15 - A break from training

"Are you ready?" Claire asked. "As ready as you can be." Arthur answered. 

They were currently preparing to enter the deeper parts of the Cursed Forest Thanatos. Elijah had made them train a lot in the last month since they came back from the failed mission, so he gave them a day off. Of course he wouldn't just let them relax at home, a camping trip in the cursed forest should have enough challenge to serve as lighter training. 

Arthur finished packing his stuff, he and Claire quickly went downstairs. "Okay listen up kids. Just because I told you it's a 'break' from training doesn't mean it will be easy. The Cursed Forest Thanatos has many strong Zeal beasts. The deeper you go into the forest, the stronger they become. So try not to go too deep. Claire, you're in charge again. Don't screw it up this time." Elijah told them.

Claire nodded firmly. Elijah smiled at that, letting them enter the forest. "Good luck and stay safe kiddos!" Elijah shouted after them. "We will!" Arthur shouted back, him and Claire disappearing with Gradus.

"Already?!" Arthur said. After just 5 minutes of travel, they have already encountered a Zeal beast. "There are lots of Zeal beasts, the only reason they haven't attacked us when we went to Vlas is because my Dad was with us. They also don't attack our house when he's gone because of the rune formations around our house." Claire explained.

They were currently looking at a small warthog, which seemed to have yellow lightning symbols on its sides and tusks that were emitting sparks of Zeal. Claire and Arthur were looking down at it from a tree. "What is that?" Arthur asked. "A Sparkhog, the longer it runs the more it charges itself with lightning which it can then shoot out once it stops or hits something." 

"Rank?" Arthur asked. "For this one, at most Initiate." Claire said. "For this one?" Arthur wondered. "Well, there is a stronger version called Stormhoof Charger. It's much bigger and much more dangerous. It's Savant rank." Claire explained. "Oh. I don't wanna meet that." Arthur said.

"Let's just quickly get rid of this one and get out of here." Arthur said. He looked down, only to see that the warthog had disappeared. "Where is-" Before he could finish his sentence something crashed into the tree they were on! An electrical charge ran through the tree's trunk. It spewed out and reached the branch that both Arthur and Claire were on.

"FUCK!" "OUCH!" Arthur and Claire both screamed out, having been hit by the electrical current. "You shitty pig." Arthur said, instantly appearing next to the warthog. Before the beast could react, it was sliced in two. "So you're only strong when you charge up. Hm? What's this?" Arthur asked, seeing a small yellow crystal inside the boar's body. 

"That's a Zeal crystal. Did Dad not teach you that?" Claire asked, appearing next to the boar and picking it out of its body. "What, no? What does it do?" Arthur asked.

"Haaa...he always forgets to mention important things. Okay so, as you know we humans have Zeal cores. But while we call them cores, they aren't actually a solid core. It's just a lot of Zeal veins connected and gathered in one spot. Zeal beasts actually have a physical solid 'core', which we call Zeal crystal. Plants don't have a core or a crystal, they just have incredible amounts of Zeal veins evenly spread throughout their entire body.

Depending on the Zeal beast it comes from, they have different effects. For us humans, it's able to help us create Zealous Artifacts. Combined with some runes, they can be pretty strong. For zeal beasts, if they eat the crystals of other beasts they can get stronger.

Of course, this is just from an Initiate rank beast, so it wouldn't be anything too powerful. However, it should still fetch a pretty penny. Probably a few large silver coins." Claire explained it all.

"Then why didn't I see any Zeal crystals from the Wolfmonkeys we killed?" Arthur asked. "Only Zeal beasts in certain environments have crystals. Meaning they are far stronger than other beasts. The Cursed Forest Thanatos is a prime example of such an environment. Zeal is everywhere."

"I see. So there are different places similar to this forest?" Arthur asked. "Yes, some. Not many and none in Mortalia. It's pretty hard to get to them though. With wars constantly raging on." Claire said. 

Arthur simply nodded, both of them disappearing and continuing their journey throughout the forest. They encountered many Zeal beasts, however, most of them were pretty easy to ignore or dispose of. Some of them caused a bigger challenge, like the Stonescale Basilisk at the Adept stage. No attack would get through its scales and it had a tail capable of shooting razor-sharp crystals.

In the end, Claire simply blasted a Zeal beam point blank into its eye, killing it after a lot of struggle. After a few hours of traveling, they finally reached a decent spot to set up camp in. It was starting to get dark. "That was exhausting." Arthur said, carrying a bag full of Zeal crystals.

"Yeah, thankfully we didn't meet anything above Adept rank. That could've been really dangerous." Claire said. "Let's set up camp before the sun sets." She continued. Arthur agreed and started unpacking his things and setting up a small tent. 

They were near a tranquil stream, a small clearing alongside it. After setting up his tent, Arthur said, "I'm going to go gather some firewood. You set up a place for the fire." Claire simply nodded and got to work after finishing her tent as well. 

Arthur walked through the forest, looking out for any type of dry branches on the ground or any tree that had loose bark. "There we go." Arthur said, seeing a tree with bark hanging off of it. Arthur pulled out his sword and slashed through it with his Zeal flow. The tree quickly fell. Arthur cut off the top of the tree as well, making sure to only get its big trunk. He gathered some nearby sticks and branches as well, getting a large variety of them.

He came back to camp with the big trunk and all the other sticks and branches he had gathered. Claire had set up a medium-sized fireplace, stone around outlining it. She had also found a decent-sized log of wood and put it sideways, for both of them to sit on. Arthur smiled at her. 

"What are we going to do with that much firewood?" Claire asked, seeing Arthur basically carry an entire tree with him. "Well, I just wanted to make sure we have enough you know?" Arthur answered. Claire simply gave him a look but didn't say anything more. 

Arthur started cutting the tree in small parts, roughly as thick as his forearm. He threw some of those parts and about half of his gathered sticks and branches. He placed a small number of dried leaves and grass in the middle of the woodpile. Then he took out the small stone of flint and began flicking it against the steel he had connected with the stone of flint.

Small sparks emerged each time he flicked it against the steel until one of the sparks finally landed on the dried grass and caught fire. Arthur knelt down and began lightly blowing against the ember. The flames spread quickly, turning into a full-on fire. "We got fire!" Arthur said, happy with this small victory. 

"Good. Did you keep some of the meat from the beasts we killed like I told you?" Claire asked. "Yeah, got the Fuzzblink we caught. " Arthur answered, holding a small white rabbit-like creature in his hand.

Claire smiled and they quickly got to cleaning the rabbit. Then they both sat down on the log and started roasting it. "Haaa...finally some rest. Training has been really hard lately." Arthur said. "Mhm." Claire agreed, nodding in approval.

They spend some time together, talking about training and Claire told some stories about her life before Arthur's arrival. 

"So you punched him in the face?" Arthur said with a chuckle. "Well, why would he come so close to me, trying to touch me when he stinks like that!" Claire said, talking about an old story where she was being 'courted' by a noble's kid.

A moment of silence filled the camp. They both looked at each other and simply enjoyed the other person's presence. 

"You know, it was always quite hard living life here. Being part of the Stormcrests comes with the negative of not really having the option of friends. I was either always training or being prepared for missions. 

Spent a lot of time in this forest as well. Without anyone to talk to besides my parents it was really boring. I'm glad to have you here now Artie." Claire said after a moment of silence.

Arthur smiled back at her and put his hand on her shoulder. "I'm glad I'm here as well Claire. I couldn't imagine a better place to be right now than with you guys." Arthur firmly said.

Claire scooted over a bit closer to Arthur and leaned onto him. Arthur put his arm around her shoulder and started caressing her arm. 

They spent some time in a comfortable silence. Claire looked up to Arthur, who looked down on her with a smile.

They were staring at each other's eyes. Claire got a bit closer. Their focus on the other person. 

Arthur was like in a trance, captured in Claire's eyes. Both of them suddenly started leaning in for a kiss.

WHOOSH! A black shadowy claw emerged from the darkness, slicing deep into Arthur's back, interrupting the moment between Arthur and Claire.

"ARGHHH FUCK!" Arthur shouted out in pain.