The perfect hero!

Brave, determined, unbeatable.

One infallible person that would always be there for the sole purpose of saving others. One that everybody could always, without a doubt, be relied on. One that would never break.

That person was-

Mary Gilmore was abruptly awoken once more. It didn't take long for her to determine the cause. That being the foot currently lodged in her side.

Laura had somehow started sleeping upside down again.

Mary slowly got up and began to attempt to return her to a normal position. It took a great deal of effort, but she eventually managed to get her mostly back in the sleeping bag. By some miracle, she'd remained asleep the entire time.

The reason for their sleeping arrangements was because they didn't have enough tents. There were only four for the nine of them.

For the men, this didn't require much thought. Luke shared with Judah, while Spence shared with Fen. Having the largest in the group share a tent with the smallest was simple logic.

For the women, a larger problem presented itself. To begin with, they couldn't divide things so evenly. Initially, they went with the plan of having Laura and Zara share, following the same logic as above.

After only a single night, Zara couldn't stand being in that tent anymore. She demanded that Laura just sleep outside, which the girl in question didn't really have much of a problem with, but Mary volunteered in her place instead.

It ended up with Isa, Zara and Jean in one tent, while she and Laura were in the other. The situation couldn't be called perfect. She hadn't been able to get through a full night without being woken up by some form of attack. But it was fine.

If Laura had to sleep outside then she'd probably hate it. Mary's small sacrifice led the way for everyone to be happy. It was the most optimal situation.

But such a thing was hardly significant, so she felt no reason to make such a big deal out of it. Unable to return to sleep, she decided to take a walk.

As she neared the hunter's hub of the outpost, she spotted something hung up on the wall.

"Ah, these are wanted posters."

The guild usually dispatched knights to deal with poachers or other criminals, but hunters still had the option of taking them down in return for a reward. Each poster had a name, depiction and a bounty. Written as well, were warnings about all information on them that was currently known, their strengths and what they were responsible for. The majority of them also had epithets, she failed to understand why.

She decided to skim through them to pass the time, finding the epithets quite ridiculous.

Mad Slasher. Monkey King. Reaper's Envoy.

Her eyes moved past that group to arrive at another. Fera Gladius. A group of poachers who were fighting alongside monsters, who'd been active nearby recently.

"They're probably giving us a bad reputation. That's disgusting. Okay, I'll memorise all the names here. Then if we see any of them while we're out there we can be the ones to bring them in. That should work to paint us in a good light."

She decided to skim through the epithets again.

"These are still so ridiculous. What does someone have to do to be called a War Goddess? …Quite a lot, clearly. With titles like Preacher of the Inferno and Molten Conqueror, it feels like they're encouraging people to break the law more than they're dissuading them. Wait. Pincushion? That one feels out of place."

Her eyes finally arrived at the bottom of the list. Limit Breaker. That was the final wanted poster.

Mary stared distantly.

The entire group now gathered, they looked over quests.

"Hey, Luke. Why don't we hunt together? It's been a while."

He paused for just a moment.

"Sure. But what?"

She picked the first one she saw. A Gravios.

"Guess I'll go too." Said Fen.

Isa, Spence and Jean grabbed the next quest, one for a Brute Tigrex. Without really studying it, they ran off.

"Will they really be okay without a voice of reason?" Judah wondered aloud.

"I'm sure that at least one of them will come back alive." Zara assured him.

The group walked through a rocky area. Ahead of her, Luke and Fen were chatting away about something she had no hope of understanding. Mary had long since given up on entering the conversation. Left out, her mind began to wander once more.

"Luke's changed so much in the last few months. Especially after that group training with the Starward Diamonds. I still remember having to speak for him when he was too nervous. Now he's there in front of me, happily chatting away. He's all independent now. That's just-"

"Hey, vice-cap."

Mary snapped back into reality.

"What?"

"Well, look around. We're here."

"Oh, right."

She forced her head to work properly again.

There wasn't much of a fight worth describing. The group dealt with the target with great speed. It was easy.

Everything went as expected. Nothing was out of the ordinary. Not a single exceptional thing occurred.

"Not good enough."

She barely contributed to the fight. It was completely out of her hands.

She felt like laughing, for some reason.

The image of that perfect woman appeared in her mind again, dragging her back to where she should be.

"Kasa… your feathers are so beautiful. I must've thought this a thousand times by now, but they really never change. Compared to that, I'm still so ugly."

The grace she was always chasing kept on remaining out of her reach. That was the reason why she was so drawn to the elegant bird.

"I want to be like you. An umbrella that keeps someone out of the rain. A gentle flame that keeps them warm without burning them. It's frustrating. It's frustrating that I can't just become you."

For some reason, she felt like laughing again.

"It's so tiring. But I can't complain anywhere but here. Because then it'd all go to waste, wouldn't it? They're probably already seeing through it anyway. Like when I asked Luke to go hunting. They probably already know."

Phantoms appeared, repeating the same words she'd played back more than a hundred times over.

"I don't have any reason to listen to liars."

"I'm heading up. Past where anyone else here's ever gone. Don't try and hold me down just because you're caught up in gravity."

Her head slumped down, grasped in her hands.

The past played out before her. To borrow the terms of another time and place, it resembled a silent film.

Four children were running somewhere. Where, she couldn't remember. She also had no collection of why. All that could be played back was the distance scene itself.

An adventurous boy led the group. The tallest boy in the group kept up easily, while the youngest boy there lagged behind.

The girl was in second place, but ended up tripping. Her feet left the ground. With no hope of reaching the sky, she crashed into the ground.

Someone appeared to pick her up. Someone warm.

With an ever flawless extended arm, she pulled Mary off the ground once more. Mary couldn't hear her words anymore. But she could still remember the feeling she had.

"Luke's really grown so much recently. He's so independent. Completely flown the nest. Now that I think about it, I suppose I hate that. It's annoying. I was supposed to be the one to protect you. Don't go off on your own. What am I supposed to do now?"

An umbrella is only necessary when people wish to remain dry. A fire is only necessary so long as people need warming.

Mary didn't particularly despise such misfortunes. But that wasn't to say that she liked them. She was merely stuck between feelings. They were what she required to keep going. Because without them, she would be discarded or extinguished without a single thought. She was aware of that more than anything.

"I already know that it's a lie. You don't have to tell me that like it's some great revelation. Of course I'd know. I'm the one living this way. But it's okay. Sure, lies can be terrible. That's what we're always told. But an innocent lie is so much less terrible than the truth."

What she aimed for appeared in the corner of her vision once more.

"It's for the best that they don't know. What'll happen if they find out? Nothing good. That's why it's right. Not telling them is a way of protecting them. So there's nothing to worry about."

Mary looked into the mirror, using her fingers to pull her cheeks up into a smile. The reflection that stared back at her refused to follow, no matter how hard she tried to force it to. Countless moments passed on by, the two sides at a deadlock.

"Shut up already!"

The mirror cracked. Something had broken it. At the same time, she felt a strange pain in her right hand. She wasn't sure why.

She felt herself falling as this world descended into nothing. As she melted away, a final phantom appeared and wrapped itself around her in an entrapping embrace. The words echoed through the cage of her body once more.

"It's okay. There's no need to be sad or afraid. Because it's all going to be fine."

Something was amiss near the hunter's hub. It was hardly anything major, but still wasn't so minor that it could be viewed as something natural.

No one had seen the act being performed, so the identity of the culprit was a complete mystery. Still, no one seemed to show that much concern.

A single one of the wanted posters had been torn to shreds. That was all. No one had been hurt.

TO BE CONTINUED

For some reason I've really been feeling like writing author's comments lately. While last time I apologised for the competition taking up too much time, this time I feel inclined to apologise for this chapter being too short. I've never had the most consistent output in the world, I feel like this chapter taking longer than the previous one is the best example of this.

You might've noticed already, but this story lacks a single main character. The closest is probably Luke since he's the one I always start with when I'm listing off the cast in notes, but he doesn't really fit entirely. The group is the main character.

The previous story was somewhere close to this, after a certain point it felt like five or six stories playing out in parallel with some occasional intersection. But it was still meant to focus on one main character. If I started talking about my regrets relating to how the group never really felt properly connected in the original it'd take a while, so I'll just cut things short and say that I want to avoid such favouritism this time.

But the chapters of this part of the story that focus on individual characters have a very noticeable disparity in length. Which clearly goes against what I just said I want. I'm very sorry to the caged flame girl for this unfair treatment.