"Hah...this is the final one," said a young boy, plucking a mushroom from the root of a tree.
The boy had short, messy black hair, pale skin and unnaturally red eyes. He wore a plain pullover shirt, loose trousers and a rattan basket over his shoulders, filled with mushrooms to the brim.
The boy had a round, adorable face covered in dirt, and short limbs that betrayed his age as barely six.
"Yay! Tonight we are going to have mushroom stew," the boy exclaimed, tossing the last mushroom into the basket.
He tilted his head upward, looking at the amber-painted sky. The sun had reached the horizon and soon, the sky would be filled with countless beautiful stars.
"I should go back now," the boy murmured. "Mama told me not to wander here at night."
The canopy choked out the sun. What little light survived fell in broken shards across the undergrowth. The wind came in quiet pulses, threading through branches and stirring the leaves into something that sounded almost like a low, hushed speech.
With a small grunt, the boy rose to his feet. The large basket on his little shoulder was heavier than he had expected. As he turned to leave, something rustled through the bushes.
He fixed his gaze on the bushes and stared for a few seconds, but nothing came out.
"Must have been the wind," the boy shrugged.
The moment he turned away, a mountainous bear emerged from behind, swinging its massive claw toward the boy. The claw was as wide as the boy was tall.
The basket exploded into pieces. Mushrooms scattered across the undergrowth like thrown coins. The trunk of the nearest tree turned dark and wet where the blood reached it.
---
Slash... slash... slash...
Thin strips of onion accumulated on the wooden board as a woman sliced through them in slow, deliberate strokes of a kitchen knife.
"Vlad hasn't returned yet?" she asked, never pausing the movement of her hand.
She was the kind of beautiful that made people uneasy. Brows arched like a serpent's scale, lashes long enough to cast shadows, and eyes so black they seemed to hold depth beyond the iris, with patterns shifting inside them like something alive. Her hair matched that darkness, pulled into a high bun that bared the full severity of her face.
Her skin was fair and smooth as polished jade. She didn't look a day over twenty-five.
Her elegant figure was draped in a simple linen dress of pale cream, its loose sleeves brushing her wrists as they swayed with the motion of her hands.
She stood in the open kitchen. Behind her, at a wooden table in the small hall, sat a handsome man watching her from across the room with a warm smile on his face.
"He wanted mushroom stew, so he went into the forest to collect some," the man replied, his eyes fixed on her.
The man had ashen brown hair of medium length, worn in a half-tied bun with long, loose strands framing his face. His eyes were a deep, molten red that only added to the charisma of his rough, masculine appearance. He wore a half-sleeved pullover shirt that left his broad forearms bare. His lower half was covered in fitted trousers tucked into knee-high shoes.
"To the forest?" the woman asked in a sharp tone, the knife striking the board with a loud slash. "You allowed him to go to that dangerous place alone again, Edren?"
Edren, the handsome man, shivered, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple at the woman's sharp voice.
He immediately rose from his seat and moved to the kitchen with quick steps.
"Your worry is needless, my El," he whispered, embracing her from behind, his hand resting gently on her stomach. "He is the son of Edren, the strongest lumberjack and farmer of Grimwood village."
"And how old is he, Mr. Strongest Lumberjack?" Elaria, the black-haired woman, demanded.
"Four...no, five, or maybe six?"
"..."
"W-well, what does age m-matter when he has my blood coursing through his veins, r-right?" Edren blurted, slowly withdrawing his hand from her stomach and inching backward.
He knew he had made a grave mistake.
"Edren Lumberjack!" Elaria shouted, freezing Edren mid-step.
Yes, he was the mightiest in terms of strength in Grimwood, a village of fifty people nestled in the countryside of Argentum. However, no being can surpass the limits of their race. No matter how much a deer trains, it may become the strongest of its kind, yet it still cannot defeat a lion.
Edren found himself in a similar predicament. He was the deer about to be hunted by a ferocious lioness.
"M-my dear El, please calm down," he pleaded, his hands trembling.
"I am completely calm, dear husband," Elaria replied, advancing toward him in slow, terrifying steps.
"Why don't you say that after putting down that knife?" Edren whimpered, sweat pouring down his body.
"How irresponsible can you be, Edren?" Elaria muttered, her deep black eyes narrowing at him. "You sent my poor boy to that dangerous forest while you sat lazying around here. Last time, you forgot him in the busy city market. I still haven't forgiven you for making him plough the entire field while you were out drinking with your friends. Not to mention..."
The scolding dragged on for several minutes, while Edren sat rigidly upright before her, silently enduring every word.
As Elaria recounted all the wrongs he had committed in just the past week, a realization crept over him.
'Damn. I really am an irresponsible father. I should treat Vlad better, or he might abandon me when he grows up.'
Thud!
His thoughts came to an abrupt stop as a loud thud echoed from the door.
"Vlad must have returned," Edren declared, releasing a sigh of relief.
He instantly jumped to his feet and rushed toward the door.
"Hehe, thank you, son. Once again, you saved your fath—," Edren snickered, pulling the door open.
A long shadow fell over him as the door swung wide. Instead of his son, what stood before him was a towering bear, its fangs dripping with blood.