A bush not far away started rustling, startling Yaku, a rabbit with 4 eyes and long claws, started running towards him, trying to kill him. Yaku blocked its claws with his sword, but he made the mistake of not infusing mana into his sword, which gave the killer rabbit the chance to bite the sword, shattering it.
With eyes wide open, Yaku reinforced his hands and choked the rabbit to death as the rabbit fought for its life, soon after the rabbit met its end.
"I need to find some place to hide and regroup, Emilia, i hope you're doing better than i am…i'll try to find you as soon as possible, i promise" He thought to himself as he grabbed the rabbit by it's ears with one hand and with the other hand he was still holding his side and whincing in pain.
Soon after, Yaku found a cave that looked like it was abandoned. He entered it, and it was empty as he suspected. He started a fire with some branches and skinned the rabbit. He sat alone, looking into the fire, replaying what happened with the fortune teller. As if the memory was being replayed inside the flames, he blamed himself for not acting fast enough. Yaku was thinking about Emilia's safety.
He clenched his fists and punched the ground, making his knuckles bleed. "It's all my fucking fault, Emilia, I asked you to come with me, and now.. now you might be dead," Yaku thought to himself in silence
"NO," he screamed out loud
"Emilia is too smart to die, even in a place like this; we couldn't have been separated too far. I just need to regroup," he thought as he started eating the rabbit meat.
"This meat is tough and almost bitter, fuck this place," he said as he forced himself to eat the meat.
The dead pale world started to get even darker, signaling to Yaku that it's getting dark
"I guess this place has day and night cycles, I might still be in our world after all," he thought to himself as he lay down to the side that wasn't damaged, trying to sleep on his hand, close to the fire. He shivered as it was starting to get cold.
About 4 hours later, the voice of a woman woke Yaku up.
"It's been a while since I've seen someone with such a strained and tired mana core," the mysterious woman said in a soft spoken voice
Yaku woke up startled and grabbed his broken sword and pointed it towards her, she had her back to the wall of the cave with her hands crossed
"Relax, I'm not your enemy…unless you want me to be," she said, taunting him
"Who are you? What is this place?" he asked her as his eyes were still waking up
"Oh…I figured you weren't cursed. Very interesting that you're here. You must've pissed off a special grade mage to be sent here," she answered him
Her answer wasn't satisfactory; it only gave him more questions.
"Cused? What do you mean?" he asked
"This place, the purgatory. Only dead people who were cursed in their previous life come here," she told him
"Dead…dead people? Am I dead?" he asked in a panicked voice
"I don't know, but I don't sense a curse within you, so I'm assuming someone teleported you here," she answered
Yaku face-palmed in fear; he didn't know what was going on. The idea that he could be dead terrified him; he realized that this place isn't in his world, it's a whole different dimension.
He looked between his fingers as he face-palmed, he looked at the ground aimlessly, trying to make sense of it.
He removed his hand from his face.
"What did you say about my mana core? I remember reading something about mana cores before. What are they?" Yaku asked
"I can answer you, but what would I get in return? I'm not trying to do charity here," she asked him
"I…I have nothing to offer; I just got here. Please just answer me," Yaku begged her
"I'll answer you if you promise to help me with hunting a few killer rabbits, is that a deal?" she said
Yaku looked at her. She was wearing a black corset pushing her cleavage up; her worn-out black leather pants gave the impression that she did fight and hunt. She wore black lipstick, but what stood out for him were her purple eyes. Her eyes stood out in stark contrast to her black hair and clothes.
"I'll help you," he answered
"Good, it's a deal, and if you don't honor it, I'll have to kill you," she said as her purple eyes started to glow,
"Every living being in this world has a mana core, and yes, even humans with too little mana to even use magic. You see, everything that breathes has a mana core; it's the essence of life, a soul if you want to call it that.
Your magic core is…how do I put it, it's tired, as if you've been abusing it. Of course, it's healing already; it's not a permanent mark, not many things in this world can scar a mana core," she explained.
Yaku remembered the story he read at the Bagio academy, about the fight between that great mage and one of the pillars. The mage explained that his mana core was damaged permanently.
"My mana core, could it be harmed by depleting my mana reserves over and over again close to zero?" he asked
She was visibly upset by what she heard.
"What a disturbing and disgusting thing you've done. Is it worth it? Standing at the gates of death hundreds of times just so you could increase your mana capacity by a puny amount? She asked
"A puny amount? When I first started training, I didn't even have enough mana to cast any normal spell," he responded, piquing her interest
"Interesting, going from nothing to your current mana reserve is impressive. I haven't seen something like that before. You might be special," she said while smirking
"Wait, how can you even see my mana core?" he asked
"It was my curse when I was born, those purple eyes can see every magic core, your core right now is being repaired, millions of mana threads filling out the grooves you've made by stretching it hundreds of times," she answered
"I'm really bad at talking to people. I forgot to ask what your name is, I'm sorry," Yaku said in a tired voice
"I don't give out my name to randoms, earn my trust, and I'll tell you," she answered
"Fair enough, my name is Yaku, I hope we can help each other. By the way, have you seen a girl with black hair and a side bang? She uses healing magic if that helps," Yaku asked
"No, I haven't seen anyone with that description," she answered
Shortly after Yaku and the purple-eyed girl headed out to her hut, 10 minutes away from the cave, which set out some alarms for him, he remembered the witch's hut he had visited in the past, where Bone died.
He reluctantly entered her hut, and he spent the night there without any problems.
As soon as morning came, she woke him up "ready to hunt some rabbits," she said.
Yaku got up from the bed, holding his side and whincing a little, "Yeah, just give me a few minutes," he said
The witch noticed that he was holding his side, she didn't say anything, but she knew if she wanted, she could take him by surprise and kill him. For now, she would use him for her personal gain