— The days passed, and a routine had settled in: Kaelen was always on guard, Elena led the group, and Obi took care of the food. This went on for four nights, during which everyone ate together around the campfire, until the fifth night—
I experimented as best I could during those days, but I'm limited by my resources, and there are still plenty of gaps in my understanding of Malice. For example, what was that voice I heard twice? Does it have a connection to Malice? The first time was against the beast, and it said something about a bonus—damn it, I can't remember everything it said.
— The feeling of that lack of information, as if he were just one step away from knowing one more piece of the puzzle, was something that infuriated Obi, a rage that wasn't lost on his companions —
"Obi, what's wrong? Why are you making that face?"
— Kaelen said, pausing in his work, while Krax beside him didn't seem to care enough to do the same —
"It's nothing, I just need a break."
— After his reply, Obi stood up, entering the forest at night carrying only a pocket knife and his plate of food. The others didn't stop him; thinking the journey must be very long for him, they let him go, with Kaelen being the only one who kept watching him enter the forest.
Inside the forest, he walked with relative ease, even though his vision was severely limited by the darkness, gradually moving away from the small area where Kaelen could still sense him. After a few minutes, he stopped in front of some footprints —
This way—there must be wolves. Perfect.
— He began to look around; there wasn't much to see, just trees, bushes, and vines. The latter was the only thing that seemed to interest Obi, and he began to tear them from the trees and tie them together. He continued like this for about ten minutes, during which he managed to make a makeshift net —
It's a bit stiff; even though I don't have much left, I just need it to be slightly less stiff.
— Obi closed his eyes, holding the vine net in his hand. He was using Malice again, feeling dark smoke rise from his arms as it made him shiver with cold. Still, the smoke managed to envelop the entire net, giving it a color better suited for hiding in the darkness. Obi shook it as if it were a blanket —
This is better; it's elastic and malleable enough.
—he thought as he smiled. He got up from the ground and began preparing the area, placing the net on the ground and hiding it with fallen leaves, then placed the long vine with which it was tied on all four sides over a thick branch—one that wouldn't break even under Obi's weight. After finishing the trap, he took another branch and began whittling it with his kitchen knife until it became pointed. He placed his food on the camouflaged net and hid in a bush, his right hand holding the long vine.
Nothing happened during the first fifteen minutes of waiting; even so, Obi's gaze showed no sign of giving up—a gaze focused solely on what lay directly ahead of him. And after another seven minutes, his wait was rewarded: a wolf emerged from the bushes—
Finally, he knew it; those tracks belonged to a lone wolf. There are two reasons why a wolf might be alone: independence or expulsion. The second is the most common; wolves can be expelled due to dominance issues or, in this case, old age.
—Obi was right; the wolf in front of him looked weak, tired, and old. It could no longer hunt, so it took the easy way out. Seeing a plate of food ahead, like the animal it was, it followed its instincts and fell into Obi's trap. Obi grabbed the long vine tightly, causing the net to close, trapping the wolf inside. it began to move desperately, howling in the hope that one of its former pack would save it, but it found only a lonely end, its throat pierced by the spear created by Obi. The last thing the old wolf saw was the face of a man who seemed devoid of emotion, his eyes staring directly at it without blinking, while the wolf's own eyes lost their light —
It was pretty easy this time; it would be great if it were always like this.
— Obi reached out toward the wolf's lifeless body, as if trying unsuccessfully to take something —
I look like a madman doing this in the middle of the forest. Does this mean absorption doesn't work like this? I need to experiment more.
"What are you doing?"
— Obi spun quickly toward the voice, spear in hand, but calmed down immediately upon seeing that it was Kaelen again who had startled him —
"Ah, it's just you. What are you doing here?"
"You've been in the woods for over half an hour. The others have already gone to sleep; you were the only one left. And what about you…?"
— Kaelen cut himself off mid-question when he saw the wolf's corpse on the ground and the bloodstained wooden spear Obi was holding—an Obi whose body was nearly broken, with a bone that was about to kill him —
"What happened? Shit, when did I let my guard down?"
"Don't worry, I took him down pretty easily
"What? But you…"
— Kaelen cut himself off again mid-sentence; he had realized what had happened—the spear, the tallow, the net, all handmade, all planned in advance by a man who could no longer fight, a man who, when he looked at his face, saw only the cold expression of someone lost in his own thoughts, who didn't seem to care what he had done —
"I have a question: did this wolf attack you?"
"No"
— An answer that seemed unimportant to the one who had said it but came as a shock to the one who had asked —
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why would you have attacked it if it didn't attack you? You don't need its meat and you weren't in danger; this is a total disregard for everything…"
"Why are you getting angry?"
— At that moment, Kaelen's view of Oberon had shifted from a man who was similar to him to a being whose gaze showed no remorse when killing unnecessarily —
"Why do I have to wait for them to attack me first to strike back? That's stupid. You give your enemy the advantage by doing that—an advantage that only another fool wouldn't take, a fool like you"
— Those words made Kaelen's eyes snap open; he stood speechless before Oberon —
"Even though you saw the consequence of that action, haven't you learned yet? If you had attacked first, the moment you sensed it coming, those three children wouldn't have ended up dead. Their deaths are nothing more than the consequence of your laziness—the laziness of adapting to a world that isn't yours. Do you feel bad about killing an animal just because you think it wasn't necessary? Because it's disrespectful to the natural order? And what is the natural order? It's simple: it's whatever the dominant one decides. It's always been that way—whether in the forests, the jungles, the mountains, or societies—the one who dominates is the one who decides what the natural order is. Or to put it better, the natural order is guided by whoever is at the top of the chain, and it is not the strongest animal nor necessarily the most intelligent, but the most selfish—the one who seeks at all costs to ensure their survival, to place their existence above that of others. I did not kill this animal needlessly, for the knowledge is useful to me."
— Kaelen lay motionless on the ground, his head pressed against the earth, while Oberon returned to camp to rest until the next day. Oberon had managed to strike directly at Kaelen's remorse and guilt —