15th December, 1348
The albino Khezu silently waited on the roof of the cave, seeking prey.
It smelt something resembling a human. From the sounds of metal, it was a hunter. Though the sounds weren't as loud as usual, meaning that his armour must have been quite weak.
The Khezu waited for a few seconds, before it could hear the prey walk directly below it.
It slowly lowered its head and extended its neck, to attempt to sneak up on the hunter.
It was almost there, but as it moved in for the bite it suddenly heard the hunter land a short distance away.
It hadn't heard the hunter turn around and had no idea how it could've been noticed, but there wasn't time consider this, as it heard the hunter leap off the ground.
It quickly retracted its neck, but wasn't fast enough, receiving a slash across it.
The Khezu cried out in pain and suddenly canceled this plan, dropping off the ceiling. This wasn't a reaction to the pain, the Khezu could stay there for as long as it pleased. This was a plan of attack. Since the hunter had slashed its neck there, when it dropped it would surely land on the hunter. Even if the hunter had somehow seen through the initial strike, there was no way that it would possibly be able to dodge this.
Despite this logical reasoning, it illogically struck only the ground.
The Khezu was confused, but had no time to be, hearing the hunter just to its left.
It quickly swung to its feet and shot out a small ball of electricity, followed by two more.
The hunter's movements this time appeared more realistic, making the Khezu further question the previous supposedly inhumane movements.
It dodged the first attack to the right, before dodging back the direction it came to get around the third, the second being wasted, being a measure in the case he dodged to the left instead.
The hunter then stood up and took off running towards the Khezu.
As it closed, the Khezu attempted to defend by spinning itself around to strike with its tail.
It heard the hunter quickly grind to a halt, the tail barely missing.
The hunter then stepped in to strike, but the Khezu refused to take another, discharging electricity around itself.
It heard the hunter attempted to dodge, but to no avail, being knocked backwards.
It was knocked into a wall, letting out a sound the Khezu assumed to represent pain as it collapsed.
The Khezu then charged forward, not wanting to let this opportunity go and jumped forwards, once again discharging electricity.
But this time, perhaps predictably by now, it struck nothing.
The Khezu hadn't even heard it move, yet here it was.
It resorted to its sense of smell to find them, finding that now there were two humans in the cave.
The Khezu was significantly confused, eventually assuming that the other must have arrived while it was focused on the charge.
The smell to its right was new, and the armour it was using seemed to be lighter, so the Khezu concluded this to be the best possible target.
It turned and charged towards the lighter hunter, planning to go with everything it had.
At this moment, it suddenly heard a noise behind it, of something sprinting at an unexpectedly high speed.
It then realised that this wasn't the original hunter, but a monster it didn't recognise.
It smelled somewhat similar to the larger wyverns that it left alone, but there was something different to it, perhaps a relative.
No matter what the case was, this situation had spiraled out of the Khezu's control, so it decided the best course of action was to escape.
It stopped itself and did a 180 degree spin, managing to connect with its pursuer.
The pursuer completely stopped and the Khezu lept to the nearby wall and climbed up the ceiling, before beginning to follow its usual route further into the cave, where it could hopefully hide.
But, this was unsuccessful before it could begin, the Khezu being pelted with projectiles of some kind.
It had no idea what these were, but these inflicted a great amount of pain, causing it to involuntarily fall to the ground below.
The Khezu struggled to get up due to its wounds, which ultimately caused its end, being battered by strikes from a tail, cut up by a sword and being hit by about ten arrows.
The three of them headed down the mountain, two hunters and one monster.
Two months had passed since Terrence began hunting again, with the motive of finding a motive. Unfortunately, no progress had been made, even as the year drew to a close. He was certainly improving his skills and was hunting better than ever, nearing the end of low rank surprisingly quickly, but without any reason to, that itself seemed meaningless. He was currently just living for the sake of being alive.
"Seriously…" Joseph thought to himself "What are we gonna do here… I woulda left a while back, but if I leave without helping him out I won't be able to forget about it… Still, no matter how much I wanna help, I got under a year left… I feel stronger, but still, I wanna see what it's like in other parts before I head back."
They headed back into the village, got some food, then headed home to collapse and wait for the morning.
When they awoke, they noticed a large "Urgent quest" notice posted on it.
Joseph walked up the Elder "Hey, so what's all this about? Another Ukanlos up there or somethin'?"
"No, no, nothing like that, but still important. You've heard of an Ash Kecha Wacha, right?"
"Ain't it that Kecha subspecies that spits fire insteada water?"
"Yes, exactly. You see, there is a particularly notorious one of these. The patterns on its ears resemble a skull, so it has gained the nickname of 'Skull-Mask'."
"Original name…" Joseph muttered.
"...Anyways, what's important is that it's been sighted around here. By now, it must be fairly old, so it shouldn't be too dangerous, but the Guild knows better than to underestimate, so they're requesting it be hunted. So, you'll be setting after it tommorow. You have a day to prepare for the hunt."
"Damn, an entire day for it?"
"Well, it is a near G-rank monster. Going in unprepared would be a bad idea."
"Good point…"
Joseph paused for a moment. "Well, I'm just gonna spend the day buyin' stuff, ya go do whatever suits ya I guess."
So, Joseph set out to go buy some things. Meanwhile, Terrence decided to read up on the target, having learned about going in unprepared before.
He researched into Skull-Mask himself, and found some information on him. He'd been first sighted in the late 13th century, something that surprised him greatly, even though he knew the monster was quite old. It had mostly lived in field and forest type areas, disturbing the locals wherever it showed up. He also learnt about its multiple fights, and the different scars that it could be identified by. In the end, he spent the entire day invested in reading up on this monster as well as Kecha Wachas in general.
Soon enough, the next day arrived, and they set out.
"I get that it's weak, but still, this is a pain. Armour's real weak to fire, y'know?"
"Don't worry about that, it rarely uses fire compared to normal attacks. Your armour should be about the same as normal."
"Huh… guess you're prepared for this guy, huh?"
"Yeah, honestly I've been kinda nervous about fighting another powerful monster, but I'm sure it'll go well this time."
They headed through the forest, as that's where it was likely to be.
As they travelled through, Joseph noticed a shadow overhead.
He gazed upwards and recognised it as that of a Kecha Wacha.
He got Terrence's attention, and then hopped on Nargy's back and took to the sky.
Nargy shot straight for the blue Kecha Wacha, Joseph clinging onto his back.
The monster heard a noise to his right and instinctively dived down, the black winged enemy passing just over his head.
Nargy refused to slow down to give his enemy any form of advantage, and flew higher into the sky before turning around and diving for the heavily scarred opponent.
The pale monkey fox turned around and shot out some fire, attempting to shoot the Nargacuga down.
Nargy took the hit, flinching slightly but pressed onwards.
The Ash Kecha realised that there was no point in countering and attempted to twist out of the way, but to no effect, being caught by Nargy's tail as he passed by.
The Ash Kecha was slightly thrown off, but managed to hang on, raising his claws to attempt to strike at Nargy's back while he was open.
It was at that moment that Joseph became relevant.
He drew his hunting knife and stabbed at the target, pushing it back slightly.
Unfortunately, since he hadn't had many chances to practice with this, he ended up pushing too far, and lost his balance, risking fall off, which was hardly going to work out.
Not particularly thinking, he grabbed onto the Ash Kecha instead of just getting back on.
Nargy flew off, not even noticing, leaving him dangling in the air; the thing that was trying to kill him his only lifeline.
If he let go, he'd get injured. If he didn't let go, he'd get injured.
So Joseph decided to injure it instead.
Using his still drawn hunting knife, he began to repeatedly stab the monster in the chest, causing it to react with pain.
It was trying to hit him, but was in so much pain that it now became a problem of trying to stay in the air, causing it to come crashing to the ground.
Joseph continued to stab at it, hoping something good would come of it.
The Ash Kecha descended further, crashing into the trees and eventually throwing Joseph off, causing them both to violently hit the ground and lie there, regretting their previous actions.
Nargy landed on the ground and let out a roar, signalling both of them to get back onto their feet to fight.
Despite being injured, Joseph felt like he'd already had enough of attempting to fight on Nargy's back for today, so he stuck to the ground.
The Ash Kecha roared in response and pulled his ears over his face, revealing the skull pattern.
"Good, we were right then, really is Skull-Mask…" Joseph thought.
Skull-Mask was the first one to move, lunging straight for Nargy.
Nargy jumped out of the way and then swung around with his tail, hitting him and knocking him into the air.
Skull-Mask managed to catch himself during the flight and started to glide briefly, before shooting out a blast of fire and dropping backwards.
Joseph ran towards him, so he swung at him, but the strike was completely dodged.
Joseph then jumped forwards and drew his weapon.
He slashed at the arm, connecting and causing the monster to react with pain.
Enraged further, it slashed for him, missing. It shot a fireball at the ground, but Joseph jumped into the air to dodge it.
"He shouldn't be able to hit me again, I've got this!"
The Ash Kecha then unleashed a water attack, hitting Joseph out of the air.
"The fuck!?" Joseph thought, crashing into the ground.
The monster let out a mocking roar, as Joseph attempted to collect his thoughts.
"These things're meant to shoot out fire, right? What's up with that…? Must be a deviant or somethin'. Woulda helped if we'd been told, though Terrence already probably knows bout it. Hold it, why didn't he tell me then? I don't think he'd've lied, so he musta just forgotten. Whatever, that's not important now, least until he catches up with us."
He stood up with the held of his weapon and assumed a fighting stance. "It's just like fightin' a normal one. Just with fire. And a lot faster. And without anywhere to grab on above us so it's just sticking to the ground. And with Nargy. And slightly bluer. Yeah, nothin's changed!"
Nargy was already attacking the target, so all Joseph had to do was run forwards and start wildly swinging on the other side.
Skull-Mask suddenly turned around to attempt to strike him, but Joseph's aura activated this time, allowing him to dodge, making sure to stick to the ground.
The fighting continued onwards for a little while longer, the monster slowly losing the battle against the human-monster combo.
Finally Terrence showed up, running out from through the trees.
Joseph noticed and turned his attention for a second.
"Hey Terrence, y'know bout this guy, yeah? Can ya tell me why he's spitting out water!?"
"What do you mean? It's an Ash Kecha, that means it can only use fire!"
"Well this one can!"
Joseph dodged around one, then signalled at where it landed.
"Are you sure it's Skull-Mask!?"
"Well, yeah! His mask is kind of a skull!"
"...What if this is mistaken identity!?"
"So yer tryna say there's two Ash Kechas with ear patterns that look like a skull round here!?"
"Well, no, but, yes I mean-"
"Get on with it!"
"Maybe!?"
"Ya even listenin' to what yer sayin'!? Hell's that work!?"
"Well what have you got!?"
"Skull-Mask can use water attacks!"
"But he can't, this was never recorded!"
"Maybe he learned to!"
"That's not how that works!"
"Well it's what's happening!"
As the conversation failed to end, the Ash Kecha suddenly struck out at both, shot down some fire and took off into the skies, flying away at a speed that wasn't impossible to catch up with, but Joseph felt it was for the best to try to work out what was going on for now.
Taking advantage of the opportunity, Joseph and Nargy simultaneously collapsed.
Terrence thought to himself for a while, trying to work out what's going on.
Eventually, he said something.
"That Kecha isn't Skull-Mask."
"This shit again? Listen, I'm tellin' ya. Ain't no chance of that."
"No, there's a way. A Kecha's ear patterns are genetic, so that'd explain it."
"Still doesn't explain the water…"
"I'm getting there… it's rare, but there is the possibility of it being a crossbreed between the subspecies."
"Ya serious?"
"Yeah. There's only been a few sightings, but it was there in the book. They can use both fire and water. Their fur colour varies, but it's different from the normal ones. The Ash Kecha's fur back there… it was darker than normal, right?"
"Dunno, never seen one."
"Well, I'm the same, but apparently their fur is meant to be pale blue. This was darker than that."
"Well, that'd make sense, I guess. Also explains why it was so active."
"Yeah, I should probably use that too."
"Wait what's that mean?"
"Come on, we're going."
"When did you take charge here?"
"Don't worry, I've got a plan."
"What is the plan?"
"Don't worry about it."
"No, I'm not worrying, I want to know what the plan is."
Terrence continued to walk on while Joseph followed him wishing to learn about the plan, until they reached the village.
Terrence walked up to the village elder.
"So, how did the hunt go?" She asked.
"It failed. We can't hunt that Kecha."
Joseph looked more confused.
"So, it appears we'll have to call in the Guild to deal with him."
"No, it's not that. This Ash Kecha isn't Skull-Mask!"
Terrence then went on the explain everything that had previously been covered.
"I… see then. Well, I suppose that it's true there isn't as much reason to hunt this one."
"So, we'll just have to leave it there."
"No, I'm afraid that can't be done. Regardless of whether it's Skull-Mask or not, a Kecha is still foreign to this place. he could disrupt the ecosystem if left there. Not only that, but a rare one like that could be especially dangerous."
There was a silence.
"Well, day's still young." Joseph interrupted the silence "If we head out now we can finish it while it's tryna recover. C'mon, let's go."
Joseph started to walk off, but Terrence remained still.
Joseph turned around and waited for a few seconds, before Terrence finally said something. "No."
"Huh?"
"No, I'm still not going to hunt this thing!"
"Fine then, if ya don't wanna I'll just do it!"
"No, I won't let it get hunted!
"...No it kinda has to be."
"Hey, you've got Nargy, right?"
"Oh that's what ya mean."
Terrence turned to face the Elder "If I take it under my protection, then there's no problem, right? So I've just gotta do that."
"Yes, there isn't a problem with the concept. That's only assuming you'll be able to make it work though."
"Yeah, but still, won't know if I don't try." Terrence then turned around and started to run, Joseph and Nargy now tailing him.
They obviously were unable to run the entire way, so after a while they slowed to a walk.
"So, ya got any reason for doing this, other than it just being a nice thing to do?" Joseph asked.
"Well, yeah, I guess. I'm guessing you've already spotted the parallel between us with our heritage, that's kinda obvious, but that alone isn't really enough for it. If you think about it, other than that, we're pretty much opposites. He must've been fighting with his life on the line for a while, judging from those scars. Meanwhile, here I am, having barely fought anything during my life, and nothing I've done has really ever mattered to anything. So, I want to get to know him better, and killing him won't do that. Plus, I figure that if I can save something, then that'll finally be something important I've done."
Joseph was silent.
"What, you didn't think that I could think something through like that?"
"Well, no, but it's like, ya first encountered him two hours ago."
"Okay fair enough I guess."
They walked further, before finding a sleeping Kecha Wacha.
Their target.
"What do we do?" Joseph asked.
"You're asking me?"
"Yer the Kecha man, plus this is your mission, for the best if you do it."
"Well, I guess we gotta wake him up."
There was a silence.
"Aren't you going to?"
"Yer the Kecha man."
Terrence sighed and walked towards the Kecha, but as he neared he noticed something.
His eyes were open.
Terrence lept backwards as the monster slashed downwards.
Joseph drew his weapon, but Terrence yelled at him to stop. "Don't try fighting him yet!"
Terrence instead stopped completely and yelled at the Kecha. "Up until now, all you've now violence, right? But I'll show you that there's more than that, if you just listen to me!"
The Kecha roared in response.
"Figures…" he muttered, drawing his weapon.
"So yer stopping this violence with more violence?"
"Well yeah, even if it sounds dumb that's the only thing that'll get through to him!"
"Okay, sure thing, but if it looks bad I'll stop ya."
Terrence drew his bowstring backwards and shot at the Kecha.
He continued to shoot, until the Kecha lept through the air, slashing for him.
Terrence rolled around the attack, it barely missing and then stabbed at the side of the Kecha.
It reacted with some slight pain, before turning and shooting out a blast of fire, hitting Terrence's side.
Terrence responded by rolling away and hitting the ground to get rid of the flames, before standing back up.
As he did, he could no longer see the Kecha.
He heard a noise to his right and quickly spun around to narrowly dodge a claw strike.
Instead of entering close combat again, Terrence chose to roll away and fight from a distance.
He hurriedly applied a power coating and began to shoot, as the monster finally canceled its momentum to stop moving.
The Kecha shot out a blast of water, but Terrence was easily able to dodge with a backstep.
More arrows battered the monster, wearing it down. Refusing to be phased, it roared as loudly as possible and dove forwards.
Terrence jumped to the side, but as the Kecha passed him, he stuck his claws into the ground and swung around, slashing him with his free claw.
Terrence light out a cry of pain and crashed into the ground.
He looked up to see the Kecha above him, ready to strike down.
Refusing to let it end, he suddenly rose to his feet, carrying a single arrow.
Without thinking, he drove it into the chest of the monster, pushing him back slightly and surprising him a lot.
He then quickly removed the arrow and kicked the Kecha backwards; before grabbing his bow, pulling out another arrow and firing it straight at him.
The Kecha retaliated with another blast of fire, but hit nothing this time.
The Kecha dived straight for his opponent again, hoping to gain an advantage by closing the distance.
This ended up backfiring, completely losing sight of the hunter.
The Kecha quickly scanned around, looking for any sign of the hunter.
After a few minutes, he assumed the fight was over, and started to flap his wings to fly away, but as he took off he was brought back down by a volley of arrows.
Hitting the ground with a thud, he worked out where his opponent had been hiding all along.
He bounded through the trees, where he saw Terrence standing a short distance.
Without event thinking, possibly driven by anger, he sprinted forwards, dodging straight around an arrow fired off, ultimately dooming itself.
The arrow flew straight past it as intended, directly into the barrel bombs that had been set up there.
The Kecha only noticed once he heard the noise, but was too late to avoid anything, getting caught in the blast.
The monster briefly fell unconscious, before waking up an unknown amount of time later.
Terrence was standing over it, waiting.
"You know" He began "Usually Kecha's use tricks and deception while they fight, at least from what I've read. But your style of fighting's really upfront, really all you want to do is do damage. I don't think that's the best idea, as if you used everything you would've seen that coming a mile away. But I guess that isn't your fault, it's probably all you've know to do, huh?"
The Kecha was silent, not moving but still breathing.
"So, here's my idea. You stop being out here tryna fight everything, and I'll try to help you get stronger properly. That good? Like I'd hope it's good because if if not I kinda gotta kill you. Sorry, not my decision, but hey you might want to die who knows I don't know you that well. But I want to-! So, come with me, we'll get stronger, or something I guess."
The Kecha was silent for a while longer, then lifted himself to his feet. Terrence seemed slightly happier, even if the Kecha didn't react really.
He took two steps forwards, then collapsed back down.
"Ah, you're still injured aren't you."
He took out a potion, and got the Kecha to drink it. "Well, take this, I guess. It won't work for long, but at least we can get you back to the village."
He tried to pick up the Kecha, but wasn't able to carry him very far, almost being crushed.
The Kecha was able to stand up on his own, and he followed Terrence back to the village, where he finally collapsed.
Joseph walked up to see them there. "So, ya got him back, huh? Ya coulda just asked me."
Terrence responded with "Yeah, I get that. But it's fine, so long as he's here. So yeah, starting from tomorrow it's gonna be a new start!"
"I think it's gonna be starting from when he's healed…"
"Good point…"
"So yeah, anyways, ya thought of a name for him?"
"Huh, not really, I guess. Uh…"
Terrence thought for a few minutes.
"I got it! His name is Demi-Skull!"
"Ain't that a bit much?"
"...Yeah, you might be right. What about… Demi, then?"
"Sure, works."
"Well, nice to meet you, Demi." He said to the sleeping monster, who couldn't hear a thing due to being asleep.
So, a few weeks passed by peacefully, rounding out the year.
7th January, 1349
Joseph walked towards the edge of the cliff, carrying his things with him, Nargy following him.
"Been fun, but we gotta get goin', huh? Didn't think we'd be here so long… but I mean everything worked out, so that's good."
He then unsurprisingly heard some footsteps behind him, and sighed as Terrence walked up to him, followed by Demi.
"So, where are you going?"
"Uh, that way. Listen, I can't stay here much longer, y'know? I wasn't meant to stay here for long, and now things've worked out, so I got no reason to stay, y'hear? I already signed out, so I'm headed to the next place now."
"Seriously, what's up with hunters just leaving this village without a word…"
Joseph realised something about his actions.
"Ah, shit, sorry about that, I didn't even realise. Shoulda told ya I was leavin', but I'm no good with leavin', so I just decided to only tell the Elder."
"Well, that's not my problem here…"
Joseph was confused.
"Hey, I wanna see the world too, you know? So, take me with you!"
"...Listen now, I get that the world might seem like an interesting place, but ya got a good life here, y'know? This place is pretty nice, and ya got a village that likes ya to hunt for. Outside here's dangerous, even if ya improved over the last few months. Didja know that there's three things on the level of Ukanlos? Even with that, there's shit higher and higher than that, that's what yer gonna be dealin' with."
"Well, it's not that, but I just want to understand it. I know that I can't be him, but I still want to get to know Aron!"
"Yer still concerned about that?"
"Well, yeah. I mean, thinking about it, I really know barely anything about him. Even the reason he left here I don't know, I just spent all this time figuring that he did it so I could succeed him, but when I think about it he never mentioned a thing about me becoming a hunter… so, that's what I want to find out! Besides, it's not like I can't be strong, cause I've got a way of being strong without the aura!" he finished, signalling to Demi.
"Still, ya really sure about this? Ain't normal for someone to just leave what they got and go travelin'."
"Well, I'll prove it to you! Right here, I'll show you the strength of Demi and me! Here's the rules. You and Nargy come at us not holding anything back, and we have to try to hit you three times. If you hit us three times first, we lose, and we'll just stay here, but if we win we're coming with you!"
"Fine, fine. Though still, ya sure ya want me to hold nothing back? If I use my aura too much ya could die."
"Nope, nothing! The world's dangerous, right? So I gotta fight you at full strength to prove myself!"
"...Sure bout that? I mean, ya never hunted with him before, right? Don'tcha want me to get a handicap or somethin'?"
"No, I've gotta fight you at full strength, if I don't then there won't be a point."
"Got it, got it."
He pulled his sword of his back, still sheathed.
Nargy tensed up behind him.
"Whenever yer ready."
Terrence thought for a minute, planning things out.
"Okay, let's go for it. 3 seconds?"
"Yeah sure."
"3…"
Terrence prepared himself.
"2…"
He checked Demi, who seemed to get what was going on.
"1…"
They wouldn't lose.
"Go!"
Terrence drew back on his bow and fired off, but missed, as the two opponents sprinted towards them.
Somewhat panicking, he turned to Demi and yelled "Start flying!"
Seemingly understanding the command, Demi began to flap his wings and jumped, now off the ground.
But he was too late, Joseph already swinging at Terrence.
Terrence stepped back to dodge the strike, just dodging it. In the opening presented by the attack, Terrence attempted to strike, but was dodged by the aura.
Joseph then used his aura to strike, hitting Terrence on the side.
While this was happening, Nargy ran up to Demi.
Demi pounced through the air and swung his tail around, hitting him backwards. Taking advantage of the oppurtunity, Demi then hit him with a blast of water, slowing him down.
Terrence saw this happen, and realised how quickly this would end at close quarters, so he ran towards Demi.
Nargy attempted to strike at him, but due to being slowed down he was easily dodged.
Terrence then jumped onto the back of Demi. "Let's get away from them!" he yelled, as they took off.
"Hey… ain't that a bit much for yer first fight…?" Joseph muttered.
He then lept on Nargy's back "Well, don't got a choice but to pursue, do we!?"
Nargy took off the cliff, pursuing the two.
While Demi did have range, Nargy could easily outspeed him.
Luckily, Demi was more stable in the air, enabling Terrence to shoot while on his back, even if they hadn't yet practiced.
Terrence shot off an arrow, being dodged around easily.
More arrows were fired, though there was barely a chance of hitting him to begin with.
Nargy then finally closed in on them.
Terrence muttered something.
Joseph saw Nargy close in on the two.
Unsurprisingly, Demi dodged it.
He looked over to get a look at them, and found that the only Demi was there.
He tried to work out what was going on, until he looked up.
There was Terrence, lining up a shot, falling through the air.
The arrow shot down, hitting Nargy on the back and throwing Joseph off his back.
"I-I hit it! But, it's not over yet!" Terrence thought to himself, lining his sights up with Joseph.
Joseph realised what was happening, and realised that he might die, but hoped that Terrence had a plan.
Terrence shot off an arrow, but his aura activated, enabling him to dodge past.
At this point, Nargy was already trying to stop himself from crashing, so there was no hope of help there. But, Demi couldn't reach him and save them too, so it was going to end with here no matter what.
Though Joseph was worried about how soon he'd hit the ground.
Terrence shot off some more arrows, but it didn't work.
"Like I thought. Well, there's no choice!"
Terrence then started to fall faster, drawing an arrow.
He attempted to stab at Joseph, but the aura activated again, letting him dodge.
Joseph then drew his weapon and was about to swing down and seize victory.
Terrence saw the strike oncoming, but all he could do was grin.
Joseph was confused somewhat, until he was hit on the side by Demi.
It was Terrence's victory, just about.
Both of them ended up on Demi's back.
"Well I mean… least I'm not dead…" Joseph thought to himself.
Eventually, they landed on the cliffs a short distance away.
Joseph began the conversation. "So, ya ready to leave?"
"Well, almost. I've just gotta to said goodbye to everyone."
"Why didn'tcha say before you left?"
"I wasn't sure if I'd win this, so I didn't want to get their expectations up just to let them down."
"Well, still slipping away without a word'd be bad, so ya better go."
Terrence walked off silently, somewhat irritated.
As he walked back, this irritation turned into a somewhat sadder mood.
He walked back into the village, and headed to his familiar home.
First, he visited the elder.
"Um, hey so-"
"You off then?"
"...How?"
"Joseph was already leaving, wasn't he? Since you two are so close, it was likely, especially with how much you've changed since the two of you started to talk."
"...Well yeah, I guess so. Really has, huh?"
There was a silence of thinking back.
"You know, when you were first left here by Aron, I think I wanted you to become like him, to bring back the life this village had then. I think everyone did, really. Perhaps we still hold that wish, but I really don't know."
"..."
"I'm sure it should go without saying, but you don't need to bring attention back to this village. Perhaps I won't live to see another person do it, but that doesn't really matter. Regardless, you don't need to be your father. There's nothing saying that you should be him, though I'm sure you've already thought that up by now. Well, whatever. Just head out, get out of this village and see what you want to do, there's nothing tying you here."
"...yeah, okay. Thanks for everything!" He yelled, running off.
This left one place to go to.
Terrence looked up to the place he called home, readying himself.
He knocked on the door.
Ann was the one who answered.
There was a silence, while Terrence felt somewhat awkward.
"Oh, so you're leaving, then?"
"Okay, how did you work it out?"
"It was pretty obvious."
"It wasn't that obvious…"
"Well, anyways, you've got to be here for a reason, right? So you might as well get it over with now."
"Well, I've just come to say thank you. Since Aron left, you've let me stay here, so thank you very much! You and everyone else has been so kind to me, so it'd feel wrong if I didn't say a thing."
"Ah, it was nothing. After all, this place's an orphanage after all, that's kind of it's job. Well, still, it was going to come some day, wasn't it?"
"Yeah… honestly, I never thought about leaving this place, but since my goal has changed it's not like I have much of a choice."
"No, it's not that… this village really isn't much of a place, that's why we can't get hunters for very long. If you want to do anything, then you've gotta head out."
"No, I don't agree with that. This village, it's a really nice place, I'm sure that someone can live a good life as a hunter here."
"Ah, don't go saying that yet, you don't know anywhere else."
"Yeah, that's… a good point."
"By the way, what is your goal, anyways? I'm not sure of it at this point…"
"Well, it's pretty simple. I'm going to find Aron, and find out why he left. From then, I'm not sure, but for now that's what I want to do."
"Well, that sounds good. There's really not much else I can say here."
She then moved forward to give him a hug, clenching him tightly.
"Just be sure to stay safe out there, you hear?"
This carried on for a little while, before Terrence got out of it.
As he walked off, Ann continued speaking despite her earlier.
"Oh yeah, be sure to write, don't forget about us! One last thing!"
Terrence turned around slightly.
"You don't need to keep calling your dad Aron, do you?"
"...Oh yeah, I do that…" Terrence thought "I'm not sure why. I mean, it's not like he's my ideal anymore, but I still think of him as such a far off person, so I guess I'm not that comfortable with it…"
"Well, that's fine. Just see how you feel about it when you catch him up, got it?"
She grinned, met with another grin from Terrence.
Eventually, Terrence made his way back to Joseph, who was almost asleep.
Nargy noticed him, and then shaked him lightly awake.
"Oh, ya back?" Joseph asked.
"Yeah, I'm ready to go."
"...Ya wanna go fly over yer village?"
"Why would we need to do that?"
"Don't, really. It'd just look cool or somethin'."
"Well, sure."
So, he climbed onto Demi's back, and Joseph hopped onto Nargy's.
The two wyverns took off, and Joseph pointed Nargy back towards the village, Demi following afterwards.
Terrence looked down.
From above, the village really wasn't much to look out. A tiny existence planted on the top of a towering mountain, just on the edge of an expansive mountain range.
Still, it was the place that he was comfortable in, the place he called home.
In the midst freezing cold, it gave off a feeling of warmth he had never found anywhere else.
Terrence looked down on the buildings and the people, some noticing and most continuing with their daily life.
It was peaceful, and he was glad that it had stayed that way until now and hoped that it would continue.
They passed it, flying until it could barely be seen.
Terrence thought to himself.
"Hey, Joseph, what's your motive for hunting? You have to have one, right?"
"...Yeah, course I do. Never really worked it out until few years back, was just sorta living this way cause it was all I could do, but now I get it. I've gotta get strong, using this aura I got. If I don't get strong, then I won't be able to do a thing to protect anyone I care about. If don't control this aura, then I'll just end up hurtin' em. So, I've gotta do both, at least that's why I'm out here."
Joseph thought a little while longer.
"I guess I get attached really easily. I mean, even Nargy here I only knew a day before helpin' him out. That's why it hurts so bad whenever they end up dying. I just feel… really angry about everythin', like there's nothin' I can do. So, I don't wanna feel that way, so I've gotta keep goin'."
"I don't really have anything like that… I mean, for me it's just wanting to see Aron…"
"That ain't selfish."
"Huh?"
"Well, he's yer dad, right? So it makes sense after he just left ya there that ya want to see him. Plus, everyone back there wants ya to succeed right? So just think of it as not lettin' em down."
"Well, I guess there's that. Plus, there's one more thing, I guess…"
"Go on, what's it?"
"I wanna see what the world is like! I barely remember anything outside the village, so I wanna know what it's like. Plus, there's so much I don't know about anything. So I just wanna know more things, so the only way I'll be able to do that is by seeing it myself."
"See, like I said, ain't nothin' selfish about that."
"Yeah, thanks."
Terrence then looked forwards, now that they flying out of the mountains.
He saw an expansive land unfold before him, the sun brightly burning above it.
He grinned, atop the back of Demi, as they flew to yet unknown places.
TO BE CONTINUED
So yeah, this chapter's really late, sorry about that. I didn't intended for this to happen, but I got caught up with school starting again and whenever I tried to to write it just kept going, until it became the second longest chapter.
So that was fun.
Normal updates should be resuming next week.