Training and First Hunt

Wielding a scythe wasn't as hard as one would think, honestly. It handled quite a bit like a spear and just put a focus on slashing and swiping moves rather than thrusts like a spear would. It require the dexterity and control of a spear, yet also an acrobatic veneer to make sure it was applicable to combat. It was honestly a beautiful weapon when you got down to it.

The finesse needed to wield the weapon and not fuck up made attacking with it...like a dance of sorts.

The goal of the dance was to slowly take apart your enemy, piece by piece. A slash here, a swipe there, and a stab somewhere else, and this would repeat and repeat until the opponent was killed. Or prey, as the book described them.

I was currently going through the motions with my scythe. Despite being unnamed, it looked suspiciously like Gehrman's scythe, just that it wasn't a trick weapon and didn't have two forms of attack. It was just a scythe. But what a scythe it was. To be honest, I'd have to say that it was better to call it a training scythe, if anything. Why? Because it shrunk to fit my child body and exhibited a weight that could push my muscles to their limits.

You'd be surprised at the arm strength need to continuously swing a weapon like a scythe and the shoulder and core strength to keep it from nicking you when you spun it.

And this was coming from me, with a freakishly strong body.

My beast blood gave me a superior physique to a normal human child, and the talent I asked for pretty much took away the limiters the brain put on the body.

To explain it in a simply way, it would be like this; to stop the body from ripping itself apart, the brain limits the strength the body can use to about 30(ish)% of it's full power, saving the full power for life and death situations and such. An example would be hysterical strength when parents have lifted incredible weight to save their child. But me? I have access to 100% of my muscular strength at all times.

Luckily my beast blood gave me a sturdy and robust body to deal with that power and when it couldn't, the inhuman recovery power of my body (also given by my beast blood) healed any of the damage.

What did all this mean? Well, if I had the limiter, I'd currently have the power of a full-grown average man but because I don't have the limiter, I have the power of three men in my body, give or take a little.

If the average man can bench press around 130lbs, then that means that I, as a 6-year-old, could bench 390lbs. And that's not factoring in all the improvements I've been making in my training with the scythe. A scythe that weighs around 30kg is pretty hard to swing around, after all. Especially when I had to control it so I didn't get thrown around by it's weight.

Sending one last slash through the tree in front of me, I watched as it fell backward with a crackling boom before I put the scythe back in my inventory.

Having finished the weapon training for the day, I got to stretching my body out after the workout.

Especially my legs.

The footwork of the scythe style I was practicing was especially hard to get used to. Hunters who used scythes, a skill weapon (pretty much an agility/speed type weapon), focused on being light on their feet and dodging around Beasts and picking them apart. That wasn't how I fought, really, but I still practiced the footwork extensively. You never know when being light on your feet might help you out.

Finishing the stretching, I brought about my Mana and coated myself in it, the usually colorless Mana becoming a blood red mist as it covered and obscured my image. Once I'd completed this step, I sent a burst of Mana to my feet before shooting off in the direction of my home from the woods I was currently in.

This was also training. Training I called Endurance Training because it trained my Mana Endurance and my Body Endurance by constantly pushing both to their limits. Funny thing about Quickening, it didn't just speed up my movement speed, but overall speed in general. Attack speed, agility, all of it. So right now, I was pushing my entire body to it's limit.

Of course my movement speed was the biggest improvement because of the Mana bursting out of my feet, but I have a feeling that I could easily do that to any part of my body or even all of it at the same time if I got my proficiency with the technique to a high enough level.

Anyway, ignoring such thoughts, I sped home where I'd continue other more basic training. I'd also have to explain where I'd been for the past few hours...but I knew that with a little lying about playing with other kids at the park, all suspicion would leave me. But I did have to wonder one thing; How long could I keep hiding my training and powers from mom, dad, Issei, and Hana?

If we're just gonna ignore Issei and Hana because they're kids and don't think too much about this sort of stuff, even then, my parents are slowly catching on. If only a little bit at a time. Even then, I had to wonder if maybe they'd experienced such weird things before having lived in Kuoh Town.

It was owned by Devils, after all.

I spent the entire way home, thinking about this and decided to call off playing on the games console with Issei. I needed more training. More training to prepare for the future and whatever mysteries it might hold.

. . .

4 Years. 4 whole years is how long it took for my strength to become enough that I could go out on my first hunt.

Over the past four years, I'd been focusing on physically tempering my body into a weapon of slaughter. Every muscle fiber was made with the intention of slicing something in half, and I don't know if I was already quite psychopathic or something but no disgust or sickness came to mind when I thought about how I'd be killing another living creature tonight. Maybe it was my genetics and inherent talent as a killer? It would make sense, honestly. I've never been...scared in this life. Spiders and bugs? Couldn't care less. The dark? If a ghost popped out, I'd laugh. I was just...calm and cool no matter what.

Though I will admit that this isn't all positive. The beast blood within me demanded that I killed, every single second I was awake. It was like having a bloodthirsty beast prowling inside of you. But even then, I wasn't disillusioned enough to think that it wasn't a part of me - because it was. That voice was mine, and it was just as real as the instincts that made me so good at fighting and learning martial arts.

So that's why I decided to go out to hunt tonight.

Well, that and a few other reasons.

One, Stray Devils had started to pile up around Kuoh Town. Not in the town, but in the forest surrounding it. Same goes for Fallen Angels. They're all amassing around the town, but not because they want to attack the town but because of something more sinister I smelt a few days back.

I smelt a Beast. A real, honest-to-god Beast from Bloodborne. And not just one of them, either. An entire pack of them were here, prowling through the forest.

The night before, I'd been scouting them out and I'd seen why the Fallen Angels were knocking about around the forest - the Beasts had been slaughtering the Low-Class Fallen and more had been sent to sort out the problem. But they'd seriously underestimated the power of the Beasts. They were once humans, so they had a devious cunning, and matched with their strength, they were a force to be reckoned with.

I'd watched as the Fallen first thought they were Stray Devils, but when a Light Spear did nothing to a Scourge Beast and it then ripped the Fallen apart like wet tissue paper, they realized they were messing with a new breed of monster.

Tonight, like all Hunters before me, I would fight back against the Beastly scourge while also taking care of all the Stray Devils and Fallen Angels who's came to look around.

Turning and looking at my 10-year-old self, I chuckled when I thought about the lack of class and finesse I had as this world's first hunter. I was wearing a black skin tight shirt that had long-sleeves, some black sweatpants and some black running shoes. To keep a semblance of my identity safe, I wore a black mouth mask that covered my neck, mouth and cheeks. I kept my hair short so I couldn't cover my face with it, but that didn't matter as I had a black hoodie and I pulled the hood up to cover most of my head.

...I honestly looked like a discount ninja or a really shitty assassin from Assassin's Creed.

Ah, whatever, it'll do. Walking over to my window and opening it, I walked through the now open window and onto the window ledge. Anyone else would have fallen but my balance was superhuman by now, so I didn't even feel a little wobbly.

Closing the window until there was the smallest crack left - didn't wanna get locked out, after all - before using Quickening and silently blasting off the window sill and onto he roof of the house across the street before doing the same thing and charging across the roof as a darkened figure covered in dark red mist.

. . .

"So...you're my first prey, huh...?" I said in a hushed whisper to the half-wolf half-man in front of me. It looked exactly like a Beast Patient from Bloodborne but something about it seemed more powerful.

It was taller than I thought it would be and instead of having gangly limbs, it's black furred arms were rippling with muscle, just like the rest of it's furry body.

It's face was still partially human but was covered in so much shaggy fur that it was hard to tell what it originally looked like and with the sharp, crooked fangs filling it's mouth, I had no doubt that anything that used to be human about this thing had long since been corrupted and destroyed by their beastly side.

Pulling my scythe from my inventory, I held the trusty unnamed thing in my right hand, gripping it in just the right position to be able to twirl it with speeds that would make an electric blender look slow.

Though as I pulled that out, the Beast in front of me looked to me and growled, it's lips pulling back into a snarl. I returned it, my own instincts flaring up.

But I controlled them, reigning them back in and dodging backward as the Beast practically appeared where I was, it's clawed hand slamming into the ground and kicking up the dirt with a dull explosion.

Tch, seems an hypothesis of mine was right - full-beasts are stronger than me, physically. Even after all my training, I was still a little weaker than a full-beast. But that didn't mean I was at a disadvantage. No. In fact, the Beast only had more strength because it had given up it's mind and it's rationale. Meaning, it truly was what it said on the tin:

A feral beast.

Seeing I was still in distance, the Beast once again charged at me but my instincts and training kicked in by now and I activated Quickening and easily dodged under the swipe before slashing up with my scythe, severing the arm of the Beast off at the middle of the forearm. In a mad frenzy, the Beast slashed again but this time I ducked under the arm and spun my scythe around and slapped the Beast in the face with the bottom of the handle, sending it back a few feet, dog-like whimpers coming from it's mouth.

I looked at the Beast and the Beast looked back at me, it's stump bleeding a black sludge that barely looked like human blood and wouldn't look at all like it if not for the slightly red tint to it.

Seeing that it was at a disadvantage didn't deter the Beast because it simply roared, the air around it distorting before it charged at me, it's red, murky eyes filled with hunger and bloodlust.

If it weren't for my talents and instincts...I would have probably frozen up at this sight--

*SLICE!*

--Unluckily for the Beast I was much more mentally sturdy than other humans.

I thought this as the Beast split in half, right down the middle as my scythe had cut it from bottom to top, bisecting it. As it died, I watched as it's blood coagulated into a dense ball around the size of a marble before shooting into me. I already knew that that was:

Blood Echoes. My main way of gaining power. Quickly at least.

Calling up my Blood Echoes counter, I nodded my head at the decent amount a simple Beast Patient gave me.

[Blood Echoes: 150]

To keep in context how decent that amount was, it would only take 1000 for my first 'level-up', and by level-up I mean upgrading my physique. Storing the Beast in my inventory, knowing I'd have to burn it all later to stop any normal people from finding it and freaking out, I then carried on, knowing that my first hunt would have to be a bountiful one.