Karon, feeling a burning sensation in his eyes, still resisted lowering his eyelids.
The battle he had been watching for a while was so captivating that he did not take his eyes off it even for a second.
The owl's flaming talons clashed with the furless bear's teeth, yet neither could gain the upper hand.
The owl used its advantage of flight to launch constant attacks, and to preserve its stamina it occasionally spewed flames.
But the furless bear's endurance was so great that despite all of the owl's attacks, it could still rise and open its jaws.
The two, who had been fighting for some time, were now beginning to show signs of fatigue.
Wondering when the battle would end, Karon saw the owl ascend.
At the same moment, the furless bear positioned itself with its mouth fully facing the sky and slowly stretched its jaws wide.
After reaching a certain height, the owl suddenly dove, advancing toward the furless bear at incredible speed.
The furless bear, in turn, had fully stretched its jaws and bared its teeth toward the sky.
Just as the owl approached the bear, it spread its wings, thrust its flaming talons forward, and pulled its beak back.
Watching the collision with full attention, Karon could not see the result because of the cloud of dust that formed.
After a while, he saw the owl flying away, but at the same time the furless bear was retreating into the forest.
Accepting the disappointing outcome, Karon examined the battlefield once the dust settled.
The force of the owl's strike had collapsed the ground, and flames had scorched the surroundings.
Karon extinguished the small fires and returned to his campsite.
***
For some time, Karon had been pacing in circles and talking to himself, constantly bringing his hand to his chin or scratching his head.
During his time in the forest, he had unwillingly developed strange habits. Despite their number, he was not even aware of most of them.
"If I can involve the Furball in this battle, I can guarantee its death, but the chaotic nature of the fight and the fact that it never ends in death make me doubtful."
"If I'm going to take the risk of drawing the Furball into the battlefield, I must also ensure its death."
He scratched his head.
"First I'll lure it to the battlefield. I'll think about the rest later," he said.
The next day, the Furball got up to hunt and stepped out of the cave. Normally it would always go to the riverbank to hunt, but after standing in front of the cave for a few seconds, it started heading west.
After walking west for a few minutes, the Furball stopped in front of deer blood scattered across the leaves. After sniffing the leaves for a while, it continued west. When it reached the second blood trail, it sniffed that as well. This time, it also sniffed around the bloodstain, as if trying to make sure of something.
Despite coming all that way, the Furball did not continue past the second blood trail and instead returned to the riverbank.
"So cheap tricks don't work. If it can recognize that this is a trap, it's far more intelligent than I expected."
A few days later, Karon waited near the cave with a pouch of blood in his hand. After covering himself thoroughly in mud, he opened the pouch and let some blood drip before running off without looking back.
As he ran, Karon let small amounts of blood drip. At first he was calm, but a few minutes later, when he looked back and saw a brown ball speeding toward him, he panicked.
He began running faster, but the distance between them was closing. While running, he threw the corpse from which he had taken the blood behind him.
He thought that would stop the Furball, but it showed no sign of slowing down and kept chasing.
When the Furball reached the corpse, it sniffed it briefly but did not attempt to eat it. Instead, it continued chasing Karon.
Karon knew the Furball was still behind him. He was under immense stress. There was no way it could see him, yet somehow it knew his location.
The chase, which lasted three or four more minutes, ended when the Furball retreated.
Lying on the ground, gasping for breath, Karon waited for a while to calm down.
Once he had settled, the first thing he did was sit and think. He still could not figure out why or how the Furball had been able to track him.
He sat, stood up, wandered around, drew circles. Karon's habits were increasing day by day, but having no one in this solitude to point them out made him feel free.
While thinking, his eyes caught a red stain on his clothes. Looking closely, he realized it was blood.
The pieces fell into place, yet the fact that the Furball could track him with such a small amount of blood frightened him. He abandoned the idea of testing this plan with his own blood.
Unable to withstand the stress and exhaustion from the chase, Karon returned to the campsite to sleep.
When he woke up in the morning, the first thing he did was follow the furless bear after the battle. If he could not use the Furball, then he simply had to use someone else. Because of the owl's speed, the only option left was the furless bear.
After tracking the furless bear to its den and making sure it was asleep, Karon walked around and examined the terrain.
"The cave is good, but there's no water source nearby. The furless bear's death would gain me nothing."
Disappointed, Karon returned to the campsite and slept to shake off the day's fatigue.
The next day, he began exploring the edge of the mist. He hoped to find a suitable living area there.
"The nearest water source is by the Furball's territory. It's an acceptable distance, but for some reason I've never liked this place. The mist unsettles me too much."
Near the mist, the forest grew even quieter and fully deserved the nickname "Silent Forest." If it were only silence, Karon could have endured it, but the mist moved like a living entity and swallowed everything without exception. None of the various objects Karon threw into it produced any sound or image. Even the stone he tied with a vine and threw disappeared within the mist.
Having more than enough reasons to stay away from it, Karon erased the idea of settling there from his mind.
***
For several days, Karon had been at a dead end and was now at his breaking point. Failing to find a comfortable place, being surrounded by dangerous monsters, and seeing his plans fall apart were putting him under intense stress and preventing him from sleeping properly.
"This is my last chance. I'll wait a few more days. If it doesn't work, I'll either leave the forest and live as a fugitive, or circle around the forest and try my luck there."
After changing the bandage on his arm, Karon climbed a tree near the Furball's cave and began to wait.
As usual, the Furball left its cave to hunt. When it returned, it stared at the cave for a while and then started moving to the left. Seeing this, Karon's eyes widened.
"The time has come."
Without hiding the smile on his face, once the Furball was out of sight, he took out a sack, a bottle filled with blood, and Zelid (the flaming sword) from his pocket dimension.
He filled the sack with stones and soil roughly equal to a human's weight. With Zelid, he made cuts on trees and the ground, leaving small fires behind. Letting the blood drip lightly, he began dragging the sack.
Along the way, he kept dripping blood and dragging the sack. Anyone who did not see what Karon was doing would have assumed it was a wounded person crawling away from a battlefield.
That was exactly his intention. The blood he dripped was his own, which he had collected days earlier by cutting his arm. Even if the image of a human crawling forward was not entirely convincing, he doubted the Furball would think that deeply about it or care. After all, humans were a priceless prey for monsters.
As he approached the battlefield, Karon put the blood, the sack, and Zelid back into his pocket dimension and hid at the top of a tree.
He kept an eye on both the path he had made and the course of the battle. As seconds felt like minutes, Karon's heartbeat grew loud enough that even the forest's silence could not conceal it.
At the end of the long wait, a brown ball of fur appeared on the horizon.
With a smile on his face,
"Finally, you've come," he said.