Dante walked alongside Blunt and Pistil as they entered the forest. Sai caught up, then ran past them, saying he would scout, while Kristina led them.

“This is really annoying though,” Pistil said, frowning. “This could take forever.”

“I’m with you on that one,” Dante replied. The Orc Officer refused to lend them a goblin. Turns out it was only for the first hunt of the day. If they failed then they have to catch their prey by their own devices, which meant they had to walk around the forest and hope for the best. “But hey, we got Blunt now. Carrying the boar will be a piece of cake.”

“Boar might not be the issue,” Blunt said.

“Not to sound cocky, Blunt my man, but with you and Kristina, I don’t think we have to fear no orc,” Dante replied.

“We’ll see,” he said, looking around. “There are more than boars around here.”

Blunt was wrong. There was nothing around them. As they roamed the forest all they found were signs of past battles, and even those were hard to find. The forest was overfilled with vegetation. Bushes, shrubs, and tall grass blinded them. For all its overgrown greenery, however, there were still no birds or insects to be found.

Being in a forest without having the sound made it uncomfortably eerie. It stank of death rather than of life. Dante started to think there was a reason for this strangeness—besides it being a game and all. From what he’d seen and felt of Broken Realms it didn’t seem likely that they would overlook such an important aspect.

Sai poked his head out of the bushes in front them, a proud grin on his face.

They followed him through. “How did you find the boar?” Dante asked.

Sai looked at him, smiled, and just kept walking.

“Well, that wasn’t creepy at all,” Pistil said. “Stay on guard, I take it?”

Kristina patted Dante’s shoulder, shaking her head. “It won’t help. Whatever we find, Dante, you go and say hello, alright bud?”

“Got to make a good impression,” Dante replied, and quickly regretted it when he saw what Sai had for them.

Level 3 Boarc

Rank E

Level 3 Boarc

Rank: E

Level 2 Boar

Rank F

Level 2 Boar

Rank F

A humanoid boar was sitting on a rock in the midst of two other boars. It looked more like a minotaur without the pants or axe, and instead of horns it had tusks that jutted out of its mouth like spears. It was larger than Dante and Blunt combined, though it only had 10 feet of height. Most of its size came from muscle and wide limbs. Its entire body was covered with gray fur that had fresh wounds on it. It had no weapon, though that wasn’t much of a consolidation with the muscles on the thing.

“Friends and family, I present to you, your ticket to level 2,” Sai said in a whisper.

“Do boars have hooves?” Kristina asked, pointing at their hands. The way they sat and the shape of their body--it looked strangely humanoid. Well, orcnoid, if that could be a word.

Not the right observation. The boars were eating the previous party that encountered them. It was sickening. There was nothing wrong with animals devouring other animals—it was the fact this world was designed this way, all for the maximum entertainment value.

Rank E Scenario

You have encountered the orc hunters.

Survive to clear the Scenario.

Defeat and return its head to the orc officer to upgrade the rank rewards to rank D. Doing this will begin a series of Scenarios.

The Boarc stood up, turning in their direction. With a snort the two boars disregarded their meals and turned as well.

Kristian jumped back from the bushes, calling a retreat. They jumped back into the previous clearing and ran back towards the direction of camp.

A moment later Dante heard the two boars trampling down the vegetation in their chase. True terror only struck him when he turned back to see the Boarcs riding the boars in their chase. It was an installing scene.

“How are we supposed to fight that!” Pistil yelled.

Dante knew how, unfortunately.

“Dante—”

“I know!” he yelled, cutting Kristina off.

“Stay alive. Everyone else, on my back,” she said, sprinting ahead while Dante took a sharp turn. His party jumped into the clearing ahead while Dante took the one on the side.

One Boarc followed him while the other went after them. Even with all his juking the monsters stayed quick on his heel. Going out of their vision did not help either. They had a way to track him.

Half a minute of sprinting and Dante’s lungs caught up to him first. He kept towards one of the shorter trees. Boars might have been dumb, but apparently they weren’t dumb enough to charge head-on into a tree. It was going to go around.

Funny thing is, Dante wasn’t going to. He jumped towards the tree and kicked up the trunk with his toes and feet for the extra foot he needed to reach a branch. He lifted himself onto it, its abnormal size just enough to hold Dante’s weight. Without even turning around Dante continued to climb as the Boarc crashed into his spot, shaking the entire branch.

This big fucker. If Dante hadn’t expected it the ridiculous to happen he would have died embarrassingly fast. While Dante had to climb the tree the Boarc just jumped off the boar.

Dante didn’t bother fighting it. He climbed the branches of the tree, using his relatively higher Agility to his advantage. It’s size and weight made it more taxing for it, but while Dante had to climb and lift himself onto the branches, all the Boarc had to do was jump. He got up another branch before the Boarc landed in front of him.

“Well, this isn’t good.” It was stronger and faster than Dante would have liked. Still, a 10 meter drop was bound to break a few of its bones. Dante lifted his hands into guard. “Now, let’s see how we can get you flying, ay?”

The Boarc snorted. It walked towards him, each step causing the entire branch to shake. The branch was wide enough for just one of them at a time. Besides sliding in between its feet, running past it was unlikely.

“You know what they say, big guy. The more you weigh the faster you fa—” The Boarc leaped forward, swinging its…hoove at Dante. A lone finger went off to the side like a pinky, while the last two fingers were straight with a dull point. Whatever material it was, it looked solid as steel.

Dante ducked under it. The breeze tickled his bald head as he rose up, uppercutting it. His fist connected with its large jaw. It staggered back, giving Dante another opening. He dashed after it with a punch towards its face. He had one knuckle out to get its eye in between the small opening, but the Boarc recovered much quicker than Dante expected it to. His fist connected with its face but missed its true target.

It swung both of its arms down right as Dante jumped back. He avoided getting hit by its yellow gleaming hooves, but could not avoid the shockwave that emitted when its hooves struck the branch. Wood fragments carried by a strong wind sprayed Dante. It tossed him back and left bruises all over his forearms and legs.

Mana again. He couldn’t even avoid it without taking damage. If he had not raised his forearms and legs to protect his body his battering would have been worse.

“Bye bitch,” Dante said, turning tail and sprinting towards the end of the branch as fast as he could. The Boarc was weaker than the bear and sloth, but it wasn’t something Dante could straight out beat to death.

With another loud snort it chased after Dante. Each stomp sen the branch up and down. Its weight was deceiving—without a headstart, it was faster than Dante. By the time he reached the end it was a few paces behind him.

Come and get me. He stomped and turned towards it. If it was going to keep charging, then both of them were going down. Dante hoped it was smarter than that.

It was. Instead of running through Dante, it swung down with both of its arms. Its hooves were shinning again.

Dante ran at it. He jumped up, kicked off its head when it crouched down to reach the ground, and caught the branch above it as the explosion resounded below him. He lifted himself up, ran a bit, and turned on his heels.

Dante sprinted back with an excited smile. The Boarc jumped up, but instead of landing on the branch it got hit by Dante’s flying kick. He struck it with both of his feet, sending it into the air while fell onto the branch.

It fell on its back a few meters down. Dante didn’t think it would kill it, but this did give him enough time to climb higher and wait for Kristina.

So Dante, of course, jumped after it. He landed with his knee on its face. He felt something cave in, either his knee or its face, he wasn’t sure. It released a horrible high pitches whine that sounded like music to Dante’s ears. He stood up, and ignoring the throbbing of his legs he kicked it. When his left foot splintered against its skull, Dane switched to his right. When both seemed about to break, Dante straddled it and used his fists.

Either his bones would break, or its skull would. There was no way about it. Dante pummeled it with all his worth, putting the entire weight of his upper body with each punch, but even with Dante on top it still managed to rise to its feet.

Dante rolled off, letting it spend a second on its feet before he charged into it again. He put his legs in between its own and pushed it.

This time, Dante went with it. He pushed its head down as they fell, letting it take the full weight of both of their bodies when they struck the ground. Every bone in his body vibrated as they crashed. That made Dante feel better--if it hurt that much when he was on top, then he could only imagine what it felt like to land heads first.

He didn’t wait to see if it would move. He got ready for another barrage, but before he could throw the third punch its skull finally caved.

Dante watched it closely as he panted. When it finally stopped moving, Dante got to his feet, turning towards the boar.

It looked at him, then turned tail and ran.

“That’s right,” Dante said, buckling over. “You better run.” He wouldn’t have lasted another minute. His entire body was throbbing. Nothing was broken or bleeding, which was a miracle, but the fall still took its toll on his body.

Dante heard the bushes behind him move. “Got you beat this time, but since I’m feeling nice I’ll share the loot with you.”

“Why that’s would be very kind of you,” an unfamiliar voice said.

Dante glanced back. Five orcs. Four male and one female, of which he knew none. They didn’t look particularly friendly. All of them had bone spears.

With a sigh, Dante stood up.

This was going to take a while.