-Training Hunt-

[A sub-type of Hunt.

Made to train new Hunters, and

allow old hunters to practice during down time.]

A few days passed. During that time, Oroske and I focused on training, both physical and magical. I had noticeably improved in my fighting technique. A couple weeks ago I could just barely defend against Oroske when we sparred, but now I was able to evade most of his attacks, and block most of the ones I couldn’t. I had actually gotten close to getting a hit in,once. Unfortunately, however, he somehow managed to dodge at the last second. There was a strange burst of energy around him and he moved much faster than I’d ever seen him move. Honestly his speed was impressive, considering how large he was, though I guess those muscles aren’t for nothing.

That was yesterday. A couple days before he reached out to Nadred to set up a Training Hunt for me, but he and Jarou were going out on a Hunt that day. They were supposed to return today, so while Oroske and I waited, we were out in the backyard, training as usual.

We just finished our first round of the day, which ended up like most of them; me on my butt, and Oroske laughing at me heartily. He came over and helped me up, extending a hand then pulling me up. I patted the dirt off my butt as Oroske stretched. “Ready to go again?” He asked, right arm crossed over his chest, getting pushed back by the other arm. I nodded, and readied for combat once again, slipping into my usual stance, holding my sword directly in front of me, ready to block or attack in any direction. “Good, good,” he continued, finishing his stretches, “Usual rules, anything goes. First to get a clean hit on the other wins.”

He suddenly launched towards me, a burst of wind exploding from his feet. As he flew towards me, he summoned his weapon, this time a scythe. He always waited until he was coming towards me to summon, as he switched between sword and scythe frequently, making it more difficult to react. I saw him prepare his first swing, and waited until I saw him start to bring his arms forward. At the last minute, I stepped back, narrowly dodging the blade of the scythe, blocking with my sword just in case. The scythe slid across the blade of my sword, and narrowly missed the ground. This allowed Oroske to recover smoothly by doing almost a full front flip, bringing his scythe above his head after he landed, readying his second attack.

“Scythes are great weapons for the offensive fighter, as their odd shape makes them difficult to block effectively,” Oroske had once told me, and after the past few days of sparring, I understand more what he meant. In a fight like this one, my only real option is dodging until I find an opening to attack. I had tried fighting with a scythe, and while my muscles still retained their memory of how to fight with one, my mind struggled to understand how to use them effectively. The only times I managed to use them well was when I was filled with adrenaline and going off of pure instinct.

That’s when I had an idea. As he brought his scythe down, I moved my sword to my right hand and summoned my scythe in my left, and once again jumped back a little bit. Instead of letting his scythe complete its arc, I caught it by locking it with my scythe. I knew Oroske, even without magic, had the strength to break free easily regardless of what I did. I pulled my scythe back, as though I was trying to break his grip on the weapon. This was to bait a specific response from him, I wanted him to pull back as well. I had prepared sen’tur at my feet in preparation for this response.

When he pulled back, I made sure to hang on to my weapon, and used the momentum of being pulled in addition to the burst of sentem to fly towards him. I tried ramming my scythe into his chest, but he managed to deflect the blade downwards with the handle of his own scythe. So I let go of the scythe and made moves to strike with my sword.

I thought for sure I had got him, when suddenly instead of the thud of my blade hitting his shoulder, I was met with the sound of metal hitting metal. I was surprised to see he managed to summon a sword and block in time. That surprise didn’t have a lot of time to sink in, as the fight continued moving forward at breakneck pace. Combined with his absurd physical strength, and my body being very small and light, he was able to throw me upwards with just his sword against mine.

As I was falling, considering my options, a voice rang out from the back door, “Oroske! We’re here!” I looked up to see Nadred standing in the doorframe, Jarou right behind him. This is my chance! Oroske was distracted by them, giving me a solid opening. I turned my body and readied my blade, and when I got close enough…

Whack.

I hit him square on the head, knocking him to the ground with me. I finally got a victory over him. “I was wondering where Kuro was,” Nadred continued with a laugh, “sorry we’re late, we had to finalize some stuff with the Training Hunt Organizer.”

“Owww…,” Oroske groaned underneath me, as he started to get up, “No worries here. And Kuro, not fair, I was distracted!” I fell off him as he stood up, and sat up. “Oh it was completely fair!” I complained.

“I gotta agree with Kuro,” Nadred chuckled, “Even with you being distracted, you usually wouldn’t let your guard down like that.”

“Ugh, fiiine,” Oroske groaned again, reluctant to give me a win, “that’s one win for Kuro then. What’s that make the record, like thirty-three to one?”

“Sounds about right,” I confirmed, “Anyway, so the Training Hunt is ready?”

“Yep!” Nadred said, “We have spots reserved for the four of us, but there are some open spots for others as well. We’ll get details when it starts, which is in about an hour.”

“I assume everything is set up the usual way?” Oroske asked, brushing the dirt off his cloak.

“Yes sir,” Nadred affirmed as I picked up my weapons and stored them inside my Demon Sheath, “Posted on the Hunt Board, with instructions to meet in training room two at HQ.”

“Cool, are we ready to just head out now then?” We all said yes, and left, heading towards the central plaza of Tsumi’din.

---

In the central plaza, along one of the sides of the headquarters building, was a large board with an awning. There was a large gathering of people, adorned in navy, black, and white cloaks. “This is the Hunt Board,” Nadred explained as we approached the board, “Other than a few exceptions, every Hunt you’ll undertake will be posted here first.”

The board was divided into 4 sections vertically. In the far left section were the Training Hunts, the middle and to the left section was listed as “Low Difficulty/Investigations,” the next section was marked as “Medium Difficulty,” and the last section was “Large Group Hunts and White Cloak Only Hunts.”

“These categories are pretty self explanatory, but I’ll go through them anyway.” Nadred started at the left, which only had two pieces of paper pinned on it, “These are the Training Hunts, which is what we’ll be doing today. There’s usually at least one every day, but sometimes, like today, they post multiple. All depends on what they need that day. Like today, we have a first time Training Hunt, and a regular Training Hunt. But we will come back to this in a minute.”

We moved on to the next section, plastered with papers. “This is defined as the low difficulty and investigations board. ‘Low Difficulty’ is typically stuff like escort missions, Sigil hunting, and confirmed low-strength Restless hunts. ‘Investigations’ are becoming less common, but they still show up. They mostly entail going to a location, and investigating possible Restless cases, and in some cases, other possible Hunt targets.

“And this board is Medium Difficulty.” We moved on to the next section, which was so full, it was overlapping the other sections. “Medium difficulty is a little difficult to explain, but in short it’s confirmed medium-strength Restless and other targets, as well as combined investigation and follow through.”

We moved to the last segment of the board, which had two separate groups, each with two or three sheets of paper. “Large Group Hunts are exactly that, Hunts that require large groups of people. These Hunts are pretty rare, and are mostly big caravans of merchants needing escorts to sell their goods, but every now and then you get a super-strong target or a large group of targets that need taking care of. And White Cloak Only is also pretty self explanatory, basically they’re just Hunts that you need to be a white or red cloak to undertake, typically due to very high difficulty, or they just require special attention.” He exhaled, as we moved back to the left side of the board, making our way through the crowd of Hunters.

“For now though,” Oroske said, “All we care about today is this posting here.” He slapped the left paper on the Training Hunt section.

First time Training Hunt for

New Hunters!

Meet in Training Room 2 in the East hall for debriefing.

Starts at 1PM.

“Usually when accepting Hunts, you would take the paper off the board and go inside to the reception desk, and they’ll give instructions from there. In this case though, it just has us go to a training room, with a start time listed,” Nadred explained, ushering the group towards the front doors of the HQ.

The inside was as elegant and sleek as I remember. Venn popped her head up from her desk, it seemed like she was reading. “Hey Venn, we’re just here for the Training Hunt for Kuro,” Oroske said with a wave that Nadred and Jarou copied. I did as well, as Venn said “Ah, okay! Do you know where to go?” Oroske nodded and we went down the hall to the left. “Good luck!” She called from her desk, as we entered the second door on the left.

Inside there were 5 people, three black cloaks, a navy cloak, and one with no cloak, similar to me. They were all sat down at a table near the opposite wall, chatting with one another. The one with no cloak, a young girl with long, blonde hair tied into twin-tails and bright red eyes with slitted pupils, looked up at me and smiled with a small wave. I returned the smile and wave, as my group moved to the table next to the door. The room was very plain, off-white walls on all sides, and a large whiteboard behind a stand on the East side, which all the chairs were facing. Four brown wooden tables, each with 5 matching chairs filled the rest of the space. The wall opposite the door did have a window, but the curtains were pulled shut. When I asked about how it was still bright inside, Oroske explained the light was from crystals in the ceiling, similar to how the stove at home worked.

Just as one of the black cloaks from the other table was about to come over to talk to us, the door opened once again. A white cloak Hunter, male but with long, black hair entered. “Good afternoon Hunters and Hunters-in-Training,” he said, he voice as deep as Oroske’s, but much smoother sounding, “My name is Pyrse, and I am the instructor for today’s Training Hunt. Before we begin, why don’t you all introduce yourselves? This is primarily a teamwork exercise, afterall. Hunter-in-Training by the door, you start, then go down one by one until we get to the other wall.”

Oroske nudged me, indicating he was talking about me, “Go on, stand up and introduce yourself.”

I did as he said, “Hello, my name is Kuro.”

At Pyrse’s nod, I sat back down and Oroske followed. “I’m Oroske, and I’m Kuro’s mentor. I look forward to working with you all,” he said, sounding much more proper than I was used to.

Nadred and then Jarou followed suit, and the navy cloak at the other table stood up.

“My name is Fyr,” the young man stated, with little to no emotion in his voice. He couldn’t have been much older than me and Jarou, and had blue hair, a fair few shades brighter than Nadred’s, pointed ears poking through the bush that was his hair, and green eyes with round pupils.

“My name is Ranfa, Fyr’s mentor and older sister.” The first black cloak stood up, her voice was quite deep and sultry. Her hair was black, and very long. Even tied up in a ponytail it still reached her waist. Her eyes were a very pretty green, but with slitted pupils.

“I’m Orun, no apprentice, just here to kill time,” the middle black cloak said, without standing up. He was clearly very relaxed, his blonde hair was between the length of mine and Jarou’s, and very messy and all over the place, though that seemed to be on purpose. His droopy eyes a dull shade of blue.

The last black cloak stood up, lifting the energy from the previous three introductions from the floor to above the ceiling, “My name is Xeron!” he exclaimed, “Older brother to this nitwit,” he firmly placed his hand on Orun’s head, “and older brother and mentor to this cutie.” He much more softly patted the girl’s head next to him. The similarities in the three’s appearance made sense now that I knew they were family. Xeron had blond hair as well, and while it was about the same length as Orun’s, it was much more well kept and was spiked up into a faux-hawk like Nadred’s. His bright red eyes shined, as his slitted pupils expanded from his excitement.

“My name is Ari,” the Hunter-in-Training said timidly, clearly embarrassed by her brother’s performance earlier. I hadn’t noticed earlier how long her hair was until she stood up, but her twin-tails went down to just under her chest.

“Very good!” Pyrse exclaimed from the front as she sat back down, “Now that introductions are out of the way, let us begin the debriefing!