Burning Hand

Every minute passed in this realm made Heon have a heart attack. One after another.

"Are you crazy?!" Heon gasped in disbelief, taking three steps back to get away from the manic boy. He eyed the small, sharp weapon warily. "Put your knife away! You can't hurt me!"

"But, of course, I can," Sunny grinned, flicking the knife in his hand in his direction.

"I won't let you cut off my arm!"

"Huh?" Sunny frowned. He appeared genuinely confused, somehow. "Who said anything about cutting off your arm?"

"You did!"

"… no..?" Sunny puckered his lips, "I mean, I'll remove the seams. You don't need it anymore, 'cause I already healed your arm. Didn't I say that?"

"No!"

"Well, I say what I said. You want me to remove the seams or not?"

"Thanks, but no. I won't let you anywhere near my arm ever again. Not with a knife in your hand!"

Sunny shrugged, "Suits yourself. Don't cry to me when you get some parasite under your skin and the only way to take care of it is using my expertise with a knife. I'll just watch as it eats you alive."

The horror of that parasitic alien movie came to mind, making him squeal like his girl classmates when they saw a mouse in the old restroom just down the stairs. He was also reminded of a zombie game, where the character he played got wriggling maggots on its arm.

"You're lying," he accused, trying not to think that such disgusting creatures exist in this realm.

"Believe what you want."

"That's just a hypothesis."

"Sure…"

They dropped the conversation there because a loud, angry growl reminded them of the huge white tiger forced to remain to lie on its belly. Submissive to Heon's earlier action.

"We have to get out of this forest before it can move," he told the manic boy.

"What? Why?" Sunny bleated, pointing to him with his sharp knife. "You can just make it sit still again."

"I don't even know how to do that in the first place."

"Hold out your hand."

"No!" Heon clutched his now normal-looking left hand to his chest, trying to hide it from the red-haired menace. "No cutting of my hand!"

Sunny huffed, "I won't cut your hand off. I promise. Come on."

Hesitantly, Heon held out his left hand towards the manic boy.

"I mean, point your hand to the beast."

"Oh. Why don't you say so?"

"Tch."

Complying, Heon raised an eyebrow. "Now what?"

"What did you think before you made it succumb?"

"I don't know? I think I just don't want to be murdered by a huge tiger."

"That's all?"

"Look, I told you already, it just happened, okay? I don't know anything about magic and all of that."

Sunny dumbfoundedly stared at him. "Right. You got reincarnated here to be a hero. Apparently, forcing a beast to sit down is your special power. How could I forget?"

The last bit was said with a slight sarcasm, but Heon ignored that in favor of looking at the huge white tiger. Its growling was getting louder by the seconds.

"We really should get away from here. I don't think whatever is holding it in place would last much longer."

Sunny looked over his shoulder, then paced around the beast that now could move its claws a mere inch to the left. "Nah, I'm sure we can get a million Pasai or at least we can rent a house in the city for six months."

"Pasai?" It must be the currency used in this realm. But, "You already have a house."

"Yeah, right beside the forest, where no entertainment is near."

Heon looked at the huge white tiger again. Still growling, still succumbing – though, it might not be for long. "Do we really need to kill it?"

"My little deer, don't tell me you're too squeamish to kill it?"

"Don't call me little deer. You look about the same age as me."

"But you do run like a deer when you're scared," Sunny grinned, showing rows of white teeth, and it only made his eyes look crazier. "You have to learn how to kill to survive in this world."

Innocently, Heon wondered. "Why?"

"You know the old saying, either you kill or be killed," the red-haired menace cackled. "It'd be funny if you are killed in a week after you just got reincarnated to this world, am I right?"

Sunny's words sent a shiver to run through his body. Of course. A realm where a person can use magic to heal injuries and huge animals in the forest wouldn't be a peaceful world. Why was he so naïve?

"That being said,'' the manic glint returned tenfold as Sunny offered his sharp knife at him. "Let's see if you can kill him."

Heon gulped, taking a step back unconsciously. "I can choose not to do that."

He had free will.

The red-haired boy sneered. "Coward."

Clenching his jaws, Heon held back his anger. It was better to be called a coward than to kill. Even if it was the huge beast that had mauled the other boy and almost killed him in return.

He didn't want to kill.

"Do what you like, but I'll kill this freaking beast and get a million Pasai."

Heon bit his bottom lip, "I don't want your money, anyway."

"Tch. Say that again when you starve for a week and have no roof above your head when the rain pours for days."

Tightening his hold on the knife, Sunny stopped by the beast's head. He eyed the neck critically. The black and white fur was covering its jugular, but the red-haired boy seemed to be at ease, quickly finding where he should slash to kill the beast in an instant.

Heon closed his eyes when Sunny went for the kill.

The rain had stopped a while ago, making the loud and pained growl from the beast more apparent now than before.

He never saw how an animal was butchered in his entire life. Not directly with his own eyes, at least. The video on Ourtube never did any justice to how gruesome it could get. Perhaps, that was also because Sunny was extremely efficient with his knife.

"You don't want me to call you 'little deer' and yet you can't even look at how I kill a beast. What would- augh!"

Heon's eyes snapped open when he heard Sunny's shocked exclamation. A deafening roar from the huge white tiger followed a second later. The red-haired boy's body was thrown to the side, stopping only when he collided with a tree.

"Sunny!"

"Stop the beast, you idiot!"

Heon halted on his track to rescue his newfound acquaintance. The beast had stood on four legs, snarling fiercely even though its white and black fur was sprayed with red. The blood from Sunny's slash didn't show that it'd stop anytime soon.

They only need to stay away from the beast until it runs out of blood.

Heon strode to where the red-haired boy was righting himself, hand on his side, glowing green to heal the impact from his collision. "Let's hide for a while."

"What? I said get the beast, are you deaf?!" Sunny barked, "My million Pasai is at stake!"

He grabbed the other's shoulder, dragging him away behind the bush to wait for the beast to lose its blood. "Even ten millions Pasai won't matter if you're dead now!"

"Argh!" Sunny wrenched the helping hand away. He brandished another knife from his military duty pouch under his white and red haori. Heon wondered how many knives he got on his person. "If you don't want to help, then don't get in my way."

And he launched himself to the beast that was trying to steady itself on its four legs.

Heon wasn't fast enough to pull him back. He was forced to witness Sunny's bloody work, slashing the beast's tendons, rendering it to slump on its dirty paws.

Another pained roar echoed in the dark forest.

Sunny's swift movement was forced to stop as he was once again thrown to the side. The huge white tiger had used its decreasing energy to swat the red-haired boy away. He could hear a crack, and Sunny appeared with one glowing hand against his side.

Even so, the manic glint in his eye remained, along with the wide grin on his face. Sunny was not done.

The beast gave another roar before it met Sunny's leap mid-air. His single knife was no match for the beast's many claws and fangs, no matter how sharp it was.

Sunny's shoulder was suddenly on the tiger's mouth, wrenching him back to its momentum. Sunny struggled, but the beast chomped a portion of his muscles. Moreover, he couldn't move much because a heavy clawed leg was on his chest, pushing him to the ground.

"Aaarrgh!"

The huge white tiger roared in return despite the blood still spilling freely from its thick neck. The beast opened its maw, all bloody with rows of deadly teeth.

Ah. It could be the end of Heon's meeting with Sunny.

The red-haired boy would die. Mauled by a huge white tiger just because he wanted to kill and sell it.

What a greedy human being.

Ironically, Sunny's craving for money was what made Heon sure that he was a human. Not some similar creature that eats humans, as he claimed before.

Heon thought the world – his previous one – was bad enough and full of greedy, corrupted people. Turns out, even in a world where humans could use magic, they have no firewall against greed.

They were all just the same.

'Disgusting human.'

Who said that?

'All of you are just disgusting humans.'

No.

Heon held out his left hand towards the beast, not wanting it to kill Sunny.

His left hand burned.

He didn't want Sunny dead. He had to save him from the beast.

His hand burned.

Even if it meant that he had to stop the beast.

It burned.

Even if he had to kill the beast.

It burned!

Then, so be it.