The End of a Prologue

Our team of adventures decided to rest for the night.

Time passed in a monotone rhythm. Lucius taught us how to hunt as proper Hunters, even though Louis had decided to stay human.

When Louis told the group this, the little girl made him a wooden sword, so that he would not be defenseless while in Epsilon. Louis was grateful for the gift and began practicing sword fighting skills with Lucius as his instructor. While Louis lacked in terms of power, thanks to his directions, they always managed to hunt without any problems.

The group, would later, while hunting, find a steel sword, which Louis would use to train.

We all started to grow stronger. It was fairly easy, thanks to the fact that so many monsters were around us. As we hunted more and more strong beasts, we became better Hunters and our physical strength continued to grow.

The little girl, whose name was May, had grown a lot stronger after her little incident, but she was now very much lacking in terms of control. This was something that would simply have to be trained. Sometimes, I was tempted into killing her, as I would gain her powers over that shadow monster. But I could not do that to such an innocent and cute thing.

Lucius explained that at this level, monsters that gave actual powers were still very rare. He called them exotic monsters.

Exotic monsters are beasts with elemental powers, etc. We had to search for a long time just to find one. We did manage to find one, but I'll tell you about that later.

After hunting for a couple of weeks, we decided to try actual combat. We would spar often with each other to learn more about fighting. We could fight freely, thanks to my healing powers, so we learned decent combat skills. While it might seem inefficient to train when hunting would give us powers, the experience was a very important variable in combat, or so Lucius would say.

Every time we fought, I would always get this feeling of ecstasy in me. Every punch I received felt so joyful. The only one that could stop us from this vicious cycle was Louis, who was not a Hunter.

Lucius could no longer destroy us with a single punch. He still was stronger than us, and a lot more experienced, but we had almost caught up to him in terms of physical prowess. May could now summon three guards, and could cover the area with shadows, but no longer could she summon the monster she did at the beginning.

Louis sometimes would have a spasm, where he would occasionally try and say something. It would last only a couple of seconds, so it was not of any actual concern. He would explain that it was one of the repercussions of using the angelic incantation. We just hoped it would get better soon, because my healing was not making it stop.

We told stories to each other. I told them about Ana, about how I got here, and everything else that had happened.

Lucius told us that he used to be noble, but because of the way the crown acted, he decided to leave.

He would then meet the Dead Dreamers and joined them. Whenever we asked about the Dead Dreamers, he would not say anything about the members.

He did tell us that the members of the organization gave up their names when they had found a goal to search for. But he had accomplished that goal when he found the witch. He would give up his name again when he found his next goal.

It was then Louis' turn. He told us about him liberating the two estates.

He did not explain the origin of becoming the sun king, but he did tell us about how he found the book with the incantation.

Apparently, before he became the sun king, he was on an adventure.

He had simply wanted to explore the world and learn more from it. In his adventure, he found an island in the middle of a lake. He then visited the island, which he, in an accident involving a gigantic platypus, discovered an underground layer.

Here he found a dragon. Instead of attacking it in its sleep, Louis decided to wait until the dragon woke up to converse with him.

The dragon had already sensed him and had waited to see what he would do.

Everybody knew of the powers of a dragon. They were noble beasts, untouchable by any other predator. So, Louis, knowing running away would be disrespectful, and that fighting it is out of the question, decided to wait.

The dragon, amused by his decision, opened its eyes, and started talking to Louis. The dragon then asked Louis for a gift, in exchange for his life.

Louis had nothing of true value to offer, so he decided to offer a gamble. Dragons are eternal beings, whose most terrible state is boredom.

The dragon, becoming more and more amused, accepted, he thought it would be interesting. The Louis of the time was not interested in power, so he never thought of asking the dragon for everything it owned. In fact, Louis simply asked for the best book the dragon had.

He just wanted something good to read. The dragon accepted, but if the dragon won, he would take Louis' life.

Louis excused himself and grabbed a simple coin. He then asked the dragon to choose between head or tails.

After flipping the coin, the dragon chose, and Louis, not believing in luck, cheated the dragon. It was simply a trick, like one a magician would do on the streets. Nobody would ever dare to cheat a dragon with such a cheap trick, and that is why Louis knew it would work.

Louis won the wager, and instead of receiving a good story, he received that book, with only one incantation. He would then tell the dragon that all he wanted was a good, spicy story. The dragon laughed at this and told him his story.

The dragon never said where he got it, but that it was also his most prized possession. Louis became good friend with the dragon and was allowed to read all his books. This was where he learned everything he knows. Here, and in the castles he invaded.

The dragon also gave him one last gift, which was the coin he now has. Even though Louis did not tell us about all its uses, Louis told us that the dragon was the one that gave the coin the property of not allowing Louis of becoming a Hunter.

The dragon had sensed a great man and had wanted to help him with his want of remaining human.

Storytime ended there, as Alexander did not want to tell us his story.

Time continued to move forward.

We only ever saw one more exotic beast, an ice spirit. Alexander was our biggest liability, according to Louis, so he was the one that got the powers of the spirit. Sadly, that was the only one we found, so Alexander would be the only one with its powers. Calling it an ice spirit felt strange, mostly because it looked more like a cute ice princess. It was singing in a tall ice tower. The ice tower was completely out of place, as the surrounding area was pretty much in full spring.

Alexander woke it up when it was sleeping, and demanded a duel. The ice spirit, scared because some random dude just woke it up, froze him solid in place. After realizing what it had done, it apologized and accepted his conditions.

Alexander fought against the spirit and somehow won, gaining its powers.

He could create ice and attack with it, and it would get stronger and better if he would practice with it. Alexander was one of the only one of us that did not have anyone to replace his own ego, so the ice spirit was allowed to exist with him.

That made me wonder about the woman who had given me her healing powers, but Ana forced me to shut that idea off. She said that if I thought about her, she would appear again.

With that, our team was now finally somewhat strong enough to try to hunt big beasts, and our journey to find one started.

The prologue was finally at its end.