Prologue 1

Alaric had always liked animals. He lived on the edge of South Africa next to the sea, so he had a habit of watering grass in the front of his house.

One of his neighbors, who he was friends with, knew how to filter water with the stuff in his house. So he always gave Alaric some when he had spare. Luckily he always had spar water that was enough for him to weather his plants.

He didn't go out unless he had to, so he was much paler than most people in his neighborhood. Luckily he always took vitamin D gummies every day. As such, he was also whiter than most but he went out every once in a while. It was also the beginning of summer, so he had a lot of spare time on his hands.

He walked downstairs and into the hallway where he could see his mom. "Mom! I am going out today!"

"Alright, but be back by dinnertime!"

"Okay." She lazily called out. She waved at him while he was walking out.

His mother had always let him do whatever he wanted, as long as he knew what he was doing.

She was in the living room watching TV while his dad was out for

work.

Alaric had barely come home these days because he was always out working.

Today he was walking out of his house because he had decided to see some real animals in their natural habitat. He always read and studied about various animals and their habitats along with their behaviors.

Their family was relatively wealthy. The house he lived in was a white two-story house, which made it cool inside the house with the heat reflecting off of the white paint. His front yard was full of grass and a white fence and gate surrounding it.

There were trees spread around the yard and they had flowers lined up on the walking path leading to the house.

Once he walked out of the house, he grabbed his camera on top of the bench on his porch.

He wanted to be a photographer when he was a little kid, but he dropped that dream once he quickly lost interest.

But he never threw it away since he liked to take pictures of himself with animals for a memory book.

After making sure he had everything he needed, Alaric walked out with a thin hoodie to not get his skin burned. He also brought some glasses for the glaring sun.

***

Alaric was fated to never be in a relationship. He didn't have good looks, only average-looking. Alaric had black hair and dark brown eyes. He was slightly fast compared to others his age, and a fast learner in all his classes.

But sadly, even though he was a fast learner, he was still average in his grades. Mostly because he was lazy.

His mother had even scolded him multiple times because of that. As for his father, well, he didn't care what he did as long as he passed his tests and graduated.

He was in upper secondary education, and he only had a small group of 4 friends. There used to be 5 people, but then one of his friends had moved away.

'Sigh', he shook his head trying to forget those memories.

In his daze, he had walked a considerable distance away from his house.

He walked to a taxi on the side of the road and paid him to drive him out to the wild savanna. It was silent the whole way.

He then walked to the vast fields where the wilderness was, a couple of hours away from his house. Luckily he had trained his leg muscles at home.

And so, he walked a couple of miles deeper into the wild until he found antelope, which he liked the most out of animals in the field types of habitats.

It was his most favorite subject to study, along with science and mythology. He liked studying the different legends and mythical stories of the different countries around the world.

Especially eastern mythology. He liked that because people could get stronger through any means. He also liked magic because they could create many miracles with it and create stuff from the craziest imagination.

'If only I could use magic, then I wouldn't have to be tired from running and could easily get close to some lions without them noticing.

***

He continued to follow 15 meters behind the antelope until he found a pride, which sprang out of hiding and mauled the antelope to

death.

It was very gory, with guts spilling everywhere and blood spraying onto the ground.

'HOLY CRAP!' He had seen nothing like that except on the internet, but real life was way more visual.

Alaric observed his surroundings for a moment and saw a couple of trees along with patches of long grass with the occasional rocks lying on the ground.

He also saw a huge steep rock that seemed out of place with its huge size.

He saw a lot of lions. About 3 lions and 10 lionesses were there. They were clean except around their mouth, which was full of blood. To him, they looked very bloodthirsty.

His legs were hurting, so he walked away slowly to attract the pride and rested for around ten minutes until he got up again.

The first thing he did when he got up was to wait. Till the lions started spreading around to rest.

***

He patiently waited an hour when a lioness got up and stretched. She started walking away from the pride and went under a tree nearby at the edge of the lion group. He went close to it and stopped 10 meters away from it.

He took off his backpack and got out some packed meat. He got it from the store the day before coming here. Alaric walked closer to the lioness until he was 4 meters away from it.

"Come here, girl." Alaric tried to lure it to him, but the lion just viewed him as prey. It was angry at the human for calling it a little kitty. It growled quietly at him.

'Oh, it's a bit too intelligent, no?'

The lion reached almost to his waist, as he was almost 5'7 tall. The lion snarled at him because it smelled the meat and started running after him.

"Fuck."

He was frightened and ran to where he remembered there being a huge rock when he was walking to the pride.

'Run little legs, run!'

He ran to it while throwing the meat, so he could distract it. And it worked… for a second at least.

Of course, he had to climb up the huge rock at breakneck speed so he didn't get mauled to death.

He could only climb it quickly because he had practiced. He climbed rocks a long time ago when he went hiking with his family once. He enjoyed hiking a lot after that trip, so he asked his parents to take him hiking a lot, to which they agreed.

10 minutes had passed, and the lion left for its small tree. He tried to give it meat so it could like him, but he had no luck.