“Mother! I didn’t know you were close,” Catherine said in a hurry, blushing and fighting to keep eye contact with her mother.

  “I was not close by, I saw both of you leaving the cabin and decided to follow from behind. I wanted to know what you were planning,” Edith corrected her, appearing to be looking for an explanation.

  She looked at both of them, and Alhen tried his damn hardest not to lose composure and calm himself down.

  ‘Very well, Alhen, it’s not like you were doing something bad, just explain the situation calmly, and nothing will happen.'

  'Looking at the bright side, now I can talk about the test right this instant.”

  Taking a deep breath, he firmly locked eyes with Edith, who looked amused at his attempts to appear more confident.

  He was going to speak, but Catherine intervened before he had the chance.

  “Mother, we simply wanted to look at the deer while you were out because we were waiting for you."

  "Alhen wanted to ask you about the test, he says that he is ready to start now,” she explained.

  Alhen was nervous when she began to speak, but as she finished, he couldn’t help but think she did a better job than he would have done if he had spoken.

  Now that his intentions were thrown into the air and the real reason for their departure was revealed, he hoped in his heart that his prayers would be answered and Edith would give him the chance as she had told him.

  “I see. I was going to talk about that as well, and there is one thing that I need an answer to before I allow you to take the test,” she said.

  Alhen’s heart skipped a beat, “What do you want me to answer?” he asked, hoping that it wouldn’t be anything too troublesome.

  “Are your intentions with my daughter good or bad? Are you going to harm her, or are you going to be a good thing in her life?” she asked, leaving him dumbfounded for a few seconds.

  First of all, he calmed his racing heart, thankful that the question had been that.

  Alhen never planned on betraying or hurting Catherine in the first place, although he didn’t trust her; she at least deserved that unless proven otherwise.

  One thing that he could be calm about was that he knew Catherine’s intentions.

  He knew that she only wanted to go outside the cabin and go into the kingdom to experience new things, and he knew that she “needed” him for that.

  “I never planned on betraying Catherine, nor have I ever thought about doing something bad to her. I promise not to harm or make her life worse,” he said with full conviction.

  It was such that even Edith was impressed, and she gave an amused hum in response to his answer. He saw her eyes wander and land on the number zero zero eight in his neck and down at his Luna Signum which was exposed.

  Alhen got nervous, but calmed soon after when Edith took her gaze off, appearing unbothered but slightly cautious.

  Catherine hid her face with her hand and curled herself into a ball. Alhen stood with his back straight, and no hint of deception crossed his face.

  “Very well,” Edith began, “I like your answer, but we all know that it takes more than words to show that you are trustworthy."

  "Despite you being a hollow creature, you can still think, and any creature that can think is dangerous.”

  Alhen frowned again. He didn’t particularly like being called a hollow creature, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  “Why do you call me hollow?” he asked, remembering that he had wanted to ask her that but didn’t get the chance.

  Edith smiled, “I do not know if you are good at playing dumb or you truly do not know, but I can sense that something deeper in you is missing."

  "You are almost identical to a human, but you are not. I still do not know what it is that you are missing, but it is not there.”

  He didn’t know what to think. Was he really missing something in him? He looked at his physical body and even tried sensing inside of him, but didn’t find anything strange.

  Not withstanding the curiosity anymore, he asked, “Is it something I should be concerned about?”

  “I would say so,” Edith replied, and Alhen’s heart dropped.

  “I can assure you that if you become whole again, you would not be the same; something will fundamentally change in you."

  "Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I do not know, but considering the risks, I would be worried if I were you.”

  He looked to the sky and into the distance, thinking about his life and wondering if it had anything to do with the fact that he came from another world in the first place.

  Catherine was looking at him from the side with a worried expression.

  She opened her mouth to talk, but couldn’t find the right words to say, so in the end, she said and did nothing.

  “Enough small talk, let’s talk about the real reason that I am here, your test. It is time to start, so follow me,” Edith said, and Alhen nodded.

  Catherine, however, pleaded with her mother to stay and watch the deer with them for a few more minutes.

  Alhen looked at her with wide eyes, appearing as if he was watching first-hand betrayal.

  ‘There’s no way, right?’ he asked himself and looked at Edith.

  He thought that she was going to refuse that request, but contrary to his expectations, she didn’t.

  Instead of doing that, she smiled at her daughter and stood beside her, watching the deer eating and mingling with the rest of the community.

  He was left with his mouth agape, wondering what was happening, and cursing in his thoughts.

  Ultimately, he accepted the situation and joined in on the side, enjoying the show.

  This didn’t last long, however, as Edith stood for a few minutes and looked at her daughter.

  “Catherine, go home. I want to hear no complaints from you; this is not negotiable,” she ordered.

  Catherine had no choice but to pout her lips and give Alhen one last look before she was on her way home.

  Alhen was going to wave his goodbyes, but she left before he could do so, and Edith ordered him to follow her.

  “We are going this way, stay close to me and do not lose me from your sight, I promise that it is going to be easier than you think,” she warned with such seriousness that Alhen believed it without a doubt.

  He began walking behind her and going through the white, beautiful forest, but there was something different going on after walking for a few hours.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  There was this thick fog that started to envelop them, just like what happened underwater when he followed Edith to that cave.

  Before, he could see Edith’s figure clearly even at a distance, but now he had to walk as close as possible to her back to not lose her from sight.

  The challenge was on, and he realized that the test had already started; if he managed to lose her, it could be an immediate disqualification.

  Alhen wasn’t taking any chances; he kept his eyes open and didn’t close them unless absolutely necessary.

  Even a blink could be the difference between passing and staying behind.

  He noticed that his glasses, however, began to turn foggy, and his visibility was dropping by the second.

  ‘This is not good! If my visibility drops, then I will undoubtedly lose her from sight; it would take me less than a second!’ He thought.

  His mind raced with the possibilities.

  They were not walking a straight path, going around trees and moving in zig-zag, and changing positions every moment that they walked.

  He didn’t know why, but his stamina was starting to drop quickly despite all his training with his mentor.

  ‘I don’t like this one bit, I will have to take these off,’ he thought before doing exactly that.

  Making sure not to take his eyes off Edith, he took off his glasses slowly, always trying to keep an eye on her disappearing back.

  The process was slow and required great effort on his part, because if he was not careful for even a second, then the test would be over, and he would be lost in this fog.

  Maybe he would not even be able to find his way back to the cabin, being devoured by whatever dangers were here.

  He shuddered just thinking about it, and resolved himself for what was to come.

  ‘I’m not stupid enough to think that it’s going to be this easy for much time; something will happen that will increase the difficulty, or at least that’s how I should be thinking, not to get surprised.’

  In a few more seconds, he was finally able to take off his glasses, and he made sure not to look into the sky even though the fog obstructed anything from coming into view.

  He didn’t know if even while not looking at the moon, but staring at it would turn him into a wiht, and he didn’t want to test that theory out.

  Placing his glasses in the pocket of his jacket, he continued following Edith.

  Everything was fine for a few seconds until he saw her jump forward and lost track of her.

  His heart skipped a beat, and he jumped forward like her, but because his body was smaller, he didn’t calculate correctly and tripped over a vine that got caught in his foot.

  If he was freaking out before, now he was almost having a full-on panic attack.

  Kicking at the vine, a few seconds passed before managing to untangle himself and follow after Edith.

  He frantically searched the area, even going where Edith had walked towards, but didn’t find her.

  He kept on walking with the hope that he would see her, but that didn’t happen; he was lost.

  The weight of failure came crashing down on him, and he stood still for a few seconds, panicking and seeing if he could orient himself.

  It was impossible in the fog, however, and he held himself back from cursing his luck.

  ‘Is this the end?’ he thought, thinking about his unfinished business in this world.

  He gritted his teeth before moving himself forward. The test hadn’t finished yet. What if some other means of passing it were not revealed?

  ‘I made a promise, so I can’t give up easily unless I want to be a disappointment in all of my life. Will I even have another chance to reincarnate in another world? I don’t know.’

  Passing through the trees, he relied on where he felt Edith had gone and followed that direction, but after a few minutes of wandering around without much success, he gave up on the approach.

  ‘This is wrong; there has to be a way to pass through this fog to reach Edith. She might have memorized the way, or she actually knows what to do to orient herself.’

  Stopping for a second, he began thinking, and that’s when he realized that he hadn’t used his blessing.

  It would have allowed him to see what Edith was going to do and follow her, but he had been distracted.

  He slapped himself in the cheek and activated his blessing without a second thought. The world became dark, and he could see the outline of the trees surrounding him.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, he began looking for traces of where Edith might have gone.

  ‘There’s no use in lamenting my carelessness right now. I have to find her before she gives up on me and considers that I have failed the test.

  He began moving through the forest, looking at the ground, the leaves, the shrubs, the dead branches on the floor, and any type of possible human footprints.

  After a few minutes of searching and wandering around with a cautious eye, he managed to find some footprints leading deeper into the forest.

  A smile made its way to his face as he began running after them.

  His smile dropped, however, when he sensed something dangerous nearby. His speed slowed down to a walk, and then to a full stop.

  He had almost forgotten that without Edith, that meant that any wiht in the vicinity would not be afraid to go after him.

  If they spotted him, that would spell out trouble. Looking around, he followed his danger sense and saw something that made his guard come up.

  There was a wiht in the distance resembling a spider being with a hanging corpse sticking out of it.

  Looking closely, he noticed that the corpse was actually a wiht, and its face was sticking out and looking around for something.

  Its movements were fast, and the legs looked sharper than steel, being hairy and thick.

  Without missing a beat, Alhen began getting the hell away from there.

  He followed the footprints with caution, always looking at the threat further away.

  ‘Crap! This is dangerous. If I hadn’t figured out that I could see with my blessing, maybe I would be walking straight into that thing.’

  ‘The problem is that I don’t have any of my thuls, and that looks way above my skill level.’

  ‘Can it also see in this fog? If it’s here, then it probably can, or maybe it uses other methods to find prey.’

  His heart jumped when he saw the creature getting closer and going straight towards him.

  The direction of the heads was not turned in his direction but if the thing kept walking forward, they would eventually notice him.

  Taking a deep breath, he began running as fast as he could without making any sounds.

  He had his eyes glued to the floor, looking at the footprints and avoiding any branches on his way, stepping on the hard grass.

  “Creek?” Alhen heard behind him, and that’s when he realized that he had been spotted.

  Without missing a beat, he ran with all his might, and he activated his sign, which had charged somewhat, but it was still almost depleted.

  “Tch!” Alhen clicked his tongue when realizing that he should have charged it beforehand.

  ‘There can be no regrets now; I have to complete this test if I ever want to have a chance against the father,’ he thought.

  With all his strength and will, he ran forward, knowing fully well that he didn’t have to reach Edith, but simply reach a certain point where her aura would scare off the wiht.

  ‘Now that I think about it, why don’t I feel her aura? Can only wihts feel it? I guess I will have to ask her when I see her again,’ he thought.

  He frowned once he realized that the wiht was faster than he realized, with the sounds of the legs getting closer and closer. It wasn’t the time to be distracted, and he knew that fully.

  Looking behind him for a second to get a good look at the wiht, he noticed details that he had missed before.

  The wiht was wounded, with blood slowly dripping down a big cut in its abdomen. Despite its injuries, however, it looked full of vitality.

  The other wiht he thought was a man was actually a woman; she had long dark hair flowing down her head and reaching halfway to the ground.

  He could only see a faint outline of her through his blessing, but he noticed that nothing covered her malnourished and sickly body, and her eyes locked on his.

  Her expression was empty, without emotion, like someone had traversed the deepest parts of hell and lost all of themself without mercy.

  Alhen got goosebumps and forgot about the big spider for a second, but his legs didn’t stop moving, running as fast as he could.

  Just as he thought, the wiht didn’t take long to reach his location and shot a pile of green liquid at him.

  Seeing this with his blessing, he didn’t take long to dodge out of the way by rolling to the side.

  The problem now was that after standing back up, his speed had turned down a lot, and now he couldn’t escape, being caught in a deadly stance with the spider.

  “Tch!” Alhen clicked his tongue.

  The footprints continued where the spider was blocking him, and he would have to get across it to not get killed.

  Without missing a beat, the spider got on four of its legs and stood to its full height.

  Alhen watched the process with a careful eye, noticing that blood was starting to drip from them.

  The spider made some disgusting sounds before its legs elongated beyond their usual range at fast speeds, heading straight for him.

  Despite being able to see the attacks five seconds before they happened, he wasn’t able to dodge all of them.

  It felt as if the legs were faster than bullets. He managed to dodge the first one and barely managed to get away alive from the second one.

  At the fourth one, however, it pierced the side of his stomach.

  “Gah!” Alhen screamed.

  “Squish!” Blood came out heavily, and he gritted his bleeding teeth.

  The with retreated the tip from his stomach, and he held the injury with his only arm.

  ‘This is bad, really bad! If I don’t do anything, I will die from blood loss!’ Alhen exclaimed in his mind.

  He then opened his eyes widely; in his five-second foresight, he could see his own death. His hair stood on end, but something happened that left him stunned.

  The wiht retracted its appendages back and stood still, not moving for some reason.

  Alhen didn’t know what was happening until he saw the spider slightly trembling.

  Even the woman wiht who stared at him without any emotion for the first time showed fear.

  She raised her head to the sky and screamed without stopping. A howl of pain was the only way he could describe it. She didn’t stop, she couldn’t, and the spider ran off.

  He breathed heavily, knowing fully well that Edith had saved him; he just had to find where she was and maybe get treated.

  Standing still, he looked around him with his hand on his injury.

  It was big, big enough that he couldn’t stop huge amounts of blood from leaking at a time.

  The only thing he could see was a blurry figure of someone in the distance.

  He walked towards it, reaching his hand out and about to call for whoever was staring at him.

  His vision, however, darkened and began fade before his body collapsed on the ground, and he lost consciousness.