As if to break the awkwardness, she pointed ahead and said, “Once you jump over that deep ditch, you’ll reach the hunting grounds. It’s not that dangerous here—at least there are no man-eating ghouls. This is where the settlement trains young hunters.”

Eleanor Clark frowned slightly. So they were treating him like a child.

Alice Clark was extremely observant; even the slightest change in Eleanor Clark’s expression couldn’t escape her eyes. She reached out and gave Eleanor Clark a hard knock on the head, saying, “Now you’re upset! Don’t think that just because you got lucky and killed the head baboon demon, nothing else will happen. Let me tell you, anything can happen in the forest. Don’t always count on your luck being that good. In the forest, our hunting knife is our luck—take it!”

As she spoke, the girl shoved her hunting knife into Eleanor Clark’s hand and said, “Did you remember everything I just taught you?”

Eleanor Clark found her quite a headache. To prevent her from knocking his head again—and being instinctively flung away by his defensive reflexes—he could only nod perfunctorily.

The girl glanced at him and immediately said with displeasure, “Did I teach you to hold the knife like that? If you grip it so loosely, won’t it get knocked out of your hand with just a bit of force? You have to hold it like this—fingers curled, grip tight! No matter what happens, you must make sure the knife stays in your hand, understand?”

After her lecture, she demonstrated the proper grip, but saw that Eleanor Clark was still pinching the handle with just a few fingers, the hunting knife wobbling in his hand as if it might fall to the ground at any moment.

“You…” The girl was exasperated, put her hands on her hips, and scolded, “Don’t think just because this is a novice hunting ground you can slack off. If you keep this up, you’ll never become a good hunter! There are dangers here too. If you run into a scaled shadow beast, I won’t be able to save you… Watch out!!”

The girl cried out in alarm, but it was already too late. A blur of gray shot out from the treetop nearby, moving so fast its movements were impossible to see. The moment it appeared, it was already in front of Eleanor Clark, a pair of sharp claws suddenly reaching out, aiming straight for his eyes!

The girl’s mind went blank. She instinctively tried to intercept, but she knew in her heart that she probably wouldn’t make it in time to save that slow man.

Just as the claws were about to pierce his eyeballs, Eleanor Clark’s body suddenly swayed to the side like a willow in the wind, just barely dodging the gray blur’s pounce. His arm lifted, seemingly out of instinct to protect himself, but the blade of the hunting knife in his hand angled outward.

The gray blur flew past Eleanor Clark’s head, its path brushing right against the blade’s edge.

With a bang, the gray blur crashed solidly into an ancient tree nearby, shaking loose a shower of leaves and making the girl, who was still frozen with her hand outstretched, shudder instinctively.

A moment later, she snapped out of it and hurriedly looked toward Eleanor Clark. She saw Eleanor Clark turn sideways and bend down, shielding his head and face with both arms, while a bead of blood slowly rolled down the spine of the hunting knife in his hand.

“Are—are you okay?” The girl rushed over to help him, stammering as she asked, afraid that behind Eleanor Clark’s arms would be a face torn to shreds.

Eleanor Clark lowered his arms, revealing those deep, unfathomable eyes. Not only were his eyes perfectly fine, there wasn’t a single scratch on his face.

The girl was stunned for a moment, then let out a long breath and turned to look at the gray blur.

After crashing into the tree trunk, the gray blur bounced to the ground, finally revealing its true form.

It was a small, dark gray beast, its entire body covered from head to toe in fine scales, except for its soft, furry belly. Its head was small and its mouth pointed, with short, thick limbs and especially sharp claws.

If she hadn’t just seen it with her own eyes, it would be hard to imagine that such a short-legged, stout little creature could move so fast. And judging by its scales, its defense must be quite formidable.

It moved as fast as lightning. Even if you weren’t caught by its claws, just being rammed by it would leave you badly hurt.

But now, the scaled shadow beast was lying on its back, belly up, with a red line splitting open down its stomach, quickly turning into a gaping wound running from neck to abdomen. Its entire belly had been sliced open, and its organs spilled all over the ground.

The girl hesitantly turned to Eleanor Clark and asked, “Was… this your doing?”

Eleanor Clark replied calmly, “I’ve always been lucky.”

Lucky…

Was it luck to run into a fierce beast just as they were talking about one, or luck to kill it in such a bizarre way?

The girl stared at Eleanor Clark, looking him up and down, and couldn’t help but reach out to knock his head again. But halfway through, she glanced at the scaled shadow beast on the ground, shivered instinctively, and found she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

Still, she refused to lose her momentum, widened her eyes, and demanded angrily, “Be serious—what exactly happened?”

Eleanor Clark said, “It tried to pounce on me, I got scared and dodged to the side. Turned out I was lucky—the tip of the knife just happened to slice open its belly. That’s all.”

Alice Clark looked at Eleanor Clark’s expressionless face, wanted to knock his head again, and snapped, “I’m not a child, you know!”

Eleanor Clark handed the hunting knife back to her and said, “For this kind of scaled shadow beast, don’t you need to process it while the blood is still warm?”

Alice Clark let out an “ah” as if waking from a dream, rushed over, and began skinning and butchering the beast with the hunting knife.

Her movements were extremely skillful. In just a short while, the little beast was skinned and butchered, its parts neatly sorted and packed into her backpack.