Chapter 85: Surviving Hunter.

Taking a few steps backward while keeping his eyes locked on his cousin’s suspiciously tense face, Achilles finally turned and left the room. He searched around, checking the areas that he was allowed to access with a key card Zyra had given him.

He checked the training fields and the meditation gardens or any place that he would personally go to cool off if he lived here but found nothing. Finally, he followed his nose to the kitchen. When he peeked inside, he found Zyra. She wasn’t crying; instead, she was aggressively stuffing her mouth with a big, steamed bun, looking like a furious, puffed-up squirrel.

"Of course, the kitchen, why didn’t I come here first?" He muttered.

Achilles slipped inside, grabbed a bottle of beer from the very large fridge, and popped the seal. He took a slow sip, cleared his throat, and decided to drop the absolute worst joke in his arsenal, one that Hunter had explicitly told him was a crime against humor.

"Hey, Zyra," Achilles said, leaning against the table. "Why did the chicken join the band?"

Zyra stopped chewing, her eyes narrowing into glare that could melt glacial ice. She swallowed hard. Where was this orange haired idiot going with this? "Why?"

"Because it had the drumsticks."

For a second, the kitchen was dead silent. Achilles held his breath, wondering if she was going to throw a knife at his head.

Then, Zyra cracked. A stray crumb flew out as she burst into a loud, snorting laugh, slamming her hand on the wooden table. "That is..." She coughed for a few seconds, but still continued, "...that is literally the stupidest thing I have ever heard in my life! You are bad at telling jokes." She laughed harder, the heavy, dark cloud that had been hanging over her shoulders fading a little.

Achilles grinned, taking another swig of his beer. Mission accomplished. Hunter owed him some high-grade energy stones for accomplishing this swiftly. He looked at his watch, a minute was all it had taken.

Zyra rubbed tears from the corners of her eyes with a napkin as her face transitioned into a deep frown. "Tell me the truth, is Lita really going to be that unhappy? That will bring comfort to my heart, but only if it is true. Don’t lie to me, be sincere. Will she suffer in that clan?" she asked, leaning forward.

Achilles nodded, his expression turning solemn. "Eliot is no prince charming, he had an accident in the past. It left him cold and bitter. Honestly, the man has no space left for warmth, not even for his new bride. Lita only got the chance to marry him because no other girl from the upper clans will touch him with a ten-foot pole. His ex-girlfriends completely ruined his reputation by discussing his bedroom affairs, the stories they tell are horrifying. All in all, just know that he is a bad man."

Zyra took a sip of her orange juice, swallowing hard as she processed this. "Well," she muttered, setting the glass down, "he must be pretty similar to Hunter in some ways, if they are friends. Both sound cold. Both are carrying around a small army of ex-girlfriends."

Achilles’ eyebrows almost launched right off his face. He stared at her, completely flabbergasted. "Hunter? Cold, yes. But ex-girlfriends? He has zero."

Now it was Zyra’s turn to be shocked. "What? But Hunter literally told me he had many ex-girlfriends! Why would he lie about that?" She whispered conspiratorially. "Is something wrong with him?"

Achilles almost choked on his beer. What did she mean? "Hunter is perfect. I mean he is a handsome fellow, and women throw themselves at him all the time, but he is just not interested. Why would you even believe that he has a mile long of ex-girlfriends? Have you seen the way he treats women? He is not deliberately cruel, but he is not gentle either."

Zyra laughed softly, recalling the ice bucket to her face. Indeed, Hunter was not gentle to the opposite sex. "It is easy to believe because he said it himself. Also, he just looks like the type. You know, the moody, handsome jerks who break hearts for fun."

Achilles shook his head, a faint smirk playing on his lips. "Not even close. Hunter was promised to a soul maiden once, years ago. But he just woke up one day, broke off the engagement out of nowhere, and walked out on his family."

Zyra noted that piece of information away immediately. In their world, only men from wealthy or powerful families and clans were promised to soul maidens. She opened her mouth to ask who his family actually was but stopped herself. It wasn’t her place to pry. Not yet anyway.

Instead, she changed the subject. "He is not just a liar but a horrible trainer! If only you saw what he put me through this morning. I survived because my will is strong. The man is a brute, he and doesn’t take a break. He expects everyone to keep up with him."

Achilles shuddered, a look of pure PTSD crossing his face. "Oh, don’t get me started, I have been through that."

For the next hour, the two of them bonded over just how incredibly bad and violently impatient Hunter was as a teacher. Achilles gave Zyra a handful of survival tips for enduring the training, since he had survived it once himself.

"Let’s talk about the stupid whistle." Zyra suggested.

Achilles snorted and opened another beer. "I hate that thing." He said passionately.

They laughed and talked, completely oblivious to the fact that Hunter himself was standing just outside the door. He had been eavesdropping the entire time, shaking his head and chuckling silently under his breath whenever they got a little too accurate with their complaints.

Eventually, Zyra and Achilles stretched their legs and headed down to the beast pavilion to check on the beasts.

The pavilion was bustling. Malia, Tess, and Yanxi were already there, busy bathing and feeding the various creatures. There was a unique magic to the place; the bright, clean energy didn’t just uplift the spirits of the half-life beasts, it made the humans feel lighter too.

As Zyra walked around, something unusual caught her eye. In an open room near the lounge, there was a neatly constructed structure that looked like a crystalline anthill. It seemed to have been sculpted from compacted snow. Intrigued, she stepped closer and noticed a single, pristine snow ant sitting quietly at the very top....it’s head lowered.

"Whose half-life beast is this?" Zyra asked, looking back at the group. The valley was getting crowded with new people, and she couldn’t keep track of every half-life beast inside.

Malia walked over, her eyes instantly clouding with sadness. "It belonged to my husband," she said softly. "He... he died saving me. It doesn’t have an owner right now; I hope that it can stay here." She swallowed back a sob. "I already have my butterfly, so I can’t contract another beast like a Soul maiden. It’s just alone, waiting to become feral or die."

Achilles counted the number of Soul maidens around. Between them, couldn’t one take in the Snow ant?