The other patrons began to chime in, their voices rough with coarse goodwill and the cold edge of reality:

  “Boss is right, little Rune. Hunting ain’t chasing rabbits with a stick. It’s dancing on knife points—one blink and your life’s gone.”

  “Sigh… look at that skinny frame of yours… the gods really stacked the deck against you. But sometimes you just gotta accept fate.”

  “Don’t bang your head against the wall. You’re a mage, right? Even if all you can do is light a little spark, you can help out at the smithy, or tag along with caravans as a walking lantern. You’ll never starve. Steady and safe—that’s plenty good.”

  The chorus of advice wrapped around Rune like a warm but suffocating cocoon.

  There was no malice in the voices—only the protective instinct toward the weak, and quiet acceptance of a fate already written.

  Just as the atmosphere of gentle dissuasion seemed to solidify, just as Uncle Brog prepared to turn away and attend to other matters—

  Rune slowly raised his lowered head.

  The confusion and hesitation had vanished from his eyes, replaced by a clear, unyielding light—as though, after groping through thick fog, he had finally locked onto a single, unmistakable path.

  “Sorry,” Rune’s voice was not loud, yet it struck the near-frozen atmosphere of consolation like a stone dropped into still water.

  He lifted his gaze. All weighing and doubt had been burned away, leaving only a tempered calm and absolute resolve. “I must join the hunting team.”

  Uncle Brog’s brows knitted sharply. His thick knuckles tapped unconsciously on the bar as he opened his mouth—this kid was too stubborn—

  But Rune gave him no chance to interrupt. The words flowed clear and steady, each one weighted with careful consideration:

  “Even though you cannot intuitively grasp the true power contained within my Fireball… I don’t mind proving it in a more direct way. I request to participate in—the ‘Hunting Challenge.’”

  “What?!”

  “The Hunting Challenge?!”

  “He’s lost his mind?!”

  The words landed like ice water in hot oil. The entire tavern exploded.

  Hunters who had been lounging or leaning suddenly straightened, eyes wide, staring in disbelief at the slender boy standing before the bar.

  Even the crackling hearth seemed muted beneath the collective sharp intake of breath.

  Uncle Brog’s brows twisted into a deep knot. The heavy lines on his forehead seemed to carry stunned worry.

  He slowly set down his wooden mug, leaned forward. Those hawk-like eyes that could read the forest’s slightest twitch bored straight into Rune’s, searching for the faintest trace of impulsiveness or bluff.

  After a long moment, he spoke, voice rougher and more grave than before:

  “Kid… do you understand what you’re saying? ‘Hunting Challenge’—those two words aren’t something you toss out lightly.”

  “Uncle Brog, I am completely clear-headed and rational.” Rune met his gaze without flinching.

  In the flickering hearth light, half the boy’s face glowed, half lay in shadow—projecting a composure so cold and mature it transcended his years.

  The reaction was exactly as Rune had anticipated.

  The hunting team’s “Hunting Challenge” was an ironclad tradition stretching back decades—the final, most brutal trial for those reserves who had trained long and hard, yearning to earn their place among the full hunters.

  The rules were brutally simple: the applicant must enter a designated test zone alone and face a high-level Tier 0 magical beast driven or lured inside.

  Kill it successfully, and emerge without crippling injury or mortal wound—pass. Glory followed. The leather armor of the hunting team would be theirs.

  But this was no game.

  The trial was designed for those already within the reserve ranks.

  They had spent years under veteran guidance—learning to read tracks, set traps, coordinate hunts, treat wounds—before being allowed cautious, supervised solo hunts. Only when the old hands judged their skill, temperament, and reverence for the forest sufficiently mature would they grant permission to apply.

  But Rune?

  He hadn’t even crossed the threshold into the reserves.

  No mentor to guide him. No comrades to watch his back. No nerves tempered in real blood and crisis.

  His so-called “stronger Fireball” was nothing more than theory on paper and backyard experiments—never tested against snarling fangs.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  In the eyes of every hunter present, stepping directly into the challenge under these conditions was little different from baring his chest and walking to the execution block.

  Yet after the initial shocked uproar, the air sank into an even tighter silence.

  Everyone remembered—an almost forgotten, yet never repealed—ancient rule.

  This regulation had been personally carved into the camp’s stone tablet by the village’s first professional knight, the legendary “Watcher” Roland, when he established the hunting team system:

  If the applicant is not a reserve member—if they are an outsider—then no recommendation or approval is required. As long as they stake their life and honor on the challenge, the hunting team has no choice but to accept. No excuse, no refusal. This is the highest respect owed to “resolve” itself, the purest defense of “courage.” Glory is at stake. It must not be defiled.

  The knightly creed—honor above convenience, dignity above fear—had been etched into the institution in this extreme form.

  Therefore, when Rune clearly declared his intent to “participate in the Hunting Challenge,” what he threw down was no longer a request.

  It was a gauntlet thrown with his own life as wager.

  By the iron rule left by Knight Roland, Uncle Brog—and the entire hunting team—had no right to refuse.

  To refuse would be to tarnish that life-or-death resolve. It would be to betray the foundational honor of the hunting team.

  Uncle Brog’s chest heaved once. He looked around at the faces—shock, confusion, anxiety.

  He knew everyone understood the rule. He also knew his next words would no longer be dissuasion… but a heavy confirmation.

  He drew a deep breath of malt-and-smoke-laden air. His voice came out dry, yet he had no choice but to speak:

  “Rune… you’re sure?”

  The boy stood there, spine straight as a young bamboo shoot trying to pierce thick soil.

  Hearth light danced in his dark eyes—not wild passion, but the calm resolve of someone who had coldly calculated the odds and still chosen to advance.

  “I insist.”

  two words—sharp and final—echoed in the silent tavern, striking the oak walls and sinking heavily into every heart.

  It was more than an answer. It was a door to the unknown and deadly being slowly pushed open with a creak.

  From the shadows beyond came the faint, low breathing of the forest—audible only to those who hunted within it.

  “Kid,” Uncle Brog’s voice dropped low, like a millstone soaked in heavy history, “you might not truly understand what this trial means. You haven’t really faced magical beasts yet—they’re not illustrations in a book. They’re living nightmares that will rip your throat out with their fangs. I have to make you understand…”

  “Uncle Brog.” Rune interrupted calmly. There was no tremor of fear in his voice—only the measured caution of a scholar.

  He slowly raised his left arm and rolled up the loose linen sleeve. As the fabric slid away, a hideous, centipede-like dark red scar coiled across his forearm—muscle and skin twisted, broken, healed into frozen lava. Under the tavern’s dim lamplight, the mark stood out starkly, an eternal warning.

  A wave of suppressed gasps rippled through the room.

  Some old hunters looked away—not from fear, but from reluctance to see.

  A few remembered the accident months ago. Seeing that brutal brand on a boy still twisted their hearts.

  “I understand very well how dangerous magical beasts are.” Rune’s gaze rested on his own scar, yet his eyes examined it like an objective report. “This arm was bitten clean through by a lowest-tier Tier 0 Slywind Rabbit. The very creature we drew as fluffy and harmless in picture books when we were children.”

  He paused. His tone held no fluctuation—pure statement of fact: “It was already dying then—half its blood gone, barely clinging to life. But that final lunge… one bite…”

  He tapped the deepest part of the scar lightly with his right index finger.

  “I’ll never forget the sound of bone shattering. If the passing priestess hadn’t healed me, my arm would be gone—dead and rotting by now.”

  “So please believe me—my understanding of ‘monsters’ does not come from hearsay. I know better than anyone that even the most ‘docile’ magical beast can unleash raw, devastating force. I have never underestimated them.”

  He raised his head. His gaze was clear as a frozen mountain pool, sweeping over Uncle Brog’s furrowed brow, across the circle of rough faces—some shocked, some grave, some openly disapproving.

  Hunters’ eyes gleamed in the smoke and lamplight like distant points of light lurking in forest darkness—all fixed on him. Their stares wove an invisible net heavy with worry, seasoned doubt, and perhaps a trace of instinctive wariness toward unknown magical power.

  Rune drew a deep breath.

  The mingled scents of the tavern—aged malt’s sour ferment, tobacco’s bitter char, leather’s musk, hearth smoke—filled his lungs. He exhaled slowly, as though expelling the last trace of hesitation born from seeking approval—leaving only pure resolve.

  “But… Hypothesis confirmed!” His voice rang out again—more stable than before, carrying a near-clinical cold logic. “I firmly believe my magic is fit for hunting. This is not blind courage. It is deduction based on the laws of energy conversion and the biological limits of endurance. My improved ‘Condensed Fireball’ has reached a critical temperature threshold.”

  He raised his right hand once more—fingers loosely curled, palm up. No spark appeared this time, but the posture itself carried a dangerous implication.

  It was the same stance he had used to summon the fireball earlier.

  Only now, his remaining mana was insufficient to cast again.

  “For Tier 0 magical beasts—no matter how dense their fur, how intricate their carapace, how tough their muscle fibers—the physical tolerance of their biological tissue has an absolute upper limit. When localized contact temperature instantly exceeds that threshold, every defense based on material structure collapses. Carbonization, penetration, instant boiling and vaporization of tissue fluids… this is not a contest of power tiers. It is absolute suppression by energy nature. My calculation models have been repeatedly verified. No known Tier 0 magical beast specimen can resist this level of focused thermal erosion. Therefore, this is not reckless adventure. It is… a verification of theory.”

  “Hypothesis confirmed!”

  The final words fell.

  The entire Oak Mug Tavern plunged into absolute dead silence.

  Even the burning logs in the hearth seemed to hold their breath. Only a single thread of blue smoke rose silently.

  Everyone froze. All eyes locked on the slender boy standing like a spear in their midst.

  On that still-youthful face there was no flush of hot blood—only the calm of an ice field.

  They didn’t understand “hypothesis confirmed,” didn’t grasp “carbonization,” “vaporization,” or “thermal erosion”—but they understood one thing: the boy’s will was steel-firm.

  They also understood this was no longer youthful bravado.

  This was the near-tragic rationality of someone who had placed his living flesh on the cold scales of absolute reason—and still chosen to step into the arena.

  An indescribable tension gripped every heart.

  They knew the ancient, unbreakable rule. They knew refusal was no longer an option.

  Yet in this moment—beyond the primal worry for the boy’s life—another deeper, older emotion began to stir in the chests of these men who danced with death daily.

  It was awe toward pure “will”—a frail human vessel, a sail of slim hope, riding the shoulders of the storm straight toward the abyss at its eye.

  That all-in, death-facing courage held a near-sacred pull for souls who lived on the edge of steel and claw—stirring blood, tightening throats, bringing a faint, bittersweet sting to the nose.

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