Insect Tamer's Ascension-Chapter 408. Dead before impact

By the time anyone managed to recover from their shock, the mantis had already driven its foreleg straight into the boar’s skull, puncturing it in one swift strike.

The next instant, Theo received the notification.

But even without it, anyone present could clearly see what had happened just now.

A beast’s spiked, steel-like foreleg had pierced another beast’s head.

The remaining boars immediately began retreating, backing away until they disappeared into the bushes.

But when the mantis pulled its foreleg out, it looked toward the rest of the fleeing boars with eyes that seemed to say.

"Where are you going?"

’Don’t go, Mantis. You have already killed their leader,’ Theo commanded through their bond.

The mantis turned toward him with a cute face, though it didn’t feel very cute anymore.

In the end, it didn’t work, and all the mantis could do was start eating the boar’s body.

"Theo... that patriarch boar is extremely valuable. It would be better if your beast didn’t eat it," Lucien muttered.

Even Clara nodded as agreeing with him, her eyes still filled with bewilderment.

It took Theo several minutes to convince the mantis to stop and eat the stag instead.

The mantis protested quite a bit, but eventually Theo was able to make it understand, and the beast reluctantly continued eating the stag instead.

Once that was over, all the other beasts, except the ape, joined in and began eating the stag.

The humans, meanwhile, felt like they needed to have a talk.

Silence stretched awkwardly for a little too long between them.

"I don’t know whether you should focus on swordsmanship... or your beast," Rhys finally said, his sleepy eyes half-closed. It felt like even staying awake had become a hassle for him.

Lucien remained silent, while his attendant Cassian stood behind him just as quietly, as if his entire understanding of reality had now been warped or shaken.

"I will focus on both, Sir Knight," Theo said softly. "It feels like I still have a lot to prepare before I am ready."

But then he noticed Lucien’s confused expression.

"Theo... what exactly are you even preparing for at this point?" Lucien asked. "Isn’t all this already enough for now?"

"When was the last time you took a break? When did you play? When did you do something other than train?"

The more Lucien asked, the more questions came, and the more Clara began to feel guilty.

Theo simply smiled.

"I just came back from a trip, elder brother. Wasn’t that a vacation?"

Lucien frowned slightly, trying to understand what he was talking about.

"...You mean the gate?"

Theo nodded, and that was when even Rhys looked at him strangely. Clara wanted to hide her face in utter guilt, embarrassed by the way her young master was acting.

"I will talk about this with the baron. We really need to get you into an academy, Theo. Enjoy your life; you only get one."

Lucien said this while lightly tapping Theo’s chest with his fist. Theo thought about those words, and the more he did, the more confused he felt.

’What do I even do to enjoy life anyway?’ he asked himself.

The first thing that came to his mind was training.

Thinking about that made him feel a little pitiful for himself. If he was already like this at this age, in this body and world, then what would he be like later?

’I am only doing things faster because I have already died once doing nothing. I never want to feel like that ever again...’ Theo explained to himself.

Yet deep down, Theo knew he had already gone past that point.

"It seems I will have to work on that, elder brother. Maybe I should pick up a hobby."

{Your Apex Bloom Tyrant has defeated a blazewing Eagle (Level 9).}

While he was talking like they were simply relaxing in a park, another kill notification appeared before Theo’s eyes, making him smack his forehead.

He looked around at the stag’s corpse and the patriarch boar’s body and noticed that all the beasts were there, except for the ape and the mantis.

Theo scanned all the treetops, and after about a minute, he finally spotted the mantis descending.

Lucien had nothing to say at this point.

Meanwhile, Rhys looked at Lucien with unreadable emotions.

Time passed, and not many monsters approached them afterward.

Lucien explained that the patriarch boar was a creature that every solo beast at this depth avoided. Even the aura lingering from its corpse was enough to warn others to not bother coming closer.

Theo couldn’t help but feel that the beasts in the inner depths possessed far more personality and intelligence than the ones in the outskirts.

They stayed away from fights they couldn’t win and only hunted when victory seemed guaranteed.

At least, that was what Theo concluded from the situation.

They remained idle for quite some time. During that period, the mantis managed to hunt another Blazewing Eagle.

They had now defeated three Blazewing Eagles, which, according to Lucien, would make it much easier for Theo to gain access to the deeper parts.

Throughout all this, Theo wasn’t able to understand Lucien at all.

Sometimes he acted like a caring elder brother. Yet, during this hunt, he was mostly observing things from the sidelines instead, as if Theo were more like a rival rather than a sibling.

Even taking Theo’s unusually high luck into account, bringing him here to hunt felt too calculated. To Theo it felt like Lucien could have easily requested permission beforehand.

As the sun began to set, Lucien decided it was time to return to the ape territory.

Using the Mantis’s aura as a means of protection, they set up a campfire before dusk could fully settle.

At that moment, when most of the things were ready, Theo saw Lucien pull out something from his bag that looked like a small steamer.

Apparently, all this time, there was a product on the market whose steam worked as a beast repellent.

When the steam began to seep out, the beasts quickly retreated into the beast space on their own. Its properties irritated them too much to stay outside.

The mantis, however, stubbornly stayed there for as long as it could endure.

Eventually, it grew so annoyed and unbearable for it that it tried to destroy the device itself instead.

Theo had to forcibly send it into the beast space before they could finally rest.