POV of Blue Hair- female

Huh?

This was the location, right?

Mana is everywhere

But it's too faint when it comes to this Valley.

Because this Valley, sucks it ups and if we noticed, it wouldn’t be what we thought it was. How we noticed was the same feeling you have being watched by somebody, that itchy feeling, we guessed it might be a kid because of the faint presence or it might be a dangerous individual. A faint presence indicates mastery or fear, its less likely for a master to be here and monsters would be way more noticeable. A normal scenario of a master would be quiet and no different than the wind. And nobody is dumb enough to walk in here, so most likely a monster from the east of this location.

Where the hell could the thing be?!

Crunch!

Whipping my neck around with a blade ready. Two heads poke out.

“Who?!.........Oh you two….”.

Those numbskull idiots! Why are they together?

“ Hey, big sis……”.

“You guys, seen anything”.

“No….”

‘Strange, did it notice’?

“Nah, there's no way a creature could be intelli……!”

SNAP!

That was loud.

Too loud.

Sounded like a tree being pushed down.

Crash!

“The hell! Big sis!!”.

Seriously why the hell is such a thing happening to us!

A Cyclops.

Not just any Cyclops. Judging by the cudgel, an intelligent one. Cyclops are 6.7 meter tall behemoths with muscles bigger than a person, and teeth that protrude out like a fish. Bronze colored skin and one eye. Such a race was hunted into extinction. But the few survivors grouped together and disappeared several generations ago.

“Why here! Why now!”.

“Get the captain!”.

“Little bro, you stay and give support”.

“Okay!”.

The elder twin sprints from the clearing, running to get the captain. The Cyclops is only dangerous because of it disproportioned strength. Bringing it down is the only option.

The Cyclops roars and reaches out with its bare fist ready to strike the two, but a whistling fireball ignites it hand, turning it into a blood curdling mess of burned flesh.

It unleashes a scream and focuses it single eye on the fire magician. It took a step forward and then ran at the duo. Throwing it fist

“let's go!”

“right”

The duo runs at the beast striking out against the beast’s depth

“Fire Magic: Pyro Shower!”

Looks like numbskull #2 is going to fire first. As I dodged the fist incoming at me, I come up next to the Cyclops right leg, readying my blade I slash once through the hamstring and the calf.

“GAH!”.

An arm promptly smacks into me, and I’m sent flying into the nearby wood, breaking into two.

“HUAW!”.

Blood clogged my vision, a headache spiked where I hit my head, with the helmet I wore being cracked and the armor I wore was scarred but still functional.

I cast ‘Low Recovery’.

My vision clears a bit, and my nose is breathable.

Oh crap! A fist!

I jump to the side and parry another arm strike with my blade.

..

.

.

.

Rav

“Whoa”

I was flabbergasted, what I was looking at seemed like bad joke. The two Neanderthals were fighting like crazy against the Cyclops.

The blue haired went in first and used a sword to slash at the legs, it seemed stupid because the damn beast can just swipe at her. But it was the wizard magician who was her support, he created a bunch of fireballs and began to launch them at the beast.

“Huh?!”.

The Skillbook just popped into my face, a new page appeared.

“Language translation…?”

“ON/OFF”

“ON obviously!”.

‘Boindewpouiidnvarethsi’

“What…?!”

A weird word appeared in my mind.

But.

I knew what that word meant; it means “Bluebird” in the native language of the Neanderthals I was observing.

More words appeared and my mind in a way started to think like those Neanderthals. It's funny, it's so different to what I'm used to, everything about them is different, its almost terrifying about their differences.

Everything makes sense, at first, I thought these people were strange but now they seem familiar.

“Hey Big Sis, get ready!!”.

I understand!

I understand them!

They speak Tamil, right?!

Or do I speak their language?

“Now!”.

The red haired waved his staff and began to chant: Fire Arrow

The arrows fired off, but it wasn’t arrows in the sense I understand but flames that had a narrow focus, shooting like darts.

After a while, the monster covered in numerous bruises, finally fell down. The ashen covered beast was no more. The beast was dead!

“Come out!! Now!”.

The blue haired woman screamed out. Who was she talking about.

She’s looking at my direction……No!

“get out, now!”

The other guy immediately shot a fireball right in front of the place I was hiding behind, the bushes were blown to bits.

These people are crazy!

‘Should I go out, no something about these guys is scary…… They want to kill me!’

I have seen those eyes and behaviors before, from people with ulterior motives. Thieves and scammers, they mean nothing but harm. Why!

Why!

I didn’t do anything!

Maybe it's my suicidal urges, but I'm angry and these people are the cause. I have done nothing wrong, yes, I might be seen as something suspicious, but it's not like that.

No!

Its pink dude and blue pervert fault!

But.

I need to be careful; I grab the bow and arrow pocket I made, slugging in my back. I readied it and get ready to shoot if they try something. Some spears are behind my back.

I breathe in and out.

Breath in.

Breath out.

“Get out, now!”.

My bow is ready pointing at them, I slowly trudge out to the clearing. I meet their eyes and my mind clears and get ready for battle. We both face at each other, with a lump in my throat I ready myself.

“Hello”.

They don’t respond but look at me in apprehension with glazed over eyes. A few seconds but were still staring, they don’t move.

“What are you”.

Those words came from the blue haired female, her face is blanched with disgust. And with a clear look at her face, I'm sure she is a neanderthal.

Shes kind of ugly, honestly, I feel kind of freaked out by it. The strange sunken look and those brows that are protruding out crazy. She looks like an animal almost. And the guy is no better with that insane nose and strange stature, I would have thought I was in a museum if it wasn’t for the fact he was alive.

“I’m a traveler”.

“Traveler….?”.

“Are you from the east of the continent”.

“……..You can say that”.

Lie to survive.

“ I have never seen anything like you before”, spoke the red haired.

“Why were you hiding”.

“None of your business”.

The duo started to show slight irritation. I couldn’t tell, but they began to ask more questions like “Why am I here?”, simple questions but I cam up with pretty vague answers.

“Hey! Can’t you just answer properly”.

“No”.

“And stop pointing that bow at us, it’s a weapon!”.

“Can’t trust you guys”.

“…….”

“…….”

My hand was getting a bit tired, so I lowered my arm, but I was still ready to strike first.

While we were having a staring contest, I peered at my Skillbook in front of my face. It seems only 4 hours passed and now 8 hours till the Door comes, I’m getting a bit hungry, I was hungry throughout the day, but I kept it under control by eating leftovers from my school bag.

As I kept looking at the Skillbook, an alert notification appeared and the pages flip to the MAP section, a dot was hurriedly moving to my location, it was moving too fast.

Rawrrrrrrroar!

I'm not some kind of fantasy buff, I do read some east Asian mangas and did know what a dragon sounded like. But, in games I usually don’t meet a dragon till the end, right?

I begrudgingly looked up and the second I saw those wings, my knees started buckling.

Red Eyes.

No pupils or irises, just pure red. The dragon was almost 13 feet across, rather small when you think about it since I thought of giant dragons that can cloud cities.

Orangish bronze skin, with dark horns on its head and spikes throughout its body.

“Damn”.

“Big Sis, that weredragon…..”.

“Weredragon?”.

Those twolooked scared, so it must be something that pretty much instant kills everything. But they don’t seem too shocked by it, seems like they expected it appear but not right now.

But right now, I'm trying to control my knees and twitching. Im scared, so very scared. This is worse than being beaten by aunty after I steal some cash from her.

Why the heck is there a dragon here?

Ok, calm down. There are two Neanderthals in front of me, they are more muscular than I am, and they know magic.

“You guys have a plan?”.

They both looked at me with dumbfounded expressions.

No plan, huh.

I turned around and booked it. Running away is my mantra no matter.

“You coward!”.

“Wait for us!”.

Wait what?

I looked back and they were running after me.

“Come On! You guys stay back and cover!”.

“Hell no! we don’t want to die”.

Those cowards!

The dragon is following us, right? I looked back in hope, deep down I don’t want to die. I pray every day for goodwill for others, and I have been decent enough to others. I might be a scummy guy sometimes even though that’s just my judgment. It's strange, isn’t it? We are our own worst critic, honestly its also our culture that’s tells us to make it seem effortless and to never brag.

And now my hubris is going to get me killed, I shouldn’t have acted so cool in front of those Neanderthals. I'm going to die!

But as I scanned the area behind, I didn’t see the dragon.

I knew it! You know, I read books where dragons don’t actually care for lower lifeforms and so obviously that dragon obviously doesn’t want to eat humans, my teacher told me that humans taste very bad and that’s why most animals on earth don’t try to devour humans.

Hah! Obviously.

But reality often sets it.

As I looked back at path I was running towards, a strange black object flew fast and

broke the ground in front of me. A large gale of wind in front of me blasts open, and I'm lifted up and thrown to the ground. I immediately hear a bunch of cracks from my body, I shouldn’t be hearing those.

And my surrounding turn black.

I don’t know how long I was knocked out.

My eyelids immediately flip open when I hear screams and roars.

My eyes are swimming with tears, is there a doctor in the house?!

I looked around the area and I see the duo in front of me, they are pouncing on the dragon.

I couldn’t believe it, they were attacking the dragon in a strange way. The red hair guy shoots fireballs at it consecutively while taking out this bottle of liquid and drinking them and the blue haired keeps striking with a spear. The dragon tries to avoid the fireballs and tries to swipe at the blue haired.

That spear, that spear is mine, right?

Yep, its mine. She must have taken it from me when I got smacked onto the ground.

I force my head a bit higher and look around, I see my bow and its not broken. I flip over and crawl to it. The pain was immense but the adrenaline was helping, I got up in a sitting position with one knee on the ground and the other flat and grabbed the bow.

“One Shot Bow”

The instant I grabbed the bow and two arrows that wasn’t broken, I activated my Weapon Skill and fired. The arrows whizzed past the blue haired and impaled the dragon’s eyes.

It expectantly screamed pretty loud, so loud was its scream that my eardrums immediately popped. And I felt a ringing that was similar to that dog whistle my uncle used when he was being chased by the neighborhood mutts, not a good idea I will tell you.

The dragon thrashed around and try to get up by flying but it hit a trunk of the nearby tree. It fell down and rolled around pretty violently. It then breathed in.

“Oh lord”.

I immediately got up and started running. I don’t care anymore, there are limits to what your supposed to be fighting. Dragons do one thing and that's burning your house down!

“Wait for us!!”.

The duo were immediately beside me and now we are running for our lives together.

I slowed down a bit but the blue haired screamed out:

“Keep running”.

“Why, it can't be that big”.

“That’s not a normal dragon, it’s a magician also”.

“Huh”.

I was so very confused.

“Dragons can be wizards too”.

“No, that one is special!”.

“……….How long does it usually take for a dragon to breathe fire”.

“A few seconds…..!”

Red haired guy realized why I asked that question, all three of us looked back and the second I saw the dragon I knew that a mistake was made, my mistake that is!

I saw a strange blue runic style magic symbol within a giant blue zodiac circle, I usually saw that in video games and it looked ominous , was that magic?

Instinct told me to jump out of the strike zone, and the instant I did that, suddenly a bunch of blue flames sprouted out of the dragon and the dragon released it breath, exhaling with full force.

 

Pure light.

 

That’s the only way I can describe it. It blinded everything and I shut my eyes in shock.

I forcefully flip them open and I'm greeted with shock at the environment.

My god.

The entire scenery changed with it replaced with charred trees and smoke-filled skies.

I cough a bit and look around for the duo.

The blue hair and red hair appeared and were covered in ash. And they didn’t look happy.

“We don’t have enough guys with us, we will retreat” coughed the red guy.

“Hey! “roared blue haired.

“You almost got us killed!”.

“Shut it”.

I immediately responded; this cavewoman was blaming me for helping. What kind of stupidity was she drinking? I help you guys, which means I'm good.

“You’re an amateur obviously, so you don’t know that a weredragon should never be attacked like that. You practically blinded him!”.

“You’ve seen werewolves right?” interjected the ref haired.

“Yeah…. Wait you mean, there's a person inside of that beast.”

“Yeah, were hunting it for coin”.

I opened up my Skillbook and look at my Soul Tree, it states that to reach the highest stage: Ascended, I want to grind for the next 6 years straight, so constant battles and hell. As I looked back at the direction of the fleeing dragon and the SkillBook, a thought rose up.

I need to get stronger, then…….

“Ill join you guys”.

“Hell, no!”.

“Sorry, we cant since it would mean splitting the rewards with you”.

“No……You guys keep the goods and money; I just want to kill that dragon guy”.

It did sound weird, and the duo both stared at me in horror. Their thoughts must be:

“Why the hell are you trying to put your life on the line for?” and “Are you crazy”, I might actually be crazy. But if I kill this dragon, won't I get I powerful.

“Are you a child” responded the Blue haired, she looked at me quizzically.

“None of your business”.

“Yes, you’re a kid...I don't know where the hell you might be from, but I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be here!”

“So?”.

“Children shouldn’t be doing this!”.

“Look here cavewoman, you give me a good shot and that dragon will come down”.

That suicidal urge in me is running wild, I need to calm down right now. But every time I pushed it out, it roars stronger. I can't control myself.

“All right then”.

Two people appeared from behind me, pink haired and the brother of the red hair. Those two, I completely forgot them. They came out of the smoke with armor on and spears.

“We will accept your deal” grumbled the pink haired.

“Good, lend me a blade”.

The red-haired magician handed me a knife from his pocket.

I grab some branches and begin carving them into arrows and spears. A i got ready, the rest of the group watched me and then started preparing. It took an hour since we needed a plan to fight and battle formations, but soon we were ready.

The food they gave me was so bad I won't even mention it, but its food nonetheless and honestly that’s all I care about, so I ate readily, and the liquid was actually something almost alcoholic.

Now as we got ready, I tried to introduce myself, but they rejected it and stated that they didn’t even know each other’s names and were actually hunters. It was rather strange, but they explained that they work for a hunter's organization.

They were lying obviously.

Because I did hear them talk using names I couldn’t understand. I should be careful around these cavemen, because they just lied to me and their waiting to use me.

Whatever.

I should be careful, so I will volunteer to be a rear guard.

….

….