Chapter 3 Snap

While Ryota was revising his teaching plan, Dante decided to familiarize himself with the world a little more by asking Aiko questions. Since his mother wasn't from this world, she was useless when it came to this world's specific knowledge.

After a lengthy amount of time, he finally got some information he could work with.

The world's name was Aevis, and from what he gathered, it was an absolutely enormous planet. Many races were home to this planet, but the most prominent were demons, since they repopulated so quickly. Aevis had multiple continents, but each continent was ruled by a single race, except for the central continent. Humans, elves, dragons, beastkin, and demons all had their own continents, while gnomes and dwarves shared one. On the outlier of Aevis was a continent known as the Warring Continent that had no true leader and was made up of monsters and slightly more intelligent ones like Orcs, Trolls, Goblins, Vampires, Werewolves, and many more. Only the central continent was shared; it was ruled by a council made up of the leaders of each race. Angels inhabited no continent; they would always just randomly appear.

Not much was known about angels, but they only descended when the demons began to run amok every couple of hundred years. They were very isolated but incredibly powerful; the exact population has been forever unknown.

"Have you ever left this place?" Aiko asked curiously.

"No, people bring us our supplies, and we stay inside." Dante had been curious as to why it felt like they couldn't leave, but who could care to give a kid an actual answer?

"Do you know where this cabin is?" Aiko asked.

"Not specifically." Dante shrugged.

"I don't know if I'm supposed to say it, but you live inside a forest that's owned by the elven royal family." Aiko said it very quietly.

Dante's interest was instantly piqued hearing this; clearly, his mother or he had some sort of status in this world that put them in this special area.

"Dante, Aiko!." Ryota yelled from the other room.

Both Dante and Aiko appeared in front of Ryota and were instantly assaulted by a deep frown from him.

"Aiko, it's not our place to tell him these things." Ryota said sternly.

Aiko suddenly shrieked back and lowered her head in resignation. She knew arguing with her father would lead nowhere.

After a quick internal debate, Dante decided to attempt to return the favor.

"It's my fault, teacher; I deceived her into telling me." Dante knew that saying he asked her for the information wouldn't work since clearly Ryota had heard their conversation. So his best bet would be to show he could play with his words and "influence" her.

Ryota stared at Dante for a few seconds before motioning for him to come forward. As soon as Dante was at arm's length, Ryota flicked his forehead lightly.

"That's for trying to deceive me; what's done is done. Aiko, I'm not mad, but you should know some things we can't get involved with. I just want us safe, okay?" Ryota smiled warmly at Aiko before shifting his attention back to Dante.

"And thank you for attempting to protect her; I might go a little above what I was planning on teaching you today." This remark sent a shiver down Dante's spine, but he masked it as best as he could.

"Seeing as how you've never left the confines of this cabin, how about we go for a walk in the forest?" Ryota stood up, went towards the kitchen, and brought Yuna along.

Dante had yet to explore since he was still so young and his mother didn't want him to get hurt. He was excited to see the wildlife of his new world but was trying not to give in to his childlike tendencies.

Slowly, they left the yard of the cabin and arrived inside a thick forest; this forest was called The Forest of Beginnings. It was owned by the royal family, so not many people could enter here like Dante's group could.

"Nothing here is particularly strong; mostly young heirs come here to train since it's an incredibly safe environment with the guardian of the forest." Ryota said this while casually walking down a random dirt path.

"Who's the guardian?" Dante's interest was piqued.

"I couldn't tell you; many people say it's an assassin trained by the royal family. Others say it's an intelligent beast who's contracted to the royal family itself; the only thing that's commonly heard is that no heir has ever died in this forest." Ryota was a well-traveled foxkin, so he picked up many rumors about a lot of things, but you could only trust them as far as you could throw them.

"Most beasts in this forest are only slightly stronger than a mundane person, which is why it's perfect for young people." As Ryota said this, a black wolf with a red star on its forehead appeared from a bush; it was around the same size as Dante and Aiko.

"That's a star wolf, clearly." Ryota said, pointing at the red star on its head.

"It's one of the weaker predators in this forest and the most commonly killed in training."

The wolf inspected each person in the group before pausing at Dante.

"Can I fight it?" Dante was itching to see how different his body was compared to earth when it came to fighting, but he had no chance to truly train and get a feel for his power.

"No-" Before Ryota could say anything, he was interrupted by Yuna.

"It's fine, I think you'll be surprised." She smiled.

With confirmation, Dante was puzzled by his mother's response but immediately stretched his legs and dashed towards the wolf.

"It's probably faster than me, so I'll try to bait it to attack and counterattack."

And just like he said, he pretended to run straight at the wolf and managed to bait out a bite. As the wolf leapt at him, he quickly slid under it and prepared to attack it from behind.

Once the wolf flew over him, he immediately dashed at it and put it in a choke hold, but as soon as he locked his hold in, he heard a loud crunch.

The wolf's neck had been snapped like a twig, startling Dante. Ryota stood there dumbfounded by how easily a beast's neck had been snapped. Beast bodies were inherently stronger than just about every race, so fighting one typically required a group or a good plan. But clearly, Dante possessed a very strong body, which wasn't typical considering he was at least part elf, elves were known for speed and agility rather than pure power.

"I guess we could start teaching him hunting methods." Ryota once again had to move his time frame forward and throw out his old teaching plan.