Bhadur stopped at the edge of the clearing and looked around to find the raven; he was disappointed when she didn’t come to meet him.

Mannat could feel the Witch around. His senses hadn’t suddenly grown sharper, she was deliberately letting him know she was home. He could only sense her because he had made progress in the skill; he wouldn’t have noticed her otherwise.

On the other hand, his ‘inspect’ was just about to level up and reach the maximum level, which meant another skill slot and a shot to evolve ‘Inspect’. He might have an empty skill slot from when his intelligence reached twenty points, but he was keeping that one to evolve ‘mana sense’. He could do the opposite, but the latter skill was countless times more important for his quest to save his mother. He didn’t want to risk needing to waste months again for more empty skill slots.

Mannat was the first to jump off the cart; the clearing was like a second home to him, but the others had some hesitations and nervousness toward it. His father jumped right after him, but Pandit had grown pale in the face. Little brother’s morbid situation was only a part of the reason behind his stress; his convoluted feelings had a lot to do with the place itself.  

Khargosh got down next. Perked ears and wide-eyed, he stared at the hut in anger. He was tightly clenching his fists, worried or angry Mannat couldn’t distinguish from his face; the man could hide his emotions like a tortoise hides his head. He shook Pandit and pulled him off the cart.

Gande remained on the cart, tightly holding Little butcher in her arms. The boy was yet to wake up from his coma. His body was stiff as a corpse, while his face had grown paler to the color of bones.
Mannat would have a hard time believing the boy was alive if he couldn’t sense the cold, and viperous miasma around Little Butcher.

“Honey,” Khargosh called, showing a hint of his old playful self that had gotten lost in time. “We are here,” He ignored the surprised glances he received from Mannat and raised a hand for his wife to take.
 
Gande hurriedly looked around at the familiarly unfamiliar cloudy sky and the ring of trees. There was a faint smell of flowers in the air and a visually spectacular road between two impressively green gardens. The road ended in front of a small, wilderness-eaten hut that looked like a figment of imagination brought out into reality.

The cart buckled when Gande stood up, from her hands to her knees and feet. She picked up a little butcher as Khargosh advised, “Don’t be hasty. Let’s talk to the Witch first and hear her demands.”

“NO,” Gande said with the authority reserved by a wild tigress. She picked up her son and tightly held him in her arms. She could lift a boar to a table four feet high; the boy was not even a third of its weight.

“Let me help you,” Khargosh offered and was denied.
“I can carry my boy.” She was reluctant to let go of her son as if Little butcher would disappear into the woods if she did.
Pandit numbly watched them. He looked tired… hesitant… wondering what he was doing there.

Raesh placed a hand on Mannat’s shoulder and asked him, “Where is the Witch?” He looked into the fields to hint that he remembered every tale Mannat had told him and that he cared. The gesture was warmer than the mana that flowed from Mannat stomach after eating a vegetable.

Suddenly Pandit grew vigilant. “She’s here,” He said and drew toward the back of the cart.

For a moment, Mannat thought his friend could also sense the Witch, then he saw her standing in front of the hut. She was smiling. Whether by nature or by design he couldn’t say. She was holding her staff. A glance told Mannat she hadn’t opened the underground chamber in his absence. The soil wasn’t upturned, as it would have been otherwise. 

Gande was the first to set off. Everyone else followed behind her. They walked through the narrow road between the gardens, but the witch didn’t let them set foot out of the garden and spoke in her shrill, accented voice.

“Do you remembered what I told you half a decade ago when you brought the boy to me on that night?”
“You said he’ll be different. He won’t be himself, but he’ll live!” Gande gnashed her teeth and raised her child so the Witch could see clearly. “Do you dare call this living? I wanted him to enjoy his life, not rot in the darkness!”

The Witch let out a snort. “--And he’s alive.” Then she glanced at Mannat and smirked. “What made you think someone who came back from the dead would be the same afterward?”

Goosebumps erupted on Mannat’s arms.

No wonder Little Butcher was holding so much hate and miasma inside him! No wonder he never stepped a foot into the sunlight. No wonder he was aggressive and inhumane. He wasn’t changing and becoming a monster! He had always been one since the incident!”

A bolt of lightning bathed their surrounding in a purple haze before returning it back to normal, and then the thunder crackled. Its sound ripped through the air and agitated the miasma leaking out of Little Butcher.

“I want my boy back!” Gande ordered, unaware of the changes happening to the boy in her arms.
“He is indeed your son in flesh and blood.” The witch said, looking at the two. “But flesh dies,”

The Witch had just finished her words when Little butcher, who had been in a trance for more than an hour, woke up and started struggling to free himself.
Gande tightly clutched Little Butcher to her chest, but the boy struggled fiercely, causing her to buckle. She fell to her knees and banged them harshly against the ground. She groaned in pain as the boy tied in ropes fell out of her grasp. Little Butcher wiggled away from her. He was a slippery rascal for someone bound worse than a shackled prisoner.  

Khargosh went to help her, while Raesh went to grab Little butcher, but it was already too late. The boy screamed and the ropes broke one by one. He stood up his all fours limbs like a wild animal and glared murderously at his parents and the others. He growled in a rasping voice that was loud enough to wake the birds sleeping in the trees. Some birds even took flight and disappeared into the woods.

 Pandit fell to the ground in a daze, and the cleaver in his hand fell right next to him. Gande clung to Khargosh’s arm, while Mannat noticed the changes happening to Little Butcher on the macro level. The miasma had stopped leaking from his body.

The boy seemed to have ideas. He looked ready to pounce at them, but noticed the Witch and ran away into the woods under everyone’s watch.

Gande was the first one to get a hold of herself.
“What are you doing? Go after him!” She barked at Khargosh and tried to stand up. She had also twisted her ankle and could only helplessly fall back to the ground, but she didn’t stop screaming at them to go after the boy.

Khargosh looked between her, the woods, and then back at the others. Everyone was looking at him. He was the hunter. He knew best how the forest behaved in the evening. They didn’t have their weapons, and neither were they prepared to go into the woods with the night approaching in a few hours. He nodded to Pandit who though scared and shaking, quickly got on his feet.

“We’ll help,” Raesh said, including Mannat, for which the boy was glad. He wasn’t worried about Mannat’s safety; the boy was not helpless. He had seen the force behind Mannat’s invisible attack. He was actually afraid that Mannat might accidentally kill the boy instead.

“Let’s go,” Khargosh said and all four of them, excluding Gande, chased after Little butcher into the woods.

Khargosh took the lead.
Mannat hadn’t seen him take lead while hunting, but that was because Khargosh was a much better marksman than a guide. However, the marks left by Little butcher were so bold and loud that even Mannat could easily distinguish them in the shadow governed forest.

It was obvious to see that Little Butcher hadn’t cared much for stealth. He had a destination in mind, and he was going for it without stopping or caring about someone following him. The trail of broken ferns and bushes, large and impeding footsteps that he left in his wake led his four, worried pursuers straight toward him.  

The only problem was that the sky was cloudy and the sun was slowly setting behind them. It wasn’t easy for them to find the traces in the dark and time was slipping. They were starting to get agitated. Pandit had it worse because he looked up to his brother.  He would look around every time there was a noise. They were not only fighting against time but also against the forest and the things it hid between its innumerable branches and deeply layered ground. 

That’s where Mannat shone. He could not ‘sense’ Little Butcher because the skill's range was dependant on his intelligence, but the traces of miasma left by the boy spoke louder to him. They were dispersing over time, but not fast enough to evade Mannat’s senses.

Not only did the terrain proved difficult to traverse in the dark forest, but wild animals also harassed them. A boar over four feet tall and wide as a tree chased them through the woods. Mannat sensed him coming, but they had to fight it, which wasted some of their time. The hunters would have happily hunted it on any other day; it was the boar’s luck that it met them on that evening.

They only had Pandit’s cleaver as a weapon. Raesh took it and rushed off to fight the animal. He didn’t have to kill the mean thing but scare it away so it would stop stalking them. Which it did. The boar understood that he was butting his head against an iron plate and decided to run away. Khargosh might not have his bow, but he was ready with a vine rope in case the animal kept after them. He wouldn’t have minded setting a trap for the animal, tying it to a tree, and letting it cry all night.

However, their maneuvers and slow vigilant pursuing ate into their time, and time was the only commodity they lacked. Shadows were eating the floor and making everything indistinguishable from one another. They could barely distinguish the trees from each other. They had already lost sight of the trail, and unfortunately, because of high mana in the air, the traces of miasma that Little butcher had left in his wake had also dissolved into nothingness, leaving Mannat helpless and frustrated.  

However, the four didn’t stop. There had worries, but no one laid them out. Raesh noticed them speeding up. It seemed the hunters no longer needed to see the trail to lead the way.
 
“Where are we going?” Mannat asked curiously. He might be a novice at hunting, but his friend wasn’t.

Pandit had taken the exact same route every day and could tell the number of trees there were on the way. He knew exactly where they were going, and he told them gravely, “…To the cave.”