When Aariv heard that Neer the Yaksha had a proposal, his heart skipped a beat because he knew that Yakshas were responsible for guarding treasures but he calmed down.

"umm...just to be sure, you're not gonna ask me to sell my soul or stuff like that, right?" He asked with a skeptical look.

Neer saw Aariv's face and started laughing.

"haha... why would I do that, and that's not my area of expertise. Only devils do that," he said.

Aariv's jaw dropped, "What!, devils are real?"

"Well, If I can exist, then why can't they and besides, I don't know much about all the devils and gods stuff as I've lived all my life in this forest. All that I know was taught to me by my teacher and listening to bandits passing through here," Neer explained.

Aariv was picking up the bags lying on the ground while also talking to him.

"So, what's the proposal you were talking about, kid?" Aariv said nonchalantly as he was preoccupied.

Neer's brows twitched a little when he was called a kid.

"Hey, I am 30 years old you know, It's just that when I died, I was 8," He said with a plain face.

Aariv chuckled when he thought about what would happen if he told the kid that he was a loooooot older than him, however, he didn't tell because he was interested in how does one become a Yaksha. The kid was clearly a human once.

"What's your story? How did you end up becoming a Yaksha?"

*Sigh*

"Walk with me," Neer said and started walking.

Aariv also followed him, Jojo was sitting on his right shoulder while he carried the bags on his left.

"You are the 1st human to be able to see me since I died, so I never got to share my story with anyone.

30 years ago when there was no Mauryan empire, the Patliputra used to be a small city unlike now. I lived there with my family. It was just me, mother and father. Although we were poor, we were still happy. We belonged to the Vaishya caste(Merchant and landowners). My father had a small cloth shop which he bought with a loan, taken from a local rich merchant.

Everything was going amazing until that awful day.

Don't know how, the shop caught fire in the middle of the night, all the newly bought material and items got burnt to ashes.

The next day, my father went to the local governor for reimbursement because we had lost everything in that fire.

The law stipulated that If a merchant loses his goods in a fire inside the city, then he will be compensated, but the governor didn't want to pay the money so he put the blame of fire on my father and arrested him on the charge of Arson.

The next day, the guards came knocking at the door and arrested me and my mother.

Nobody cared about a small-time merchant and his family, so nobody knew of things that were happening and I doubt that even if they knew, they would have done nothing to stop it.

I was too small to be put in prison so they separated me from my mother. That was the last day I saw my mother, I couldn't even hug her for one last time.

After that, I was sold to a slave trader and he sold me to a big landowner who wanted cheap labor for farming.

I knew what was going to happen to me, so I thought that if I could run away, then maybe someday I'd be able to save my mother and father.

So when they were transporting us, slave, to the nearby town I jumped from the cart and ran towards the jungle.

But I was too small to run fast, they saw that I was about to enter the jungle and it would get impossible to find me there, so they shot an arrow at me which pierced through my lungs.

I fell down, trying to catch my breath, but with every breath, my body felt cold, I knew that my life was coming to an end.

The slavers came to check up on me, but when they saw my injury they laughed and left me there to suffer and slowly die. Not even granting me a painless death.

After some time I felt everything going dark and again colorful. I saw my own dead body on the ground, I was confused about what was happening to me.

Then an old man with a white beard and a face full of wrinkles came out of the forest and looked at me warmly and said. 'Child, come with me if you want to see your parents someday.'

I had no idea what was happening so I followed him and the rest is history. He taught me about the ways of Yaksha and finally passed away in peace knowing that he had successfully passed on his duties.

That is my story. I am still looking for ways to find my parents, although I don't have any worldly feelings and desires anymore, I still want to see them for one last time."

Aariv was feeling bad for him. He was about to say something to ease the tense air, but Neer suddenly stopped.

"We've reached, 500 meters from here is the poacher's camp. They have been destroying my jungle and killing animals here for their pelt. I want you to deal with them," Neer said as he pointed in a direction.

"You are so strong. Why don't you do it yourself?" Aariv asked.

"I am a part of natural energy now, I can do harm them, but doing that will corrupt me and with time it will grow and turn me evil. This is how those evil Yakshas are formed." He explained to Aariv and then changed the topic.

"Umm... I saw you had big bags on your back, so you must be here to harvest something, right?" He made an obvious guess.

Aariv nodded and said, "Yes am looking for rubber trees."

Neer made a confused face: "What's a rubber tree?"

"Tree that secretes thick white liquid, I need that," he told Neer.

"Oh, I know where they are, but I don't recommend drinking it as it's poisonous," Neer said with a serious expression.

"What! no! am not gonna drink it, I need it to make something" Aariv refuted and started to walk.

"Okay, so I'll take care of those poachers and in return, you'll take me to the trees."

Neer nodded in agreement.

Aariv put the bags on the ground and headed in the direction Neer pointed. He unholstered his sword and held it with both hands. He moved slowly towards the target area. He told Juno to use Jojo for reconnaissance.

Juno looked at the camp from the air and reported the number of enemies to Aariv.

"Aariv, there are 15 men in total. 4 Archers are sitting on trees. 4 men are sleeping and the remaining 7 are skinning dead animals,"

"Only 15 people? That's going to be too easy." Aariv stopped being careful and came close to the camp's edge.

One of the archers noticed him but didn't bother notifying others as Aariv looked like a kid. He came down from the tree with a happy face. He was going to capture the foolish kid and sell him to a slave trader.

It was the rule of camp that whoever finds the treasure, keeps it, but still, sometimes they would fight over it, however, a slave was not worth fighting over.

~haha I hit the jackpot today~ he thought.

Aariv stood in his place and waited for the fool to come to him. He also holstered his sword to not make the guy alert.

"Boy, are you lost?" Archer said when he came close to Aariv.

They were standing face to face.

"Ye...Yes, mister, I was looking for my goat and got lost. Can you please help me?" Aariv said with an innocent voice.

"Haha sure, come with me... me and my friends are about to head to the city," the archer said with a grin.

Aariv then looked at his body from top to bottom, the man had a normal light brown skin and was wearing a wolve's headdress, "Oh my god, what a beautiful skin sir"

The archer felt proud hearing that, "You got good eyes kid, this is a wolf skin, I caught myself"

Suddenly Aariv's smile turned from innocent to evil, the surrounding air got cold as if nature knew what was about to happen.

"I think you got me wrong, I was talking about your beautiful light brown skin. It would be bad if someone were to scratch it and spoil its quality," Aariv said with a not so childish face.

The archer was taken back by the sudden change in little kid's attitude, he moved his hand to take out his hand, but before he could do anything he heard a whoosh sound.

He looked at At Aariv, who was smiling, then he noticed a big sword in his hands. Suddenly he started to feel weak in his legs and looked down.

He saw a lot of blood dripping down from his abdomen, finally realizing the situation, he screamed loudly in agony. He fell on the ground, trying to stop the blood but the wound was too big. Soon his intestines started to drop out.

He tried to pick them up and put them back in but his hands were shivering too much.

Aariv saw the scene his smiling face turned pale. He just wanted to kill the man and not put him in so much pain. He also didn't know that the intestines would come out. He felt like vomiting but controlled himself as he needed to put the man out of his misery first.

He came close to the body and slid his sword through his neck, granting him death.

Aariv turned around and vomited all the water he drank in the morning. He was scolding himself for trying to act cool and not acting serious. Killing sounded easy, but in reality, it was a bloody and gory thing to do.

These men chose to do this in order to survive but there were hundreds of other ways to survive and they still chose to hunt. They deserved punishment, even so, was killing them really the only choice?.

Since he found out that animals could speak, he hated the idea of killing them for their skin and other things. In his dictionary, anything that could speak was an intelligent life, so he wanted to stop the mindless hunt.

While Aariv was self-doubting, the other poachers had started to rush toward him after hearing the scream.

Aariv didn't want to kill them this time, so he decided to speak to them first.

When the 14 men came to Aariv's location they were surprised to see one of their men's body lying on the ground lifelessly. They didn't stop and rushed to Aariv's with their sword in hand.

"Stop!, I don't want to kill you all," Aariv yelled with a conflicted tone.

They all ignored Aariv's words and swung their swords at him. He used his sword to deflect the oncoming attacks, but one man got behind him and slashed, Aariv unconsciously swung his sword vertically downwards.

The man saw the attack and tried to block it.

[CLANK]

Aariv's attack was too strong. His sword cut the man's sword-like butter, however, it didn't stop there and split the man in half. The two halves of his body fell in different directions. Once more Aariv felt like vomiting when he the body.

~NO NO NO NO, I used too much strength, FU*K~

It seemed like time had come to a pause, all poachers looked at the half split body and then looked at the bloody figure of Aariv.

"RAKSHASAAAAAAAA(Demon)" They all shouted in unison and jumped at Aariv to kill him.

Aariv didn't want to use his sword again so he used Aerokinesis this time.

[Air blade] (name of the attack)

In an instant, all of the men except for one fell on the ground holding their necks.