Humanity Return

Ch. 7 – Abilities and Feelings

The sounds of the birds started to sound from various directions within the forest, chirping nonstop.

Hearing the sound of this bird, Aura slowly opened her eyes and woke up from her sleep.

“Huah..?” a strange sound came out of his mouth.

Aura was still not fully awake yet, so she did not understand why she woke up in the middle of the unfamiliar forest.

“Good morning, mr. Putri” male voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

“...!” Aura became surprised instead of playing.

He immediately came to a full realization and realized the reason he woke up in the middle of the forest.

Aura found Leinn still sitting in the same place as last night, in front of a former campfire that had been extinguished and was seen eating something.

“Thankfully you slept, you didn't even flinch when I tried to wake you” he said as he chewed something in his mouth.

Hearing this, Aura said nothing and crawled out of her sleeping bag feeling extremely embarrassed. He also felt a little confused, this was the first time he had slept this soundly.

Aura discovered the sun was already close to reaching the peak of the sky, proving she had fallen asleep quite soundly.

“Haha... rest easy, we still have a lot of time. You can rest like that's a good thing. Are you hungry?” Leinn smiled as she grabbed the large bag beside her.

Leinn opened the outer pouch of his large bag and pulled out a transparent pouch containing small pieces of meat.

Aura just finished folding her sleeping bag and returned it to Leinn. He looked at the new bag curiously.

“Eat this, dried meat” said Leinn casually, answering like he could read Aura's mind.

Leinn gave the bag of meat and put the sleeping bag he received back into his big bag. He picked up the meat from the pouch on his left hand and started chewing again.

Aura opened the transparent pouch in her hand then took out a piece of meat and tried it, then began to eat a few pieces of that meat. The salty and sweet taste of this meat tastes quite good and fills its empty stomach.

“OK, time we finish this test!” leinn said excitedly.

He got up standing while throwing something into the former campfire in front of him, picked up his big bag and sword then started walking towards the deeper direction of this forest.

Realizing Leinn had started walking, Aura caught up with him while chewing the meat in her mouth and turned her head to see what thing Leinn had just thrown.

‘Abuah... stone?’

...

After walking for 30 minutes, Aura realized that they had not met many Beasts in this forest.

Some can be seen in the distance, but they will immediately run away when they realize the existence of two humans near them.

It seemed like the encounter with the Blue Grizzly the previous day was a special case, considering they approached her while she was eating.

Rank C Beasts down in this forest that had no territory usually chose to avoid the fight, even more so if the opponent was a human.

“It's boring, why are they like this?” leinn said after seeing a Blue Grizzly find them and began to flee.

“Yes, most of the dangerous Beasts that live in this forest have been hunted or made Contracted Beasts, already, since many years passed since this place was used as a test site by the Head of Red Dawn” Academy Aura also saw the bear disappear among the trees

Leinn looked slightly surprised after hearing the new information, then continued walking while stroking his chin.

“Hoh...” he let out a voice of admiration while looking at Aura's face.

“Not mean this forest is safe, there are still many dangerous Beasts living in this forest. They had already learned not to roam around and hunt recklessly, they became more efficient” Aura continued to explain that while looking towards that fleeing bear.

“Efficient?” leinn said as he raised one eyebrow.

“Yes, they only look for prey when hungry and ready to attack if they feel threatened. Of course there are some exceptions, such as the Beast is known to more often start attacking humans who walk alone in the middle of this forest” said Aura while remembering one of the books that discuss this forest ecosystem.

Leinn turned back to face forward again and continued walking into the forest.

“Hoh... After hearing you explain things to me, I just realized that you have a very broad knowledge ya” said Leinn after remembering the information he heard the previous day.

“T-not like that! B-many of the things I explain are general knowledge, and I-I just kind of like to read!” Aura suddenly realized that she had spoken at length once again and started shaking her head.

“Hm... so ya”

Leinn looked to his left and right without stopping his steps.

“Since yesterday I did not feel the existence of a powerful Beast from within this forest, why huh?”

“No strong Beast...? This forest was famously filled with Beasts with Rank C and Rank B, some Beasts had even nearly reached Rank A... B-how there may be no-“

Hearing this statement Aura looked slightly surprised. He was pretty sure Leinn didn't know any information about this forest in the slightest, so he actually discovered the absence of this forest King with his own abilities?

“This forest has been without a King, ever since the Beast was defeated by one of the teachers of Red Dawn Academy when he attacked the would-be disciple who ran this test a few years ago, since then there has been no new Rank A Beast to take his place. So you can really sense the existence of the Beast.?” Aura looked at the face of the young man beside her with a look of disbelief.

Leinn looked at that gaze and smiled broadly at him.

“Yes, I mastered it a few years ago when I was still traveling alone” Leinn said as she grabbed one of the rocks on the ground.

Then he threw the stone into a tree 20 meters from where they were walking, and hit one of the branches.

Suddenly a little squirrel fell from the tree and started running away from them.

“Eh..” Aura looked at the little beast in great surprise.

“Hahaha..”.

Leinn simply laughed at the reaction, then suddenly recalled about the question Aura had asked the day before.

“Oh yes, you asked Beast what kind of Contracted Beast am I looking for right? How about you?”

“A-me...” The aura seemed to wake up after hearing the question.

He stopped walking and lowered his head.

Leinn also stopped walking and looked at Aura who was just standing still.

“I... don't know” a weak voice comes out of his mouth.

Without raising her face, Aura continued to speak.

“I only took this test at the behest of my First Brother, I just didn't want to let him down and my mind fell apart.. Once I realized, I was already standing in front of this forest with no plans. Then..”

Aura raised her face and looked at Leinn.

”I met you” a small smile appeared on Aura's face.

Leinn looked at Aura's face and smiled, and walked back.

“Haha, I'm sure you can finish this test easily” he said normally.

Aura was surprised to hear this and ran after Leinn, walking beside her.

“A-what do you mean easily? W-how can you be so sure?” Aura looked at Leinn's face seriously, beginning to surmise the other hidden strength of this young man.

“I'm sure you can” Leinn gave the same answer once again.

“T-but how...?” Aura began to feel strange seeing Leinn not giving any explanation and just believed it.

Seeing the woman beside him doubting what she said, Leinn only showed a wide smile.

“My feeling says so”

“P-feeling...” Aura could feel a foreign feeling begin to fill her head.

“Yup, Feelingsku”

“Eh..”

Seeing Leinn not planning on explaining further, the two of them continued on their journey.

The illumination around them was seen starting to decrease clearly, seemingly because they entered an area with a higher and dense number of trees.

Suddenly Leinn stopped his steps and stared intently at their left, followed by Aura who felt a different atmosphere from that Leinn.

Suddenly from the direction they were looking

“PLEASE...!” loud screams can be heard

Hearing this Aura immediately turned to Leinn, seeing him looking back at her. Aura instantly realized she couldn't possibly follow Leinn's running speed.

“No need to worry about me, just go diving-HUA” Aura's sentence was cut by her own scream.

Leinn immediately lifted Aura and carried it on his right shoulder, with his left hand already grasping his sword sheath, and he dashed towards the coming of the scream.