Exploring the Forest

"Come on! Keep your guard up!" Scarlett yelled as she peppered Ron with hits. Ron tried to block all the hits yet some still slipped through and hit him hard. ('Even holding back she still hits like a rock') Ron thought as he got hit.

*Pow* Suddenly a fist hit his stomach which made Ron nearly lose his lunch. "Don't get distracted! A distraction will prove fatal!" Scarlett reprimanded Ron. "...Yes.." Ron managed to squeak out. "What are you giving up already? I thought you wanted to get stronger?" Scarlett told him looking a little disappointed.

"I will get stronger" Ron said determinedly as his eyes regained focus and started to go on the offensive. He tried punching back out even kicking once in a while however Scarlett dodged every strike of his. "Your hits are too slow! Make it more compact and snappy!" Scarlett yelled at him as she brushed off his attack.

('More compact…snappy') Ron entered a trance and suddenly pulled back his fist before stepping in, turning his waist and using his entire body he punched out. *bam* The fist hit Scarlett's guard who smiled a little. "Much better! However…" She said as she suddenly pulled on his arm and slammed him into the ground. "Don't lose focus after one hit".

"Ow" Ron muttered while he laid on the ground. A hand suddenly came into view and he accepted it and was pulled up. "Your last hit was the best one by far, how did it feel?" Scarlett asked.

"Like everything lined up perfectly" Ron said looking at his hand. It was a strange feeling, like suddenly everything was synchronized like clockwork and worked beautifully. It was intoxicating. "Well at least you have more talent with hand to hand combat then with the bow" Scarlett teased Ron.

It had been 4 days since he got personal training from Machio and Ron made quite the improvement. Sure training only for 4 days wasn't going to make an astounding improvement but with the potion Ron could train 3 times a day and boy did Scarlett make sure he did.

Once Elwyn recovered she made a bow from a branch and some boar tendon as bowstring. Ron was a little curious how she was going to make arrows without a metal tip or feathers but Elwyn made arrows purely out of wood, it looked a little strange but they worked perfectly according to her.

True to Goblin Slayer's advice Ron tried his hand at archery and the results were well disappointing to say the least. Even Elwyn couldn't say anything good about it. Speaking of Elwyn she was a really extroverted person and would always seem to find nice things to say to people. Scarlett was a lot more fiery and didn't hold back criticism when she had some.

Scarlett would spar with Ron daily to help him with hand to hand combat, so far it was the combat style Ron had the most talent for so he decided to focus on it for the time being. "Yeah, yeah laugh it up harder. Not like you were any better with it" Ron said.

"No, but I can sure punch better than you. Speaking of which let's continue lest you forget the feeling just now" Scarlett said as she readied her stance once more. "Sure, I also want to remember that," Ron said.

An hour later and Ron was panting on the ground Scarlett looking over him. "Your form still needs some work but overall it was a definite improvement".

"I can't believe you're not even breaking a sweat" Ron said while calming his breathing a little. "Please, this little exercise is nothing, if you trained with my master you wouldn't even be conscious" Scarlett answered. ('Note to self never train with her master') Ron made a mental note.

"Still we should quit here for today considering what else you'll be doing today" Scarlett said.

Today was the day he and Elwyn were going to explore the forest for a bit. Elwyn would be teaching him basic tracking and how to spot if a plant or fruit was dangerous. They would also check out some of the markers from the map.

"You're sure you don't want to come along?" Ron asked Scarlett. Previously she declined the offer to come along.

"Yeah, if I come along there would be no fun for you guys" Scarlett said. If she was coming along she would just one shot everything, it wasn't even funny. "I'll just do some training here, I've been a little rusty".

"Alright, if you say so," Ron said.

After resting for about 2 hours Elwyn came to Ron. "Are you ready to go?" She asked with a little smile on her face, it seemed like she was really excited about going into the forest. To be fair It was her home element.

"Yeah, I'm ready," Ron said, a little excited. He was finally going to explore those markers he had seen before.

"Yeah you two go ahead on your little date" Scarlett teased them both. Elwyn blushed a little and quickly said "I-It's not a date! I'm going to be teaching him how to hunt and explore the forest!". Ron just smiled and kept quiet, she was a cute elf girl after all.

"L-Let's go!" She quickly said after Ron didn't say a word. Scarlett winked at him while he just smiled and shook his head. He walked through the gate and entered the forest to the west side. Once in the forest Elwyn quickly calmed down and seemed to have become a completely different person.

Ron looked at her with a surprised look, Elwyn noticed this "What's wrong?" She asked. "You seem like a completely different person in the forest," Ron answered her. "I guess I just feel at home here" She spoke with a little smile. "Are you a forest elf specifically?" Ron asked. "Yep, there are different types of elves where I'm from but indeed I'm a forest elf".

"No wonder you feel at home," Ron said. They walked for a bit while Elwyn pointed out little things here and there, for instance special marks would indicate a boar passing through here or even surveying the feces on the ground would show how long it has been when animals passed through here.

As they came closer to the first marker Elwyn suddenly stopped in her tracks. She closed her eyes and said to Ron "Do you hear that?". Ron looked around but didn't hear anything special "No?" he said, a little unsure. "Close your eyes and focus on your ears," Elwyn said.

Ron nodded and closed his eyes and tried to hear anything, still nothing could be heard and he was frowning a little. "Take a deep breath and calm your mind" Elwyn's voice could be heard as he tried to hear.

*huff* Ron breathed in and took a deep breath out, he did this for a while and now could only hear his beating heart. "Try and lower your heart rate as you breathe out then focus on hearing" Elwyn said once more. He followed her advice and lowered his heart rate as he breathed out.

*Ba-dum* *Ba-dum* *Ba–dum* It got slower and fainter every beat until suddenly he could hear something else *zzz* *zzzzz*. It was faint, really faint and he almost lost focus hearing it. "Do you hear it?" Elwyn's calm voice rang out. "There's a buzzing sound," Ron said.

"Correct" Elwyn smiled as he got it, "Now focus on your nose instead of your ears" She said. Now Ron took a deep breath as he tried to focus on smelling something. A faintly sweet fragrance came into his nose as he focused on that. "Something sweet is in the air," He said.

"Correct once more, now with those clues what do you think is up ahead?" Elwyn said, posing the question to Ron. ('Something buzzing and sweet scent…Could it be?') "Bees" He said as he opened his eyes to see Elwyn smiling radiantly to him.

"Well done!" She said "What you just did was enter a meditative state, with that state you can heighten all your senses or even some specific ones" She explained. It felt like every sense opened up and he could hear even a pin being dropped or breathe pure clean air.

"Thanks" Ron thanked her earnestly. "Don't thank me yet I've still got a lot to teach you, like what we're going to be doing with those bees," Elwyn said looking in the direction of the buzzing sound. "What are we going to be doing?" Ron said a little unsure, he was taught as a child to not mess with bees, anaphylactic shock was no joke.

"Don't worry, we just need to find something that usually grows around here" Elwyn said as she looked at the ground. They walked around for a bit for a bit before Elwyn exclaimed and went towards the ground to grab something. "There it is, store this for me please" She said as she brought up white mushrooms.

Ron stored them and she continued to look around this time at the trees before grabbing a bunch of really big long leaves. She then rolled some leaves into a big tube. Then I took out the white mushrooms and she placed them on more leaves and wrapped them to create a big ball. She then cut some holes the size of the tube in the front and back, with a knife she found in the town. "Perfect!" She said,

Ron was still a little unsure seeing this whole thing, what was she planning on doing? "Follow me and can you give me the lighter?" She spoke enthusiastically. "Sure" Ron gave her the lighter.

"Bees have very sensitive noses, they spray pheromones all over the place to mark where everything is" Elwyn spoke as they moved closer. The faint buzzing noise now becomes clearer. "The very same noses will be their weakness, the mushrooms I picked are a common mushroom but the special thing about this is its smoke when lit". "It acts like a tranquilizer," Elwyn explained.

"I see, so the tube and ball you made are used as a funnel and how to aim the smoke, correct?" Ron said as he got the plan. "Correct," Elwyn said with a smile. As they neared the center of buzzing a lot of bees could be seen harvesting nectar from the plants and returning to the hive.

While walking Elwyn lit the mushrooms in the ball and quickly blew to create a lot of smoke out the back of the ball. She sprayed every bee they could see with the smoke and moved further inside. The bees hit by the smoke started falling and moving very slowly.

Soon they could see the hive and it was big; around 20 honeycombs hung from a low hanging branch. "I'll spray the bees and you grab the honeycombs, only grab 10 of them I'll explain that later" Elwyn said then began spraying every bee in sight and the bees on the honeycombs.

Ron did his part and once the buzzing died down a lot he started walking carefully not to step on too many bees. Once he reached the honeycombs he grabbed them before plucking them off the tree and storing them inside his storage bag.

It was going extremely smoothly, so smoothly in fact he thought about grabbing more but remembered Elwyn's words and chose not to be greedy. Ron backed away and Elwyn covered him with more smoke. Soon they both were far enough away from the hive.

"Phew, that was tense, so why not take more?" Ron asked once they were far enough away.

"Never take too much when hunting or gathering resources, if we took too much the bees would all starve to death" Elwyn explained. It seemed obvious to only take what you needed yet greed was always a thing and would always have to be controlled. If Ron had ignored Elwyn he would have driven the entire bee hive to extinction.

"I see I'll keep it in mind for the future" Ron said to Elwyn. He marked on the map that bees were at the marker before heading off to the next marker.