Honestly, it was a struggle to stay awake. It really was. I even resorted to biting the side of my mouth to keep from succumbing to exhaustion. It was painful, yet the only solution I could come up with, when I was otherwise unable to move under a blanket of moss. 

It didn’t work, though.

At least that’s what I figured when I was suddenly awakened by a growl that resonated in my bones. I have to say it’s not a nice wake-up call, especially when you don’t realize what beast it belongs to. I nearly pissed myself, terrified that a wild animal was attacking me.

Foolish, I know. However, my brain upon waking has always been sluggish.

Well, Esu spoke, I realized after a while.

“Cub, come,” he grunted after he woke me up.

I have to admit, I didn’t want to. I would have preferred to stay lying down as my body was still overwhelmed with exhaustion and close my heavy eyes. The brief nap was worse than the hellish training. Did I have a choice, though? 

Quickly checking my body, I made sure the moss had stopped healing me, and I was fine. Then I pushed myself off the ground while yawning and walked towards Esu, only to pause after two steps. He wasn’t standing there alone but surrounded by six mother mossbears. 

There were many more on the edge of the clearing tonight, I was sure of that, yet even though I rubbed my eyes, I saw no sign of them when I looked around. The most likely explanation I could come up with was that they returned to the woods during my training with the young mossbear. Strangely, it made me much more nervous now that there were only half a dozen of them.

Gathering my courage, I once again set forth with each step, realizing more and more that these six beasts were closer to the Esu’s level than the others. They too, were old enough for me to call them ancient like King of the Woods.

“Nearer,” he growled as I stopped at what I considered a respectful distance, one where I didn’t have to tilt my head that much as I looked up at him. Yet, at his urging, I halved the distance, not daring to object. The grumbling of the mothers that followed made me uneasy even though they were assuring me I was in no danger. Surprisingly, they also considered me their cub, or rather part of their family. 

Esu’s growl drowned them out, though. “Cub. You young, weak. Needs grow. No ties to woods, tho.”

He said nothing I didn’t know. If I wanted to survive in the world, I needed to get stronger, much stronger. That’s why the hellish training he put me through. The fact that I had no connection to Esulmor Woods wasn’t news either. After all, today was the first time I heard of this place. What I couldn’t tell was where he was going with it. 

So I just grunted in acknowledgment of his growl.

“Cub, human too. Less dangerous. Grow stronger, outside. Gift Bearer teach,” Esu growled, telling me I should get stronger outside these woods, to go back to the other humans, where I should let Deckard teach me. I didn’t expect something like this from the beast, but he wasn’t stupid.

He’s the one who showed me what I am after all. And since I was part human too, the world outside the woods was less dangerous to me than to the other mossbear cubs, at least in his eyes. I...I wasn’t so sure. Yeah, mossbears were hunted by the Imperial army as soon as they left Esulmor Woods. Needless to say, I was no better for it. I was hunted by anyone who was tempted by the bounty on my head.

Still, I didn’t feel like refuting him as I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life as a beast in the woods either.

“My cub, my responsibility,” he growled firmly, and the mothers grunted in agreement. “Blue moon full, you here, train.”

I think I blanked out for a second, but it was no surprise. If I understood him correctly, he wanted me to come here and train every time there was a full blue moon. It turned out that the assumption I would be done with that hellish training by tonight was wrong. And just because he felt responsible for me. Respectable attitude as a father, but...

How often is a full blue moon?

I dared to glance back at my self-propose future trainer, who stood a little further away. “Deckard, I’m fucked!”

“Yeah, you don’t have to tell me that. What now?” he remarked, as if it was an obvious thing and asked what happened while eyeing the beasts before whom I stood.

“Esu wants me to train here every full blue moon,” I said through the link of the union rings, struggling to keep my voice calm. “How bloody often is that?”

I guess it was too much to hope it would happen once every hundred years. With my luck, though. I was dreading it would be every week. 

“Once a month,” Deckard said, and this time there was no amusement in his voice. He was as taken aback by what he heard as I was. 

Truth be told, once a month didn’t sound so bad, but I had another thought when I looked up at the sky. “When is the next full moon?”

It might as well have been tomorrow because it seemed to me that both moons in the sky were shining in full force, no shadow on them.

At my question, Deckard also looked up. “I’d say in about a week. The question is, what will make you come back here.”

He was absolutely right. What could make me come back to Esulmor Woods if I chose not to. There was no geas on me, no magic to make me do it. Relieved, I mentally thanked Deckard.

“Don’t get me wrong, though. It’s an opportunity you may not get again,” he added, and I took my thanks back. For wanting to torture me more too, I gave him an irritated look. However, before I could formulate a snide response in my head, one of the mothers growled to get my attention.

“I apologize.Great Esu,” I whined immediately. “Great Mothers.”

“Cubs distracted easily,” the King of the Woods hummed in amusement. “No patience.”

To which the mothers grunted in agreement. 

I found it quite embarrassing. Even though it may not have seemed like it at times, I was a grown woman. Independent, responsible, old enough to have a bunch of kids. Yet everyone here treated me like a little girl, even Deckard. The worst part was that I couldn’t object. Or rather, I didn’t dare.

So I just lowered my head even lower, thinking they were the ones who were too...slow in their conversations.

“Strength, same,” Esu growled, telling me not even power would come right away, that it took time and patience the cubs didn’t have. “Train.”

Well, and that I have to train a lot to gain strength. Obviously.

Sighing inwardly, I felt guilty as Esu tried to help me here, and in return, I thought about how once I left the Esulmor Woods, I wouldn’t be coming back. Those were my thoughts until now. The guilt, however, made me rethink my attitude towards this hellish training. Yeah, it was bloody painful but will the training under Deckard be any different? I wasn’t sure about that. So...

“Deckard, if you teach me, will it involve fighting beasts?” I asked to rid myself of doubts, trying to keep my attention on Esu and the mothers this time so as not to offend them.

“What kind of training would that be if not,” Deckard wondered at my question. “What the hell did he say to you this time?”

“It wasn’t Esu. I’m just asking...” I said, not wanting to explain more and hoping Deckard would understand as my mind went back to tackling the training issue. It was logical that whatever I learn somewhere in the safety of the training grounds, I must also put into practice later. And facing weak opponents wouldn’t teach me anything. So it was fairly safe to assume that I would end up facing someone or something much stronger than me anyway. It was no wonder then that Deckard, who could be considered a monster with his level, kept reminding me that this was a great opportunity.

Well, the truth was that despite the fights being short, the gain in skill levels was astonishing, even for how low level the skills were. There was no denying that. The price for that was a helluva lot of pain, though.

Was I willing to pay more for the strength?

Before I could find the answer to that question, the rustling of the canopy of the massive antlers above me caught my attention. It was Esu who looked up at the starry night sky and grunted a bit regretfully. “Cycle passes, prove strength, must. Too weak, belong to woods, you will.”

“S...so I...I have to win?” I dare to ask, stammering in a grunt and panic, after learning that I had to win a fight in a year or I would become fertilizer for the forest. At least that’s how I interpreted it. Immediately horrible images of my end formed in my mind, and so, heedless of respect, I had to ask. “Who w...will I challenge?”

“Young one,” He replied, and some weight was lifted from my shoulders when I learned I didn’t have to fight an adult, like Shadowbreakers. That would surely be a death sentence for me.

Still, I was fucked. Really fucked this time.

I just couldn’t imagine myself gaining over two hundred levels in a year to match these beasts. After all, it took me just as long to get to level 92. Was it a fast leveling speed? I had no idea. It seemed slow to me, but I could only compare it to games where my current level could be reached in less than a day. This was the real world, though. In it, it took the librarian and most people in the city a lifetime.

Rocking my brain on how I was going to accomplish that to avoid a very unpleasant death, I didn’t even realize I whimpered and started to tremble, something the others didn’t miss.

“No panic, cub,” a murmur resonated in my ears, and I paused. This one was different. It didn’t belong to Esu, I was sure. Bewildered, I looked around, and my gaze fell on the mother mossbear standing at the right side of the King of the Woods. “You live, belong to woods,” she told me, trying to set my thoughts straight.

I stared at her open-mouthed for a moment because this was the first time I’d ever heard one of them explicitly speak. So far, it’s just been growls with a meaning behind them. This my beast brain translated as actual words. It shocked me. Honestly, I got the impression that they weren’t capable of it.

That’s why it took me a while to realize what she was telling me. She attempted to reassure me and explain that I was worried for nothing as Esu would not make me fertilizer for the forest. Not her exact words, but the meaning the same. Perhaps for the first time, I misinterpreted the meaning behind his words. Or rather, I didn’t even understand them the first time. That I will belong to the woods didn’t mean I would become a part of it, decomposed by man-eating moss, but that my fate will be in the hands of the forest and Esu will no longer be involved in it.

It basically meant that in a year’s time, I would have to fight another battle where I would have to prove myself worthy of being his cub, or he would renounce me, abandon me. Never in my life did I think something like this would make me sad, but when it all dawned on me, my eyes watered.

“Girl, talk to me. What’s going on?” Deckard’s voice unexpectedly echoed in my head. “First, you tremble like a leaf in the wind, then you freeze like a frightened doe, and now it looks like you’re going to cry.”

Yeah, when he said it like that, it sounded like I was suffering from some serious mood swings. The fact that my body language was even more expressive now didn’t help either.

Wiping my eyes, I manned up and told him what had happened, what Esu wanted me to do, what losing meant to me.

“A rather tight deadline, no pun intended,” he remarked after listening to me. Despite what I told him, he sounded unconcerned, I’d say a bit thoughtful.

“Is that even possible? To get stronger like that in a year?” I blurted out. But it was a question I was going to ask anyway.

Deckard didn’t answer me right away, and since my domain didn’t reach that far even with the second tier up, I did not know why. He probably thought I was crazy if I wanted to pull something like that off.

“Yes, it is. It’s possible,” he said. I felt a but, though. “It’s going to take some serious dedication from you.”

That was it? I expected something worse, more difficult. “So I can reach three hundred?”

“What?” he paused at my question, thus curbing my enthusiasm. “What I’m saying is that it’s possible for you to beat such a beast in a year.”

“Oh...” I gasped, realizing that class levels weren’t everything.

“Seriously, girl. Do you just find leveling so easy?” he asked incredulously, most likely referring to my gaining three levels today.

“I don’t know. I reached where I am now in a year and a bit,” I said with a mental shrug.

This time I heard him laugh out loud before he spoke through the link. “You must have been really devoted [Slave] to your master.”

“Take that back!” I dared to shout at him and was having serious trouble holding myself back from turning around and growling at him. I let him call me a girl even though I found it unflattering. But this was simply too much. He had no idea what I’d been through there.

“Look, girl,” he sighed mentally. “What I meant is that for someone to level this fast, they have to find themself in the right circumstances to do so.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, still pissed off at him, aware that he hadn’t taken back his words or apologized.

“I got my first evolution at twenty-one. I’m not saying I worked my ass off, but I didn’t slack off either,” he said and blew my mind because if he got his class at 16 like everyone else on Eleaden, it took him five years. It made me wonder if there was something wrong with me or if I really was as good a slave as he said.

Seeing my reaction, Deckard went on to explain. “As a [fighter], I would have to find myself in a place where I could constantly push my limits in a fight and not have to worry about anything else like my health.”

It dawned on me that I had found myself in such a place when I showed up here on Eleaden. Not that I chose my class, but the basement was the perfect place to level it. Dungreen often told me how pleased he was with me. Simply because my body took the essence of the beasts much better than the others and the resulting mutations were less unsightly. He was thrilled. I was basically fulfilling his dreams without wanting to.

Further contemplation of my leveling speed had to wait as the ancient beasts I stood before growled, telling me to stand still. 

“A gift. Touch needed,” Esu surprised me with his words when he told me he had a gift for me. I imagined I’d have to touch his snout or something, but when I looked up and saw the tree falling on me, I almost took a step back and yelped. Glad I didn’t, though. It wasn’t a tree but antlers coming down on me as Esu lowered his head. My human instincts were screaming at me to run or duck from the approaching antlers. On the contrary my bestial ones that everything is fine and I have nothing to worry about. Only when I realized what Esu was up to did I straighten up.

The fear that my tiny antlers must break on contact with his massive antlers turned out to be unnecessary. Rather, I felt like they must explode under the amount of energy that started to flow through them into my body. It wasn’t the mana of the healers just scanning my body, but rather I would liken it to the rotting magic used on my heart by the assassin Roe. It was very intrusive, and I subconsciously tried to fight back with my mana, a wasted effort. I wasn’t at full strength, and his mana was overwhelming. Quite different from mine. If I had to describe them, mine was thin as fog, but his was thick as maple syrup.

I know, stupid analogy, but it was the best I could come up with right now as Esu’s mana made me feel hot and my antlers even hotter. They actually glowed.

Then some of the moss on his antlers seemed to come to life. It moved, and it moved to my antlers, to my head, where it took root. Or so it seemed to me.

With that, Esu’s mana faded from my body. He slowly raised his head and hummed. “A gift.”

Well, what a gift it was, a moss. Now I looked like I hadn’t washed in so long that it was starting to grow in my hair. Yet my displeasure at the gift was tempered by a single white flower blooming in it like hundreds of them on Esu’s antlers. I liked it a lot.

Despite how I felt about it, I wasn’t stupid. I was aware that it was no ordinary forest moss, that it was in fact, a very precious gift.