Hunt [2]

"Let's set up camp before night falls." Sophie decided.

We had already hunted for almost 8 hours, although my participation had been limited after I killed the ice salamander. I didn't want to step into a situation where an overuse of my skills and art would leave me incapacitated.

Thus I had limited my use to at most two steps per encounter, where I mostly only used a single step.

It had become very clear that my specialization wasn't particularly suited for group combat.

Most of the time I would only be able to deal one or two attacks, and, though they were often quite effective, they were never fatal blows. Instead, they either stunned the target or created a situation where the monster would get desperate and start to act rashly.

In contrast to me were my party members. Hugo had no problems locking down one or two priority targets and Marlene could then easily start a flurry of attacks against these. Then we had the behemoth herself.

Sophie was powerful, overwhelmingly so. In my eyes, she was a lot more powerful than an ordinary Rank V.

We finished setting up our camp, which pretty much just consisted of a fireplace surrounded by something called repellents.

Repellents, as the name suggests, spread some kind of hormone into the air which monsters generally disliked and thus would most often stay away from it.

Hugo brought a slab of meat from one of the bags and started to slice it up and skewer it onto some metal sticks.

It was quite impressive watching the bearded man work.

Hugo had an unusual physique for a human. Although his height was probably a bit above average, his body dynamic was more of that of a dwarf than a human. Almost like a square.

Marlene, on the other hand, was incredibly lean and slender. I knew she was physically strong just based on the fact that she was mana-less, but her body suggested the complete opposite. Couple with her long, dark hair she was quite the looker, only with the absence of some womanly curves.

Even amongst these people, Sophie stood out a lot, reaching more than a head higher than Hugo when they were both seated.

The more I thought about her, the more my brain started making conjectures.

Even if she was the complete opposite of me in many ways, we were also in incredibly similar situations.

It wasn't the first time I thought she was also from another world like me, but at this point, I was almost sure of it. There were too many weird things about her to think otherwise.

Not that it mattered to me, I had already moved on and was focusing on creating a life in this place.

That's not to say I didn't enjoy her company, in fact, she was the first one besides Misa to make me feel completely at home.

"Here you go, lad," Hugo said as he handed me one of the finished skewers.

It wasn't anything fancy, just pieces of meat with salt, but it was still pretty good.

We let silence take its place as we ate.

After we were done we arranged our sleeping schedule.

Me and Sophie would take the first watch while Hugo and Marlene slept.

She made her way to my side and sat beside me. If the sun was up, I would be completely covered from its rays with her massive figure blocking them.

After some time passed, she finally opened her mouth.

"Hey Miren..."

"Yea? What's up?"

She took a deep breath as if to prepare herself.

"You are not from here, are you?"

Her words were well positioned, if someone else heard these words they would just assume she meant another district, but in our context, they meant something else.

I just gazed up at the night sky and gave her a similarly disguised answer.

"Yea that's right. I'm not from here."

Sophie's body shook a bit, maybe not expecting me to answer her question in such a straightforward manner.

'I don't have any reason to lie, do I? If she is the same as me she knows what I mean, and if not she will assume I'm just from somewhere else.'

"Then where are you from?"

At this point, she had turned her head to my side, looking down straight at me, which made me do the same.

"Probably from the same place you came from."

We let the silence roam for a while, letting our understanding of each other sink in.

We weren't alone in this world, there was someone else who was in the same situation.

"So what's the academy like?"

Scratching my head, I tried thinking of an answer that wasn't just reliant on my painful experience.

"It's... okay. Although I can't be sure what it would be like for other people, I didn't have the best experience."

She lowered her head a bit and put her arms around her knees.

"Is that so? From the game, it seemed so exciting... Making friends, hanging out, training to get stronger maybe even... -find someone..."

Because she lowered her voice so much I couldn't hear the end of what she said.

"For most it seems like that's what their academy life is like, to be honest, but for me, it was mostly about surviving."

There wasn't much else to be said, we had both moved on from our past lives. Now we were only Sophie and Miren.

****

"Wake up!"

A shout from Hugo instantly woke me up, making me retrieve my daggers and get ready for a fight.

To my disappointment, all I saw was the others standing around me with huge smiles on their faces.

"Hahaha, it never gets old! All the newbies fall for it!"

Irritation slowly crept up on me. Maybe it was because of lack of sleep, or the fact that I was inherently just impulsive, that I decided to act.

*[Lightning Step]*

With a double step, I instantly arrived behind the burly man and put my dagger against his throat.

Now, we both knew that I wouldn't be able to penetrate his defenses that easily but it still managed to create a sense of hesitation in the man.

"Calm down there kid, it was only a joke."

His smile had come back after he realized that he wasn't in any sort of danger and he just pushed my dagger away with his finger.

Sophie just looked at us and told us off, "Stop fucking around, we need to get going."

Today we were supposed to take another route back to the base, continuing our hunt on the way.

Most of the time they only did two days hunts, as the more time you spent outside the larger the risk of something unexpected happening.

At her words, Hugo saluted, "Aye Aye Madam!"

"I will punch you!"

She didn't appreciate Hugo's little charade.

Just like the day before, we continued our battles on the way, harvesting as much material from the salamanders as we could.

The wasteland was still just a plain desert, devoid of almost any plants and trees, not to mention water.

'I wonder how the monsters survive...'

It was weird. Where did they get sustenance from? In this place with only salamanders, what did they eat? Did they cannibalize or was there someplace with food and water?

There were a couple of shrubs here and there, but it wasn't nearly enough to feed all of these monsters.

Suddenly, Sophie shouted, "Ambush!"

From the sky a huge dragon-like creature descended, equipped with huge wings with claws.

Gray and scaly, completely unlike any monster I had seen before in this world.

"Wyvern Rank VI, get ready for combat! Miren get out of here!"

Without asking for a reason I instantly retreated far back to make sure I wouldn't get caught up in the fight to come. A wyvern wasn't something I would be able to defeat, the difference in Ranks was just too much.

"Hugo, keep its attention but tell me if you need help! Marlene, take out its wings if you can! I'll try to damage its body!"

Sophie kept on shouting commands to the group, organizing her comrades to make sure to be able to fight effectively.

*ROOAAARR*

A huge outburst from the wyvern signaled the start of the fight.

"Hugo, don't let it open its mouth and use its breath!"

The man ran forward as soon as Sophie shouted, making sure to taunt the monster so it kept its focus on him.

Just like dragons wyverns could also use a breath attack, albeit a lot weaker than their dominant counterparts. This did not mean its breath was weak though, it would easily kill or severely wound someone of Rank IV, not to mention someone like me at Rank II.

Marlene and Sophie followed him quickly and got to their position around the huge being.

The wyvern had already started to slice against Hugo with its claws, each hit making him get pushed pack a couple of steps, but Hugo persevered and kept going towards the wyvern.

At the same time, Sophie and Marlene found their openings. Marlene managed to slice a piece of its left wing and the amazon landed a huge hit on its torso, making it spew out blood.

But the wyvern disregarded them and kept on landing hits on the shield in front of it.

"Sophie, I can't hold on anymore!"

Hugo had reached his limit, and before Sophie managed to get to his side the wyvern managed to deflect his shield with its right hand and slice his chest with its left.

The man was down, unable to continue fighting, with his chest completely ripped open.

"Hugo!"

Marlene lost her focus for a second as she saw her friend on the ground which led to the wyvern lashing out with its tail right into her.

Marlene's unconscious body flew several meters before landing, just to slide another two meters.

'This is bad, isn't it?'