945, Aragon Plains, Iberian Peninsula.

The stream meanders along the forest. On the stone beside the stream, a rather young man is sitting. He is squatting by the river and washing his face. There are branches stuck to his short gray hair, and there are many gaps cut by thorns on his clothes.

It seems very messy.

It was none other than the escaped prince, Cizeville.

After running all night and all day, he escaped from the control of the manor and climbed over several mountains and forests. He didn't believe that his female officer could catch up now.

But even if he catches up to Sizeville, he doesn't have to worry too much, because he has a night owl, which can help him keep a lookout in the sky. He can receive a warning for anyone who comes a thousand steps closer to him.

After flying continuously for a day, the night owl is also tired. He is combing his feathers on the branch at the moment. It is daytime now, and he looks a little listless.

"What's your name?" Cizeville asked Night Owl.

Night Owl concentrated on grooming and ignored him.

Cizeville poured a handful of water from the stream and threw it at the night owl. It jumped away and croaked unhappily: "What are you doing?"

"What's your name?" Cizeville asked again.

"No name." Night Owl replied listlessly.

"Why don't you have a name?"

"Because it's not needed."

Night Owl said coldly.

"Why not? We all have names."

"Where did you get so many and why?"

Night Owl croaked angrily: "Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you its true name. Once you know the true name of something, you can completely control it. As a wizard, you don't even know this."

"I don't know, no one taught me."

Cizeville said honestly.

"No, now you know." Ye Xiao said croaking and continued to comb his hair.

"Although what you said is very profound, but..." Sizeville rolled his eyes: "But... you always croak when you talk, so I'll call you a frog."

"Quack!?"

Night Owl jumped angrily in protest.

"Frog, frog, croak, croak, croak~"

"Shut up, stupid guy. Do you still want to go to Pandora to find a wizard?"

"Think about it," Cizeville said, "otherwise, why would I come out with you?"

"I'm hungry," Night Owl said confidently, "Go and help me find something to eat. If you can help me find some food, I will be happy to leave early and take you to Pandora."

food...

When the night owl said this, Sizeville also felt hungry. He had been running all night without paying attention, and now that he stopped, he heard his stomach growling.

He experienced this feeling for the first time since he was under the care of countless people since he was a child. Because he was afraid that the female officer and her people would catch up, he took almost no luggage and traveled alone and lightly. This resulted in him not having any food reserves on his body.

"Brother Frog, what do you want to eat?"

"Snake, mouse, rabbit, as long as it's not a mushroom."

"Do you eat frogs?"

"Quack!" The night owl flapped its wings, extended its claws fiercely and flew towards him.

Sizeville laughed, dodged the Night Owl's claws, and ran out easily.

The night owl didn't want to pay attention to him, put his head in his wings and began to sleep.

After not running far, hunger surged again.

Coo coo coo...

Sizeville's stomach growled even more fiercely. He didn't dare to play around, so he quickly got up, broke off a branch, sharpened it with a personal knife, got up and walked into the woods.

There were not many resources in the forest. After searching for ten minutes, he found a small animal eating berries on the ground in the woods.

This little animal looks very similar to a rabbit, but it does not have the rabbit's three-petal mouth and long ears. It only has a pair of round ears that look like a mouse and two bony black eyes.

Cizeville learned riding, shooting and hunting from the captain of the guard at the manor, and he was very confident in his body.

He held his breath and walked forward one step at a time. Under his feet were dead branches and leaves that had accumulated for countless years. They were soft and even elastic when he stepped on them. The sound of his footsteps was completely absorbed and there was no sound when he stepped on them.

Neither.

Then, when he was about five meters away, he suddenly jumped out and launched an attack. Before the little beast had time to react, he was stabbed in the leg by the tip of the stick.

It struggled and twitched and ran in the other direction. Sizerville rushed towards it, pressed it down, took out the knife, pressed the animal's veins, and said: "I'm sorry."

Then, he killed the struggling prey with a single blow.

Blood seeped into the tree trunk. When Sizeville mentioned his trophies, he couldn't help but smile. This was his first time killing, but he didn't have any resistance.

A small achievement made him feel great. He had gained the qualification to survive with his own hands. The manor in the past could not give him such a feeling.

Just when he was about to go back and enjoy lunch with the night owl, he suddenly noticed something next to him looking at him. When he lowered his head, he saw that it was a black and green python hiding in the grass and hissing out a message.

"Hey!"

Sizeville held the prey and gave the python a fierce look: "I found this first!"

The python spit out the message, turned around and left slowly.

I don't know if it was Cizeville's illusion, but he always felt that there was sarcasm in the snake's eyes before it left.

The hunger in his belly diluted his other thoughts. He carried the prey back and hurried back. He had already thought of more than a hundred ways to cook it in his mind, although he knew nothing about cooking.

After walking back for about half an hour, Sizeville's pace gradually slowed down. He remembered that it only took him about ten minutes to get here, but it took more than three times as long to go back.

Not only that, the creek where he washed his face was nowhere to be seen. It was obviously nearby just now.

The surrounding scenery was very similar to when I just passed by here, except for the trees, it was just trees, but it was not exactly the same.

But he couldn't tell exactly what was different.

"strangeness."

He touched his head, thought about it, and moved forward in small steps in the direction he determined.

Walked for another ten minutes.

The creek separated from Ye Xiao was still missing, which puzzled him. Then, he suddenly stopped and took two steps back.

He saw a beech tree on his left. There was a pool of red blood at the black roots of the beech tree.

When he saw the blood on the beech tree, he frowned deeply, for no other reason. This was exactly where he had stabbed his prey to death, and the shape of the blood stains was exactly the same.

It was obvious that he was walking back just now, but why did he return to the same place while walking? Cizeville didn't understand.

Looking around again, it was getting late, the sun was gradually setting, and the gloomy north wind was blowing the shadows of the trees, like ferocious living creatures. He felt that he was being monitored by an inexplicable thing that was cold and had no good feelings towards him, which made him helpless.

Unavoidably, I became nervous.

Where and how to get there?

The sense of direction is a bit confusing.

And I'm a little scared...

But then I thought about it, he was a wizard, and he could talk to Ye Xiao, which was also mysterious. Why should he be afraid of mystery?

He made two gestures with his hands and decided that it would be better to move towards the same place.

He set off again, this time with firm and decisive steps, using force on his feet. Every few steps he had to look back and take a look at the footprints he left on the ground to make sure he was walking in a straight line.

But ten minutes later, he still couldn't return to the creek where he first washed his face. Not only that, a row of footprints even appeared in front of him. He followed the row of footprints in stunned silence. After a while, he walked forward again.

Back to the bloody beech tree.

The shape of the blood stain on the beech was exactly the same as ten minutes ago, except it was a little dry.

A gust of cold wind blew by, and the air seemed to freeze. There was some kind of magical whisper in the wind: "Hiss...hiss...you took something that didn't belong to you...hiss, hiss, hiss."

....”

Even the bravest man could no longer hold his nerve at this moment. The corners of Sizeville's mouth twitched twice. He shuddered and ran away. He wanted to escape from this weird place as quickly as possible.

This time he no longer chose a direction. Instead, he twisted left and right and kept changing directions. The trees were quickly left behind him, and he jumped over all the obstacles that could stop him.

However, after running wildly for five minutes, he stopped like a screeching brake. For no other reason, Sizeville still returned to a similar position. The bloody beech tree was like a maggot attached to the bone, and he could not get rid of it no matter how hard he shook it off.

"Wow! What happened?"

He shouted alone.

Thinking of the stories that the valet once read with him, and thinking of some mysterious phenomena that Archmaester Hugo once told him, Cizeville couldn't help sweating on his forehead. Could it be that the ghost of the rabbit came to his door?

So he took off the prey hanging from his waist, looked at it and said hoarsely: "Are you unhappy...? I want to eat you because I am hungry. If I don't eat, you will die. This is inevitable.

Yes, I apologized too, why do you blame me?"
To be continued...