Chapter 38: Timeskip, Part Two - The Forest

It was the middle of the day somewhere deep in a forest. It was a peaceful afternoon full of tranquility, or it would be if one was to ignore the screams of one particular boy who was busy running for his life from a boar.

His big sister dropped him off in a relatively safe zone of one of the forests in her territory. The most dangerous thing here were Rank two bears, but they were too big to bother hunting someone as small as Ciaran.

The Rank one boar though had no such problems. It had been chasing the boy for a solid five minutes before he was finally able to use the trees and escape.

His time in the forest was mostly spent living like a monkey. From tree to tree, fleeing when something wanted to kill him, and in search of fruit and nuts for sustenance.

'I was so excited to get a familiar, but what the hell did she mean when she said go find one you like.

'You will know when you see it she said, it will call out to you she said. The only thing that these animals are telling me is that I would fill their bellies nicely, and some are just in it for the fun of it all.'

He still remembered his fight with an actual monkey. The beast had beaten him black and blue, and in the end, it even gave him a 'present'- fresh produce of its former breakfast. Ciaran couldn't get the smell out of his hair for two weeks straight.

Despite all his complaints, his first month in the forest went ok. There were incidents, but whenever he got hurt too badly, his sister would come to patch him up.

'I wish she healed me completely like that one time brother Eleftherios fixed my broken bones.' He sighed. It was becoming increasingly clear that his sister was a firm believer in the survival of the fittest mentality.

'That Amazon doesn't even treat me fully, just enough for it to function. Only before a bleeding session will I get my body fixed, and those are getting worse too.' He was on the verge of tears.

His body adjustments were scheduled once a week. The time frame was given so his body could adjust to the changes, plus this way he would not receive a lot of healing and would learn to deal with danger while his body sustained injuries.

Back at the Academy Eleftherios nagged his sister to check up on the boy regularly, and not to be too harsh on him. As a result, she decided to ignore him and hadn't gone back to the Maze for two whole weeks.

The dryad was passing around thinking about the safety of the boy. He damn well knew his sister was brutal, but if he knew she had just thrown him into one of the level two zones, as the humans called them, he would have had a stroke by now.

Verdania on the other hand was busy protecting her summer beach house from all the peace and quite that was looming around it. It was a small cottage near an uninhabited part of the coast. It was like a piece of haven had been ripped right out of the sky and brought down for mortal pleasure. The water was crystal clear, with little to no seaweed. The sand was an interestingly black color, and outside the sound of the waves hitting the shore, nothing else could be heard.

That isn't to say that there were no living creatures nearby. This was one of the few Level Nine Death traps that existed on the Continent, it was just that everything was staying clear of the biggest danger present – her.

She loved her brothers, she really did. But she was an introvert at heart, and those two just had a way to get on her last nerve, so she came here to unwind. She considered asking one of her friends to come to keep her company.

'If those bitches catch wind of little Ciaran, there would be no end to the trouble I would face.' And just like that she decided to just chill out alone. She loved her friends as well, but none of them were human.

Some of them deeply hated humans, those were the easy ones to handle. Her brother was a half-bread so they would warm up to him eventually. His naturally high charisma would also play a role in this. The problem stemmed from the others.

As beasts matured in different ways, and in different stages most considered everything past Rank One as an adult, and her brother was getting there.

'The possibility they would try the 'eat up' a seven-year-old is slim, but I have seen them do worst.' She thought as her expression darkened.

Unlike her brother, she was extremely territorial, and as time went on she saw the little boy as more than just a charity case. His importance to her was beginning to grow and with it the worry for his safety.

There were a lot of dangers in this world, but a bunch of old horny spinsters was possibly one of the scariest. Especially ones that liked their 'food' exotic.

That being as it may, she decided not to think too hard about it. They were creatures with a long lifespan and only bothered with her and her territory once every decade or so. So Verdania just sat back and enjoyed her fruity drink.

Back in the forest, Ciaran got back into a cave he was sleeping in. The cave was small and high up on a bunch of cliffs. It was inconvenient for most creatures to make it their home. He mostly shared with insects and a few spiders.

This was his greatest joy in coming here, not only because he got to study new species of spiders and insects, but also because it was his only one.

The spiders were intelligent enough not to attack him, and he made sure not to damage their webs. His constant eating of fruit attracted more bugs to the cave and they ate them so that the boy could have an undisturbed sleep.

At the end of his second month there he had cataloged most of the animals in the area his sister permitted him to search. He quite liked some of the animals. The Wolves were a prime candidate. They were strong, fast, and fiercely intelligent. Another was a few species of serpents. He liked his brother's familiar and if his could also be venomous all the better. Of course, all species of birds were on the list as well, as aerial support was always welcomed.

Sadly, none of them felt right, meaning he hadn't felt connected to any of them. He asked his sister during her weekly visits for a tip and she just said he should try to feel it out with his soul. When he pestered her on what the hell that even meant she just shooed him off.

"You are half a fish, go look in the river." She told him half-heartedly.

Two weeks he spent swimming in the waters of the forest. He had been bitten by so many things, he had lost his mind and complained to one of the Rank Two bears when it was passing by one time. It, strangely enough just listened to him, and Ciaran swore the damn thing was laughing at his misery at the end of his tantrum.

By the end of month three, he was sick and tired of it all. He lost all his fear of the creatures of this part of the forest. Sure they could kill him if he wasn't careful, but most of the ones that could didn't care for his existence.

His biggest plight was the monkeys, who had a natural disposition to cause trouble and prank him to death. The past few days some of them even followed him back to his home.

"I Swear to God Ariadne, they drive me insane. They even ruined some of your webs outside. Those pesky things are too nimble on the trees, I can catch them and they just beat me up." Ciaran complained to one of the spiders.

In those three months, they were the only ones who would listen to him, not by choice of course, but still. And among them one was particularly friendly with him, Ariadne he called her. She even went as far as to use her web to stitch a few leaves together to make him a pillow.

In this fresh hell of a Summer Brake, she was his only true companion, so as a joke one day he asked her to be his companion. He chuckled to himself, then she simply entered his soul and the contract was complete.

When it happened the boy simply stared at the empty space in which Ariadne stood not even a moment ago. One second she was there, the next he could hear her thoughts in his head. The boy didn't know whether he should laugh or cry at this.

"Three months of torture and you just say, fuck it why not in the last few? Great, I don't know which one of us has gone mad Ariadne, but let's work it out in the future." He said and they both laughed.