Diven woke up hungry and tired. His body was still sore from the previous day.
Not wasting time, he rekindled his fire and ate what was left of the last fish he had.
His lack of preparation was starting to hurt him. Three days in and he was already out of food.
In hindsight, maybe he should have eaten the wolf.
It was too late for regrets. At least he was close to the river so he should be able to fish.
His stomach barely filled, he made his way to the river with his spear. It was how his uncle did it and while he hadn’t managed to catch a single fish yet, he was determined to make it work.
Since it was right after rapids, the current was high. He wondered if it would be easier if he moved downstream for a few minutes.
A glance at the water convinced him of the idea. The turbulent, choppy water made visibility poor. He could not see through it.
He walked along the shore until the water was relatively transparent again. It wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t have all day.
He spotted a few rocks further out in the river. Stepping into the cold water, he made his way there, figuring it would be a good place to strike from.
Crouching on his rock, spear in hand ready to strike, Diven waited.
Not a single fish in sight.
He waited.
And waited.
Nothing.
Just as Diven was starting to lose hope, he spotted a shadow drifting underwater.
A fish! And it was getting closer.
Sweat rolling down his neck, Diven kept his eyes locked on his target as it slowly swam around the rock.
When it was in range, he plunged his spear into the river and…
He missed.
The fish darted away, very aware of the predator that just tried to catch it.
“Ah! No! What did I do wrong?” Diven cursed.
It looked so easy when Uncle Basil was doing it from the boat. All it took was a casual flick of his spear and dinner was hanging on its tip.
“Maybe he has a skill for fishing?” he mused.
It was a possibility.
With how well he was doing it, he was almost sure his uncle had a fishing facet in his list. Either he had already taken it, or he had earned a fishing skill unrelated to a facet.
Earning a skill outside of facet selection was difficult, but it was definitely possible. In fact, most youngsters of the noble clans of Kheiron ended up picking up a few as part of their education.
For example, since Zoe was studying Sky Magic, she would probably gain a skill related to mana manipulation. Through sheer force of repetition if anything.
Still, all of this didn’t help Diven with his food problem. Time flowed fast and his stomach was already grumbling.
Getting a fishing skill would be nice.
Without another source of food, Diven had no choice but to continue trying. Reflecting on what had gone wrong, he figured that he had not angled his spear optimally when he thrust it into the water.
The resistance he felt had slowed his strike, giving his target time to escape. He needed to strike straight and penetrate the water causing as little disruption as possible.
After a long time, he finally spotted another fish. Almost surprised, he slowed his breath down and focused on his moments to impale his prey and…
Miss.
It wasn’t that his spear was too slow. No, the fish didn’t dodge.
He just… Missed?
His strike didn’t even graze the fish.
Diven resisted the urge to slap his forehead as he found where the issue was. Water distorted his vision. What he saw underwater wasn’t exactly aligned with what he saw above.
He knew that. Why didn’t he consider it before?
Fine, he just had to wait for the next fish.
Miss.
Miss.
Miss again.
“I don’t get it. What am I not understanding?” Diven spat in frustration.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
This fishing trip wasn’t going as planned.
Sure, he had expected it to be hard, but it was beyond his imagination. Was he just incompetent?
With each fish that wandered close to his rock, Diven kept trying to catch them with the tip of his spear. His movement was getting better, but he was also growing frustrated, and impatient.
He wasn’t waiting for the ideal moment to strike anymore. When a fish entered his range, he fired and missed.
His arms were starting to shake from the accumulated fatigue, he was becoming less and less precise with each try.
Sitting on the rock, he wondered if he would ever succeed.
Diven was starting to worry. There hadn’t been a lot of opportunities and he was fumbling them all. Maybe he should find another spot, but this one had, if few, at least a few fish passing by.
As the reality of his situation was settling in, a knot formed in his heart.
With how thoroughly excluded he had felt after his awakening, a budding excitement had grown in his heart regarding his new life in the wilds.
Kheiron didn’t want him? Fine, he would show them.
But he hadn’t realized it would be so difficult. The hunger weakened him. He had no survival skills to speak of.
If he had known it would be like this…
Uncle Basil should have known…
“There’s no way he didn’t realize it…” Diven whispered as the realization hit him.
Everyone knew. Elder Secuda had even directly alluded to it during the meeting. He was the only one blind enough to have hopes. This so-called exile was but a ruse to kill him quietly.
As powerful as the Leios clan was, the city of Kheiron still had rules. Exiling children was not something people looked on favorably. No matter how bad their bloodline was.
With how populous the city was, it was a given many citizens would awaken dubious bloodlines. Diven had never heard of anyone being exiled for this.
The Leios elders wanted to get rid of him.
And he followed their lead, like an idiot.
Preferring not to think about it more, he continued waiting for a fish to appear. He located several but they all escaped and he was left with nothing.
The lack of food was getting to him. He felt weak, his back hurt, and his ears were full from the constant flow of water. All of this combined resulted in a massive headache.
Out of breath and battered by the sun, he decided to take a break and return to camp.
On the way, he considered eating some random plants that grew beside the river. But he didn’t know what they were, they could be poisonous. He kept it as his last resort.
He just needed a little break. The sun was still high in the sky. He had time, plenty of time.
One small break would help him reset and then he would catch that damned fish.
Laying in his hammock, he listened to the wind rustling the tree leaves.
It was peaceful.
“This is nice. Just a few minutes, and I’ll get up.”
His eyelid betrayed him first. Diven fell asleep.
He was woken up by the sound of footsteps. Slowly, something was coming toward him. His eyes opened, the sun was going down and soon it would disappear below the treeline.
Not knowing what was coming, Diven jumped out of his hammock and grabbed his weapons. Better be safe than sorry.
As soon as he had done so, he noticed a giant hulking figure approaching his camp through the dense undergrowth.
Humanoid, it was at least twice as tall as Diven was and as wide as a cart. Its shoulder blended with its head seamlessly to the point it seemed the creature had no neck. Furless, its brown-greenish leathery skin completely exposed to the elements.
It was moving slowly toward the camp, uncaring about the tree branches snapping in its wake.
It had one eye. One and only eye that was staring right at Diven.
When Diven noticed it, Diven’s mind went into overdrive.
There it was, the mythical creature he had been expecting.
It was a Forest Cyclops, not something he could fight with his meager skills. He had barely triumphed against a sick wolf.
Cursing under his breath, he threw his shield to the side. With the size of the cyclops, he didn’t think it would help him. He decided he’d rather have as much mobility as he could instead.
Trying his best to remember all he knew about Cyclops, he formulated a plan.
While not sure if it applied to this specimen, he knew the Cyclopes that inhabited the islands of the Great Sea had terrible eyesight. With only one eye, their perception of distances was flawed. Diven thought he could do something with that, but as the giant approached, he still wasn’t sure what.
With the Cyclops’ eye-tracking him, Diven retreated under the canopy and tried to hide. He tried his best to seem as unthreatening as he could. He’d rather avoid the fight if possible.
But the Cyclops didn’t seem to appreciate Diven’s pacifist views. It kept going in the boy’s direction and, as he moved back, started jogging toward him.
It wasn’t that fast, but each of its steps sent vibrations into the ground that reached all the way into Diven’s body, shaking him to the core.
Diven tried to run away.
It didn’t take long for him to realize he wouldn’t be able to escape. While he had to navigate between the branches and vines that littered the forest, the Cyclops simply burst through them as if they didn’t exist.
Fear mixed with anger. He was going to die there, the second he was alone he couldn’t manage.
He was only thirteen.
How pathetic.
In the few seconds that separated him from his demise, he pictured his life back at home—Mom, Dad, Uncle Basil, Sebastian, Zoe, Philon, the wide streets of the acropolis. The wide streets of the acropolis, the bustling harbor where merchants from faraway Ameian cities loaded goods gathered by the city's explorers in the Wildlands, paid for with the sweat of their brows and the blood in their veins.
Diven was angry.
Angry at the world for depriving him of a good bloodline. Angry at the elders who exiled him. Angry at the crowd who mocked him. Angry at his parents who abandoned him. Angry at his friends who turned their backs so easily. Angry at his uncle who, despite helping him, had still left him to die here in the Wildlands. And angry at that idiotic Cyclops, now stomping toward him—probably to eat him.
He had enough of being dismissed, of his life being threatened, of him treating it as if it was normal.
No. He wouldn’t run away. He refused to hide. If he was going to die, he would die facing his opponent.
Clutching the shaft of his spear, he gritted his teeth and shouted as he charged toward the Cyclops. The monster reacted instantly with a roar that drowned all other sounds. Log in its hands, it accelerated toward Diven.
Diven, despite his brash behavior, wasn’t lost in his rage. His plan was very simple, if a little reckless. He would hope the Cyclops miscalculated the distance and try to wedge his spear in the eye of the beast and find some way to avoid being trampled.
It wasn’t a great plan, but he didn’t have anything better.
The first part of the plan was a success as Diven felt the disturbing sensation of his spear penetrating the Cyclops’ ocular globe. The second, not much, as his body bore the full brunt of the Cyclops’ leg kicking him aside and sending him rolling.
It took him colliding with a tree to stop. To date, it was the most painful sensation Diven had ever felt. He tried to breathe, but his ribs refused. Sound faded in and out, a dull ringing swallowing the forest around him.
Had he died? No—the pain wouldn’t be this loud if he did.