'I need to go and hunt.' I told Harmony.

'I'm coming!' She demanded.

'Fine, I'll teach you how to kill the stumps and get good firewood. But can you do me a favour and go ask Sen what he wants to eat?'

'Yep!' She bounded through the front door happily. She loved it when I took her out hunting with me. I always showed her all the different types of monsters and the right way to kill them to get supplies. Sen was a little bit too young to come with us, but he was happy to stay at home and get things ready.

I went around the side of the house to get my bow, a quiver full of arrows, and an axe. Harmony was already waiting out the front for me when I got back.

'Sen wants mushroom soup for dinner... as always'

I shrugged. 'It's his favourite.'

I handed her the axe and we wandered into the mossy trees of Sleepywood forest. The trees here were so tall and thick which always made everything look dark. That was a good reason why I never really liked coming through here at night unless I needed to. I knew there were no monsters that ever hung around close to the villiage, so there was nothing to really worry about while walking through there, but I still made sure that Harmony was close by so that I could grab the axe if a slime decided that it would be a good idea to jump on me from out of a tree.

We had to trek a bit further before we eventually reached a clearing that was swarming with stumps.

Bingo.

Their little legs were so short that they had to waddle in order to move. Each of them turned their one eye to stare at us as we came through the thick trees.

'Ok so these things are pretty dumb. They won't hurt you unless you touch them. So hold your axe with both hands and sneak up behind them.'

She did as she was told, ready to smack one of the stumps straight on the head.

'Wait hang on.'

She lowered the axe and looked at me a bit nervously.

'Use the back of the axe. If you use the front, it'll probably get stuck and you'll get hurt.'

She nodded before turning the axe around and bravely swinging it forwards, getting a direct hit and nearly killing the stump in one go. She then stepped back and swung even harder, destroying it.

'That was good!' I said excitedly, taking the axe from her and slamming it down onto another stump.

'That should be a good amount of firewood for tonight. Make sure you only take the good wood though, because some of it is crap.'

'Well how do I tell if it's good firewood or not?'

'Because its softer and not as coarse and hard. Dark stumps are actually better firewood but they're tougher than these ones and it's getting a bit late to go that far into the forest now.'

Harmony observed my actions and took in everything I was saying as she chopped up the wood of the stump, making piles of the good and bad bits.

'Leave it here for now, we'll grab it on our way back. Let's find some good mushrooms. There should be some down this trail. This is where I find all the good ones.' I skipped around the corner and ducked under the low branches of a tree that looked at least a thousand years old. I looked up in awe of it for a second but then I got paranoid because I could see a bunch of green slimes bouncing around up there. Getting hit in the head by one of those things wasn't one of my best memories.

'Look there's one!' Harmony distracted me from my thoughts to point out a little orange mushroom over by a log a few metres away. It was only about 6 inches tall.

'Nah, that's only a little one. They don't taste very good, and they drop spores that make you sneeze like hell if you accidentally breathe them in.'

'How do you know which ones would taste good?'

'There's different types. Look around here, there should be some big ones.'

Sure enough, behind another thick tree there were a cluster of foot-tall orange mushrooms bouncing around happily.

'Awwwwwww... they're soooo cute...'

'Yeah they look cute, but they bite.'

I loaded up my bow and arrow and one of the mushrooms looked at me innocently before I got a good aim and shot it straight in the forehead. The other mushrooms just kept bouncing along happily as if nothing had happened. Harmony ran straight over to pick up the dead mushroom, probably thinking the others wouldn't notice her. They were dumb, but not that dumb.

'Oi watch it!' I called, but one of the biggest orange mushrooms had already tripped her over and was bouncing on her back.

'Oww! Get off!' She whined, trying to roll over and whack it away but she couldn't get a chance with the mushroom repeatedly bouncing right in the middle of her back. It didn't help that the other mushrooms thought it was a fun-looking game and joined in.

I shot a few of them with my arrows but I didn't want to risk hitting Harmony so I ran straight up there and started whacking them with my bare hands. I tried to get the main one off her back, but it opened its little mouth and went CHOMP straight on my hand.

'You little bugger!' I yelled, standing up and kicking it straight in the face. It yelped before rolling over and getting up again, jumping around like no difference was made.

'That's it.' I growled. I shook my bleeding hand and then wrenched the axe out from underneath Harmony. 'Ouch!' she complained. I ignored her and jumped right up in front of the mushroom, slamming the axe down and cutting it straight in half before it even had a chance to register what was happening.

'Sen wants mushroom soup? He's going to get enough to last him a lifetime!' I yelled curse words at each mushroom while I went haywire with the axe. Harmony got up off the ground and brushed herself off to help me. She didn't have an axe, but she didn't need one. She started kicking them and stomping them down.

'Sen better bloody like his mushroom soup.' Harmony and I exchanged a look before gathering up the mushrooms and heading back home.