July 14th, 1347
10 AM
The town of Bherna was starting to get moving, now that sun was well into the sky.
A hunter woke up in his hut and looked up at the ceiling for a few minutes, attempting convince himself to get up.
Eventually he managed to, just barely.
He strolled through the town, looking for any quests, his weapon slung over his back, despite the fact he was just wearing normal clothes.
He walked over to the quest counter and started to read through the list, when four injured hunters stumbled into town.
Their armour gave the impression of low high rank hunters, ranging from monsters such as Purple Gypceros or Gravios.
The Guild Girl approached them and asked what was wrong.
The one in the Purple Gypceros armour "It was a Nargacuga. I'm not sure what we did to provoke it, because it attacked us while we were simply gathering up in area 4… Luckily, we managed to escape, but that thing's still out there…"
"Wait… are you badly hurt? Do you need help removing your armour?"
"Oh no no, I wasn't that badly hurt, I'll be fine, really."
"But still though… usually Nargacuga stay in the jungle. This one must be quite aggressive to go and do something like that… it looks like we'll have to issue a quest to hunt it…"
The hunter in plain clothes then suddenly cut in saying "I'll go."
"Oh, okay then. And your name is?"
"Joseph Gilmore." He grinned.
The Guild Girl then checked his hunter's license to make sure he was qualified for the quest, and then once this was checked Joseph went back to his hut, got suited up and headed out to the Jurassic Frontier.
His armour was a full Nargacuga set.
"Did I really need to do this…?" He lamented to himself "I just kinda signed up for it in the moment cause I wanted to look cool in front of the Guild Girl… Well still, maybe I can use the parts to upgrade this set, I guess… Also taking an urgent should win me over some points with the guild, and maybe with her."
He felt slightly better, so he headed out of base camp and headed into area 4, figuring that'd be the best place to try and find the Nargacuga.
Walking through, he found the place to be completely peaceful, like nothing had ever occurred to begin with.
He started to look around for any traces of where the Nargacuga could've went, but all he could see was the footprints of the hunters leading out of the area.
He heard a roar a short distance away and turned to run towards it.
Joseph entered area 5, to see a Nargacuga looking around.
He attempted to approach it silently, but it noticed him out of the corner of its eye.
The Nargacuga quickly spun around, its red eyes leaving a trail of light on its path and pounced straight for Joseph.
Joseph narrowly rolled underneath it and spun to draw his weapon.
The Nargacuga landed, pausing for a second before launching itself forward off of its back legs once again.
This time, Joseph hopped backwards, clearing the Nargacuga's left wing before striking down and slashing at its body.
The Nargacuga briefly reacted with pain, but was able to take a swing at him with its tail.
As it neared him, a blue aura suddenly flared up around Joseph.
He stepped backwards, avoiding the first strike entirely.
The Swift Wyvern wasn't done yet though, pulling backwards in an attempt to go for another attack.
Joseph, or rather his aura, had anticipated this though,
As the tail lashed out, Joseph stepped past it and leapt forwards. He first landed on the Nargacuga's back, but then used that for his next jump.
He landed directly in front of the Nargacuga and slashed.
Before he could, the Nargacuga attempted to swing around to avoid the strike hitting the worst possible place and instead had it connect with its arm.
It felt some slight pain, but wasn't done with its motion yet, still going.
The Narga's tail swung straight at Joseph.
Even though his aura activated, there was nothing he could do at that minute, due to having just finished the slash attack.
Joseph was hit backwards by this, just about managing to hold on to his weapon.
He briefly stopped from the pain, before sheathing his weapon rushing forwards again.
The Nargacuga jumped around him this time and attempted to leap forwards after landing, only to be rolled past.
Joseph got up once again and attempted to attack the Nargacuga.
He got a hit on its side, but the wyvern quickly spun around to attempt to strike at him.
The Nargacuga slammed down with its left wing, but Joseph stepped forwards into the attack.
His long sword was still drawn, so he stabbed forwards with it.
The Nargacuga felt a fair amount of pain this time and attempted to flip around.
Joseph ducked, barely dodging the attack.
The Nargacuga landed and then jumped backwards, much to Joseph's surprise.
He started to stand up when the Nargacuga pulled its head back, inhaling as much oxygen as possible.
"Ah shit." He thought, covering his ears in preparation for what was about to happen.
The Nargacuga let out a massive roar, stopping anything nearby in its tracks.
It finally stopped and Joseph was able to uncover his ears, but he wasn't able to do it fast enough to respond to the next hit, being a full on body slam.
His aura did activate, but to no effect.
The Nargacuga slammed him against a wall, where he tried to regain his senses, but the Nargacuga didn't give him any time.
It stabbed forwards with its tail, aiming directly for Joseph's head.
Despite being out of it, Joseph was just about able to see this coming.
Not really thinking, he drew his long sword and swung straight for the tail.
While he didn't have much space, he was somehow able to hit at the right angle so that the strike was stopped.
The Nargacuga seemed somewhat annoyed by this, as instead of going for the more lethal but less reliable tail strike it went for the more reliable but less lethal sidewards body slam.
The Nargacuga pulled back, while this didn't give Joseph enough time to dodge due to how weakened it was it gave him time to prepare for the counter.
The wyvern slammed into him, causing even more pain. He dropped his weapon as a result of this, but his left hand remained firmly closed, just about.
He was now pinned against the wall again.
Feeling slightly better, the Nargacuga decided now was a good time to try a more lethal but less reliable tail strike.
But, at that moment, it felt pain around its back area.
The pain was sharp.
There was a second's pause, before whatever was stabbed into it was pulled out.
It was then stabbed in again, at a slightly different location. This time, the Nargacuga really felt the pain.
It didn't stop though.
Joseph continued to use his hunting knife, desperately stabbing away at the Nargacuga.
At some point, inbetween attacks, the Nargacuga pulled backwards.
It swung around with a tail swipe, which Joseph didn't have the time or energy to react to.
It slammed him into the wall, but instead of choosing to follow up on the attack the Nargacuga jumped away.
Joseph took advantage of this moment to drink a potion.
He felt relieved, though he still wasn't fully recovered.
Joseph then ran to pick up his sword and assumed a fighting stance, as if challenging the Nargacuga to attack.
The offer was taken without much thought.
As the Nargacuga closed in, Joseph moved without his aura even activating.
The Nargacuga just missed him, so Joseph slashed at it as it passed by.
It stopped, and swung its tail around in the air.
The tail slammed into the ground, shooting out spikes.
Joseph managed to dodge most of them, but one or two lightly grazed him.
He then took to the attack again, sprinting forwards.
He stabbed forwards, but the Nargacuga jumped back to dodge, attempting to go for a tail swipe, but this was dodged with a fade slash, though unfortunately this swing failed to hit the tail, connecting with only the ground.
The Nargacuga saw this chance to attack and pounced forwards, but before it could connect Joseph's aura activated.
Joseph jumped backwards and now the Nargacuga was left open.
Figuring now was a good time, Joseph first swung his weapon around his head, hitting the Nargacuga's side.
He then swung it around in the opposite direction, a perfect mirror of the previous motion.
Next he swung diagonally upwards and to the left, quickly followed by a horizontal swing to the right and then finished by pulling his sword back and going for a downwards vertical swing.
Joseph paused for a second, before going for a roundslash.
The Nargacuga attempted to escape the attack, but was unable to escape the range, taking one final hit from the spirit combo.
Joseph felt like he now had the advantage and attempted to further press the attack while on this high, but the Nargacuga hastily retreated, leaping off of the cliff that led into area 8.
Joseph attempted to pursue it, but it was already gone, disappearing into the jungle below.
He sighed and drank another potion, feeling his adrenaline levels drop back to a normal amount, before heading out again.
He descended further into the jungle, finding that his target was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, somewhere between area 10 and 11, he found a wyvern corpse.
Specifically, a Nargacuga corpse.
Whatever they died of, it sure as hell wasn't a natural cause.
It was fairly logical to assume that this was linked to the Nargacuga going around attacking everyone, but how exactly it was linked was still a mystery to Joseph.
He thought about it for a little while and then finally resolved himself.
"I'm can't be sure that I'm right, but if I am right then this'll work out damn well."
He walked a little further into the jungle, where he heard a noise behind him.
He turned and saw the Nargacuga from earlier, ready to attack.
It lunged forwards and Joseph used his aura to dodge around, just about resisting the impulse to counter.
This continued for a little while, until the Nargacuga snapped out of its rage to realise something was up and stopped attacking.
Joseph then said "Hey, wyvern bastard. I think I get what's goin' on here, so if ya follow me I can fix it. So quit tryna attack me already."
It seemed to understand, so it followed Joseph back into base camp, where he left it there to go to Bherna.
While he was there he said the quest was failed and asked some questions, just in case he was wrong.
After hearing what he needed to in order to make his theory seem more likely, he went back to the Frontier, got the Nargacuga and they set off.
Unfortunately Joseph wasn't able to ride it due to the fact they were basically strangers, so he had to run really fast.
Eventually, a few dozen miles down the road, they found a cart being pulled by some Aptonoth.
"There it is-!" Joseph thought, running up to it.
He ran up to it "Hey, stop for a sec!"
The driver stopped the Aptonoth.
Joseph ran up to it, then suddenly collapsed.
The hunters inside looked at him "Um… are you okay?"
Joseph used the cart to try and stand up slightly "Yeah… just a minute…"
"No seriously, you look like you're super tired and shit…"
"Well I guess I would normally but I don't accept help…" Joseph looked up in an attempt to appear intimidating despite his state "from criminals!"
He then pushed himself and up and managed to remain standing a few metres away.
Joseph really wanted to just sit down and recover for a few more minutes, but after saying that he'd lost the chance to.
The one who was driving the cart spoke first.
"Oh? What do you mean by that, exactly? That's a pretty heavy accusation to throw at someone you just met, isn't it?"
"Well, the thing is, we've already met. Specifically in Bherna. The four of ya were the hunters who were apparently attacked by a Nargacuga unprovoked. So, after Ya reported this, I set out to hunt that Nargacuga and found some pretty interesting stuff."
"...Like?"
"Well, the thing that really stuck out to me the most was the corpse I found. A Nargacuga corpse, to be specific. Right next to an empty nest."
"What does that have to do with us?"
"I'm gettin' there, but here's the thing that was weird about all this. The Nargacuga was clearly killed by something, she had wounds all over her. If it'd been a monster, the corpse would've been eaten, but it wasn't eaten at all. If it'd been a hunter, the body would've been collected by the guild. So that only leaves one possibility, doesn't it?"
"So you're saying that they were killed by poachers…"
"Yep, exactly what I'm tryna say."
"Well still, why would the poachers only kill the Nargacuga? I can't exactly claim to be an expert on what they do, but if they were planning on killing a monster they'd take the parts, wouldn't they?"
"Well, they must've had another objective in mind, right?"
"So, I'm guessing that you know what this was, then?"
"Yup. Right now, we're in the Summer, right? So, seeing as Spring was just ended, it seems a little bit weird that an female, adult Nargacuga would be completely on their own when they died, right?"
"So they must've had cubs. These poachers had the aim of stealing those cubs for some reason and to do so, they killed the parents. Then they made off with them. That's what you're saying, right? Well, what exactly does this have to do with the Nargacuga that attacked us? The Nargacuga that was killed must've been the mother. I don't know too much about them, but I'm fairly sure that only the mother raises the young, the father leaves only a few days after she gives birth to them."
"Well, here's the thing. Nargacuga usually prefer to give birth in the Spring, but if they were late doing it, then the cubs'd be born late, wouldn't they? So, if in that case, the poachers must've killed the mum and stole the young, which the dad found about and was kinda pissed about, so he started hunting them down. He must've either not seen them or just been going after all hunters in his quest for vengeance though, seeing as how he went after ya as well. At least, that'd be how the case closes if that was all there was to it."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"Well, it's just that I think yer a bunch of liars."
"Hey now, you can't just keep throwing shit like this at us, y'know?"
"Well don't worry, I've got the evidence to break yer testimony. So then, according to what ya said, ya were attacked by the enraged Nargacuga in area 4 somewhere between the hours between the hours of 9 and 9:30 AM, right?"
"Yeah, that's right. It's what we figured the time would've been, seeing from how long it would've taken us to get back to town."
"Well that's pretty weird, seeing as when I passed through area 4, there wasn't any evidence to say that there was a battle there. Usually when there was hunters in the area only a few hours back, ya would be able to see the evidence of a battle, wouldn't ya? Judging from yer injuries, I doubt ya escaped unscathed, right? So then, it seems kinda weird that there'd be no damage to the surroundings of this apparent battle."
"Well is that it? It's not much, quite baseless."
"Also, we can assume the Nargacuga died recently. My reasoning for this is pretty simple, the corpse wasn't in too bad of a state other than the wounds. Ya tend to get smaller scavenger wyverns in that jungle, so they would've picked away at that corpse had it been any older than… I'd say about 12 hours. I guess even larger wyverns wouldn't pass up a meal that easy, so maybe 3 to 12 hours. Still, that isn't much, is it? Since the Nargacuga was on its rage then, the death was probably about an hour or two before ya were apparently attacked at the most. The only reliable way out of the Jurassic Frontier is through base camp, so the poachers would've likely gone that way. So, if that's true, they'd only have two ways of getting there. One of those ways goes through area 4, where ya would've been. Even if ya weren't there when they escaped, they would have also had to go through area 1 and 2, so it seems unlikely ya could've missed each other."
"Well still, that's quite weak. Anything else?"
"Well it's not only that. It takes about hour to get from town to the Jurassic Frontier, right? So, if yas got to Bherna around 10:30, I should've been there around 11:30. I found the Nargacuga in area 5. Ya realise what that means, dontcha? If what yer sayin' is right, then it would've only moved on 1 area in a full hour. Considering that it was pursuing with such anger and force, it seems unlikely it could've only gotten that far. Of course, it could just be retracing its steps, but that seems kinda dumb."
"Well… what exactly are you trying to say with all of this?"
"Well, it's obvious, ain't it? I'm saying that the four of ya are the evil poachers. First, ya fought the mum. In this fight, ya were injured a fair bit, but probably not too badly as ya still managed to kill her in the end. Nest, ya took the cubs. Something I should've mentioned is that when I fought him, he was injured. I'm guessin' this as he backed off after only a few minutes of fighting. So, what I think happened next is that he found ya and ya fought. He was also losing, but he backed off before the fight could end. The four of ya were injured as well, so instead of attacking ya chose to try and escape. Ya moved through the Frontier and left by going through area 4, which is why yer footprints were there, which is why when ya got back to town ya used that as your explanation."
The driver gave him quite an intent stare and the hunters in the cart looked somewhat tense, so clearly this meant something.
The driver then snapped out of it.
"Okay, I can understand why you would suspect us now, but there's one major flaw with this. Why would we go back to town? If we were trying to escape, then surely we wouldn't go straight through the base of the Wycademy, would we?"
"Well, that's pretty simple. Ya didn't want to appear suspicious. I mean, ya were already in Bherna. If ya just suddenly disappeared without a word, I'm sure the Guild would do some searching into ya and I'm sure that they'd find something… interesting."
"..."
"Not only that, but I can say how you did it, too."
"Go on, then…"
"Well, it's pretty simple."
Joseph pointed to the one wearing the Purple Gypceros armour.
"Ya used him."
"What do you mean?" The driver responded, sounding slightly irritated.
"Well think about it, the Purple Gypceros is quite bulky, there's a load of free space inside, ya really need to be well built to get the most out of it. Ya couldn't just bring some box into town, that'd be investigated for sure. But what wouldn't be investigated was yer armour. So, what I'm tryna say here is that ya put those tiny cubs inside of yer armour, then snuck through town with them. Then ya quickly took off and left before anyone could find that Nargacuga corpse and raise any potential questions."
"What… makes you think this…?"
"Well, yer injured right? Back in town, when ya were injured, the Guild Girl offered to help ya get your armour off. But, ya refused, almost a little too quickly if ya ask me."
"...Hey, is that it? You seriously thought you could accuse us of a crime worth the death sentence with just that alone? That's real pathetic, y'know?"
"Well, if I'm wrong, then let me investigate a little here. Lemme check yer armour, if you're so innocent."
So, with some slight hesitation the hunter with the Purple Gypceros armour on removed it, though he needed to be helped by the others, and Joseph inspected it.
He found nothing.
"Wait… they probably moved them while they were on the road. Yeah, it'd be kinda bad if the cubs woke up while they were travelling, that makes sense."
As Joseph realised his mistake, the driver said "See, nothing. So, then if you don't mind, we'll be leaving now."
"Waitwaitwait! Ya probably hid in yer stuff, right? So I gotta check there first, then I'll leave."
"Please be right…!" He thought, opening the first box he picked.
Inside he saw some sleeping Nargacuga cubs.
"Ha! Ha ha ha! I've caught ya, damn poacher bastards! Now, surrender and we'll head back to tow-"
Joseph felt his aura activate.
He followed it, just dodging a lance strike aimed straight at his head.
"Oh… yeah, that figures."
Joseph then dodged a shot from a bowgun, before being attacked by a dual swords user who he mostly dodged but was unable to do so fully, being cut a few times.
Joseph jumped off the cart but the dual swords user didn't let up.
He kept on chasing him and basically had Joseph on the ropes, until being hit by a tail swipe and knocked flying.
"Ah!" Joseph thought, as the Nargacuga passed by him and lept at the cart.
The lance user attempted to strike at him, but completely missed and the Nargacuga got onto his right side.
The Nargacuga pounced straight for him and knocked him out of the cart.
Not done yet, he continued to pursue, hitting with a tail swipe and then another leap.
Finally, when the hunter was down, the Nargacuga slammed his tail down onto him, just to make sure he was down.
The bowgun user attempted to use range to her advantage, entering siege mode, but the Nargacuga turned and leapt the distance in an instant.
The gunner attempted to jump off the cart, but ended up putting herself in a worse place than before, as the Nargacuga wasn't aiming to destroy the cart, just land near it.
After having been crashed down on by the full weight of a Nargacuga, the gunner was unconscious, leaving only one left.
The driver tried to run, but the Nargacuga quickly caught up to him and took him down with a tail swipe.
The driver managed to cling to consciousness long enough to see Joseph.
"Hey… can you help me out, here? I mean… we're not bad people… we're just doing what we have to in order to survive, just being a hunter really isn't enough to keep us going… really, you've gotta understand, right?"
"Well yeah… I think I get it, but honestly I don't really care. Only reason I'm here is to fight for what I think is worth fighting for and to me... yer not really worth fighting for."
Joseph then brought down the sheath of his sword down on the man's head, knocking him unconscious.
The Nargacuga moved forward to attack again, but he was stopped by Joseph.
"I get that ya wanna kill them but... don't, there's no point. I'm sure that those bastards did a terrible thing to ya, but if ya kill then the Guild'll probably keep their eyes on ya. So for now... let's just arrest 'em."
So they got back to the town with the poachers with them, explained the whole situation and the poachers were put into a temporary prison, waiting to be transferred to Verudo Prison.
That was the last Joseph heard about them, he wasn't able to piece together the full story in the end.
He got the Narga cubs and they were released into the wild alongside the Nargacuga.
Something rarely observed in Nargacuga is that if the mother dies and the father's still around, then he will take the responsibility of raising them. This was obviously the case here.
Joseph didn't have much else to do, so he'd come and check on how they were doing every now and then over the course of about a year.
A fair amount happened
The cubs grew larger and more independent
Joseph asked out the Guild Girl but got rejected as she wasn't into hunters, as it's way too dangerous of a job.
In general, things were just relaxed.
And then, finally, after the Winter was over, it was 1348.
The Nargacuga cubs were now almost full sized and they were independent by now, so they all flew off, ready to go live their own lives.
Joseph watched them leave and the turned to the Nargacuga.
"Welp, that was certainly something. I'm probably gonna leave town in a few days to go somewhere else, wanna come with?"
The Nargacuga figured he might as well.
They walked out of Bherna, headed northeast once again.
There was a brief pause and Joseph said "Hey, lemme on yer back."
The Nargacuga didn't really understand, but Joseph tried to climb on without an answer and he pretty much understood.
"Now, go!" Joseph yelled.
This one was obvious and the Nargacuga took off into the sky.
This was his first time so high up while not falling, so Joseph had to take in the sights for a minute.
Before him was the entire landscape.
He could see the Jurassic Frontier nearby, stretching out for dozens of miles.
Beyond that were roads, open fields and finally off in the distance some mountains.
It was quite a sight to behold.
He felt the Nargacuga flap his wings below, keeping them in the air.
Joseph thought for a second.
"I guess I haven't given ya a name yet, have I?"
There was a few seconds pause.
"What about… Nargy? It's not much, but it should do, I guess."
He took in the sights for one last time and pointed towards the mountains.
"Now then, Nargy, let's head that way!"
Nargy took off at an incredible speed and Joseph fell off.
Nargy then had to fly back around to catch him.
Joseph wasn't really used to flying yet, so Nargy had to control his speed somewhat, even then Joseph was still clinging on for dear life.
But still, they were getting somewhere.
TO BE CONTINUED
So yeah, there's another chapter down.
Don't have much to say, so here's some things I should probably cover.
Keep in mind this series is set past the games, which is my excuse to change things whenever I want.
So first off, Bherna. In Gen / Double Cross, it's a small village that has stuff to do with the wycademy, but here it's ranked up to a town due to Dundorma being more focused on hunting. So it's more focused on wycademy stuff. A fair bit of the Jurassic Frontier has been explored but not much, it's still pretty big.
As for "Verudo Prison" it's a place I mostly wanna cover in the future, but just for now know that the armoured city isn't just being used to keep monsters out, it's also being used to keep criminals in.
I kinda wanna do a thing where I cover random bits of my own lore at the start of chapters, but this part of the story isn't really for that as not enough's been introduced, so for now it'll have to stay down here.