Joseph started to run around the Ukanlos, attempting to draw its attention.
The Ukanlos ignored him, instead focusing on Terrence and Nargy.
Figuring that just running away was a lost cause, Joseph sprinted towards it and slashed at its side.
The Ukanlos turned to him, deciding that it'd be best to get him out of the way first.
Joseph turned to Nargy and yelled "GO FOR IT NOW, I'LL HOLD OUT 'TIL THE HUNTERS SHOW UP!"
The Ukanlos rose its front into the air and came crashing down, but as it did Joseph's aura activated.
He rolled away from the Ukanlos, then as he rose to his feet dove to the side to dodge the Ukanlos charging forwards.
Joseph just about managed to land on his feet, then pounced and slashing at its side once again.
The Ukanlos then suddenly twisted around, knocking him away. Joseph crashed into the wall only a few metres away, but refused to stop here, and hopped back up almost instantly.
He surveyed the arena to see if Nargy and Terrence were still around, before finding that they'd gotten away.
"That's good…" He thought "Now I don't gotta worry 'bout hurtin' em… so I can go all out."
As he surrendered to his own instincts, he felt his own self-control slipping once again, just like those times before.
The Ukanlos attempted to shoot a beam of ice at him, but he saw it coming a mile off, jumping to the right and clearing it completely.
Figuring it'd be too long for the Ukanlos to get tired and come to him, he started to run directly at it.
The White God swung at him, but he dodged around it and then swung down with everything he had, cutting it slightly.
Not wanting to wait, Joseph then looked up and went straight for its neck, only to notice something was off as he did and jump away, as the Ukanlos slammed its head into the ground, hoping to have crushed him underneath.
Joseph then seized the opportunity that had opened up by stabbing straight for it.
If he'd gone for anywhere other than where he was aiming, he'd likely bounce off a little and wouldn't be able to do much.
Joseph stabbed at the place completely unprotected, the eyes.
Specifically, the right eye.
It was quite small compared to the rest of the body, but it was certainly enough.
His sword pierced straight through it, causing the flightless flying wyvern to roar in pain.
Not wanting to take a risk, he pulled back as the Ukanlos began to wildly thrash.
It tried to lunge at Joseph, which he dodged with a jump to the right.
But as he did, the Ukanlos then somehow managed to stop itself and charge straight for him.
Unable to dodge, Joseph was knocked backwards and violently crashed into the ice.
He briefly fell unconscious but instantly woke up, and saw a beam coming towards him.
He got onto his feet, but as he did he felt a sharp pain run through his left leg, causing him to drop.
"Shit… what's causin' that?"
Not having any time to think about it, he tried to get out of the way, but to no success, getting himself hit by the attack.
Joseph was badly injured by this and sent flying once again, crashing into the wall.
He couldn't feel a thing but pain at this point, blankly staring ahead.
He wasn't able to see much, but he was just about able to make out a grey shape in the distance.
It got larger and closer, and he realised it was the Ukanlos charging at him.
His aura activated and he tried to dodge the attack, but could barely stand.
As he tried to move, the Ukanlos slammed into him at full force, slamming him straight into the wall.
The pain increased and Joseph heard screaming, before working out it was his own.
Finally he slumped down and collapsed.
Blood rolled down his face as he laid on the ground, it felt like the end.
The Ukanlos turned to walk away, heading to wherever it was going, having finished off the distraction.
"So this is death… huh…" His own thoughts were slow.
His life was flashing before his eyes.
He was remembering everything.
"This is what all of em felt, right at those last moments. Just a shitload of pain and not knowin' what's comin' next."
He remembered everything important to him.
Running away from Tanith Village…
Leaving Loc Lac…
And finally, Daimyo dying…
Those memories swirled into the aura around him, flaring it up and burning brightly through the snow, consuming him completely, making it him.
The Ukanlos sensed something behind it and turned around.
It saw its recent kill standing up, like a corpse reanimated.
This sight inflicted great fear upon it.
Had anything else seen this, they would have probably frozen with fear.
But the Ukanlos was a powerful wyvern, so it knew that its purpose wasn't to escape, but to attack.
It prepared itself for battle, deciding that this was more important than its previous objective.
"Too weak." Joseph heard this repeated thousands of times over.
"I ain't gonna fuckin' die, not here. Everyone's dead cause I was too weak… so I gotta avenge em. That's the only way everyone's gonna stay alive. I gotta keep everyone alive… so just lemme kill this thing already!"
Joseph was pulled forwards, running straight at his opponent.
The Ukanlos got ready to fight.
16th August, 1348
8 AM
The team of hunters searched the mountain, looking for the Ukanlos.
Since it hadn't been spotted outside of the mountains, they knew it was still up there.
They'd also been informed a hunter was up there, but they were expecting the worst, since he'd gone up there the day before.
One of them sent out the signal, and they all gathered at that spot.
It was at the top of the mountain, right at the frozen lake.
There was blood everywhere.
In the middle of everything lay the corpse of a Ukanlos and next to it, a person.
They checked the person, finding that he was still breathing.
None of them understood what had happened, only that somehow, this hunter had managed to kill a Ukanlos. Judging from his equipment, he was a hunter, but he was likely a hunter who was only high rank, as that's where his armour was from, so the fact that he managed to do this singlehandedly was even more confusing.
No matter what happened, standing around there wasn't going to solve it, so they sent out the signal to say that the hunt was successful and headed down the mountain, taking the hunter with them.
4 PM
Joseph found himself waking up in a hut again, this time with a lot more pain.
He lay there for a minute before remembering what had happened before blacking up.
The Ukanlos was near death and he took one last swing at it. He figured that'd kill it. The moment he hit it, he blacked out, and after that he couldn't remember a thing.
"That musta been when whatever was keepin' me up went out… guess the G-ranks arrived a little while after, explains why I'm not dead."
He thought further back before hesitating for a second "What even happened there… thought I dead, then for some reason the aura just pulled me up and I kept goin'. Thinkin' bout it, didn't I break my leg?"
He got up and tested it, before finding he could stand on his left leg perfectly fine.
"Did I just imagine it back there… or is it the aura's shit? Well, wouldn't surprise me at this point, considerin' what it was able to do before... guess I really don't get this thing at all, huh?"
He walked outside to find the village moving again.
Joseph then found that a few of the people looked over, their expressions reading confusion.
Joseph was also confused by this, but didn't ask them as they then continued with their days.
He found the Elder, who asked "How are you up already?"
"Whaddya mean? I wasn't hurt that bad."
"Even if that's so, you still took down a Ukanlos. That's hardly an easy feat."
"Wait, I killed it?"
"...Yes. How did you not know that?"
"Honestly can't remember a lotta things that happened up there… But, at least now I can put that on my card and get super popular and shit! Things are lookin' up!"
"Unfortunately, you can't take credit for this hunt." The Elder interrupted.
"Wait, what?"
"Yes, the problem is that you just ran off without taking a quest first. This means that this was technically an illegal hunt, despite you having saved Terrence."
"...So I can't take credit…?"
"Well you can, at which point you'll be thrown out of the Hunter's Guild and put on death row for poaching."
"Huh, got it. That'd be a problem."
"So, the official story goes that you and Terrence went up there to gather at the bottom, at which point the Ukanlos attacked you unexpectedly. You sent Terrence and your Nargacuga back and tried to hold it off yourself, and tried to stall the Ukanlos yourself. This failed, but managed to survive just about. The G-rank hunters then came to kill it and found you."
"Well, guess it ain't that different… still, what kinda idiot'd go up there to gather when the Ukanlos' on the mountain...?"
"Well now that idiot is you. We've already agreed on this while you were passed out, so unfortunately not much can be changed. The hunters agreed without complaints."
"Seriously? They didn't even do a thing!"
"If you were offered the chance to say that you killed a Ukanlos for free would you take it?"
"Got a point there. Oh yeah by the way, where is Terrence at? I should probably go talk to him."
"Well, I'd assume he's at home, since I haven't seen him out since he got back."
"Cool, see ya." he turned away and muttered under his breath "Though ya coulda made my story a little better…"
Joseph walked up to the building and knocked on the door.
It was opened by Ann, who looked about as surprised as the people before.
"Ah, Joseph. This is… quite surprising. How are your wounds doing?"
"They're fine, they're fine. Always healed up from hunts quick for some reason. Anyways can I come in, gotta talk to Terrence bout that whole Ukanlos shit."
"Please don't use language like that here… but yes, do come in."
"Sorry, sorry."
Joseph walked up a room with "Terrence" written on it. Using his expert intuition he deducted that this was Terrence's room.
He knocked on the door and said "Hey, you good in there?"
There was no response.
Joseph waited for a few minutes just in case before opening it.
He found Terrence sitting down in the room, refusing to look up.
"Hey, talk to me already! Hell are ya doing cooped up in here!?"
"I wasn't… able to kill it…"
"Yer seriously concerned bout that? Look on the bright side here, not dead are ya?"
"Well, I guess… but still, I'm too weak…"
"Too weak for what?"
"I've got to kill one of those things so that I can…" Terrence then trailed off.
"So that ya can succeed yer dad?"
Terrence seemed surprised by this, though emotions other than generic angst weren't really that good at showing right then.
"Yeah, heard about it. Listen, I get that ya must look up to him, but that ain't worth it! Saw for yerself how strong that thing was. Yeah, yer dad was able to take it out, how close do ya think he came to dyin'!? There's no point in just constantly riskin' yer life like that!"
"It's not about my life! It's the reason why I was left here! I can't just undo everything like that-"
Joseph muttered under his breath "Grit yer fuckin' teeth."
"Huh-"
He clenched his fist, then swung forwards and connected with Terrence's stomach, causing him to double over and collapse.
Terrence looked to be in more pain than intended and he noticed that there were now small children crying from witnessing this violence, and Ann let out a loud gasp.
"Shit, probably a bad move…" he thought "Still, gotta roll with it, or else this ain't gonna work."
Joseph took in a deep breath and started yelling "Who the hell said that!? Listen, I don't care how much ya don't care about being dead, but are ya just gonna forget the people who care about ya. Hunting's a dangerous job and ya got plenty of better options here, so just quit while yer ahead!"
He then stopped for a second, before turning around to walk off, saying "Sorry bout that, just got kinda emotional. I'll show myself out."
Joseph then walked over to the Elder, got a quest and ended up doing that for the rest of the day.
He was back to hunting with just Nargy, and things stayed that way for a while.
7th September, 1348
11 AM
Joseph walked into area 1, looking up at the mountain, getting ready to scale it for what must've been the hundredth time now.
He heard some steps behind and saw Terrence walk into the area.
"Oh, hey. Sorry for punchin' ya back there, I guess."
"No, it's fine."
"Still though, hell are ya doing out here. I still stand by what I said back there."
"I get that but… I remembered something!"
"...Fine, I'll listen to what ya got."
"Well, you remember that fight you had with the Ukanlos, right?"
"Not particularly."
"Well, still. Back there, when you dodged its attack, a blue thing appeared around you! Unfortunately, I can't remember much about the Frozen Demon, but I can remember watching him fight once."
"...How is that?"
"Well, my earliest memories go back to when he was taking me to Pokke. I don't remember where we were coming from, but we were on the road. One day, our caravan ended up getting attacked by a Velocidrome's pack. While they weren't much, one of them ended up managing to sneak around him and got the jump on him. When it did that, the same thing I saw back there happened, and he managed to dodge the attack and kill it. I guess I must've forgotten about it until I saw that… still, with power like that, there'd be no risk of me dying, right? I mean, look at you, you were able to fight off a Ukanlos with it and you weren't even harmed!"
"..."
"But yeah, if you could tell me about how to get that thing, then there'd be no problem, so I could still be a hunter!"
"...I can't remember."
"Hey, don't just lie to me! I know that you don't want me to be hunter, but still, that's exactly what I need!"
"No, really. I don't know how I got this thing…"
"..."
"I've just had since I started huntin'. I don't remember having picked it up. When I first used it, it's just sorta somethin' that came to me, y'know? Even though it's affected me so much, I got no idea how I got it. Never met anyone else with it either, this is the first I've heard of anyone else usin' it. I don't know how he got it, so I can't tell ya how to get it yerself…"
Terrence was silent for a while longer. Time passed.
Finally he reacted to something, before letting out a quiet snicker.
This developed into a louder one, before evolving into a full on laugh. He almost doubled over from it, but just about managed to stay up.
Then finally, he stopped completely.
A minute passed while Joseph attempted to work out what was happening.
"So.. I guess I really couldn't be like him from the start, huh?" Terrence finally muttered.
There was another silence.
"Even though I always thought that my purpose was to be a hunter like that, I was never directly told that. I mean, it's what the villagers expected of me, so I guess I just filled it in myself. The reason he left me there was to become a hunter like him. I guess that if I don't think of it like that, then I really don't have a purpose, do I?"
"So yeah, like I said back there. Ya don't gotta be a hunter, y'know?"
"Well, I think I'm still gonna be."
"...What?"
"Well, I guess that now I don't have a purpose I've gotta find one, right? Just sitting around isn't going to change anything, so I figure that while I figure one out, I might as well stay at what I'm doing now, right?"
"Isn't that just doing what the village wanted you to?"
"I guess it might be in a way, but still, it's the best I've got for now, so that's what I'm gonna go with."
"Well, it's not like I can punch him out of this one…" Joseph thought.
"Yeah, yeah got it. Long as ya don't go off tryin' to get killed, we're good."
Terrence seemed a lot happier than he had been over the past few weeks.
"Hmm, so now you're off tryna be like yer dad right? I gotta a question for ya, when ya were getting started at being a hunter, did ya try out the other weapons?"
"Well, I guess no. I mean, it was his weapon, so since I was kid I was always saying about how I'd be a great sword wielder, so I didn't give the others any thought…"
"Yeah, honestly I feel like yer more suited to a lighter weapon than anything, so when we get back to the village yer gonna be tryin' those out, yeah?"
"Okay, got it."
So they went on a hunt up the mountain, though it didn't take that long being a gathering quest.
When they got back, Terrence tried out every weapon.
As Joseph had thought, he was better with lighter weapons as opposed to heavier ones.
What was surprising though, was that he seemed to work slightly better with gunner weapons as opposed to blademaster.
After that, they stopped since it was now dark.
The next day, Joseph was waiting by the exit of the village, when he saw Terrence walk up.
He was in a full mafumofu set, with a bow over his back.
"So ya chose bow, then?" Joseph asked.
"Yeah, but unfortunately I'm not able to use my old armour with it, so I guess I'm starting over from near square one…"
"Ah yeah… that'd be a problem sorta…"
"Why?"
"I got a Blangonola quest…"
"..."
"..."
"Well, that's fine I guess, I'll just focus on keeping the Blango off of you. So you don't need to use your aura on them."
"...I feel kinda bad…"
"It's fine, really! I need the parts anyway, I gotta build a good set!"
So the two of them set off up the mountain, moving forwards at least somewhat.
TO BE CONTINUED
So yeah, this was put together fairly quick. Originally, it was gonna be a lot longer, but that didn't happen for a simple reason. I got distracted. For the first weekish I was actually busy, which explains why I didn't work on it. But then I decided to start watching Sun and Moon. Sun and Moon is really good, like so good it makes me completely forgive the existence of Best Wishes, but unfortunately because of it work on this didn't start until Wednesday, when I realised "Oh yeah I gotta update."
In a way, it works out better, since I think that I have enough left to fill another chapter and this works out better with part 3's end now releasing only a day after the 1 year anniversary, but still it's not something I'm that proud of. Hopefully next chapter won't be incredibly delayed, since it's still important.