Chapter 12 - Rabbit

Julius walked through the forest as quietly as he could so as to not alert any bears which might've been in the area. His only hope for food would be to catch a rabbit and take it back with him. The only problem he would have to face would be catching the animal as they would probably outrun the prince. He didn't have any weapons on him either so he couldn't instantly kill the animal in the first place.

"How can I capture such a small animal without causing too much of a scene?" Julius asked himself as he walked through a forest. While looking at the ground in boredom, Julius found a rock which looked to be sharper than any of the other rocks he had seen so far which had given him an idea.

Julius quickly grabbed the sharp rock itself and another rock which was slightly less sharper and began to use it to sharpen his first rock. He planned on creating a weapon using the simple tools he had around him.

"Master Jun said he wouldn't give me a weapon but didn't say that I couldn't make weapons of my own. This was probably a test to see how I would adapt to situations such as these in which I would have nothing except the tools around me," Julius said to himself proudly as he had managed to forge a weapon which he could use to kill his target in a single attack.

After walking around for about 45 minutes, Julius finally came across his first white rabbit. To make his struggles pay off, the rabbit was quite a large one especially compared to that he had seen at the kingdom's zoo. Of course, he had seen at least 20 bears by now and feared for his life at each moment. However, seeing the rabbit brought a slight bit of hope in him. Although he was happy to see his soon to be food, Julius was also scared that he might mess up and in turn allow the rabbit to escape.

"Come on, you've finally found your prey after this long. You can't mess up," Julius told himself as he began to focus. Julius moved in slightly closer with each passing second so as to not alert his prey. At some point, Julius even forgot to breathe in fear that it might cause something to go wrong. However, that would all pay off as in the final moment before the rabbit could turn around, Julius threw the sharp rock directly at the white rabbit which didn't get the opportunity to escape. There could only be one world to describe what had just taken place.

Victory!

Julius had managed to land a direct hit to the head which instantly killed the rabbit. Seeing as his task was complete, Julius grabbed the rabbit by its legs and began to head back to the mountain top. Julius also brought along his sharpened rock along with him just in case he would get lucky and find another rabbit he could take along with him to brag to his master.

As Julius continued to joyfully walk towards the mountain, he heard some movement around him but assumed it was nothing but the animals doing whatever animals did in the forest. Unfortunately he would be mistaken as over 30 large black bears surrounded Julius from all sides. There was no room for him to escape.

"Well I guess this is how I die? How did they even find me and why are there so many of them here?" Julius asked himself. Of course, he would have no way of knowing that black bears had a great sense of smell and seeing as he had a freshly killed rabbit which was bleeding, they were able to find him. Julius would have known that if he had been allowed in the more dangerous section of the royal family's zoo but due to the over protective nature of his father in Julius' earlier years, Julius would never learn about the aspects of larger animals.

Even in such a terrifying situation, Julius was not willing to give up the rabbit which he had worked so hard for. So instead of simply throwing the rabbit elsewhere and trying to out maneuver the bears while they were distracted, Julius stood his ground and tried to create a path for escape while holding on to the rabbit.

Julius quickly turned his back away from the bears which were blocking his path to the mountain. Just as they started to run after him, Julius turned around once more and began to sprint as fast as he possibly could towards the mountain top. Since he had managed to get their attention and open up the circle which they had enclosed him in, Julius was able to make a run for it.

Except he wouldn't get far as the bears quickly caught up to him and when they did, one of them reached for the rabbit and managed to get it out of Julius' hand. But in doing so, the bear would also cause a large cut both on Julius' arms and chest as he knocked him to a nearby tree.

Now that Julius was also bleeding he became recognized as food for the bears. As such, the bears quickly surrounded Julius and left the rabbit to a small group as Julius was much larger compared to the rabbit.

"I guess this is it for me..." said Julius as he accepted his defeat. There was no hope for him as there was no possible way he could defeat over 30 black beards even if he had a real blade.

Over in the distance he saw as one of the black bears bit on the rabbit which Julius had originally caught.

"My-"

"MY RABBIT!" Julius yelled out in anger as his eyes began to glow white.

<<Secret Art: Julius' Judgment>>

<<Silent Death>>

A white light began to envelop the large forest as Julius cast punishment upon it. Even though he didn't cause any real damage to his surroundings, all the bears which were there laid on the ground, unable to breathe.