CHAPTER 33: HUNTING LESSONS WITH CALEN

Calen said, "Yes, definitely. That’s why we need to hide now." He scattered wild berries on the ground, then led Roxanna to hide behind the dense bushes.

At first, she thought Calen would hunt rabbits with a bow or an animal trap, but now she realized that he hadn’t brought a bow or even a stone axe.

In fact, he only brought bamboo bottles filled with water. Roxanna looked at him in confusion because just a moment ago, he had given her blood-stained rabbits.

But if he didn’t use any sharp weapons to hunt, how could those rabbits have been bleeding?

"Calen—"

"Shh..." he whispered. "Be quiet. Look, one is coming out of its nest."

Roxanna turned her head toward the rabbit nest near the bushes. A white rabbit slowly came out, its nose twitching as it smelled the sweet berries.

As soon as the rabbit hopped toward the berries, Calen immediately caught it with his bare hands, then broke the rabbit’s neck in just a matter of seconds.

Roxanna froze in shock. Her mouth fell open as she saw everything happen right in front of her.

[Aaaaaa! The rabbit is dead! Wait... I was going to cook it later anyway, but still! Aaaaa! He broke its neck!]

Calen froze when he heard her thoughts. He didn’t understand what was wrong with breaking the rabbit’s neck. It was just prey that they were going to eat later, so no matter how it was killed, it shouldn’t have been a problem.

But she sounded so conflicted after witnessing it. Roxanna didn’t scold him or say he was wrong, but Calen still felt bad for scaring her.

[But... Calen broke the rabbit’s neck quickly, so the rabbit probably didn’t suffer.] Roxanna nodded to herself. [Yes, it’s actually better than letting it suffer.]

Oh... so she just didn’t like seeing the rabbits get hurt. Calen lowered his head and looked at the dead rabbit in his hands. It was a good thing he caught it while she was with him. Usually, he would dig into the nest, grab the rabbits one by one until none were left, and then bite their heads off.

"Do I have to learn how to break a rabbit’s neck?" Roxanna asked as she stood up from her hiding place. She looked hesitant because she had never broken an animal’s neck before.

Even in the shelter, she only ate canned food or frozen meat, so she had never hunted before.

"There are other ways," Calen said. "You can cut their neck with an axe or crush their heads with a stone."

[Crush their heads with a big stone?! That sounds even worse!] Roxanna bit her lip.

[But we didn’t bring an axe or any sharp tool... so that means I really have to use a stone, right?]

She wasn’t sure she could do that because, after all, she used to take care of a rabbit that was her office pet. Because of that, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

"You can catch the rabbit," Calen said proudly. "I’ll take care of the rest. Don’t worry! I can break their necks really fast!"

Roxanna clapped her hands several times and said, "Yes, yes! I can try to catch the rabbit!"

She then did what Calen had done earlier. First, she looked for rabbit tracks, then she scattered berries near the nest.

When a brown rabbit came out of the nest, Roxanna jumped out of her hiding place, but her face hit the ground instead of catching the rabbit. Her fox ears drooped slightly, and even her fluffy tail fell flat.

"Don’t cry! Don’t cry! This is your first time anyway!" Calen encouraged her as he helped her stand up. "You can try again, it’s alright!"

Roxanna didn’t even cry. She just felt sad, but Calen treated her like a kid who had just run out of Halloween candy.

But well... she wasn’t complaining at all. Honestly, it felt nice because her ex-husband used to scold her and say that she was dumb whenever she couldn’t do things that he thought were easy.

"There, I found another rabbit nest," Calen said as he pointed to a nest not far from them. "You can try again."

This time, Calen gave her guidance while they were hiding behind the bushes. "You have to lock your eyes on your prey and focus only on it instead of your surroundings."

"You have to hunt like you haven’t eaten for a whole week," Calen added.

Roxanna didn’t even blink as she stared at the two rabbits that came out of the nest. This time, she didn’t jump out right away. Instead, she let them eat the berries first.

She waited until their guard dropped before finally lunging at them quickly. "Got it!" she said cheerfully when she caught both rabbits at the same time.

She then lifted the rabbits and showed them to Calen with a wide smile on her face. "Calen! I did it! I caught the rabbits!"

Calen nodded quickly as well, clapping his hands as if he were trying to hype up her confidence. "You did really great! My wife is the best!"

After successfully catching the rabbits once, Roxanna was able to catch other rabbits more easily, and she ended up catching around ten rabbits.

"Do you think we caught too many?" she asked shyly, feeling a little embarrassed because she got too excited.

"What do you mean, too many?!" Calen replied confidently. "We can finish all of these rabbits for lunch!"

Roxanna looked at Calen’s body from head to toe and finally realized that a man as big as him would definitely need a lot of calories, just like her other husbands.

Now that she realized that, she suddenly became worried that thirteen rabbits might not be enough for all of them. "Do you think we should catch more rabbits? I want to feed all of you."

Calen’s eyes lit up when Roxanna said that. In his mind, he imagined his wife throwing rabbit meat into his mouth, and he couldn’t wait for that to happen.

"I can catch a few more for you!" Calen said eagerly. "Alright, wait here for a moment. I’ll be back quickly."