“Before we get too ahead of ourselves, we first need to prepare the supplies.” I told Ed as I hopped from one rock to the next, “No legend has ever had a rough start, they always make sure to properly prepare so as to make their journey as easy as possible!”

“I doubt a legend requires day old bread and bottled up water to thrive. I wouldn’t exactly consider that preparation.” Ed noted our poor consumables supply.

Shut up, Ed. This isn’t the time for your snarky remarks. I was getting there!

We bickered some more along the hidden pathway we made to our hideout, an old abandoned two story shed. We were walking around the forest one day, yearning to find something new before finally coming across it. The shed wasn’t pretty by any means (well, it’s not pretty even now), but we made it work.

Returning to the present, we talked about what our journey will be like, starting off with my question:

“You think we’ll be as well-known as Schnell one day?” I asked Ed straight to his face.

“Hmm, I wonder about that…” He looked up so as to think it over seriously.

He actually paused for a while before coming to a conclusion. Looks like he was genuinely thinking about it.

“With all the crazy ideas in that head of yours, we just might!” He pointed towards my noggin, ” I mean, it was thanks to your ‘adventurer’s intuition’ that we managed to find this hideout in the first place.”

Oh, praise me more, would ya? It’s not like you where the one to come up with the idea to make it ours. Oh, that reminds me:

“Speaking of Schnell, I re-read the handbook again.” I changed the topic to something more interesting.

“Dude, this is like the thousandth time you’ve read that book, I think you’ve more than surpassed the line of obsession at this point.” He looked at me as if I had a problem (sidenote: I don’t).

Hmm, fair. But come on, it’s Schnell! You can’t go wrong with reading it a few times for good luck. Plus, reading is good for you.

“No matter, what was your favorite chapter this time, O Great Bookworm?” he asked snarkily as if to tease me.

“Try calling me that again and I swear I’ll punch you.” (another sidenote: I was dead serious).

“Why? It suits you more than ‘Grim’.” He stopped the teasing to question the nickname.

“You were the one to come up with that nickname in the first place! And besides, I don’t even remember you ever having called me by my first name.”

“Oh, that’s because-” He bit his tongue upon witnessing what was in front of him.

“~!!!”

At that moment, he went silent. So did I, to be honest. In front of our very eyes, we saw something that probably shaved off nearly a half of our lives. Namely, a wild Snair was eating the rations we painstakingly prepared.

Snairs are human sized, man-eating serpents. Their skin fetches for a solid price, since it can be used in making bags and other sturdy gear. It had eaten every last bit of our prepared food, and if it were to notice us, I’m sure we’d be next.

“(Grim…turn back…slowly)” whispered Ed through his teeth.

“(Right, if we use our surroundings and a bit of our brains, we may be able to kill it. Nice going!)”

“(WHAT?!?)” he raised his voice in surprise, whilst still keeping a whispering tone.

The snair budged at that. We haven’t got much time, it’s now or never!

“(Listen, Ed, we have no time for your cowering. He ate all of our progress. If we kill it and sell its carcass on the market, we could buy new rations.)” I explained to him my reasoning behind not wanting to run.

“(But-)” He weakly tried to refute me.

“(No buts! I didn’t bring my sword with me, so you slowly approach it from the front, and I’ll surprise it from behind.)”

***

With that, our first battle apparently began before our journey did. The plan was simple: I’ll wait for the snair to look at Ed as he distracts it before climbing to the nearby balcony. Then, I’ll have him jump out and surprise it! While it’s still shocked, I’ll smash its head in with my handbook.

Sounds simple enough, no? Well, without further ado, I officially proclaim the plan a go!

I carefully sneaked around the bushes, making sure it doesn’t hear me, all the while Ed kept throwing rocks and making noise if it ever happened to drift its gaze onto my general direction.

Slowly, slowly, just like that. Stealth is essential for life or death situations like these, even stepping on the smallest twig could spell the end of me. I remember my mom would always read me stories about Schnell before I learned how to read myself, and she always made a point of mentioning tiptoeing as an essential skill for every adventurer, and to think it’d come in handy this early on...

“HISSSSSSSSSS!!!”

This is it, bye mom.

The snair had turned to my direction and hissed, and I thought I was already done for. Ed was freaking out on his side as he looked towards me as I was frantically trying to think of a way to evade its attacks, but as it turns out the snair was just hissing at its babies that were laying right… behind me.

“(Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit!)” I booked it to the balcony without a single care in the world for if the mother snair had heard me. Right as I was about to get bit by a speedy baby snair, I jumped as high as my legs would allow and just barely made it to the top. Never doing that again!

“PHEW! That sure surprised me. Now, sorry little ones, I’m gonna need your mother for a while.”

As I turned to mock the hissing babies underneath me, I had slowly made my way to the other side of the hideout so that the mother snair was situated right under me.

I gave Ed the signal to jump out, and so he did. The jumpscare from him was quite amicable, and his shouting served as a good indicator of his skills as a horror actor.

“GRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW!” he growled with such tremendous might that even I got a bit scared. Nice going, Ed!

“………………………….” The snair stood there, not averting it’s gaze from me.

It didn’t flinch at all………and I had already jumped from the balcony.

“Crap! By the power of Schnell, get your head bashed in! (please)”

With such a proclamation, you’d think the snair would be kind enough to oblige. I mean, I even said please!

Since the snair wasn’t shocked by Ed’s pitiful excuse of a shriek, it immediately saw my shadow and opened its mouth to swallow me whole. Be it luck or Schnell’s power, she had somehow missed me completely and ate the book instead. Thanks to the book’s sheer size, the snair started choking on it as I used the situation given to me and started beating it with a rock I had found on the ground.

Soon, the snair stopped moving. It was completely dead, either from asphyxiation or head trauma. Before the children got to see the current state of their mother (or lack thereof), we grabbed her and bolted back to the village. (And mind you, she was heavy).

***

“Heck yeah! We did it, Grim! I can’t believe your crazy plan actually worked! Hehe, that’ll teach you not to mess with our turf, stupid snair!” Ed said as he kept hitting the dead serpent.

“………”

Ed was ecstatic to see my plan actually work. But I wasn’t really in the mood, seeing as I forcefully separated a mother from her babies. No matter what they are, family is family. I sure wouldn’t like seeing my mother be killed by some random kids. I wonder what those babies are thinking right now…

“Yeah, if only you hadn’t went to look for food in our hideout…” I started tearing up.

To my melancholic retort, Ed realized something was up, but I refused to tell him the truth. If it even made me tear up, then it’ll make him cry for days. I’ll keep this secret to my grave, no matter what.

“Well, in any case, back to what we were saying…” Ed went to change the subject, “the reason I call you Grim is because I don’t remember your actual name.”

…Huh?

“You what?”

And just when I started praising you for being smart…

“Sigh… It’s Lune, my name is Lune Grimheart. You probably got ‘Grim’ from my last name. Remember it next time, Edward Saint.”

I thought if I called him by his full name, he’d more easily remember mine.

“Whoa! That name’s way too cool for someone like you. Then I’ll just stick to Grim for now.”

…Shut up, Ed.