The life of a trainee exterminator has been unsurprisingly difficult. I’ve spent every day for nearly a month honing my body and studying under a variety of more experienced members. Training for fights is where I spend most of my time, and I always end up getting my ass kicked by someone three times my age. As it turns out, there are very few young exterminators. Most young people are either too timid or lacking a combat-oriented class. Those that do meet those requirements often choose a higher paying, lazier, and safer position with Derth’s military or just become a town guard. Speaking of, Derth’s the country in which Arindet is located, and where I’ve spent my life up until this point.

Normally, I would have another 2 months of training before I’d be allowed to come on an expedition, but the town is in a state of emergency, and all exterminators, as well as a few guards, have been called on to defend the town. There’s been a rapid rise in the monster population on the outer rim of the forest. Our job is to lower the population to a manageable number, as well as find out what’s going on in the center of the forest that’s driving these monsters outwards.

There are nowhere near enough exterminators.

I’m in a group of 8, and we only have three exterminators, I included. I’m not even a full exterminator, so it’s more like two and a half. The rest are town guards, who are trained fighters but don’t have the knowledge of the forest that an exterminator would. 

In total, there are 15 exterminators scattered in 6 groups of about 10 people each. Arindet was grossly under-prepared for a serious threat from the forest, and now that there is one, everyone’s in a panic. 

Right now, I’m standing just outside of Menad’s Forest, with Tanya, Jeremiah (The overly friendly veteran from the party), and 5 guards who I don’t know. I’m utterly terrified.

I have the Bestiary with me, but unlike the 7 other people with me, I don’t have a class suited for combat. 

Tanya’s a Guardian, which gives her extremely high strength and resilience. Jeremiah’s a Survivalist, which gives him an all-around increase to his abilities, as well as an immunity to disease and poison. The town guards are likely combat classes as well.

And then there’s me. The “Black Mage” who can’t actually use any magic. The whole “become an exterminator to enter the forest” plan may have been a bad one in hindsight, but it’s too late to fix that now.

“Stop here,” We’re at the mouth of the forest, so Tanya stops us, and begins a debriefing.

“We’re going to be exterminating the monsters that have moved outwards and are now threatening the town. We don’t know exactly what we’ll be facing, but it’s going to be a veritable horde of class-1 monsters, as well as a few class-2 monsters. Jeremiah and I will lead, and you will do EVERYTHING we say, okay?”

That last bit was directed towards the town guards, who thus far haven’t been thrilled to be working under the exterminators. As for me, my body instinctively listens to everything that Tanya says, for fear of another beating.

Jeremiah begins to speak, “I haven’t seen monsters move like this before. The last time they did was 150 years ago, and it was because a big ole’ wyvern had taken up residence in the center of the forest. There’s probably nothing of that size waitin’ for us, but if there is, don’t even try to fight it. We’re strictly on an outer rim extermination, and if there is something that dangerous we’ll need to request help from the king himself. Don’t try to be a hero.”

And with that, we enter the forest. Everyone in the group is completely silent.

We walk for what feels like hours before Tanya finally grows frustrated.

“I told them, the groups are too fucking big! Monsters’ll scatter or hide before we even get near ‘em with all the tromping around we’re doing. We need to split up. If we don’t we’ll never find anything.”

Finally, one of the guards pipes up “You’re serious? We’ve got 8 people, and an unknown threat and you want to split up?”

“There’s a reason we keep groups small on exterminations, it’s because if too many people are together, the monsters’ll run instead of fight. We need to split up, or we’ll burn all of our daylight doing nothing.”

Another guard incredulously says, “You have to be joking.”

“I’m not. Jeremiah’ll take four of you, and I’ll take one of you and Vin.”

“You’re not taking one of my men to their death.” says another of the guards, evidently a captain of some kind.

“Perfect. Vin, you’re with me. Jeremiah, You’re on babysitting duty.”

Without another word, Tanya begins to walk away, leaving an incredulous group of guards, and a disapproving Jeremiah shaking his head. I’m paralyzed for a moment, but a quick “Vin!” from Tanya gets me moving.

I want to say that what we’re doing seems risky, but Tanya is both far more experienced than I am and terrifies me to no end, so I don’t say anything.

Evidently, however, she was right. In less than 30 minutes, we’ve already stumbled upon a large clearing filled with tracks.

Upon closer inspection, Tanya realizes something and wears a stern look, “Dire wolves, That’s a bad sign.”

“Why?”

“A pack of dire wolves is a serious threat, we’d need at least half a dozen more experienced people here to clear them safely.”

“That’s not good.”

“They’re not supposed to be this far out. Dire wolves don’t run, they fight. For something to scare them to the outskirts like this, it’d need to be truly terrifying. Our info is bad.”

“So… now what?”

A twig snaps to my side, and Tanya immediately assumes a position low to the ground and draws her greatsword, “Fight like hell. Sword out, Vin. We’re surrounded.”

Several more twigs snap. The low rumble of several wolfish snarls echoes throughout the clearing, leaving me fumbling for my sword in a panic. I clumsily draw it right as several large wolves leap into the clearing, making themselves known. Rather than charging straight at us, they begin to slowly circle, looking for an opening. Tanya is pressed up against my back, with her greatsword drawn.

“Got any useful magic?”

“Nope.”

The trick here is the fact that I don’t have any magic at all. I’m a little tempted to call out Ash, but I don’t think she’d be able to help much. Her magic mostly specializes in restraining and debuffing single targets.

“Alright then, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m gonna shout, and all the fuzzy bastards are gonna jump at me. You’re gonna get the hell out of here and get back to the group. Tell Jeremiah that we’ve got a class-6 at least. He’ll know what to do from there.”

“Are you gonna be alright?”

“I’ll be fine. Regular wolves can’t even pierce my skin. These guys’ll barely tickle.” The increased defenses from her class are truly enviable.

She starts to count down from three, and when she reaches 0, she lets out a roar that shakes the earth with its power. Suddenly, all of the wolves seem to forget any kind of caution and instead lunge at her. One nearly tackles me by complete accident in its frenzy to get at her, but I narrowly dodge it.

I run out of the clearing and take one look back at the woman being swarmed by the creatures. I wish there was something I could do, but the only way that I can help is by doing exactly what she commanded. I feel pretty worthless, but at least I can warn the others.

I run back through the forest and… wait, where the hell am I? In my frantic escape, I’d completely lost my sense of direction, and now I’m lost in the woods. This is literally the first mistake I was taught about in extermination 101. I feel like a complete dipshit.

I can’t just sit here and wait for someone to find me. Every moment I spend lost is another moment the other groups are in serious danger. Instead, I try to identify landmarks and make my way back. There’s no guarantee the other group stayed where we were, but at the very least I can try to track them from there. I’ve learned a lot over this past month and I intend to make the most of it. 

Progress through the forest is slow, and not particularly steady. I’m not confident in my directional awareness, and I'm half-convinced I’m going in the completely wrong direction. I just have to bite down my doubts and keep going. I’m either right or I’m wrong, and second-guessing myself isn’t going to help.

Suddenly, I bump into a familiar face as we round a large tree at the same time. “Jeremiah?”

He lets out a sigh of relief as if he’s been holding his breath for a while.“Vin, I’m glad that you’re still breathing.”

“It’s good to see you too. Tanya told me to tell you that there’s at least a class-6 roaming the forest, but it could be worse.”

“No shit. We found some troll tracks and one of the guards pissed themselves. Spooked the guards right off I tell ya. Where’s Tanya?”

“We got ambushed by a group of dire wolves. She told me she could take them and I ran to find you.”

“... if anyone can do it, it’s Tanya.”

“So… what should we do?”

“I’ve been trying to locate other groups, but I’ve had no luck. We should evacuate and head back to town. We’re in serious danger here.”

“Let’s do-”

Suddenly, a deeply alluring, feminine voice interrupts me from above. “Oooh, a cute one.”

Jeremiah springs back and draws his blade, “Vin, Down!”

I have just a moment to duck before he slashes just a few inches over where I was. A giant spider is clinging to the trunk of the tree we were talking under, staring down at me. Well, mostly a spider. Above the sternum is the upper body of a beautiful woman. She has dark hair, a large bare chest, and an attractive, partially hidden face. She silently drops off of the tree and stands to her full height. The spider body stands about five feet tall, and the human upper body atop that brings the full height to about 8 feet.

“Vin. A cute name as well, I want him.”

I reach for my sword, but before I can draw it she makes a quick movement, and I can’t move my hand anymore. When I look down I can see that my hand is covered in a sticky white substance and is stuck to my sheath, trapping both my hand and sword.

The spider-woman begins to approach me. Jeremiah, who she’d ignored, looks at me and grimaces. He slowly begins to back away, fading from sight into the underbrush. Looks like I’m on my own. My sword is stuck, I can’t get to the bestiary in my pack, and even if I could I doubt Ashirra's strong enough to help against the massive creature in front of me.

Yeah, I’m fucked. 

As she draws nearer my legs buckle out from under me. I’m completely helpless. Her human hand reaches out and caresses my cheek, “My… Vin.”

Something pierces my abdomen, and I begin to feel woozy. My vision begins to fade, and the last bit of feeling in my body is that of my impact on the ground.

KevinStann

Damn, it's been a while since I've written something for this series. There was originally supposed to be a chapter between this one and the previous one detailing Vin's life as a trainee exterminator, but I got so frustrated trying to write it I gave up for a little while. I will rewrite that chapter at some point and release it, but for now, we forge onwards.

I'm going on a family trip over the next week, but after that, I'm going to announce a more consistent release schedule for my current series. Hope you guys have been enjoying Taming Monsters and Other Cool Shit thus far!