Lucia crouched on the ground and stared at the empty prairie before me to determine the direction. Ah, she wasn’t trying to determine our location but rather where the white deer king ran off to.
White deer king and elves are the same because they’re both beings that possess powerful mana. As such, traces of mana will be left behind once they move. Subsequently, if you want to pursue a white deer king, you need to trace the track of mana it left behind. If we can’t find the white deer king, we’ll need to spend a lot of time searching for a white deer king.
Most of the time at a deer hunting festival is spent searching. Once it has been found, pursuing and killing it is a quick matter. Hence, Lucia and I were already ahead of the other groups. We’ve already completed half of the event. We just need to locate the white deer king again and then kill it.
“Alright.”
Lucia stood up with satisfaction and then said: “Your highness, please come this way. It looks like the white deer king ran back into the forest. I think the probability of us finding one in an open area is quite low, so it looks like we’ll have to kill it in the forest. However, it’s late now so it wouldn’t be wise to enter the forest now. Let’s set up camp here. Your highness, please help me find some branches around the perimeter of the forest.”
I nodded, looked at the sun setting and replied: “Alright.”
To be honest, this is a little different to the deer hunting festival I imagined. We walked hand-in-hand, chatted and flirted the whole entire time. When Lucia saw berries, she plucked them and shared them with me. We haven’t even left the open area here yet. This feels more like a honeymoon or a date!
But we were earnestly searching for traces of the white deer king. I have mom’s acts of cheating to thank for allowing us the luxury to be relaxed.
I arrived at the perimeter of the forest and glanced at the forest. There’s a faint light inside the forest when the sun is out. It looks really holy and beautiful, but once the sun goes down, the forest becomes dark. A cold wind blew towards me from inside the forest, whistling like a cry which made me shudder.
I sneezed. I don’t want to enter the forest even if Lucia asks me too. I went around the forest and collected snapped branches one after another while Lucia was at a large tree in front of the forest using rocks to try and light a fire. To be frank, I still don’t know what we’re going to eat tonight…. Lucia didn’t mention what she wanted to eat either. Perhaps it’s because elves are able to withstand hunger. It’s common for elves to not have proper food sources, and settle with grilled meat, beer and berries for the day.
As for me, I’m a half-blooded elf. I won’t die from starvation if I don’t eat in the evening, but it feels like something is missing if I skip dinner.
Rustle, rustle!
Just as I was thinking about food a rustling sound suddenly came from behind me in the forest. I turned my head around and saw a lump of white. It was about as tall as me, furry and white, had two long ears and it looked at me with a pair of blood-red eyes. It flapped its mouth as it chewed something.
Is it sitting or is it crouching? Its two forepaws were curled up by its chest. It looked at me as if it were struggling to determine what I was. I think it weighed roughly double my weight! A big thick white blob ball of flesh just appeared before me like that and focused its gaze on me.
You must be a rabbit!!!
A rabbit as tall as a human!!
You’re a rabbit no matter how I see it! That’s it, you’re my dinner tonight!!
I threw the branches I had collected down and leapt at the rabbit like a tiger leaping at its prey. It may be a rabbit as tall as a human, but it’s just a herbivore. It can’t possibly be crueller than me. I don’t know why I didn’t pull out my gun and leap at it either. Maybe it was because my imagination told me to leap at it and bring it under control, and then skin it and it’ll be edible. That’s what army veterans say, right?
And so, I leapt at it.
And then, I got rocked….
The rabbit punched me on my chin with its forepaw. It struck so hard I saw stars. I felt humiliated. If I lose to a group of white deer kings then so be it, but even you think you can push me around?! I’ll put all my pride as a human on the line today to beat your ass! I grabbed its fur in one hand and then viciously smashed its eye with my other hand.
It cried out in pain. It was the first time I heard the cry of a rabbit. I then got sent flying. My lower abdomen felt like it took a deathblow that nearly made me puke. I rolled around on the ground several times. No wonder why people call it the “rabbit’s rising kick”. The kick hurt like hell.
I had a handful of rabbit fur in my hand. You might not believe me, but I was hit so hard by a rabbit I was wailing on the ground….
The rabbit didn’t run. It instead roared and then started hopping aggressively. It looked like it intended to stomp me to death! You may be a rabbit, but you must weigh like two-hundred kilograms. If you stomp on me, I really will die!! I didn’t care about honour or pain anymore at that point. I clumsily reached for my gun at my waist, whipped it out at fired six consecutive shots at it.
After the smoke passed, it became a blob of meat before it could jump on top of me and landed heavily on top of me. It dropped so hard it nearly winded me. I mustered up my strength to push its corpse away and then stumbled to stand up. I sat on its furry corpse and reflected on life.
I got bashed by a rabbit dammit! I got bashed by a rabbit! And I almost got bashed to death by the rabbit…. It looks like this world doesn’t suit me well. If I can’t beat humans, then so be it, but even a rabbit…?
Lucia appeared in front of me with her dagger still in hand. After scanning the surroundings nervously, she saw me leaning on the rabbit, and said in a surprised tone: “Your highness! Are you alright…? Ah… A rabbit.”
“Yeah, a rabbit.”
I nodded and then struggled to get back on my feet. Did that kick injure my organs or knock a lumbar disk of mine out? Whatever the case, my body was hurting. I was in a bad mood. I felt a sense of helpless powerlessness.
“You killed a rabbit, your highness! This is great, we can grill a rabbit tonight…. But why do you look so down, you highness?”
“The rabbit hit me….”
“…Sorry, what did you say?”
“The rabbit hit me….”
I beg you, stop asking me. I’m about to cry here.
“You wrestled with the rabbit?!”
Lucia was surprised and puzzled at first. Immediately after, she burst out laughing. She grabbed her belly as she laughed. She was close to rolling on the floor laughing. I looked at her helplessly. I got beat by a rabbit like this and yet instead of being concerned about me, you’re enjoying my suffering? This is the first time I’m suspecting the authenticity of your feelings for me, Lucia.
“Hahahahahaha…. Sorry, your highness. It’s not… I just don’t understand why you wrestled with a rabbit…. You have a gun and yet you wrestled it. I don’t quite get it. And you didn’t win either. Hahahaha! This is hilarious!!”
I beg you, please don’t kick a downed man…. And who said I didn’t win?! Look who’s lying dead here! I helplessly smiled wryly and then said: “I… I…”
“It’s alright, your highness. Rabbits are very strong combatants. It’s not strange for you to not be able to defeat it. It’s just that the reason that you’re the first person to not defeat a rabbit is because you’re the only one who has attempted to tussle with a rabbit. We all either use bows and arrows or traps to kill them. I don’t think there’s another who’d wrestle with a rabbit like you. But isn’t that good? We’ll have more meat for dinner, and you can treat that as revenge. Come, your highness. Please grab its other leg. Let’s drag it back.”
And that was how the future Hero King, Troy Galadriel lost his first fight miserably. That rabbit could brag to countless others and those of the next generation for a long time.
It could boast: “You may not believe me, but I fought that guy and even beat him! And he was the one who started the fight first!”
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