Reality check

Aster changed his mind once he got behind the stalker.

'I should observe her from afar. I don't want to creep her.'

The girl tripped and curled into a ball, clearly afraid of her mind. She didn't see that Aster left her.

He took this opportunity to get a good look at the girl.

Short messy black hair, barely reaching 1m in height, unhealthily thin, dressed in rags and covered in bruises.

'True sight didn't reveal much. Her mother left her in a hut and occasionally visits her. She tells her to seek the elder in some settlement not so far from here if she gets in danger while she is gone. She has no name, age unknown as there was no birthday party or calendar to keep track. I say 7 years old at the oldest. What is a kid doing here?'

It took a while for the kid to realize nothing was attacking her and get out of her curled up position. After retrieving her poorly made blowpipe from the charred ground and then ran with all her might.

Aster hid behind rocks and such while fully utilizing his stealth attribute and [Conceal] to follow her. He didn't need to be so stealthy as the kid was clumsy and had no way to sense presence but he did so nevertheless.

And it paid off.

[Class: Hunter has been acquired]

[Class: Hunter proficiency has been increased by 1]

'I was not exactly hunting her but… a new class is always welcome.'

The child was trying to be as stealthy as possible in her escape. She walks painfully slow and takes a break to rest every 15 minutes due to her weak physique which irritated Aster.

4 hours later.

[Class: Hunter has advanced to (Beginner)]

[Class bonus: Perception attribute unlocked. +10 perception, [Hunter's mark Lv 1], [Hunter's sensitivity]]

Active skill: [Hunter's Mark Lv 1]

[Description: Mark a target as your prey. Marked targets will be able to be detected by [Hunter's sensitivity]. 0/1 mark]

Passive skill: [Hunter's sensitivity Lv 1]

[Description: Sense the presence of a target in a 100 meter radius]

Aster felt his senses becoming much more sharper.

'Whoa, this is incredible. It was only a 10 point increase but my senses are much better now. [Magic aura sense] senses elemental particles, aura and mana particles but the perception attribute measures my own natural senses. With this, it should be harder for me to get sneaked on like that fleshy Titan did. I should also try my new skills out.'

[[Hunter's mark] has been activated]

A new feeling hit him as soon as he used this skill.

It was almost as if he had two bodies, one his own and the other the child. He could sense her heartbeat, her breathing and her emotions to an extent.

Right now, she is scared and extremely cautious. It made Aster pity her even more and be grateful that he was more stealthy in his approach rather than outright chasing after her.

During his stealth mission, he noticed something very unusual about this island.

There was barely anything green around, the ground was scorched black and had a tough black crust and there were a lot of dried trees and bushes.

'Were there a forest fire here? And where are all the animals?'

Another thing was that Aster did not see any life form other than him and the child. No birds, no monsters, no annoying insects, no nothing.

Speaking of monsters, there was no mana or miasma either. It reminded him of earth. He had gotten used to sensing a bunch of colors always surrounding him but now that there were so little, it made him paranoid. The elemental particles were scarce too. Except for the common air, he did not sense any fire, water or earth. He did not want to know what was beneath the black crust.

After another hour or so, a sign of some civilization was finally seen.

'Smoke! There is smoke!'

In his excitement, he rushed off to the direction of the smoke, completely startling the kid. He went and grabbed her, then ran.

"Gryaaagh!" She screamed.

He ignored her. He was already thinking about how to communicate with people.

He zigzagged through weird shaped trees, jumped over a worn and broken barricade of stones and something metallic which may be a wall and kept running. The little girl was on the verge of collapsing at this point.

SWOOOSH

He jumped over yet another stone wall, but this time it looked newer, and was met with a charred plain and a sight that he would never forget.

There was a huge bonfire, the source of all that smoke, and a bunch of women dancing around it.

About a hundred smaller bonfires were spread across the plain and those had meat skewered next to them sizzling nicely. Each of the bonfires had one or two women tending to them.

It should be noted that those women were naked.

'What is this island??? Is this like something like a women-only land or something?'

However what he saw next proved him wrong.

Right past the big bonfire, a man was sitting on a wooden chair. Judging by how big the chair was, it was probably meant to be something like a throne.

The man had a big belly, long curly red hair and a beard. He had a plain looking face and was probably naked too but Aster had no way of knowing as the man had multiple naked women on himself.

The man stopped his lovemaking and stared at Aster, clearly surprised at his appearance.

Aster too was surprised. The man had a lot of mana, more than him. He was clearly a mage and it looked like he was the leader of this 'little' group. He was probably the elder.

The kid broke out of her daze and yelled "Elder! There's this dangerous monster!" and then fainted.

"Yes… I can see that." He spoke for the first time.

"Arghh, get off you bitches!" He pushed the women off and stood up.

'At least wear some pants dude.'

The man slowly walked towards Aster, his eyes glinting dangerously.

"You are a human aren't you? And a pretty ugly one at that, HAHA. It seems you are a newcomer to this godforsaken island so let me tell you the rules. First, if you have arrived here with a group and have any females within that group, hand them over to me. If you are alone or if it's a male only group then it won't matter.

Second, give me your valuables. From clothes to magic items and such.

Third, grovel at my feet. Then I will let you live on MY island. Got it? Or I will burn you to death." He says. Sparks flew and a fireball materialized in his hands.

[[True sight] has been activated]

Information rushed into Aster's poor brain and it made him light headed but he learned what he wanted to know.

The man in front of him was called Christopher and he is a criminal, in fact everyone on this island were. He used to be a thug and he did a lot of atrocious things which got him the death sentence and he was sent somewhere along with a ship full of fellow criminals.

While he was being transported, the ship he was on was attacked by some fleshy birds. The birds destroyed the ship and mostly aimed for people with high mana or aura, in other words the strong people, and the weak were spared.

Christopher was not strong, but he was not weak either. He was a fire mage and fire was the weakness of those abominations and thus he survived and got stranded on this island along with many others.

The island from then and the island from now were completely different. For starter's the island from then was literally one big pulsating blob of flesh. The flesh assimilated with others upon physical contact and it had monstrous regenerative powers so melee fight was almost impossible.

This was when Christopher shined. His flames scorched parts of the island, burning the flesh and creating an outer crust that blocked the flesh from breaking through.

Because his magic was the only thing effective in stopping the abominations, people couldn't exactly fight him as their survival depended on him whenever the abominations attacked.

Unfortunately for them though, Christopher could attack them. He first purged the island from males and lived like a king. Nobody could touch him but he could. He instigated a rule that literally said 'Become my concubine or die.'. He even made it a rule so that wearing clothes became forbidden.

Overall, Christopher was trash so why didn't everyone rebel? It's because he was much stronger than anyone else. If he died then what would happen to them tomorrow when the abominations attacked? How would they survive? It's not like help was coming.

Hence, Christopher ruled the criminals for almost a decade. Children would be born and he would use them as baits to lure out fishes and flesh abominations to kill.

The girl in Aster's arms only escaped from such fate because her mother earned a significant amount of respect from Christopher. It seems she was quite a strong warrior back in her day. Even then, she didn't want her one and only child to be around him so she raised her considerably far from the settlement.

"Oi, I'm talking to you! Stop ignoring me, do you want to die?"

'...'

'This guy thinks he's strong because he had the fortune to know exactly what magic exactly needed to survive on this island?'

'What a funny guy. You are just a thug who happened to steal a fire magic manual when you were younger, don't think you are actually worth a shit.'

'I need some exp, you see.'

'Let's give you a reality check.'