1327
The crowds made their way through Bherna, another busy day. This chaotic world was made up of countless smaller worlds, one for each person. They'd already formed their own worlds. They knew who was a part of it and who wasn't, most were hardly open to let any others in.
A greatsword wielding man wandered the streets alone.
He watched all the groups of hunters pass by him.
"Look at all of you. Pathetic. To think you all actually need to rely on others. Aren't you ashamed? You're all too afraid to be on your own. I don't have time for something like that. I've gotta survive on my own. "
No one took any notice of him, as he lent against the side of a random building, watching them all go by.
"I'm strong. Stronger than any of you. So of course I don't need to associate with you. Just keep living out your repetitive lives until the day you die, while I'm busy reaching the top."
In the morning, he would wake up and immediately head to the gathering hall to pick a quest. This would be dealt with quickly, so he could return back to the town and upgrade his gear, before going straight to sleep.
That was all there was to the daily life of Aron Gandor. There was never any variation. Not a single thing disrupted that routine.
Yet, he was satisfied. That was all he needed. He didn't need anything special. Just something to occupy him.
This solitary world continued down its own path.
As Aron walked towards the gathering hall, he found someone in the way.
"Yo, angsty swordsman character." The girl in front of him said.
Aron decided not to respond, he just walked past her.
"Hey, wait, I'm sorry for calling that. It was a joke. Y'know, for breaking the ice and stuff, getting interest, all that. You're alone, right? So let's work together."
Aron wasn't listening.
He took a quest to hunt a Rathalos and headed off to the jurassic frontier.
"So anyways, what's the deal with the whole not talking to people thing? Like, is it part of a character… wait, are you scared? It's ok, I don't bite. Ah… wait, sorry, can you just not speak? Uh… um… nod if I'm right."
Aron headed into the jungle, still trying to ignore the woman who'd followed him out here.
"You come around here often? ...Ok, so it looks like tryna get you to straightman and state that you obviously do come here a lot is out... trying to get you to straightman my pulling apart the joke for no real reason failed too."
Aron looked upwards, to spot a Rathalos flying around in the distance. Having found his target, he ran off.
"Wait up! Aren't greatswords supposed to be heavy? Why are you so fast!?"
Aron finally got some peace and quiet.
"Seriously… what was her deal?" He thought. "I don't need to be bugged by others. I'm strong. So just let me handle it myself." As he finished this self-promotion, he looked around.
"Where did that thing go? I'm pretty sure it must've landed somewhere in this direction…"
Aron's thoughts were then interrupted by a roar in the distance behind him. He took off in that direction.
The hunter rushed through the trees until he reached a clearing, spotting the target. It was only a second later that he spotted another hunter fighting it.
"Ah, so she found it first, huh? Wait a second, is she even fighting back?"
The Rathalos lunged at the woman. She dodged out of the way and tried to fire a shot in response, but this was cut off by needing to dodge another bite. As she stepped back the Rathalos swung his tail around, forcing her to roll underneath.
This left her unable to dodge the follow up, as the Rathalos swung his tail upwards. She was knocked a few metres away, ragdolling onto the ground.
The bow user struggled against the poison to get back up, only to see a fireball hurtling towards her. There was no time to dodge. She could barely even move.
Her paralysis was interrupted by a kick from the side, sending her flying again.
A man landed next to her. He finally spoke.
"If you're really that weak, then at the very least don't try to drag me down with you."
She was stunned.
"Did you really have to kick me!?"
"Wait, that's what you say?"
"Just blocking it would've been cooler, right?"
"That would've just dulled my blade for no reason. Why would I do that when I could just dodge it?"
"Cause it would've looked cool."
"I don't care about that."
"You should."
"No, really, I shouldn't. Anyways, putting this aside, isn't there a more typical line for people who've just been rescued from incoming doom?"
"...Ah! Yeah, right. Uh… Thank you for saving me, I now owe you my life."
Aron paused for a second, before turning his head away.
"I didn't need to be thanked."
"...Wait, why did you ask then?"
"Shut up, I'm tryna focus."
The Rathalos somehow still hadn't attacked them during this conversation, it was just keeping his distance and watching. That left Aron with no option but to go towards him.
He advanced quickly before the Rathalos cut him off with a tail swipe. This was dodged, followed by quickly attempting to catch the monster with an upwards swing.
The flying wyvern was unable to dodge, taking a hit to his left wing before trying to claw at Aron.
Aron just narrowly dodged this, hitting his opponent with another swing. The Rathalos launched a fireball, which hit him straight in the chest. He stumbled for a second, giving it an opportunity to knock him back with a tail swing.
Aron had no time to react as the Rathalos pinned him to the ground. He hadn't brought any dung bombs. He was trapped.
The Rathalos continued to attack, confident in his victory. He then felt the slightest amount of resistance. It was just his prey struggling. He didn't feel the need to pay much attention to it.
More resistance. He then worked it out.
Somehow, through sheer force of will, this hunter was fighting back. He wasn't trying to just stop the attacks. While he was stuck lying on the ground, Aron was trying to lift the entire weight of the Rathalos that had him pinned to the ground.
The wyvern tried to launch a fireball at the hunter's head, but before he could finish preparing it was over.
The hunter grabbed the wyvern by the legs and managed to throw him off.
It was stunned for more than a few seconds, having never expected anything like this.
It wasn't the only one, the girl watching the battle unfold from the side had her jaw hit drop, unable to even form an exclamation of surprise.
The one who'd just disregarded most common sense was the only one with his mind still functioning, surprisingly.
As the Rathalos was knocked back, he saw what he'd been waiting for this entire time.
"An opening!"
He gripped his weapon as tightly as possible and swung it for the newly exposed underside of the Rathalos' neck.
The fight was over in that moment.
Aron returned to where he'd left the girl behind.
"Wait, you're still just lying there?"
"Well yeah, of course. Poison makes it difficult to move much."
"Just drink an antidote."
She was clearly trying her hardest not to respond with annoyed sarcasm.
"I forgot to bring them."
"How can you not bring antidotes to fight a Rathalos?"
"Oh, sorry, I was kind of in a hurry, someone just took off as quick as possible."
"You could've just not followed me."
"But we're working together, now."
"Exactly when did I agree to this?"
"Well you're always on your own, so you need some company, right?"
"That's still not me agreeing. In the first place, why would I even want to be followed around by someone who's name I don't even know?"
"It's Julia. You can call me Juli, though."
"Well, whatever, Julia." He sighed. "I guess there's no way for me to stop you from following me around. But if you're gonna join me on hunts you gotta at least pull your own weight, got it?"
"Don't worry, I'll definitely be useful. I'll do whatever you need me to. All your requests will be fulfilled without a moment's hesitation."
"...I don't really have any requests though. Just don't hold me back."
"Sure thing."
Aron turned and started to march back to base camp as quickly as possible, trying to ignore the one now following him and her attempts to strike up conversations.
Yo, this is the author's notes section.
I don't usually include these on the prequel stuff, but, y'know. I think I got some explaining to do. Assuming that you've read the main series, you may remember how I said, in my own words "Hopefully this should return around June or July, though it could be later if I'm an idiot."
Yeah, so that same idiot decided "It'd be cool if I just wrote to the end and then started updating afterwards"
You'd think that college and stuff ending early cause would lead to a more efficient work output, but unfortunately attention disorders sure doesn't work like that. If anything I'm pretty sure that not having anything I was required to do just left me with less time to absently mindedly get distracted by writing thoughts like normal. But on the bright side, I don't feel like I'm dying like I was towards the end of the updates back then, so really it hasn't been that bad.
My complaining aside, yeah I ended up taking a huge break from writing in the middle of all of this. Then by the time I returned my pacing kinda varied between a chapter a day and a chapter a week, until the very end but those chapters are special cause they're longer than the rest. Also cause of the emotional weight behind them on my part.
Basically, everything is done, I've just gotta edit it. I'm planning on going at around a chapter a day at least, maybe more in some cases. Getting all emotional now would be kinda dumb, I'mma just leave it for the final chapter. So for now I'll just say that this journey of very nearly four years will be over soon enough.