A Bad First Impression - Part 2

Feeling the mana so dense in the air, characteristic of the fog domes, I tried to put on my filter mask, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. The situation was truly dire.

Due to the high concentration of mana in the environment caused by the magical beasts and the red fog, the air becomes toxic for humans, which is why hunters always carry filter masks with them, specially made to breathe properly in these conditions.

I must have left mine at that guy’s agency… Damn it!

“GRAAAHHH!”

However, before I could worry about that, a magical beast charged dangerously toward the families, ready to devour them. The monster had the shape of a wolf, but its size was nearly 2 meters tall, with protruding fangs, large claws, and four red eyes, its fur black with gray highlights. These beasts were known as Tuskens, and they were rank D.

Without losing a second, I aimed the barrel of my rifle and fired, hitting its head and preventing it from harming anyone. The gunshot alerted the families, but they breathed a little easier when they saw the beast lying dead on the ground.

“Run!” I shouted. “Get out of the fog and move away!”

Upon hearing my instructions, everyone began to run, trying to escape the area affected by the fog and the monsters. Some magical beasts lunged at the civilians, but I managed to hit every shot so that no one was injured. This was my mission as a hunter: to take down those damn magical beasts.

“Cough, cough!”

After a few minutes, the people had finally evacuated the area. The mana in the environment and the constant exertion, which had my breathing racing, were already starting to take their toll, but just as I was about to escape the area and wait for a professional hunter to arrive, a noise caught my attention.

A little girl, whose parents seemed not to have arrived yet, was crying on the ground, probably from falling. But when someone who seemed to be her teacher tried to take her to safety, a magical beast appeared, ramming into her and sending her crashing into a wall, leaving her unconscious.

This magical beast was different from the ordinary Tuskens I had faced before. It was 3 meters tall and walked on two legs; it looked like a werewolf, but with the protruding fangs of the Tuskens, four red eyes, and completely black fur, with large horns and claws. It was a Black Tusken, an alpha monster and the boss of this field.

When fog fields appear, eliminating all the monsters isn’t enough; you must defeat the boss monster so that the fog dome disappears and ordinary monsters stop appearing.

I panicked as the Black Tusken started moving toward the girl, whose cries filled the field, and I unloaded all my bullets into the magical beast. However, alphas tend to be smarter, and this one not only dodged some of my shots but also managed to make sure none hit a vital point.

When my bullets ran out, I tried to reload as fast as possible, but the monster, taking advantage of those seconds, charged at me. Luckily, I managed to avoid its assault by jumping to the side, barely.

“Cough, cough!”

However, the monster wasn’t the only thing I had to worry about. The girl was already beginning to be affected by the dense mana of the dome, and the teacher would soon be in danger as well. I quickly reloaded, trying to take down the boss as soon as possible, but just as the click of the fully loaded magazine sounded, I was attacked from behind by the claws of the magical beast, tearing my clothes and leaving my back exposed with deep wounds.

“COUGH COUGH!”

I tried to get up, but I couldn’t anymore. The density of the mana and my injuries had pushed me to the limit; I was starting to feel dizzy, as if I were about to lose consciousness at any moment.

The magical beast came closer and closer, as if enjoying my deplorable situation, and all I could do was await my end.

I closed my eyes, hoping my death would be quick, but the only things that came to my mind were images and memories of my older sister, always with her enormous, dazzling smile.

“Sister… I’m sorry,” I whispered as my last words, only to hear a loud crash immediately after.

To my surprise, I was still alive and felt no pain at all.

When I opened my eyes to see what had happened, a sight I thought impossible until then left me stunned. My instructor, the one I had considered a coward and useless, was standing on the head of the Black Tusken, which now lay on the ground.

“Seriously… you should listen to your elders when they speak to you,” he said as he got off the beast’s head.

My surprise was still palpable, but it was interrupted by another coughing fit, growing more frequent and intense. Realizing this, the instructor pulled something from his backpack—it was my mask!

“Here. You are careless, but it’s normal; you’re still a student,” he added with a confident, somewhat teasing smile.

His attitude still irritated me, but there was no time for that.

“The… civilians!” I exclaimed, barely catching my breath. “If we don’t get them out of here fast, they’ll die!”

“Still some people left, huh? What a nuisance… I guess the fastest way is to take care of the boss,” he affirmed as the Black Tusken stood up behind him.

Angry at being knocked down, the monster attacked the instructor from behind with its claws, but before it could hit him, he moved slightly and, using the beast’s own force, threw it away.

That hunter I thought was incompetent turned out to be incredibly strong; he treated a boss monster as if it were nothing. It was something I still couldn’t fully believe.

While the monster was still recovering from its attack, the instructor pulled a small black sphere from what appeared to be a portal, a sphere that transformed into a sword with which he charged at the magical beast.

“Tell me, Touka! Is this really the hunters’ goal?!” he asked as he dodged and blocked the Black Tusken’s attacks. “Partly yes! But the true purpose of hunters is to help people!”

Finishing his sentence, he dodged a punch from the beast and then attacked its arm with the sword, cutting it and making the monster roar so loudly that my ears started to ring.

“We help with monsters, yes, but that doesn’t mean we should limit ourselves to that,” he explained, evading more attacks from the boss. “If we only focus on magical beasts, we’ll get distracted and forget to help others! That’s how I see it!”

Hearing his stance was eye-opening for me. I had joined the academy to help by hunting monsters like my sister, but I had forgotten all the times she helped the neighbors, who had helped take care of me when our parents died. Now I understood everything.

Perhaps noticing my understanding, the instructor smiled before deflecting another attack from the Black Tusken, and taking advantage of the opening, sliced the monster in two with a brilliant diagonal cut. He had channeled mana into his sword to strengthen the attack, something I had seen my professors do at the academy sometimes, but never in such a clean cut.

With the boss monster dead, the fog dome began to dissipate, giving way again to the sky, dazzling with a beautiful orange hue from the setting sun.

My instructor, still with his confident smile, turned to look at me only to raise his thumb in my direction as a sign of victory. Still bewildered by everything that had happened, all I could do was nod at the gesture.

***

Time later, help arrived. The girl and the teacher were treated in ambulances, while I was attended by hunters with healing magic; they didn’t fully heal the wound, but it was enough to get me back on my feet.

The girl’s mother arrived as soon as the dome disappeared and was now with her in the ambulance, crying with happiness because her daughter had come out practically unharmed. Seeing that scene made me smile; despite everything, there were no casualties, and that’s always something to be happy about.

“How are you feeling?” asked the instructor, startling me by appearing out of nowhere.

“Sir, I…”

“Yu,” he corrected. “Call me Yu. Being called ‘sir’ makes me feel old.”

His attitude was truly incorrigible…

“I’m better. I can move now, although it still hurts quite a bit.”

“You better get used to it now; this profession is incredibly painful,” he replied with a smile. “So… are you really going to change tutors?”

The question caught me off guard. I had forgotten everything that had happened with the magical beasts, and now I didn’t know what to answer. After everything, I felt ashamed for being so rude to Yu.

“Still, I understand. My agency isn’t exactly the most exciting or lively,” he added as he started walking away. “Even so, if you want to learn something from this incompetent hunter, I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow.”

And without letting me respond, he left, leaving me with the rest of the hunters and cleaners who were removing the corpses of the magical beasts.

Despite how I had acted, he still invited me to keep working with him.

“That guy… who can understand him?”

***

The next day, my wounds had improved a little, but they still hurt. The noise of cars and people continued as always, despite having faced an attack from a horde of magical beasts yesterday. This was our daily life.

Continuing on my way, I finally arrived at my destination: a neglected, nameless agency. In the end, I decided to keep working with Yu.

He had shown me that I had been wrong in my perspective and that his combat skills were impressive. Despite my poor first impression of him, this new side of him made me see that maybe I could learn something here.

Still nervous about the choice I was about to make, I opened the door and slowly entered the place.

“I-I’m Touka, I… Eh?”

However, I was met with the same scene of Yu watching dramas while comfortably eating instant noodles at his desk.

“Mmm? Ah, Touka! Hello!”

He greeted me cheerfully, but in doing so, he lost his balance in the chair and fell, spilling noodles all over his face.

“It burns!” he exclaimed, still on the floor.

… I hope I made the right choice…