“How do you like the sword?” Yuki asked as he watched Yuna swing around the crude wooden blade he made. 

“It’s good enough,” she replied, slashing and jabbing. “Lighter than I would like.”

“Of course. It’s made out of wood.”

 “I know. It’ll make up for the lack of slicing power,” she said. 

“I was thinking about making a stone sword but I couldn’t find anything suitable for that,” he explained. “And I had no metal ore so an actual sword was impossible.”

‘Though I could summon it from the ground and put on a magic show for the audience as I form a sword out of thin air with fire and earth. But I don’t want to attract that much attention.’

“I know, Yuki. I’m not complaining,” she smiled. “You making the sword for me was more than enough.”

“I know you’re not complaining,” Yuki replied. “I was just explaining. You know how I am.”

‘And that was more for the audience watching.’

“I see. Well, this should do for now,” Yuna nodded. “I’ll get used to the weight soon. What are we planning to do now?”

“We’re going to start with the action,” he said. “Our camp here is pretty safe here with our detectors and such so we should head out and begin finding people. The faster we take care of the other teams, the faster this round will end.”

“I’m curious of what they would do if this round drags on too long,” Yuna mused, tapping her chin. “Would they try to speed things up?”

“I would hope. Otherwise, these rounds could go one for quite some time.”

“I see. I wonder how they would do that.”

“A lot of things that I couldn’t guess,” Yuki shrugged. “Or maybe they expect the monsters to help flush out the competition. There are some formidable ones here.”

“What kinds? I saw goblins when I was out, but goblins are everywhere.”

“The only real unique ones around here are Fenrir wolves,” Yuki said. “They used to be around the city of Fenrir, but later moved here.”

“So that’s how the city got its name.”

“Mhm.”

“Fenrir wolves,” Yuna repeated with a mumble. “From what I remember about them, they’re rank B individually but normally gather in packs that follow an alpha. The alpha ranges from high rank B to rank A.”

“Yes,” Yuki nodded. “Collectively, the pack is a rank A threat. How high of a rank depends on the strength of the alpha and how many are in the pack. I believe the highest rank a pack has ever been recorded as was mid S rank. That was way back during the Kienva War. When the pack was led by the Fenrir.”

“And it wasn’t defeated, was it?” Yuna said. “I wonder if it’s here. That would be interesting. And scary.”

“I hope not. I don’t want to deal with something like that. There’s a high chance everyone will be dead if it wanted to kill us.”

“I know. I was just thinking,” she smiled. “So what are we going to do now?”

“Head out and find people,” he shrugged. “There’s not much else we could do. We’re as ready as we could be.”

“I see. Then shall we get going?”

“Mhm. Let’s find some people.”

“I don’t think we can find anyone,” Yuna sighed.

They were currently creeping their way through the forest, taking care not to create too much noise or leave behind too much of a trace. A few hours had passed since they had begun their trek to find the other teams.

“We can find them,” Yuki said. “It’s just that they were moving as well so they might be quite a ways from us. I don’t know if they’ll make their way towards us. So we’re going to have to go to them.”

“But this is taking quite a while. It would be easier to just wait and see if they’ll come to us, right?”

“Well, yes, but that depends on whether or not they’ll come for us. And if they’re not and are just waiting for people to come to them, then this will just be a stalemate unless something happens to push us towards each other.”

“I see. I just don’t want to wander around like this,” Yuna said. “The more we move the more attention we’re going to attract.”

“I know but this is our best option. I don’t want this to drag on too long.”

“I understand. We’ll walk around some more then,” she sighed.

“Don’t worry. I’ll actually search for them with everything I have now,” Yuki said. “My eyes aren’t going to be enough for this.”

He knelt on the ground and pressed his palm against it. He sent out a pulse of mana that spread out through the earth, lighting up the entire area around him. Then he abruptly stood up and grabbed his staff

“You found someone that fast?” Yuna asked, frowning.

“No, I found something,” he replied. “Take your sword out. It’s a monster and it’s heading this way.”

“Oh.”

She lifted her wooden sword with two hands and widened her stance. Yuki spun his staff and readied himself, starting intently in one direction. Slowly, the sound of crunching leaves and cracking twigs reached the two and with it followed a seven foot troll. Its red eyes shone and its tusks glistened as it eyed the two of them. 

‘A male troll. Seems to be quite young.’

The troll roared, pounding its chest and gnashing its teeth.

“I don’t like trolls,” Yuna muttered under her breath with a soft sigh. Yuki didn’t think he was supposed to hear that.

The troll charged them and they dodged it easily. As it ran past them, unable to stop its momentum, Yuki took advantage of the situation to begin delivering blows with his staff, smashing it into the monster’s neck. Yuna began hacking away at the troll’s tendons and joints. Though the blade couldn’t quite cut through the troll, it seemed to do a fine job inflicting pain based on the troll’s roars.

A minute later and the troll laid on the ground incapacitated. It wasn’t dead since the weapons Yuki and Yuna were using were incapable of doing such a task. But it was unconscious with a large number of limbs and joints destroyed and its spine and ribs cracked or broken in multiple places.

“Wolves or something will come by to eat it up so just leave it there,” Yuki said as he inspected his staff. “And my staff might break if we need to fight another troll.”

“Should we avoid them then?” Yuna asked.

“No. I’m trying to make as much noise as possible,” he explained. “The other teams might come by to investigate and then that’ll be our chance to strike. Originally I wanted to sneak up on them but they’re proving hard to find. So this is plan B.”

“Oh. I understand.”

“Though I might need to make another staff just in case this one breaks. Trolls are annoying to beat.”

“I know, right?” Yuna sighed. “I mean, yes. But they’re pretty easy since they’re so predictable. I just wished there weren’t so many.”

“I do too but because of how tough they are, most things try not to fight them. Now let me get back to finding people. Not trolls.”

He knelt down to the ground again and started scanning the land around him. This time, he stayed there for a bit of time as he analyzed every single tremor that shook the earth. 

‘I don’t know the dimensions of the other people so I have to look at almost everything. Maybe I should have looked into that.’

After a bit more time passed, he stood up and created a mental map of the area he had just scanned. On it, he placed three points. Three locations where people potentially were.

“I might have found some people,” he said to Yuna. “Follow me.”

He began sprinting toward the first point of interest. It was along the same stream that Yuki and Yuna had set up camp next to, but was farther upstream. When they were within a hundred yards of the area, Yuki slowed down and started creeping forward. If there were actually people there, he didn’t want them to know he was coming.

Keeping to the shadows, he tiptoed until he was behind a bush that was further concealed by the shadow of a tree beside it. Yuna followed him and stopped next to him. 

‘People.’

It was a team of three. Yuki was deliberating whether or not they were a group of hobgoblins or not when he detected them in his scan but their dimensions hinted more towards elf. They had no formal weapons, just sticks that seemed to be functioning as staffs and walking sticks.

‘Hmm. They have a firepit as well. But I didn’t see any smoke last night. Fire attribute maybe?’

He signaled to Yuna to ready herself and she replied with a short nod. Yuki held his staff with two hands as he slowly moved along the edge of the banks of the stream. The three elves seemed to be in a deep conversation with each other.

‘I could knock them out with some rocks. They wouldn’t even notice.’

His eyes scanned the trees until they met with Yuna’s. He held up a pebble and pointed towards the team still talking amongst themselves. Then he acted like the pebble was smashing into his head. Yuna’s eyes lit up and she gave a nod. She held up her sword and mouthed to him the words back up.

‘Alright then.’

Yuki searched the ground briefly until he came up with two more stones. He gripped them tightly with two hands and pushed mana into them slowly. He didn’t want to risk the chance that someone in the team was extremely sensitive towards mana. The stones lifted into the air at his command and his eyes flickered towards the team in front of him. He locked onto each of the members and the stones reacted, pointing towards their respective targets.

‘Strike,’ he ordered.

The stones zoomed away from him, homing in on the heads of three elves. One of them looked up just in time to see a stone smash into his head. Or at least almost smash into his head. It was stopped just short by a bright shimmering barrier that enveloped the elf. The other two team members had similar barriers around them.

‘Hmm?’

“What the hell is this?” one of the team members said, starting at her shimmering arm. Then she disappeared, the rest of her team disappearing with her.

‘Oh. So they died.’

Yuki stepped out of his hiding place and walked to the camp. Yuna popped out of her spot and met up with him.

“That was easy,” she remarked. 

“It was,” Yuki nodded as he looked around. He shuffled through a few of the team’s belongings. “There’s nothing here.”

“Shall we go then?” Yuna said.

“Yes. Let’s find the others.”

FriendlyDragon

Happy late Thanksgiving for those who celebrate it. Christmas is almost here as well~! Just one more month c: