CURSED AND LOVE

THE ROARING BEARS

　　 "What a surprising coincidence!" She mumbled softly to herself, her eyes taking on a chilling gaze.

　　Surigao City was quite a distance away from here and even if they rushed, it would still take a few days' journey. Why would she come all the way here? And even that Mario Marasigan as well?

　　Her gaze hovered on Mario Marasigan for a while now. Obviously, he had not noticed that Jocefie Abad at that moment, was curiously looking at him, like a lizard that climbs the high parts of the mountain.

Does a man feel if someone is real or fake around them?

　　Her gaze did not stay long on the two as she discovered there is another group of people heading deeper into the woods, and one other group were still in a distance away from her, while some were just ten meters away.

"What are they doing here in the forbidden forest?" Asking herself.

　　Recalling all her previous encounters on this journey, her eyes flashed as she calmed down and thought to herself: What is there in the deeper reaches of the forbidden area? It had drawn all these people here to go running in there!

　　As she was deep in thought, she suddenly felt a pair of eyes filled with malice staring at her. She turned around quickly and that glance drove a persistent twitch to tug at her eyebrow: "A black bear!?"

　　At a distance barely five meters away from her, a black bear looking about two to three meters tall was crouched. Its teeth were all bared as it stared maliciously at her, its crouched body seemingly having been quietly approaching her but was discovered by her, and the huge black bear lifted its head to give out a loud roar as it lunged at her.

"Roar!"

The birds flew into the woods, because of the voice heard.The black bear's loud angry roar caused the ground to slightly reverberate. The roar sounded out from that high peak and in a moment, it spread to reach a large part of the surrounding area, where all the group of people in the woods heard.

With the face of a gigantic black bear, Jocefie did not see the possibility of her winning in a battle with it, and she grabbed the chance to fall into a low crouch and slid to one side as the black bear lunged, summoning her mystical powers, she used her unorthodox form of movements to speedily stride down towards the foot of the mountain in escape.

　　"Roar roar!"

The huge black bear's lunge yielded in nothing but air and it lifted its head to roar another two times. Its huge body turned and charged, suddenly moving extremely and quickly in fierce pursuit Jocefie.

　　"Damn! There's another one!"

Fleetingly moving towards the foot of the mountain, Jocefie spotted another brown bear that bounded out and could not help herself but cursed: "What a darned bad day this is turning out to be!" Her eyes quickly turned around, looking for a route to escape...

The group of people making their way into the deeper reaches of the woods who were currently in the areas surrounding the peak had upon hearing the black bear's roar, suddenly stopped in their tracks, and looked up towards the source of the roar.

The black bears in the forbidden forest were not just ordinary black bears, but were high grade possessed beasts of bad spirits. This is what makes them have an incredible power in the battle. It would be impossible for the ten warriors just in their initial stages of the mystical power to be able to hunt down a high grade possessed black bear. Hence, every single person who dared step into these woods knew, if they see a black bear from afar, they were to avoid it and not confront them in battle.

In the western part of the woods, Mario Marasigan's heart suddenly winced and his steps stopped, his head turning quickly back to look towards the peak.

"Prince Mario, what's wrong?" The fake Felisa Adonis dressed in a flowing blue dress had her flawlessly beautiful face creased up in concern. Seeing his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the peak, she turned her eyes to look into the same direction but did not see anything there.

"Nothing." He shook his head and smiled gently at the person beside him, but the sense of unfamiliarity in him was becoming more and more intense.

As if....

The girl before his eyes was entirely not the Felisa Adonis he knew. Over the past few days they had spent together, she had been right in front of his eyes throughout the entire period, but he had not been able to feel the same pounding of the heart that he had always felt when he was with her before.

And that single brief assessing gaze earlier, had although been from a person he did not know, but somehow made him feel rather familiar...

Under the scrutiny of that deeply serene gaze, her heart suddenly filled with unease as she raised her hand onto her cheek and asked softly: "Why is Prince Mario looking at me like this? Is there something on my face?"

He did not answer and only smiled gracefully: "Let us be on our way!" And he turned and started to continue their way forward.

The girl which is the fake Felisa Adonis paused a moment before she caught up and followed at his side as they walked deeper into the woods.

As they walked, the fake Felisa Adonis would occasionally tilt her face slightly to the side and look at the dignified countenance. He was just so perfect, so gentle, which made her fall so uncontrollably hard for him, made her heart palpitate for him, mesmerized by him, even if that meant that she would have to live her life with someone else's face, there would be no regrets...

On the other hand, Jocefie Abad was caught in a rather wretched situation. She runs through the woods down the mountain. Because the two bears behind her had already been chasing her for more than one hours. She had initially thought that she would be able to shake them off easily but the speed the two bears had been able to sprint had been unexpectedly fast and while running away, the reverberations she was able to feel under her feet and the occasional loud roars coming from behind did not allow her to slow down in the slightest. She couldn't afford to reduce her speed, but to run at that pace without stopping, even the deities wouldn't be able to last!

"Argh! Stop chasing me already! If you make me mad, I will really fight you with everything I have!" She screamed with her head thrown back, her speed not reducing, but she was already panting very slightly.

"I already give up on this Felisa, please find another way...!" Jocefie yelled as she continued on her running.

She had merely picked a bunch of magical herbs! Did they need to chase after her all this way for more than one hour for that!?

　　"Roar! Roar!"

The only response she got was just two loud roars from the bears with their undiminished speed.

She spotted a thick and strong tree in front of her and she turned her head to glance behind while gasping for air before she sped up her legs. And just as she was nearing the big tree, she bent her knees into a slight crouch and she leapt up with her hands extended to grab onto a branch, before quickly leaping up onto the branch and up into the big tree.

"Whoh! I'm exhausted."

She was done running. She sat high up upon the tree branch panting heavily as she saw the two bears quickly having caught up to her reaching the bottom of the tree in just a few breaths. The bears then attempted to use all four of their paws to climb up. Fortunately, the tree she chose was not only sturdy, but its tree bark was smooth and slippery, making it difficult to climb.

　　"Boog!"

As expected, one of the bears who had climbed about one meter above the ground fell onto ground its four paws waving in the air and Jocefie could not help herself but laugh at the sight.

"But, what kind of effects does that stem of magical herbs really have? Why would it make both of you chase after me so persistently for so long?" She retrieved the stem of herb she had picked earlier from her sack-bag to take a look at it and as she had never seen it before, she didn't know what kind of use it had.

"Roar roar!"

The two bears at the bottom of the tree had immediately upon seeing her take out the stem of magical herb, started roaring loudly again. Unable to climb the tree, the two bears combined their strengths and shook the tree, looking like they were thinking of shaking her out of the tree.

The tree shook violently, almost causing her to fall out of it. She held on to the tree with one hand and shouted down below: "Are you tired of it already? Thinking of taking this magical herb away from me? You can jolly well forget about it."

"Roar! Roar roar roar roar!"

The two bears were infuriated and their angry roars sounded endlessly, shaking the tree so badly that Jocefie was thinking that she cannot stay up there any longer. Hence, she kept the stem of magical herb away and began to look around her, thinking to leap from this tree to another, to find a way for her to escape.

"Felisa, what is the next plan?" She was asking herself again.

However, just as she stood up, the sky suddenly rumbled with a loud noise, sounding just like a loud thunderclap that had descended from the clouds. A powerful wave of oppressive aura fell from the clouds above as well and a strong wind suddenly kicked up under the overwhelming aura. The wind gusts were so strong the trees in the woods were swaying and the fallen leaves on the ground were thrown up into the air in the swirling currents.

　　"Woo woo arh....."

　　"Roar!"

　　"Woo!"

The terrified sounds from the various beasts in the woods rang out, a discordant symphony of animal cries reverberating throughout the woods.

At that same moment, Jocefie Abad saw the two towering bears at the bottom of the tree suddenly fallen to the ground in trembling heaps, all curled up in terror...