Note to the reader: *.......* means he's saying that in his head.

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For those who don't remember Clara is the name of Sasha's sister and Sasha is the beastgirl adventurer.

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Chapter 33

*****************Gideon POV***************

I tried to stop mother from accepting the elf as a student. If he's around her long enough he'll surely target her as his next pray and I won't let that happen. I'll need to keep my eyes on him just in case he makes a move on her. I won't be tricked by his pretty face. Stories from the other knights about how he's a sexual deviant have reached my ears.

Becket and I left to complete the mission mother gave us. We went on foot since Becket didn't know how to ride a horse and it wasn't that far anyway. Just as we reached the outskirts of the forest the sun went down so we made camp.

Gideon:"I'll scout out the forest and find the chimera nest if you'll cook."

Becket:"Sure. I wanted to try some of the spices I found anyway."

He started pulling things out of his pack.

*I feel like I've seen that pack before?*

I felt a sense of familiarity from his pack, but it appeared to be a basic pack so I was probably just over thinking it. He dug a hole and started a fire inside of the hole. Since he was beginning to cook I entered the forest.

There were many different presences I could sense that belonged to animals and monsters. All chimeras are different from each other because they can assimilate limbs and organs from other creatures. This makes it hard to tell their presence apart from other wildlife so I had to searched every cluster of presences in the forest.

After a while I still hadn't found the chimera nest so I returned to camp.

Becket:"The food was starting to get cold. Here."

He passed me a metal plate with a piece of meat on it. Just to be safe I gave the food a sniff. It smelled really good so I took a bite.

*He can cook!*

I glared at him for the rest of the meal. He must have noticed since he put a little distance between us.

Becket:"Well I'm gonna go to bed now."

Gideon:"Fine."

The two of us settled in and went to sleep. I woke up a few hours later when I heard leaves rustling so I opened my eyes. Becket was leaving the camp and stopped right before entering the forest. He turned around and I could see his eyes.

*Vampire! When was he turned!*

He had the glowing red eyes of a vampire. I was pretending to be asleep and he didn't seem to notice. He disappeared into the forest.

*What's he doing?*

I jumped up and followed after him after erasing my presence. He was fast so I had a hard time keeping up with him while hiding myself. Twenty minutes into his walk in the forest I sensed a presence coming towards him. When it came into view I could see it was a flame dancer. It's a lizard like monster that comes up to a persons knees and can manipulate flames.

A stream of fire poured out of it's mouth towards Becket, but he leapt over it and plunged a blade into it's head. He started to cut it open which confused me. They don't make good armor and are useless for magic staff material.

*That's disgusting.*

He pulled out a chunk of the flame dancer and ate it.

*Did he come out here for food?*

It was unlikely since monster meat tastes terrible. Most people can't even stomach its taste. After he swallowed it he moved on. He didn't eat any of the other monsters he killed. He would look at them then move on. After a while he finally decided to return to camp so I got ahead of him and laid back down. He snuck back into camp and went to sleep. I watched him sleep all night, but he never got back up.

Becket:"Breakfast is ready."

I jumped up. At some point I must have fallen asleep. Becket was cooking something and the smell wafting off of it made me drool. His eyes were green again.

*What's going on? Is he a vampire or not?*

Gideon:"Did you sleep well?"

Becket:"Yeah. Woke up a few times, but I was able to fall back asleep pretty fast."

We finished breakfast and packed up camp.

Gideon:"I wasn't able to find the chimera nest yesterday so we'll split up and search today."

*No way he'll find it before me. He can't even sense presences.*

Gideon:"Here use this if you find the nest."

I pulled out two magical stones and passed one to him. When one of them is injected with mana the other will glow.

Gideon:"If one of us finds the nest we'll signal the other with these stones then meet up here. Do not go after the nest alone."

Becket:"Got it."

He pocketed the stone. I was starting to feel a little distrust since he was being very compliant. He hasn't refused anything I've asked him to do.

*He must be plotting something.*

We split up and started searching for the chimeras. I ran into a few monsters, but still couldn't find the chimera nest.

*It's always the last place you look.*

There was only one cluster of monster presences that I had yet to check. Becket would only get in the way so I decided not to signal him. He was getting closer to the cluster anyway so I need to finish then off fast.

There was a cave that jutted out of the ground and I could sense many monsters inside. They must have noticed me cause whatever was inside started running towards the entrance. I drew my sword and got ready for the chimeras.

The first one was covered in fur and on all fours with a pair of horns pointed directly at me. It had a golden mane and bloodshot eyes. I sidestepped the beast and cut off it's head. The next one ran out and was twice the first ones size and stood on two feet. Behind it a few with wings flew out and flew in a circle around me.

Gideon:"The flying ones will be a little difficult."

I cut the leg off a nearby chimera and pushed it back into a crowd of them. It squirmed around killing a few of it's brethren. I leapt into the crowd and swiftly decapitated three of them then pounced on another. My sword went right down its throat. One of them tried to claw my back, but I jumped and it shredded one of the other chimeras. There was a loud boom that made my ears ring and caused me to stop moving.

Gideon:"What was that!?"

A flying chimera fell from the sky missing its head. Another boom came and this time I saw one of the flying chimeras head explode.

*What's happening to them?*

I finally noticed a dot in the distance. In order to see it better I squinted and saw it was a person flying in the sky.

Gideon:"Becket!"

It was his presence I felt from the dot. When it got closer I could see he was holding something.

Gideon:"Is that an artifact?"

The object wasn't anything I had ever seen before so I assumed it was some sort of artifact. He pointed it at another chimera and its head exploded. I was so surprised that I lost concentration and was thrown into a tree. Not only did he have an incredible artifact, but there were wings on his back which allowed him to fly.

Becket:"You ok?"

He landed next to the tree that I was now apart of. I pulled myself out of the tree and dusted my armor off.

Gideon:"I'm fine, but what is that?"

I pointed at the artifact.

Becket:"Oh this is an sniper rifle. I guess you probably don't know what that is."

I didn't have enough time to think about what he said since another chimera lunged at us. Becket took off into the sky and started raining down destruction with that sniper rifle thing of his. Some of the chimeras retreated back into the cave.

Gideon:"You finish off the chimeras out here. I'm heading into the cave."

I yelled to Becket and he nodded then returned to dropping hell on the chimeras. There heads made good foot stools as I leapt over the crowd in front of me and into the cave. It was dark inside so I walked slowly with one of my feet extended out in front of me feeling around. I didn't have to worry about chimeras attacking me in the darkness since I could feel their presence.

Luckily there weren't any powerful chimeras in the nest so it was just time consuming to kill them all. When I was finished and made my way out of the cave I found chimera body parts littered around the cave entrance. Some of them must have tried to retreat into the cave after me and Becket killed them before they could.

Becket:"Hey."

He was sitting on top of a rock with that sniper rifle leaned against his shoulder.

Becket:"They all dead in there?"

Gideon:"Yes."

Becket:"Then I guess we're done. Lets head back."

I nodded. There was a smudge of blood on his lips.

******************Clara POV****************

I was born into a normal household of beastmen from the cheetah tribe. Our tribe is mostly identified by the black tear marks running from the corner of our eyes down past the sides of our nose that look like tattoos. My household consisted of four with my father, mother, sister and I living together. My sister Sasha and I are twins.

When I started dreaming about an elf I kept it a secret at first. I ended up spilling everything to my sister when she told me she was dreaming about an elf too. I never did trust those dreams because of a story I read once where an evil wizard invaded a persons mind while they slept. It was quite a while before I found out that story was fiction, but even when I did the dreams still bothered me so I never did trust them.

My family was very proud of me when they learned I had a talent for magic since it's rare for our race. A priest from the church of Haarus tested all the children in our village with a crystal ball to see if anyone had a future in magic. I had high potential so I was offered a full scholarship to the magic academy.

It was just another average day and I was headed for my magical combat class. My sister and I look exactly alike so to help others tell the difference we decided on different hair lengths. Sasha keeps her hair at her shoulders while mine grows all the way down to my waist. Since long hair gets in the way during combat class I started wearing my hair in a braid.

Sasha:"Sister!"

I spun around as soon as I heard that voice.

Clara:"Sasha? What are you doing here?"

Her clothes were dusty and partially torn.

Clara:"What happened to you?"

Sasha:"I found him!"

Clara:"Who?"

Sasha:"The elven man from our dreams!"

I stiffened up.

Clara:"We need to get you changed. Come with me."

I took her hand and pulled her towards my dorm room.

*Missing one class should be ok. I'll just explain to my teachers I had an emergency.*

We entered my dorm room and I immediately went to my closet. I pulled out some clothes for her to change into.

Sasha:"We had to split up, but I'm sure he's fine."

Clara:"Get changed. Your clothes are in terrible shape."

She nodded then quickly changed with a smile on her face. Normally she's such a reserved person that seeing her this happy was a little strange.

Sasha:"I told you he was real! Now you can meet him too!"

Clara:"Sasha have you been eating properly?"

Sasha frowned.

Sasha:"You keep trying to avoid the subject."

Clara:"I'm avoiding nothing. I'm just not going to entertain your delusions."

Sasha:"He's not a delusion and you know it! You dreamt about him too!"

Clara:"I have no idea what you're talking about. I've dreamt about no one."

Sasha:"That's a lie!"

Sasha looked very upset.

Clara:"You're just tired."

I pushed her backwards onto my bed.

Clara:"Get some sleep."

Sasha:"No! We need to talk about Becket!"

I knocked her out. She didn't expect it so she had left herself completely vulnerable to me. There were preparations that needed to be made. I found an inn nearby for her to stay at and dragged her sleeping body there. When I threw her into the bed her title stone on her wrist started to glow. Since she was still asleep I injected mana into it and a message popped up.

New MessageSasha it's me Becket. Let me know if you got this message.

I erased it. There's no way I could trust someone who has appeared in my dreams for years. My sister will only be asking for trouble by getting involved with him so I removed her title stone and put it in my pocket. I put a letter next to her and the rooms key. The letter told her she was at an inn since waking up in a different place would be confusing. I tucked her in and left.

I went straight to the adventurers guild and put up a quest for a Guardian rank adventurer. It cost a little extra to have the quest sent to the human capitols adventurers guild, but I was willing to pay. The quest was to gather information on an elf man named Becket. I also included a physical description.

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