
[Papa!]
The cub didn't give Ark a chance to react, and jumped on top of him excitedly, and licked him in the face. Seeing this, Ark could only laugh bitterly, this cub was beginning to act like a dog! The nickna still felt a little awkward, but Ark didn't have the heart to tell the little cub that he wanted to be called by his na.
Now that he thought about it, he didn't even tell the little cub his na after all of these days.
That was pretty normal though, not all magical beasts had nas, for a magical beast to have a na, either their parents had to have enough intelligence to give them one, or they would have to get one in other ways. Ark wasn't nad by his parents in this world, but he had retained his na from his old world, which wasn't sothing all magical beasts could do, or any for that matter.
Ark let the cub do what it wanted for a minute or two before he stood up and dusted himself off a little with so wind magic.
Both the other wolves were a little surprised by his casual use of magic, but neither of them really cared. It wasn't that special or hard either, they would be more shocked if he used an actual full-out attack. Ark was smiling from ear to ear as he watched the cute little cub. The mother of the cub just watched him with intrigue, but other than that, she did nothing special.
Ark decided to take the initiative. [Are the both of you feeling okay?]
The little cub rubbed a little against Ark to show its affection. [mhmm]
The mother was more curious about how Ark was feeling, he had been up against such a horrid monster after all. [We're fine. How about you? Are you ok?]
Ark was a little taken aback by her advanced language, even though he should've expected it, it still felt weird for so reason, probably because he had never seen wolves as an intelligent species. [I'm fine, I just toyed with it for a little bit before running away.] The mother was relieved upon hearing this, who would want soone to be injured because of oneself?
Though her concern was genuine, her expression was nothing but deadpan, and she looked apathetic.
Ark didn't really care too much, he wasn't expecting much from the beginning, a little more concern would've been nice, but Ark didn't do it for acknowledgent. As long as the cub was safe and happy, then Ark would be happy too. He also felt a natural urge to protect its mother, but that was more of an instinct, while the cub was a bit of instinct as well as an acquired taste so to speak.
He had resolved himself to protect it in the beginning due to his instincts, but he had later on just started taking care of it because he liked doing it.
The mother's deadpan expression changed a little, and her expression turned a little more sincere. [I almost forgot, thank you for saving us twice now! As well as taking care of my son during the ti I was injured.] Seeing her sincere expression, Ark felt a little flustered, but at the sa ti, he also felt a little proud. [No worries, I just did it because I wanted to!]
From there, awkward silence took over completely, and Ark didn't really know how to proceed, sotis he wished he had interacted a little more with people in his past life. The awkward silence was only painful for Ark though, as neither the mother nor the cub felt any special way about it. Since just standing here and doing nothing was going to result in, you guessed it, nothing, Ark got an idea.
[Have you guys eaten anything yet?]
The cub and the mother both shook their heads gently. After a second or so, the cub's eyes widened a little, and it started sprinting around in a circle around Ark. [Papa, food!] Ark chuckled a little on the inside before he continued. [Since that's the case, why don't we hunt for so food together?] The mother tilted her head a little before, nodding in approval.
The cub was still just as excited as before and kept running around excitedly all over the place. [Let's get going then, I haven't eaten yet either.]
As they started walking around the forest, Ark took the lead, with the mother close behind him. The cub didn't run around anymore, as it knew that it was bad to run around when hunting, he had learnt from his mother that he needed to be quiet and sneaky!
Ark hadn't had much of a chance to explore the forest just yet, and seeing all of the different sights, he almost forgot about the hunting for a while. In so places, the trees were small, yet densely packed together, with their tree crowns only leaving so slight sunlight shining through.
In other places, the trees were tall and ancient, and instead of just a little sunlight shining through, the beautiful clear blue sky was easily visible. Ark had alway liked mother nature and her creations, so he was easily captivated by all the sights, sothing both the cub and the mother were used to at this point, they had road this forest for quite the while after all.
But even though Ark appreciated the nature around him, he didn't let his guard down, and he was always on the lookout for good prey.
They had already passed by plenty of animals, but since Ark was strong, he had the option of being a little picky with what he wanted to eat. Especially now that he was going to hunt sothing for the mother and cub as well, he wanted it to be a little special, and preferably sothing that was good for the cub's growth. Which basically translated to: he wanted to find sothing powerful and tasty.
As they kept walking, the forest slowly started transforming a little.
Instead of the lush greenery that once was, the trees and plants around them started adopting a red hue. The temperature also seed to rise accordingly the further they walked.
Even though Ark was a little fascinated, he made sure to be on his toes, this was unfamiliar territory after all, and he had no idea what sort of magical beasts and monsters lived here, nor how the climate and the surroundings could affect him and the others.
Since he wasn't too sure how well they could withstand the heat, Ark wrapped the mother and the cub in so protective water mana, that both defended against the heat and kept their bodies cool. The cub barely even noticed the small film of water mana surrounding him, since he was too focused on his surroundings, but the mother appreciated Ark's gesture.
Though she could pretty easily replicate the effect by herself, she didn't have as good control over mana as Ark did, and she would need to focus more on it and her attention to her surroundings would be adversely affected as a result. [Thank you.]
Even though she said it in a very low voice, Ark was still able to hear it, and he was instantly fired up even more. Sothing like that was child's play to him now, especially after his last evolution, and if he could help them out by doing sothing simple like this, then why the hell not? As he was a little excited, Ark failed to notice a shadow dart past them at an impeccable speed.
It would be hard to notice it in normal cases, but since he didn't pay attention, it slipped right past him.
As they continued walking, faint sounds could be heard in the distance. Ark instantly heightened his senses to the maximum, and he slowed down his walking speed a little. He signalled to the cub and the mother to be as quiet as possible before they kept walking forward. The further they walked, the louder the noises beca before they were finally faintly discernible.
Ark was still unsure of what was the smartest thing to do, but his curiosity got the better of him, and he decided to just keep walking forward, he was intrigued after all.
The trees around them at this point were barely able to be called trees. Several cracks extended through the trees' pitch-black bark. Lava gently flowed within these cracks and exuded large amounts of heat.
Ark was a little intrigued by the bark of the trees, as well as the exterior since it didn't even burn even though there was lava, but he would have to take a closer look later, now wasn't the ti.
Though the lava trees were fairly sparse, they all suddenly ca to an abrupt stop, revealing a large clearing. The clearing had multiple burning, red hills that were several ters tall each. Ark was once again fascinated by the burning landscape, but his fascination was abruptly interrupted by a sudden shriek. More and more shrieks followed, not stopping in the slightest.
Ark looked around to try and see what was going on, and what he saw shook him a little.
If you looked closely, you could see multiple openings in the hill, seemingly like caves. These opening were all larger than a ter in diater and height, and they were the ho to a species called "Molten Rabbits". This species was fairly ancient, and they were actually a peaceful kind of magical beasts.
With the properties of fire deep within their bloodline, these rabbits could only live in harsh fire habitats like this one, which was very scarce.
Due to these harsh requirents on their living space, the species had slowly but surely declined into what it was today. A rare species that was almost never seen, but was very coveted by adventurers and professional hunters alike. What was disturbing was that the only molten rabbits Ark could see, were all dismbered.
With body parts strewn about, what Ark saw could only be described as a massacre.
The shrieks didn't stop though, and Ark could see nurous humanoid figures crowding around one of the openings to a hill. This was the only opening left that still seed to contain any sort of life force, as all the others only slled of death and decay.
The humanoids, upon closer inspection, turned out to be demons, and there seed to be at least 20 of them, all crowding around the sa spot laughing. Suddenly, a shadow appeared among their midst, which made them all turn silent for a second or two before they all collectively turned around and looked at Ark and the others.
As Ark saw this, there was only one thought crossing his mind.
[Fuck]
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