24 The Wonderful Fish

Hunter begins to wake up to the sound of chatter and fire sparks coming out of a fire.

"where am I?" Hunter says to himself while whipping his eyes.

"Were with the big man upstairs buddy" I said looking at his sleepy self jump and fear not knowing how he died. Ember started to giggle in the background while I was smiling from ear to ear.

"What!! How we die??" He says yelling waking him up right away. At this point, he standing up looking at Ember with a blue slime on her lap. Then turning to look at Satoru with a pink slime next to him.

"Sir Satoru, you should mess with hunter like that. He falls for the easiest of tricks." Ember says trying to keep tears in from laughing while holding her stomach.

"Alright...Alright, I won't be messing with him anymore." I say waving to Hunter to signal to move towards Ember and me.

"So I'm not dead?" Hunter still says to confirm if he is or not while moving towards us.

"No, you're not dead," Ember says to him.

At this point, Ember was almost done roasting the fish on the fire. She kept rotating them about every minute while I add more firewood when needed.

"So what's going on?" Hunter says finally looking at his surroundings. He sees he is still in the forest with the stranger that helped them, and seeing Luna and Kay was still unconscious.

"I don't know yet," Ember says expressing she has no knowledge about what's going on either.

"I will tell yall when everyone wakes up, "I say trying to reassure them that everything is okay. And I'm too lazy to explain our situation over 3 times.

"Alright, can you at least tell me what yall doing?" Hunter says looking at the fish on the fire. His stomach sounded like a monster ready to lunge at anything at any given moment growling at every given moment.

I looked at him and his starved expression and said "The food is almost ready, why don't you come to sit next to us." I patted the ground next to me for we can talk and I could get some information.

He starts walking towards us and then sat next to us still looking at the fish.

"They will be done In a while bear with us a little longer," Ember says smiling at hunter a little

"Where the scout go?" Hunter says not seeing he was here.

"He is dead!" I say without any hesitation not holding anything back.

"I...See," He says while rubbing his chin and looking at the sky seriously.

Ember looks at me and says that. "May we ask how he died?" She looks into my eyes and I could feel her red grace piercing into my soul.

"Can I ask something first? Why you hire someone that you knew that had some entire motives against you?" I say looking at Hunter the leader.

"Just cause you know someone is bad and has a bad history. This doesn't define the person and who they are. I have learned to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance. Even when you know they are bad you got to give them a chance." Hunter says while looking at the sky.

"So honest and gentle aren't you?" I say sighing and looking at him then start to get serious.

"It's not that...I just want people to be able to express themselves freely around our group!" Hunter says while looking down at me.

"Even when their way of expressing themselves is by killing you, stealing your stuff, and rape your female party members?" I say with no form of expression on my face.

"No..on..e"

"Yes, Hunter there are people like that in the world. Even if you don't want to believe that there isn't anyone in the world like that. THERE ARE!! Then you would be naive and will get your party killed." I say while cutting him off.

"But there are still good people in the worl...."

"There might be 'good' people in the world like you say, but you are still forgetting about the bad people as well." I pause for a second after cutting him off again.

At this moment I was debating if I should either tell him that I killed the man or the beast killed him.

"Hunter I killed the man..." There was silence in the air for about 30 seconds. You could hear birds chirping in the distance, fish slashing in the water of the lake, and the crickets being the loudest of all.

"What did he do?" He said trying to keep his composure. Ember was just silent during this time and just watching everything about to unfold.

"He was the one that lured the wolves to you. He was going to let them kill you and call it an animal attack. Then take all your stuff, but when he has seen that I showed up and helped yall he did something that yall wouldn't be able to survive alone. He summoned an evolution 1 monster here to kill everyone." I stopped talking to look at his reaction, but he surprised me because he was calm and collected.

"Thank you for doing something such dirty that I wouldn't be able to do and saving our party in the process. How did he die?" Hunter said squeezing his fists tightly and breathing in calm and collected quantities.

'In'

'Out'

'In'

'Out'

This is what I was thinking every breath that Hunter took.

"I killed him quickly with a clean-cut cutting off his head," I said looking at him in the eyes. I could even feel Embers' eyes piercing the back of my head with an intense stare.

"Thank you for giving him a painless death..." Hunter says while looking back at me.

"Now let us wake up the others and eat why don't we," Ember said cutting the since in the air in a second.

-----------------30 minutes later---------------

After Luna and Kay waking up I explain the same thing that I did to Hunter. Luna didn't even look at me the whole time and Kay didn't seem fazed at the least. In fact, Kay thanked me for killing that man and said he would have done it himself. Everyone is currently covered in mud and dirt from laying on the ground, but I because I took a bath in the lake. Now we are all getting ready to eat.

"GRRrrrr" The sounds of Hunter's stomach were so loud that it was getting to the point where it would shot out of his stomach.

"Wow look at the hungry one huh!!" Kay says while laughing

"GRRrrrr" Then you could hear the sound of Kay's stomach after him laughing causing everyone else to laugh in unison.

"The fish is ready. Let's eat!" Ember says with a smile looking at everyone.

Everyone looked at her with a surprised look and didn't say anything.

I cut off the silence also by saying "Yes let us eat!" And I grabbed the biggest fish I seen and started to feast on it. Everyone else soon followed after, but Hunter and Kay complained and fought about how they didn't get the biggest fish. While the women just ate 2 small fish each and were satisfied.

"Not fair," Kay says yelling at Hunter.

"Yes, IT IS!! I am the party leader so I should get the last fish." Hunter responds to Kay with a wonderful smile reaching for the last fish.

I swooped in my hand and grab the last fish before they could grab it.

"I caught the fish and saved you so I should get the fish," I said having the fish in my good hand closed to my faced. Hunter and Kay didn't say anything, but just "Alright" together. They both looked at my arm and seen it was covered in wounds and was becoming purple.

"Does it hurt?" Kay said looking at my arm.

"Does what hurt?" I said looking at kay and seeing his gaze was on my arm.

"Your arm?" Hunter says also looking at my arm with a sad face. Suddenly everyone started to stare at my arm even Luna who seemed like she didn't like me.

"I'm fine the only thing I need is a good bath in the lake again and I'm happy. Look I healed through worse" I say trying to reassure them that I'm fine, but It clearly wasn't working.

"I'm sorry I wasn't any help in the fight earlier..." Kay says looking down at his feet and Hunter soon follows.

"Thank you for saving everyone here." They both got down on a knee and seemed like they were praising a king.

"Lifted up your head," I said trying not to get praised since I did it mostly for Yuko and the rewards.

I point the fish in my hand at them and say. "If you want to be able to laugh and enjoy fish with your party...Get stronger!" They look up at the fish and just stared at the fish in their face. They thought this was weird!

I give the fish to Ember and say "Here Ember you did the most work because you cooked for everyone you should have the last fish"

This brought the two to their feet and saying "NOT FAIR" at the same time.

"Thank you, Sir Satoru." She says with a smile having two slimes jumping and 'PLAY' fighting around her.

Everyone just smiled at her and didn't try to take it from her and looked at her smile. 'It really is an amazing smile...'