"What the hell happened here? look for survivors."

Three men arrived at the hideout, each one of them mounted on a large beast, the beasts were four legged furry creatures, with a big head and strong jaws, lastly a snubbed tail, they were hyenas. The official name of the creature is the War spotted hyena, a level 3 magical beast as an adult, reaching the size of a brown bear, it's powerful bite capable of crushing rocks and bending metal.

Two of the men dismounted their hyenas, one entered the hideout, and the other one inspected the woods, after a few minutes they both returned.

"There is no one left alive, no signs of the gold or the girl either."- Said the man who came out of the hideout.

"Damn it, I knew these bandits were useless, but I didn't think it would be this bad, what else did you find?"

"It seems to be the work of a single person, a woman no less."

"What? a woman did all of this?"- The leader replied with a surprised expression.

"There is no mistake, I was able to trace the scent of two women, the trace reaches all the way outside, and all of the bodies inside had cuts of knives and daggers."

"And what did you find?" -The leader asked the man who returned from the woods.

"Same thing, no survivors, all of the corpses had the same claw and bite marks, the same scent on all of them, it was the scent of a beast I had never smelled before."

"Interesting, it seems we have a female tamer to hunt down, the Baron will be quite angry, but if we bring them back alive, maybe we will get a piece to play with."-Said the leader with a devilish grin.

"The corpses are still warm, they couldn't have gone too far yet, we will catch up to them soon, let's go, follow the scent."

The three men mounted their War hyenas and ran into the woods.

Rosalind opened her eyes, the bright daylight made her squint her eyes for a moment, trying to regain some focus. She was laying on a blanket, resting over a patch of grass under the shade of a tree. Next to her was a small stream, she looked around for a moment but there was no one around.

"Miss Sara, are you there?"

"Oh, you are awake little girl."- The voice came from above, a raven perching on a tree branch descended and landed on her shoulder.

"Uhmm, Mister Murder right? good morning."-Rosalind greeted the bird in a timid voice.

"It's okay little girl, you can drop the Mister, my name is already majestic enough, adding honorifics is overkill."

"Ah okay, where is Miss Sara?"

"She and Splyce went to gather some food, they will be back soon, no need to worry."

"I see, Murder, I was wondering, are you perhaps a magical beast? I don't think I have ever seen a bird as smart as you."

"Hohoho, Your are good at recognizing my greatness, I like you little girl."- Said the bird with a dignified expression.

"But no, I am not a magical beast, I am at the peak of all birds, the strongest and smartest raven in the world."

"But how is this possible? were you born like this?"

"I'm going to tell you a little secret okay? most of the tamer families in the kingdom have been raising magical beasts for many generations, only allowing those with the best traits to reproduce, thus improving those traits, they did the same with the animals. At the end, you get cattle that produces more meat and milk, bigger fruit, and in my case, ravens with crazy high intelligence."

Rosalind focused mana into her eyes, and stared at Murder as if analyzing him, doing this, Rosalind was able to clearly see the flow of mana all around her.

"But Murder, your mana concentration is too high, are you a mana user?"

"Bingo, I have been one since I was born."

"Really? an animal can be a mana user?"- Rosalind couldn't hide her surprise, it was rare for a human to be a mana user, but now animals too?

"Sure, if you infuse an animal egg with your mana, the chick will recognize you as it's parent, and they will be able to use mana, in some cases they can also inherit your attribute too."

"That sounds incredible, so if I had the water atribute, could I raise a turtle that could use water magic?"

"In theory yes, but the most important thing is intelligence, turtles aren't very smart, it could drown itself for not being able to control the attribute, I heard a story of a chicken that was born with the fire attribute, It roasted itself, how funny is that?"- Murder couldn't stop laughing.

"It sounds like you are having fun, did you get enough rest sleeping beauty?"

Sara and Splyce were back with food, an assortment of fruits, wild greens, and fish.

"Miss Sara, you are back."

"Of course, I thought you would still be hungry, hope you rested well enough"

"Yes, I feel a lot better now, thank you."

"Great, get some more rest, dinner will be ready in jiffy."

Sara used her knife to cut some tree branches and fix them into skewers, she then pierced the fish with the skewers and put them over a fire; for the final touch, she sprinkled the fish with a powder she had in a small jar.

"Here you go little doe, this is my specialty."- Sara handed a fish to Rosalind and another one to Murder, Rosalind took a bite off the fish.

"Cough, cough, it is really good Miss Sara."- Rosalind starting coughing, her face turned red, and her nose started dripping.