1343

An ordinary day began in Kotoko village.

Josh found his way to the hunting hall, before sensing something was off. He hopped back as someone crashed through the space where he just was.

"You weren't meant to dodge it, Josh…"

"What kinda idiot would just stand there and get hit?"

"You. It was a test of will, you get me?"

"Dan, I get that being tall's great and all, but trust me when I say that being this short makes you tend to avoid head-on confrontation."

"That's your fault."

"I'm not the one trying to crash into people."

A taller hunter wandered towards them, yawning before he asked "What are you idiots doing?"

"I've got nothing to do with this, William, all I did was dodge a probably fatal attack." Josh protested.

"It wouldn't have been fatal if you were strong of will enough." Dan argued back.

"You mean it wouldn't have been fatal if I was your height."

"Yeah, what I just said."

"If strength of will and height had anything to do with each other I'd either be a midget or I'd be determined as hell." William cut off their drawn out conversation "So anyways, can we get going?"

They headed in and immediately found who they were looking for, holding some paper.

"Yo, Isaac." William started the conversation "Whatcha got?"

Isaac turned to face them. "You guys wanna go hunt a Hypnocatrice?"

"No."

"What the hell's that?"

"Sure."

"Cool, then let's get going."

As they made their way up the hills, Isaac took the time to explain.

"Alright, so the main things to look out for this guy are how quick it is and the sleep attacks."

"Question. Since I'm really tired then is it cool if I get a quick nap in using its sleeping attacks?"

"William, this thing's still dangerous. You need to take it at least a little seriously."

"I slept badly last night, y'know."

"...Fine, I'll allow it once."

"Lucky me."

"Well at the very least you don't have to worry about me." Dan boasted "I'm invincible, so the sleep thing'll just bounce off. I've never slept in my entire life."

"Good to hear." Isaac replied without much reaction.

"So if we get hit with the sleep, then we just gotta kick each other to wake up, right?." Josh asked.

"Yeah, can't think of a better solution."

Their vague attempt at strategising continued until they ran into the monster.

It spotted them first and roared, catching them off guard.

Both Dan and William rushed forwards, surprisingly matching the other's energy for once.

They got hit by the sleep attack simultaneously.

The only part of this action that didn't sync up was their response, celebration from William and an annoyed grunt from Dan.

"That was surprisingly fast." Isaac noted.

"I wouldn't really call it surprising, but whatever." Josh replied, before these two started an attack of their own.

Josh rushed at it from the side, managing to dodge around the sleep attack and slash at the monster a few times before rolling away.

"Alright, so let's just keep doing that." He thought "I know that Isaac said it was fast, but I guess I must just be super fast, cause it can barely keep-"

The Hypnocatrice launched off the ground and closed in on Josh with some kicks, cutting off his mental bragging and knocking him away. It turned to face the remaining hunter, before getting some shells to face.

Isaac poked at it a few more times after closing the distance between them. The Hypnocatrice tried to attack with its tail, but was blocked. Some kicks were used, but still had no effect.

It then had an idea. It used some more kicks, then when its head was above Isaac's shield it used a sleep attack, hitting him directly in the face. It felt so assured of its victory it stopped paying attention, failing to notice he'd been preparing a wyvern's charge until it went off.

The blast knocked everyone away.

"Alright, done taking it easy on you." Dan was already talking before he even got back up "Let's get serious. For real."

"You'll pay for waking me up." William muttered "All of you."

Dan charged forwards, managing to avoid getting hit with a sleep attack this time. He started hacking away at the monster, before being knocked away by a tail swipe.

As he was sent away, William jumped in to take his place. The Hypnocatrice tried to strike at him, but this was dodged around and he began swinging just as wildly.

By this time, Isaac had already managed to get back up. Josh had also recovered.

Isaac poked at it, while Josh swung for the head.

They ended up accidentally hitting each other a few times due to the monster not being large enough, but eventually it was weakened enough for the fight to almost be over.

Isaac fired a shell into its head, causing the monster to fall over. It wasn't moving anymore.

"Ah, it's over already, huh?" Dan thought aloud "I didn't even get to switch to sword mode."

"That's what happens when you spend half the fight running at it instead of just hitting it." William explained "Anyways, can we get going? I still wanna sleep."

"Sure." Isaac replied as he finished carving.

Another ordinary day drew to a close.

A few hours later, by the time had set, Josh felt his mood sinking.

He ended up running into Isaac.

"Yo." Isaac began.

"Yo." He replied without much energy.

"What's wrong? You still annoyed you didn't get to do much?"

"It's not that. Today was a good day, y'know? Not much happened. Yeah, the fight was there, but it wasn't really anything to be concerned over. Today was a completely fine day."

"And what about it?"

"...Is it really fine for days like this to continue?"

"Yeah, I'd say so."

"Well yeah sure, there's nothing wrong with it but like- You can't shake that feeling either, right? These days are nice, but will they really keep going like this? Life… isn't good. Something terrible could just hit us at any point, without warning. How am I meant to deal with knowing that?"

Isaac took this in and thought of a response for a little while.

"...Well yeah, I guess you're not wrong."

Josh had expected denial, so this surprised him. He didn't respond, allowing Isaac to continue.

"Life does suck. Things could completely change in a year, a month or even a single minute. But to us, living here in this moment, do we really need to care? Whether we anticipate it or not it's still gonna happen, so we might as well put everything into living now."

"...But we can't stop that terrible thing, can we?"

"Well see, that's the thing. Sure, something like that might try to happen. But don't worry. I care about you guys, so I'm gonna protect what we have. Trust me, that potential terrible future won't happen so long as I'm around. You can count on me. No matter what."

Josh took a few seconds to process this.

"You're way too full of yourself, you know that?"

"Well yeah, probably."

"...But still, thanks. I'll believe in you, okay? Though don't expect to just do everything by yourself. We'll help too."

"Sure thing."

The next day, the group met up like usual.

"The only quest available is taking down a pair of Velocidrome." Isaac fold them.

"Seems easy, let's go."

"Sounds kinda boring."

"Sure."

That ordinary, enjoyable life continued carelessly, never stopping to think about the future.

The group set out, expecting another non-serious day.

A while later, a man found himself in the pits of despair.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I see now. I was wrong. What did I think I could protect? What's the point in protecting? I can't protect anyone. Just waiting around will only get everyone killed. I have to stop the problems before they happen. That's the only way. I need… to save everyone."