4 Dream

A world of blue and green devoured by raging orange flames.

The screams of the gods.

Two men, one with cream coloured hair and one with wheat blond hair.

A pair of orange eyes radiating a sense of helplessness.

Two men, one with black hair and orange eyes and with black hair and red eyes.

An floating island radiating a divine visage being torn apart by tendrils of purple lightning.

The trading of lives.

A feeling of helplessness welling up from my very soul.

Pain.

PAIN.

"ARGHHHH"

I woke up with a jump and quickly regretted moving so fast. My wounds clearly hadn't healed and were baring their fangs at me once again.

I glanced around my surroundings and heaved a sigh of relief, almost completely forgetting about the dream I had just had.

After all, it was just a dream. You're meant to forget those.

With a grunt, I stood up and grabbed the corpse of the coyote from where I had hung it the night before. I sighed, I had lost the berries which I had worked so hard for, but at least I got the coyote all the way back here.

I began walking once again, but this time I had a purpose. My hobble had remained unsteady but there was a determination and firmness in each step I took.

I had pride.

This body seemed no older than five years old, it was on the brink of death due to starvation, burns and overall injuries. Yet still, I had killed a mana beast, something that even Andreas feared. That little bastard was ravenous and had more strength in its small body then I could imagine but I had killed it.

I continued walking, and eventually found what I was looking for. The 'thing' I was speaking of was currently looking at me as though they had seen a ghost.

I sighed and said with the sweetest smile on my childish face "Hey Andreas, you look like you've seen a ghost, are you alright?"

He looked at me for a moment, shook his head and replied "I won't even ask how you managed to survive… What do you want with me, Juno? Angry since I left you to die, huh? I warned you that we'd both need to run if we encountered any mana beasts!"

I looked at him for a moment and said "I never said I was angry, you have no reason to protect me with your life. I'm here to ask what the hell to do with this fucker."

I waved the coyote in his face but almost dropped it due to lacking grip strength. I put the coyote down and sat in front of Andreas, staring into his eye as I waited for an answer.

He seemed to have calmed down and put on a thinking face as he began doing just that. He let out a sigh, it was becoming eerily common at this point, and said "You can't do jack shit with the corpse, you don't have a mana core so you can't purify it with the beast's core. You don't have any avenues to sell the beast with, and even if you did they would just steal it from a wimp like you. So how about this, you give it to me and we split the profits. I'll skin it, take out the core, sell it and we can share the profits and meat fifty fifty. Sounds good to you kid?"

"Nope, I have a different deal for you. You keep all the money, teach me how to skin the beast and give me your machete. That sounds good to you old man." I replied.

I had no idea if what I was getting from this would be a good deal, but I truly don't care. If I have money, the money will get stolen, but the machete will help prevent that in the future and the knowledge I gain can't be stolen. In the end, this was the way I believe I get the most gain. An added plus is that it'd be much harder to scam me with this method.

"Sure, you got a deal, kid. Now let's get started on the skinning since this beast is already almost rotting."

He pulled his machete and began taking the skin off the bastard, it was disgusting as hell frankly, but I needed to observe in order to learn so I didn't let my eyes leave the beast. I intently watched the way that Andreas slowly and carefully peeled the skin off of the coyote. He explained exactly where I would need to make cuts and how to effectively peel the skin off from each incision.

Once the beast was fully skinned, Andreas laid the beast on its stomach and said "The mana core is almost always in the abdomen of a beast, well, it's the same for humans. So whenever you take out a mana core, it's important to avoid puncturing the stomach or you're going to have to look for the core while rifling through the contents of its stomach."

Andreas became silent and simply made a cut on the beast's abdomen and stuck his hand in. He moved it around slightly and then pulled. Out of the beast came a perfectly circular orb of pitch black.

"Well, there's the explanation on how you won against the beast, it was a black core… Haaa, I guess you may not understand what that means since you never received any formal education, kid. Well, since I'm so gracious I'll inform you. There are stages to the strength of a mana beast and of mages. The weakest of them is the black stage, then the red stage, then the orange stage, then the yellow stage, then the silver stage, then finally the white stage. Ahh, I forgot to tell you each of these stages are divided into three parts, dark, solid, and light."

"The beast you killed was a dark black core, it was likely a recently born beast. We're lucky we didn't encounter its parents, we really would've both died then. Before we do anything else, there's something we must do, let's have a feast."

Andreas pulled what looked like a flint from his pocket and walked towards a pile of wood that it seemed he had prepared for this type of situation. He grabbed a few logs returned, and set up a fire while explaining the whole process. It looks like he really likes being a teacher, eh.

The fire was lit, and with warmth filling my body, I looked hungrily at the meat of the coyote that Andreas was currently spit roasting over the heat of an open flame.

While we waited for the meat to cook Andreas calmly explained to me more about how you can distinguish between poisonous and non-poisonous plants. He brought me over to his shelter and explained how he had built it, telling me I could do the same if I tried. He was very willing to teach me, leading me to wonder how the hell he had ended up here on the streets. I never asked, I felt I didn't want to put a damper on the mood.

After an hour or two of explanations he took the coyote off the fire and gave the two of us equal portions.

"We'll smoke whatever we can't eat in order to preserve it. Oh, I won't be needing this any more it seems."

With that, he handed me my first ever weapon.

A stolen machete.

As I took my first bite into the juicy coyote meat I couldn't help but think that this truly felt like a dream. At least compared to yesterday.

[AN: I really like the way this chapter turnt out, I feel like it sets a good base for both the characters of Andreas and Juno. What are your thoughts?]