The hunter stared down at the girl for a good while after she sat up before stepping back a bit.
"Can you stand on your own?" the chilliness in his voice could burrow deep into a person's bones and stay there for a long time.
The girl turned over a bit and pushed herself up slowly.
But she underestimated the effect the Death Presence had on her.
Her legs weren't in a state to carry the weight of her whole body.
She fell back down into the grass, the strands of it and the flowers getting into her wounds.
"I..." she slowly spoke, her voice a low rasp from the rot being even on her neck and affecting her vocal cords.
"...might need... support for that..." it was difficult to get that sentence out of her mouth.
The hunter didn't care how difficult speaking was to her.
He crouched down next to her and grabbed her by the collar of her shirt on the back.
Then, he tugged hard.
The other side of the collar dug into the girl's neck, effectively choking her.
But at the same time, because the shirt was of quite good material, the cloth worked like a support and she could get to her feet slowly.
(Though her face did turn red.)
When she was on her feet, the hunter let go of the cloth, which made her lose balance.
Her legs couldn't hold her up.
But before the girl could fall, the man wrapped his arm around her waist, keeping her up.
"You angered a possessor of Power of Death and Extinction?" he asked, even though he already had an answer in his head.
To his surprise, the girl shook her head.
"Is it a sickness? Or poison?" the hunter was quite curious about what was really going on.
The girl shook her head again.
"It's... my power..." she admitted.
The hunter narrowed his eyes when she said that.
The girl could feel a slight twitch in the muscles in his arm holding her up.
"Why put yourself in a state like this if it's your own power?" he finally asked.
It seemed that he was considering whether her power had gotten out of control, which would have caused her to end up like that, but if that had been the case, he would have also been affected.
So something else must have been going on.
Meaning it was also safe for him to touch her; her power was under control.
The girl deliberately moved her gaze over to the Screechers dead on the ground.
"They... aren't scavengers..."
The man frowned.
"Couldn't you have just left this place? Why did you come here in the first place?" he was clearly still suspicious of the girl.
And the fact that she possessed the Power of Death and Extinction clearly only made him more wary.
He also couldn't understand why she admitted to it being her power.
Wasn't she afraid he would kill her?
The more he looked at the girl, the deeper his gaze got.
His expression was still calm like before, but the coldness in his eyes was growing thicker.
The girl knew that if she answered something to the last question, it could just spike the man's suspicion.
So, she instead averted her gaze like the answer was way too complicated to say.
In the world she was in, truth and information was currency.
Even if somehow the man managed to get her full trust, she wouldn't tell him the truth on a silver plate.
That meant, if she just told him the truth while it was clear they were just strangers, the hunter would just get more suspicious of her.
And the girl honestly didn't want that.
Seeing the girl's silence, the hunter let go of her, letting her body crash down.
Luckily for her, the grass beneath acted like a cushion.
"Then I'll leave you here. Since it's your own power, you must be able to take care of yourself."
Saying that, he turned his attention back to the Screechers.
It was time to dissect them and take only the parts he needed.
As he did that, he did throw a glance towards the girl every now and then.
She didn't even seem affected by being thrown back to the ground.
She just closed her eyes like she was sleeping.
But the hunter did notice that the whole time he was dissecting the two monsters, the rotting of her body didn't get worse.
That meant she stopped using the Death Presence and soon her body would start returning to normal.
Not like that was anything to care about.
He had his own work to take care of.
The girl sank with her mind back into her body, focusing on untangling the mess of the power around her heart.
She still had a lot of work to do.
So focused on her work, she didn't even notice when the hunter got up from the corpses and turned to leave.
To leave, he had to walk past her.
And as he did, he stopped above her for a moment, observing the state she was in.
Just while he dissected the two monsters, which wasn't all that long time, the rotting of her body subsided drastically.
The patches and holes had gotten much smaller.
If she was fine in the first place, why did she attract attention to herself in the first place?
The hunter kept thinking about the girl even as he walked away.
There were two possibilities he thought of.
Either the Death Presence she was using got out of her control and the groans were real, which would mean her control over the power was quite bad.
Or, she did it as a measure to make sure he wasn't hostile towards her.
That would mean she was actually quite smart.
A girl with the Power of Death and Extinction was lying in a field with two monsters nearby.
She was using Death Presence to save herself from them.
And then, a human appeared.
Since the girl didn't know how he would act towards her if he found her, she decided to deliberately make her presence be known, but make herself look weak, so he would underestimate her.
The hunter liked the way she was thinking.
He would later have to look into her.
It would just be a bit troublesome because of the fact that those with the Power of Death and Extinction could not have names.
Considering the fact that the girl didn't have a name, the hunter didn't get sentimental in any way.
It was like he didn't have any pity.
When he first saw the girl, he was the same.
She was clearly in a terrible state of agony, but it didn't affect him in any way.
Clearly, others' suffering didn't matter to him.
After a while of seemingly aimless walking, the hunter heard a familiar voice.
"Young Master!" it was his servant calling at him.
"Yes?" he raised a brow when he saw the skinny guy walking over, leading a strong gray stallion behind him.
That was the hunter's horse.
"What are you here for? And why is Fred with you here?" he motioned towards the horse.
The servant quickly bowed when he reached the hunter.
"Young Master, you need to come back to the North immediately! Terrible news came!"
The hunter took the reins of his horse, Fred, and hopped on his back.
"What news?" he asked, still calm.
The servant didn't want to say it.
He feared how the hunter would react.
But under the hunter's piercing gaze, he didn't dare stay silent.
"A monster has breached the residence and slain the Madame..." his voice was quiet.
"That's not such bad news..." the hunter clearly didn't care about the life and death of the woman the servant was talking about.
"It was that woman's time already anyways."
"Young Master!" the servant looked up at the hunter in shock.
From the shock, it was clear he was a new servant who wasn't used to the stance of the hunter towards the Madame they were talking about.
The hunter shot a glare at the servant.
"What makes you shout at your Master?" he asked icily.
The hunter could clearly ignore and discard many things, but from his servants, he demanded absolute obedience and discipline.
A servant that raised his voice at his master was the same as a future traitor.
The servant shut his mouth in an instant, looking down on the ground.
The hunter was satisfied with that.
"I'll go to the North. You return to the Capital and tell my teacher I won't be in the Academy for a while."
The servant froze in his spot.
That showed he had been instructed to stay by the hunter's side, not go to the Capital.
But he didn't dare go against the hunter.
After saying his piece, the hunter patted the side of Fred's neck and the steed set off, leaving behind a cloud of dust that picked up from under its hooves.
And just a moment later, neither the horse nor the hunter could be seen, having disappeared in the distance.
All that remained was the slowly‑settling cloud of dust behind them.