Red returned to his isolated hut and threw himself on the straw bed. He was completely exhausted. The ritual drained him, and the humiliation the Shaman did truly drain him mentally. He felt like he just wanted to sleep and skip the day.
There was something more important than sleeping right now. The blue thing that appeared before his eyes. Not just that, he needed to do a quick check on his body. He felt there was something wrong within his body, something that made him uncomfortable. That feeling appeared after the ritual.
He suspected the kick from the Shaman might do a lot more damage than he expected. But it didn't convince him. He believed that the Shaman did something wrong with the ritual instead of the kick.
Red leaned more into the Shaman, purposely messing up his ritual just to kill him, or maybe torture him. The kick was hurt, but not that hurt. The punch from the other kids was even more painful than the kick. He let out a grunt because he was not expecting to be kicked. It was more like his shocked reaction than from the pain.
He tried to open his eyes and do the right thing, but his eyes were too heavy. The ritual totally drained him, and he went to sleep not long after.
Red didn't know how long he had been sleeping, but he was awakened by a piercing pain in his head. It felt like something was drilled into his head and messed his head up. He groaned loudly as he woke up from his slumber, thinking the kids had tried to bully him again after the awakening.
The first thought that came into his mind was that the kids thought they could win against him after the awakening. It was an obvious effect that they got stronger after awakening. The kids thought they would be strong enough to bully him now. That was what he thought until he got a clear look around him.
He saw no one in his hut; he was alone. The straw drape was closed, and no kids were around. He had to close his eyes again as the piercing pain came back and hit him harder. He fell on his straw bed, clutching his head as he grunted in pain.
Despite the extreme pain, he was holding up. He didn't scream even though he knew the scream probably would help him to endure this pain.
Red kept his voice down, grunting, angry for some reason. It was chaotic, and the pain was just getting worse and worse. It was like his head got drilled, but someone was still alive in the process. It continued for ten minutes, and there was no sign that the pain would stop.
He wriggled around on his straw bed, doing his best to hold up. With such pain, he thought he might die today, given how extremely painful it was.
'I am going to die…'
Just as he thought he was going to die, the pain disappeared. It disappeared all of a sudden. Red opened his eyes slowly as sweat dripped over his face. His mouth was open, trying to breathe as much as he could. His chest heaved up and down as he stared at the wooden wall of his hut.
His mind was a little bit chaotic, and he could not really think straight. That was a hellish experience, and the first time he ever experienced something like that. Of course, he hoped it would be the last as well.
The pain came all of a sudden, and it disappeared all of a sudden. That made everything strange. It was unusual, but it felt like someone inflicted that pain on him, but who? The first person that came to his mind was the Shaman.
The strange pressure during the ritual. The uncomfortable feeling after the ritual. Then it was followed by this extreme pain with no cause. It happened in sequence that made him suspicious of the Shaman. The only one who could do it, and the only one with a reason to do so.
The kids and the adults bullied him, but they didn't have the intention to kill. He just became a subject of verbal bullying and mockery for the adults to have some laughs between themselves. They never tried to kill him. However, the Shaman had a reason to kill him.
The Shaman believed that he was a sign of disaster, and that he must be killed to keep their tribe safe. At first, the adults agreed with the Shaman, but he was protected by the Matrons. As time went on, the Shaman's prediction didn't come true, and the adult didn't really believe in the Shaman's prophecy anymore.
That was why Red quickly guessed who the culprit was behind this pain. The thoughts truly angered him. Just because he was born different, that old geezer tried to kill him. He just didn't understand what was in the Shaman's head.
It was not like he had control over his birth. It was not like he chose to be born this way, yet the Shaman wanted to kill him over something that he didn't have control over. The frustration and anger that built up inside him almost exploded.
Red managed to stay composed instead of listening to his instinct. His instinct told him to kill that damned Shaman, but he controlled himself well. He took a few deep breaths and cleared his mind. His mind was no longer clouded with his anger, and only then did he notice something.
There was a blue box that appeared in front of him. This blue box was smaller than the one he saw yesterday. The content was also different for sure.
He focused on that blue box, and it zoomed in. He finally got a clear look at what this blue box was. Upon closer look, he realized he had five similar blue boxes in a row.
[You have been afflicted with a Curse of Hunter!]
[Curse of Hunter: It's a curse, but the real hunter calls it a blessing!]
[Curse: You must hunt 10 prey of your level, or five prey one level above you, or three prey three levels above you, or one prey four levels above you, every day. If you fail to fulfill it, you will be inflicted with extreme pain in a random part of your body on that day.]
[You have been warned]
[You have failed to hunt 10 prey of your level! The Curse of Hunter is active!]
Red was convinced that the Shaman put this curse on him after reading the blue boxes. However, he realized that even if he had known about the curse earlier, he could not have prevented it. He was not allowed to go out to hunt, as he was supposed to go out to hunt today.
He was about to get mad again, but he quickly calmed down. There was no need to fuss over the curse when he knew nothing about it. No matter how hard he thought about it, he would not be able to understand what the curse was and how to get rid of it.
There was nothing he could do, so thinking about it was useless. If he wanted to do something, he must do something that was under his control. That was to control the curse, to make sure he would never feel that pain again.