Jareth pried his eyes open after a monumental battle with exhaustion.
He blinked at the dark ceiling, feeling disoriented.
His vision slowly focused.
With a grunt that was more air than sound, he pushed himself to sit, the heavy stiffness in his joints reminding him of the violent battle against the robot.
"Ugh… it didn't hold back." He massaged his shoulders. "But why am I only feeling exhaustion? No pain?"
Jareth pulled his body up and took his time to flex his entire body, and as he figured, the pain had ceased.
"Is this one of the perks of being an arcanist?" he mumbled, uncertain.
Sniffing his armpit, his face scrunched up in disgust.
"I stink."
He quickly went and opened the window, flooding the room with bright sunlight, before checking his comm band.
"One o'clock already?" He arched his brow.
But a message from an unknown number drew his attention.
Opening it, he saw a cryptic message:
"Don't leave my door open, or you're dead. Your comm band is scanned to it. And I don't feed a lazy leech. I didn't enter your room."
"Esta," he guessed the sender. "She even clarified she didn't enter my room, so how did she get my number?"
Not wanting to think about any dead-end thoughts, he decided, "Let's go hunt in the outskirts and get my money before this lady actually stops giving me food. I never knew food would be used to threaten me someday."
He chuckled and went to the bathroom.
The warm bath made his body relax and feel free. Donning his armor and his prepared shock bracelet, Jareth left for the Dreadwood Forest, but when he got to the road to hail a cab, he remembered that his account was empty.
'Screw me…'
Jareth cast a glance over his shoulder, taking in the quiet road with its sparse, mostly private vehicles.
'Let's just jog.'
He began jogging towards the gate. People were throwing him strange gazes from their cars and some from their houses.
'Aeterna II district, Moon Aisle 1st street… a place for the rich, huh? They must be thinking, "He doesn't have a car or money to book a ride?!"' Jareth chuckled at his thoughts.
The farther he got from his street, the more bustling it became. He soon reached a bustling street, with cars, commercial buildings, and people moving about. Now, everybody began staring at him. Some kids even stopped and pointed at him.
"You bought the cheap armor new?" a huge man with a shopping bag called from the side.
"No." Jareth slowed down and shook his head.
"So, why are you displaying it instead of taking a cab?" he asked with a bit of disdain in his eyes.
He muttered to himself but loud enough for Jareth to hear, "And it isn't even high-rank armor. New arcanists, always showing off."
Walking away, he shook his head.
Jareth's face darkened.
Then he turned and sprinted—fled away at a blitzing speed, no longer jogging.
A few minutes later, he was out of the gate.
He halted and faced the gate, before puffing.
'People just insult strangers without thinking about the strangers' predicament. Humph! What an oaf!'
Releasing his sword from his badge to his grasp, he began jogging towards the forest.
Jareth entered the forest in a short while, and began vigilantly searching for monsters while mapping his surroundings with his eyes so as not to lose his way home.
But there was nothing at the edge of the forest, not even humans. Jareth searched deeper, and deeper, as he found nothing, but he still didn't see any beast.
Perching at the top of the tree while hiding between the leaves after a tireless search, he surveyed the forest.
'These arcanists cleaned the forest of everything? I can't believe they are heartless! Not even a beast cub for me to hunt. Looks like Liana was right. Should I go to the ruin estate?'
He massaged his jaw before he quickly shook his head, eliminating those thoughts.
'These thoughts could get me killed. The best way is to join the group tomorrow, since they will be familiar with the location after hunting there today.'
A snapping sound pulled his attention.
Lowering his head, he saw a huge rabbit with red beady eyes munching on a huge bone, covered in fresh blood. Its teeth were snapping it quickly like it wasn't hard.
His eyes lit up but became weird.
'I never knew I would see a rabbit eating such a big bone. That bone is like my femur. And its teeth are breaking it. How did it even get here without me noticing?'
Jareth squinted when he spotted a burrowed hole beside it.
'I can't wait for it to escape through the hole.'
Stretching his hand, a long crimson fire spear materialized in front of him.
Jareth held his breath and aimed at the rabbit with rapt attention but couldn't see how he would launch the fire spear past all the trees and accurately hit his target. His eyes rolled as he searched for a path.
'Now I know how good Nathan is. Do I weave it through? No! It will slow it down…'
He snapped his head up.
'Above!'
The fire spear angled up and, under Jareth's control, noiselessly soared above the trees in a wide arc.
Jareth stretched his two hands, focusing and controlling the spear with his connection, feeling like a grand puppeteer.
It suddenly curved down and hurtled at the rabbit, leaving a crimson trail behind.
The rabbit snapped its head upward, eyes widening at the sight of the descending spear. It ran towards the hole, but it was too late.
The crimson spear slammed into the rabbit, releasing a loud detonation that rocked the forest.
Looking down, Jareth narrowed his eyes as the blazing flame burned for a few seconds, until it shrank and vanished.
A panel sprang in front of his face.
[Awakened Bone Rabbit Killed.]
A smirk crept onto his lips at the sight of the charred rabbit, and he hopped down from the tree and ran up to the rabbit.
Squatting down, he placed his hand on the rabbit and sent it to his arcanist badge. Just as he was smiling, a serpent-like thing shot out of the hole at his hand.
Jareth recoiled and twisted his arm to dodge, narrowly evading it.
But he froze as a sharp pain erupted from his chest and something halted his escape, anchoring him in place. Lowering his head, he saw multiple brown twig-like roots from the hole had penetrated the armor and pierced his chest.
He raised his sword and slashed it, but only a ding sound, like a blunt knife hitting a tough metal, echoed. Only a scratch was left on it.
Jareth just raised his hand to activate [Infernal Torrent] when a sudden dizziness struck him.
Gritting his teeth, he released flames uncontrollably, sending fire into the hole and on the roots, but the roots merely wriggled in the flame without letting go. The dizziness spiked and his vision swiftly darkened.
'I thought it was the outskirts…'