Aether carefully watched from the shadows, getting to know the animal’s behaviour, the way it ate, the way it drank water. How it led, they were important things, because it gave him an opening he could exploit, but for some reason, every time it ate, the animal didn’t eat its food like last time; he did it differently from before.

And this was the case for all the other situations too; this was in no way a coincidence. It wasn’t doing this because it wanted to; it may be one of the things keeping it alive. Switching every time made it so that if someone wanted to attack it, it couldn’t study its patterns and take advantage of the vulnerability until the moment.

He was surprised, he really was. But at the same time, he wasn’t just anyone, he knew that, because he had gotten way close than anything so far, even if it had been a small wolf, the dear had known it was there, but him, sure he was still some good distance away, but he had gotten way closer than anything today, so it meant that his abilities were beyond even the deer.

’I think it’s worth trying.’

At the moment, the deer was waiting for the other behind it to finish. It was one of the things that always happened, yet only for a bit, since the deer knew that an animal or human could take advantage of it, so it only let its pack do its thing for no more and no less than five seconds.

And those five seconds were going to be enough.

Aether clenched his bow, putting the arrow in and pulling back the string. He had to say, he never thought his heart would beat this fast, whenever with the blade, it only got like this when he was fighting a really powerful enemy, yet here it was, rising too high for a deer.

He had to say that he never thought archery was this nerve-racking.

Squinting one of his eyes, he tried to aim the arrow towards the head of the majestic animal, directly into its eyes, since if he was able to damage them, it would be easier to kill the beast, as they were its number one way of knowing where the danger was.

So without them, it was going to be impossible for it to know where he was.

Though he wasn’t sure if he was going to hit it.

Ever since he first made the bow, like one week ago now, he had trained nonstop, so that he could actually fire and hit something. That way, he could actually hunt. Yet now that he was here, putting all the practice to the test, his hands were shaking a lot more, making it harder to keep the body steady.

But if he took too long, his opening was going to be gone, so when he saw that the pack finished eating and started raising their heads, he let go of the arrow. Watching as it pierces the air.

...

And yet, it just barely missed the head of the beast.

’Shit!’ Aether said, watching the pack start running in panic.

Not wasting time, he got out of his hiding location, rushing to take his arrow back, before trying to catch up to the group, while at the same time, keeping a good distance so that they wouldn’t notice him.

He had really wanted to avoid this, though, chasing something through the mist, it was why he had made the boy in the first place, so he wouldn’t have to do this, but here he was, doing it with the bow too.

It hurt his pride, after all, he really didn’t know why he had missed, after all that training, to miss a target so big... even if he wasn’t going for the head, the body would have been alright too, and its body was massive, and yet he still missed.

Just went to show that even those perfect in practice can fail badly in the actual thing.

As Aether was following the pack, he suddenly noticed something in the shadows with Eden; it was a group of people. ’Damn it.’ He said in his mind, stopping in his tracks. He needed to find a way to get past them without distracting them. If he got their attention, he was going to need to fight them, but if that were to happen, what if he lost the pack?

He took a deep breath, so he wouldn’t need to breathe, and slowly made his way past the men, trying his absolute best not to get caught, and it had worked; he was able to get to the other side.

He sighed in relief, but that proved to be a mistake.

"Is someone there?!" One of the men said, standing up and clenching his blade.

"Curses!" Aether muttered under his breath... but luckily for him, he had already gotten past; he didn’t need to turn back and fight; he could just run away.

And that was exactly what he did, but the man followed him, leaving him no other choice but to kill them, since if they followed him all the way, they were going to ruin everything.

He sighed, quickly turning around, and thrusting his blade into the heart of one of them, and taking his blade, he quickly slashed the heads of the other too.

Bandits like this were weak, just like any human; they only had a rank and class to have one. Any Human Fragment could have killed them without that much difficulty.

Not even waiting for the Codex to confirm the kills, he quickly started following the pack again, until they finally stopped, yet again.

He waited, as yet again, the deer had chosen another completely different routine; the only thing that was still the same was the five seconds. Those five seconds he had missed earlier... it wasn’t going to be the same now.

The moment they started, his bow was already drawn.

...The target was right in front of him, and he had enough time... and yet, why did he feel as if he couldn’t do it... the same feeling from before, that had made him miss? Even after training for so long... why did he feel as if he still didn’t know how to use a bow? Even if he did.

Aether stared into the eyes of the animal, those empty eyes of it, how beautiful they were.

Could he really kill such a creature? Was he worthy of it? Were his skills deserving of much for a first kill? After all, not all archers could say they hunted this beast for their first kill. And here he was about to do it, someone who fought with the blade.

Not to bow.

...

It wasn’t the weapon he had chosen to use; maybe that was why he felt so small with it. It wasn’t that he had gotten too used to the blade, but rather that his brain just felt as if using the bow was above him, because he had never fought with it.

He was underestimating himself, looking down on himself. And without even knowing.

He wanted to learn the bow, but didn’t know if he could. The sword had taken him a lot of time and training to do it, so would something like archery, where he has to start from scratch, even possible?

Aether closed his eyes, controlling his breathing...

Before opening them up again, this time with new precision... he was going to have a breakthrough, no matter what happened. He wasn’t going to miss, not this time, and he was going to prove to himself that he had what he needed to learn to use the bow as a weapon, and not a toy like he had been looking at it until now.

He drew the string more... firing the arrow.

...

...

The loud scream of the animal echoed into the Lowlands as the stone arrowhead pierced its eye. It quickly turned to run, as it had completely forgotten about its pack, which had turned into complete chaos, with everyone running in what direction they could.

It looked like in the end, they really were like any human pack; when things got bad, they all separated.

’Everyone for themselves, eh?’ Even leaving the younger generation to protect themselves.

Still, it wasn’t like he was after them.

There was only one he wanted to make shed blood.

Aether ran after the gorgeous white deer, following the blood trail it had left behind it.

"Should have made more arrows." He said, chasing the animal through the maze, taking turn after turn, until they reached a dead end.

Aether summoned Voidpiercer, as the beast slowly turned its head to him, showing its eyes, one sheading blood from the arrow, and the other tears.

He noticed it, but...

"Survival is cruel... no matter how much we try not to fall to it, killing in the wild is the only way to survive."

...

[You have killed a Reader Fragment, Deer of Promise]