“Wait, what do you mean I can’t go in?” at the entrance to the student hunting ground, Caroline asked the ranger on duty when she was handed her credentials back and was denied entrance.

“Sorry, Ms. Baker.” the ranger sighed and said: “But this is the order of the principal and headmasters of all three houses. For anyone to enter the hunting ground, all parties must have at least three teammates for even the most basic game. And for your requested area, you’d need at least five members in your party. And at least one member of your team should have the school’s certificate for basic first aid knowledge and experience. This is because per the school administration’s estimation, this is the safest way for students to continue their hunting activities without having to face too much danger. You can find your friends or classmates to come back with you. But I’d recommend that you join a hunting group with enough people with experience.”

“Ugh, okay.” Caroline scratched her head: “And how do I find these kinds of hunting groups? Is there some kind of message board, or forum, or is it some kind of exclusive invite only club?”

“Well, if you don’t want to form a group on your own, there is indeed a hunting club you can join.” the ranger thought for a while then said: “They’re pretty strict on their recruiting standards, so you can try your luck there.” Then he handed Caroline a piece of metal card: “This is their recruiting card. They’ll be holding a meeting soon, you can go and ask them.”

“Thank you.” Caroline took the metal card and carefully examined it, it had the patterns of a bow docked with a few arrows, and a crossbow with a few bolts laid around it. On the center of the card was a countdown clock, and under the clock was an address - it pointed to a meeting room in the Hellbruck House, which interested Caroline even more, because though she was granted full access to the facilities of the Hellbruck House, she had yet to visit the huge castle made of an entire piece of volcano. “Sounds fun, I will go and have a look.”

“Good luck.” the ranger nodded and waved Caroline goodbye.

After grabbing a quick bit at the canteen, Caroline headed directly to the building of the Hellbruck House.

Maybe it was because the entire building was made from an entire piece of volcano, or maybe it was because of the gentle bright yellow and orange lights hanging from the ceiling, when Caroline entered the building, she felt a sense of warmth radiating from all corners of the interior. 

It must have taken the original builders of this castle a lot of work to make the whole castle what it was today - the hallways and lounges were quite spacious with ceilings that were on average about two times the height of Caroline; the walls were slightly rugged but looked like it was by design; and the pillars inside the building all had very well crafted relief sculptures depicting different heroic battles on them.

“Hi, welcome to the Hellbruck House, what can I do for you?” there was a temporary information stand at the entrance, with a few students and faculty in dark red robes and wearing shiny red brooches greeting wandering passers by.

“Yes, thank you!” Caroline showed one of the students the metal recruiting card: “I’m looking for this room - looks like the meeting starts in about half an hour? I want to try and see if I can join a hunting group.”

“Oh, yeah yeah yeah not a problem. Let me take you there.” the student stared at Caroline for a few seconds the said while extending his hand towards Caroline: “I think they’ll be happy to have you on board, Ms. Baker. My name is Grayson, pleasure to meet you.”

“Thank you, and nice to meet you!” Caroline followed the student while feeling a bit embarrassed that the student recognized her: “What’s the occasion today? I don’t presume you have information stands every day?”

“Oh, it’s nothing special.” Grayson laughed out loud: “We have that for two days every week. It’s sort of a tradition of our house, because we have the best training grounds in the academy, and we rent some of those training grounds out to students of other houses. So the house administration recruits students to serve as guides and free training consultants to answer simple questions from all students regarding battle tactics, martial arts and all the related stuff.”

“Interesting. Do all houses have this?”

“No, just us. Because - I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we are kinda known for being the ones passionate about battle tactics and training.” Grayson answered: “We actually have more training grounds than classrooms, and many of them can actually be kinda dangerous if you’re not ready.”

“Well, that’s good. I wonder how good they are? And how much do they cost?”

“Professor Barnes already granted you full access to all our facilities, that includes the training grounds. So you just need to sign in and wait your turn for most of them - there are a couple of especially popular or dangerous ones you’ll need to apply for just like students of our house.” Grayson stopped at a meeting room with an arched door and shining obsidian door frame: “Now, here you are, you can wait inside.”

“Thank you Grayson.” just this moment, male student who was a bit shorter than Caroline but had wide shoulders and muscular arms came out of the door and nodded at Grayson, then he turned to Caroline: “Ms. Baker. Welcome to Daryl’s Hunting Club. My name’s Marco, I am a coordinator of the club.”

“Alright, good luck!” Grayson bumped fists with Marco and waved Caroline goodbye.

“Um, you can just call me Caroline.” Caroline chuckled and said: “Ms. Baker seems way too formal.”

“No problem, Caroline.” Marco showed Caroline into the meeting room and led her to a table: “Are you here because of the new restrictions on entry to the hunting ground?”

“Well… yeah.” Caroline was a bit embarrassed by her answer.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Marco gently patted on Caroline’s shoulder: “But, as per the by-laws of the club, we’d need to put you up for the same tests as the other applicants.”

“That’s fine. Thank you very much for the opportunity!”

Shout out to my patrons ab, mant06, Jonathan. You made my writing journey much more enjoyable!