Auren flicked his hand, and the assassins, now covered in a cocoon of vines, were pulled up and away into the darkness of the trees. Once the rustle of the leaves settled down, a few seconds later, there was no visible sign of any of them.
He then turned around and paced toward the girl, who was huddled up on the ground near a tree truck.
"Are you fine?" he asked, crouching down.
There was a visible look of surprise on her face at how effortlessly he had taken out those assassins.
Even if one considered them to be on a weaker side—which they certainly were not—handling five of them alone was no mere task.
But in the end, she didn't think about it too much. He had ended up saving her life, and above all, it was still true that he was a mage roming around in the middle of nowhere.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence after all, and she had run into one of those people.
"Y-Yeah, I'm mostly fine…aside from the fact that I'm covered in wounds from head to toe," she said sarcastically, trying to make light of the situation in an attempt to ignore the shrieking pain she had been experiencing continuously.
"Well, I guess it's not something life-threatening if you're able to joke around like that. But still, would it be alright if I use healing magic on you?" he questioned, asking for her permission.
"Sure, it would be a relief," she said, agreeing.
Auren then put his right hand forward and opened his palm toward her. A bright yellowish-golden light flashed along with dozens of tiny, shiny particles that began to settle around her wounds.
In no time, all her wounds were completely covered by the shiny particles, and a visible sense of relief washed over her face.
The next instant, the particles disintegrated into nothingness, revealing that all her wounds had been completely healed as if they were never there to begin with.
This came as even more of a surprise to her. After all, it took at least a decade of study before a mage was able to master healing magic, and from his looks alone, the boy in front of him looked no older than nineteen or twenty.
So, unless he had started studying magic right from when he was a toddler, there was no way he would be able to reproduce results the same as those of top-tier healing mages—and even that would be stretching it.
Agh, I guess he really is one of those. He doesn't look crazy or senile at least, and he saved my life, so he probably isn't that far gone.
"My name's Celestia," she said as she helped herself to stand up. "I'm really grateful to you for helping me out of this. I was sure I was gonna end up dead."
"It's alright," Auren replied with a polite smile on his face.
⋘────────── ∗ ⋅◈⋅ ∗ ──────────⋙
The forest had gone extremely quiet, aside from the chirping of some birds far off in the distance, it was relatively hard to hear anything else. And I had to mimic this silence if I didn't want to mess up here.
I was hiding behind a tree trunk, standing completely still and avoiding any movement that could end up alerting our target.
I looked to my side, and at a distance of a few feet was a girl who was also hiding in a similar manner to me. Deep red hair and golden eyes—she was Celestia, the girl I had ended up meeting in this forest.
I signaled to her with my eyes to be ready, and she replied likewise. Then, without causing any excessive moment, I rapidly came out from the cover of the tree and raised my right hand forward, releasing a small, sharp shard of stone that went flying at insane speed.
It tore through the air as it flew across, drilling itself into its target's chest with pinpoint accuracy. It was a rabbit that I had hit.
The rabbit—startled by the sudden attack—tried to run away, but before it could go anywhere, a translucent dome appeared around it, and the rabbit ended up crashing into its walls.
I looked to my side, and I saw that Celestia had also come out from the cover and had cast the spell to restrain the rabbit just in time.
"Excellent!" I rejoiced.
She also had a fruitful smile on her face, which made sense since both of us had decided to stick together for tonight and were currently hunting to get something for dinner.
This was our third try, and before all the prey had ended up running away due to us not being quiet enough.
Since the sun was almost down, it meant that if this one had also gotten away, we'd have to spend the night on empty stomachs, and I really didn't want my first night after 2000 years to be like that.
Once the rabbit stopped moving completely, Celestia and I went close to it and decided that we'd clean it here since creating a bloody mess near our camp might not be the smartest idea.
I tried to help with the cleaning and gutting of the rabbit, but perhaps my hands weren't too good with this stuff, which led her to politely decline my help, saying that it would be faster if she did it herself.
I was more or less aware of the fact that I wasn't too great, or in fact on the weaker side, when it came to physical stuff.
I'd walked a lot today, and we had the return trip to our camp remaining as well, so I happily complied with her offer and decided to just watch.
The skinning part was already done—probably not in an ideal way since I'd messed with it—and the gutting was what remained.
She held the rabbit up from its hind legs and made a shallow cut just a little above its ribcage and proceeded to then slit upwards till its pelvis in one smooth motion, parting the rabbit's skin apart cleanly.
Her hands then moved in a delicate manner—something I was sure as hell I'd mess up if I ever tried—pulling the insides of the rabbit out in one go. She then, one by one, popped all its joints and threw away the excess bones.
Once all of it was done, she conjured up some water using magic and cleaned the rabbit—or whatever was left of it—getting rid of all the blood, dirt, hair, and carcass along with any lingering fluids inside its body
All of this took her about three to four minutes, and even someone as inexperienced as I could tell that she had done it beautifully. All her cuts were minimal, and she'd avoid wasting any meat.
"Were you born in a family of hunters or something? You're really good at this," I complimented as she was packing up the meat in a cloth, and we were getting ready to head back.
"Thanks," she replied. "But no, I'm not a professional hunter or anything like that. It's just that I've been on the run for a little over a year now, and I just happened to work with someone who was a skilled hunter.
"And she was kind enough to teach me about this once she got to know my situation. She said it would help me in survival."
"Well, it seems like she was indeed right about that," I remarked.
After that, we got back to our place where we had decided to stay the night. It wasn't anything unusual, just a nice spot between a few trees that was clean enough for us not to worry about insects or snakes crawling up on us.
She got to chopping up the meat in a way that'd be easier to cook while I created a slab of stone on which I lit up a campfire using magic.
We then cooked the rabbit meat on it, and I would say it turned out pretty great, since she was skilled in this as well. There wasn't much of it—it was just a single rabbit after all—but we already had something to throw in our stomachs.
As it sizzled over the fire, the scent of roasted meat spread into the air. It turned blistered and golden, with dripping fat into the fire below and making a fuzzling sound.
She handed me my piece, and I focused my gaze on it. Visually speaking, it was looking absolutely mouthwatering—something which a piece of meat cooked without any seasonings or salts in the middle of nowhere shouldn't look ike at all.
I gulped down the saliva that had formed in my mouth and went ahead and took a bite. It was still hot, and I ended up burning a bit of tongue due to it. It was also greasy, smoky, and a little tough.
But right at this moment, it felt like the best thing I had ever eaten. Flavour flooded my mouth, and it tasted like the world, the real world.
I felt alive eating it. It felt refreshing eating actual food rather than just being supplied "energy" in the form of mana to keep myself alive.