The hunting party continued their trek with an agitated state of mind.
There originally wasn't enough much wild game to hunt, and now they weren't in their right state of mind and were in no mood to hunt, so they weren't able to catch much.
"Hack, hack!" a member of the party entered an uncontrollable fit of coughing, causing the entire group to stop and glance back.
"I just felt an itch in my throat, I'm not sick!" the man hurriedly explained, while trying to look calm, but he was already subconsciously backing off.
"Pull up your shirt and let us see your skin" Gran ordered. In fact, ihe was also feeling an itch in his throat and a bit of fatigue but he decided to ignore it.
The mans expression froze, but he still lifted his shirt up, only to find that small dark spots underneath his skin.
His face warped into a grim expression. And his breathing became hurried.
"Stan..." Gran muttered the man's name, as he began stepping back slowly. Hand in the hilt of his sword.
"You seem to be the only one that's been cursed, for the sake of the others, please leave the party"
"I'm a part of this party. You can't abandon me." Stan was desperate, his body trembling. But underneath it was a growing anger.
"Stan!" Gran shouted loudly to catch his attention, and spoke with a solemn expression:
"Listen to me, for the sake of the village, you have to leave...or I shall make you leave."
"We will continue onward to Tucker ridge, you can return to the river, where we originally cast the net. There should be quite a few that should have been caught in it already, you can have your fill after which you can slit your wrists."
Gran held his breath, removed the hand on the sword and began walking away. The others followed him they're eyes still on Stan.
Stan's lips trembled, like he wanted to speak but said nothing in the end and turned to run away. They kept their gaze on him till he didsapeared.
Only after they were sure did Gran turn and look at his other sorrowful comrades, speaking in a soft voice: "Let's go, we're heading to Tucker ridge"
Ishar was standing under the shade of a faraway tree, observing the little incident. A smile plastered on his face.
Gran thought only Stan amongst them was cursed. In actuality all of them had already been cursed.
Stan showed signs earlier than the rest because of his relatively weaker constitution when compared to the others.
Ishar looked at the hunting party resuming their journey, calculated his consumption of white mist and formed a plan.
Their journey was heavy and tiring, Gran was in a dejected mood. What started out as a party of 6.
Was now a party of 2. Himself and a complete newbie.And they still had nothing to show for it.
Strigoi kept suggesting they return to the village. But Gran ignored him. Deep in his heart he knew that they weren't going to make it out of this forest.
Even at this point, Strigoi had not shown any signs of being cursed. He didn't even cough.
That was because, Ishar intended to leave the young man alive, a young man like that would be easier to manipulate.
The party of 2 stopped at a shade to rest. Strigoi awkwardly walked away and sat down a bit further from Gran.
Gran looked at the slowly setting sun. He was sure that his life was also setting just like it, but unlike the sun, he would not be able to rise again.
Caw caw caw
Hearing the cawing of crows nearby, Gran smiled and stood up with determination.
"I knew you damned creatures would follow us!" nocked an arrow, drew his bow and shot.
But, because the shot was too hasty, the mutated crows easily avoided it.
"A last-ditch struggle huh?" Ishar noted. He was impressed by Grans actions. Under normal circumstances he would try to subjugate Gran.
But all the current him had to give was death.
If he waited a day or 2 Gran would be dead. From the curse. But it was better to let the crows kill him.
In order to create a vivid picture that would be deeply rooted in the mind of the young man, Strigoi.
The crows would become his representative and make the domination of the rest more convenient.
"Why do I have this feeling, like something has gone wrong?" while watching Gran's futile struggle, Ishar suddenly frowned.
He looked around.
"Wait, where is Strigoi?"
In his observing Gran he had become so wholly involved that he did not notice that the young man had didsapeared from his resting spot.
He hurriedly checked the crows' situation and noticed that Gran was firing arrows with the purpose of luring the crows closer to the waterfall.
"I've been played!" Ishar quickly ordered the crows to scatter but was still too late. Strigoi had already jumped down from the waterfall with a net in his hand.
He looked a bit scared but determined to prove his worth.
He spread the net open and captured all of the crows. The legend's had it that Pilgrim used the eyes of his crows to follow the people he cursed.
They only way to stop him was to kill these followers of Pilgrim, because the more you went about with the crows watching you the people you interacted with would also be cursed.
In order to return to the village. Gran secretly devised this plan. Right from after noticing the crows feather next to the first corpse.
He had begun to think of a plan. And when he noticed that only Strigoi remained un-cursed.
He came to the conclusion that Pilgrim wasn't paying attention to Strigoi and was keeping him for last.
Once Ishar realized this he couldn't help but feel anger first at the audacity of this mortal.
His anger was overcome by a deep sense of shame at the humiliation of being tricked by his own prey he made to go intervene then stopped to think.
Every predator knew not to underestimate their prey. No matter how weak or small they were.
Because when pushed to the wall. Before you is death and behind you is death. 90% of prey would not cower and submit.
Rather they would push back. And nothing was more dangerous than an injured and rabid animal.
Gran had thought Ishar his second lesson in this new world. The first being from the system.
Never underestimate anyone till you stood over their lifeless and rotting corpse. And was sure without a doubt. They were dead.
It is ironic that In life, death is the only Truth.
The crows were cleanly caught within the fishing net, and despite Gran losing his strength, he still had the most basic ability to hit stationary targets.
The first arrow hit and Wang Yuan immediately sensed the consciousness of one crow weakening.
He could feel it's pain as if he was the one that the arrow pierced. It seemed that was the price to pay for having the crows.
He began to feel fear. Would he die if your crows did?
Again he didn't have a lot of white mist left, he had used it wantoly even if he could absorb quite a bit of white mist from killing Gran.
Losing the crows here would be a tremendous setback, without their help, it was likely he would consume all of his white mist before he reached the human settlement!
"Damn it! I was too careless." Ishar could sense the crows' consciousness fading one by one as he made a mad dash towards Gran and Strigoi.