CHAPTER 2 – BEAST FOREST

Within an hour of leaving the walls of the capital, the young princess Ayra had already grown bored of the endless fields with hard-working farmers, tending to their crop and had long run out of topics to talk about with her brother. So, when they reach the cabin by the entrance to Beast Forest, she could not wait to enter it.

With a hapless sigh, the young king Claude held on tightly to his sister in case she fell. He had no idea who she took after, their late parents were the calmest and most patient people he had ever seen, and as their firstborn, he also took after that. But it would seem that all the calm genes from the family had been used up by him, and his little sister while still young, was a complete tomboy with no patience at all.

Seeing that the princess wanted to get down, Erika hopped down from her horse, giving the reins to one of the royal knights and headed towards the princess to help her down. Immediately after getting off Lady Noir, Ayra patted her and thanked her for bringing them here.

“Ayra, we will take a short rest here then head into the forest by foot. Alec will stay back at the cabin to look after the horses. Erika and Gil will both be carrying our equipment, so, no one will carry you if you get tired later.”

“What about you brother can’t you carry me?”

Trying to act as cute as possible Ayra tried to persuade her brother to carry her later when she became tired. But sadly, it was all in vain as her brother just playfully messed up her silver hair and declined.

After their short rest, they began to head into Beast Forest, that was a known habitat for rare magical beasts. Like monsters they had magical cores or crystals inside them, but unlike monsters they were often not as aggressive and some were even kept as pets by nobles.

This time, Claude had brought Ayra to Beast Forest to see if there were any suitable beast that could become his sister's companion beast. While it was extremely rare for humans to possess the ability to contract beast, their mother, the late queen who was also a priestess of Karla, patron of their kingdom of Kar, had confirmed that Ayra had extremely high aptitude in magic relating to their patron. However, strangely enough, while Ayra could perform the contract magic perfectly she has never been able to successfully contract any of the beasts that had been brought, before her. Having tried countless times, Claude still believed that his mother was not wrong in her judgement. So, he had the idea to bring her on trips to the Beast Forest, in hopes that she will meet a beast that she would be capable of contracting.

Suddenly, Claude who had been leading the way stopped, causing Ayra who was walking close behind him to walk right into his back. Ayra questioned why he suddenly stopped, but was cut off by her brother. Feeling wronged she was about to ignore her brother, however, he quickly explained himself, in case his sister started to hate him.

After having walked into the forest for hours, he found it strange that they had not encountered a single beast or animal. The forest was also strangely quiet as if it was holding its breath, there wasn’t even a slight rustle in the trees. Which was different from how the forest was in the past, where they would be able to find at least a few beasts going about their own business.

See that her brother was not intentionally being mean to her, she offered her ideas on why they haven’t seen any beasts or animals.

“Maybe they are all hiding at home because it’s going to start raining soon.”

“Ayra you’re joking right, it’s been sunny all day. I take that back. We better find shelter quickly.”

Knowing his sister and her uncanny ability to always forecast stage weather patterns, he decided to seek out shelter and avoid the rain.

“Gil your familiar with Beast Forest where is the nearest shelter?”

Dutifully Gil informed him of a nearby cave that was also the home of a lone Sky Wolf. Which was known for their ability to run into the sky as though they were run on land. They generally lived in large packs of around 50 wolves. To find a lone wolf was extremely rare.

Thinking that they would be able to complete two objectives at once, he couldn’t help but praise Gil for his attention to detail and great memory and had him lead the way.