Cap 1 - Lethal Hunt

"Girl, where have you been?! You haven't shown up for your trainings for a week, have you forgotten that you are now an apprentice hunter?"

"Where did you get that conclusion?! Calm down, work?"

It's true, beginners don't get paid before they become hunters, and even after entering the apprentice rank hunters still need to complete their first missions to be paid for their work, but I didn't imagine Haruka working, who would hire someone who only complains and are you as disinterested as she is?

"Yes, old man, after the evaluation, a dimwit resigned from the little market where I work, now I'm being enslaved by another old man like you, the difference is that he doesn't hide that he's looking at the employees..."

So it was because of that, I had to admit I wasn't surprised, someone hiring her because of her personality was hard to imagine.

"Sometimes I really regret having accepted you as a girl student."

“Yeah! Yeah! Now tell me why you called me, I need to buy my food of the month, unlike you I'm an ordinary hourly wage earner.

I would love to just send her away, but I'm still her master, my duty is to teach and make sure she stays on the right path, I can't fail her either, even though teaching the girl is horrible.

"Okay, I don't want to waste your time either, the reason I summoned you here was because I have something to teach you."

"Teach me? And what would be old?"

"Watch carefully, we name this technique as Body Enhancement, it aims to strengthen the body of those who use it for a short period of time."

Despite being an impressive technique, it caused enormous pressure on the user's body, those who use it for the first time feel an unparalleled pain, it is necessary to have a well-trained body to support it for long periods.

I used myself as an example to demonstrate to Haruka the effects of the technique, with a little effort I was able to strengthen my arm muscles, this effect depends on the user's concentration, the greater his concentration the longer he can keep improving, many hunters use this technique in your workouts, it helps the body to better absorb heavy training, it's like 100 pushups turned into 200.

"Whoa! That's old fashioned way, if you use this technique well, chances are you won't need to use those blue pills anymore."

“You become more insufferable every day, girl."

"Okay! Okay! But how did you do this thing there?"

"It's not an easy thing, you need to focus well on your muscle mass, with a little training I believe you can get the hang of it, but the first few times it leaves muscles with an unparalleled pain, so be prepared."

“Concentrate on my muscle mass, okay? Okay I will try."

While Haruka focused her energies on learning body enhancement, I had that vision again, whenever she is focused it's as if she didn't notice anything around her, her mind closed and focused only on a single goal, it was something very difficult, size focus was something to be expected only from masters, in just a few minutes she was able to emulate body enhancement.

I knew I had to test this, she developed in a short time, just with her focus something that would take practically a week to be developed by a well-trained hunter, despite not being able to maintain it for a long time, she managed to strengthen her entire body for 5 seconds, it was literally unexpected!

"Old..."

"Say girl."

"I can't move, my muscles locked! Help me! HELP!!!"

"Calm down girl, this is normal, you don't need to worry, this has happened to me many times while practicing the improvement, after that you will feel an infernal pain, but with time your body will get used to the pressure that the improvement exerts on the same, so you can stay under the influence of technique even more."

"This... This is very interesting, you know, but how long am I going to be like this?"

“Hmm, I have no idea. But I'll stay here waiting for you to get back to normal, what do you think about talking a little with this old man? There are a few things I wanted to ask you, this seems like the perfect time."

Haruka for a few moments refused to want to talk, but with time her boredom began to win, little by little the girl began to lose her will to remain silent.

She started to get restless, her frustration at not being able to move along with the silence that hung around the room at that moment was making the girl totally bored and nervous.

"So what do you tell me? Would like to talk?"

"Oh, what a bag! Okay old man, what do you want to talk about?"

“Let me see…what were you talking about on the day of the assessment? About threats not just being spiritual."

"Old man, someone like you must know very well that humans like us are an imminent threat to their own race after all..."

"..."

"Leave that old thing aside, but I have a question for you too, if you don't want to talk about it I understand."

"What do you want to know girl?"

"I already realized that you know very well how my magic works, I also heard something about another uncle who had the same magical form as mine, besides he was trained by you, who was the guy? Where is he these days?"

I didn't expect her to know these things, didn't want to comment on it, but given who we're talking about, it would be better if I explained the situation to her.

"You could have given a summary there as an old man, dammit you almost spoke the bible to me... But I understand, it must have been a dose for you."

The atmosphere had gotten a little negative in the practice room, we were both silent for a while, Haruka's movements were already starting to come back, that's when I remembered the second reason why I had called her.

“Girl, I forgot to tell you, this came for you earlier."

"And what would it be?"

"Your first mission as a hunter, you were chosen for a level D hunt, apparently they are from the Superhuman and Prime classes, it's a youkai infestation in a small town, it was properly closed, the army has already reconnoitered the place, too. The day has been set for your mission, you've been cast with a group of other apprentice hunters."

"Youkai infestation, looks like something interesting, I was dying to detonate someone because of work."

"Hope you keep your ego in check girl, a hunter shouldn't underestimate his enemies."

“Yeah! Yeah! Old man, relax that the most that can happen is for them to kill me."

"Alright girl, at least be careful, these types of missions may seem simple, but stay focused, youkai are dangerous even at low threat levels."

“Right old man, keep your eyes open, look around, analyze, see, observe, capture, verify, understand, I'll use it."

After playing with my worry, Haruka suffered from the aftereffects of body enhancement, the hellish pain of the first use leaving the poor girl traumatized by the technique.

I spent some time asking Haruka to let go of the fear of training the technique after that, even denying herself and acting like a child, she finally agreed to continue, it didn't take long for her to keep the technique any longer.

"Your mission is in four days girl, I think it's enough time to improve your technique, with a little more effort you can manage to maintain it for 1 minute."

Despite having a fast forward, Haruka didn't look too happy at the time, it wasn't like she was bored with her training, something was putting the girl down.

"Has something happened, girl?"

"This infernal training is not something for me, no old man, I feel my body screaming for me to stop or something."

"Believe me, masters have been through this before, it's a painful effort but very effective, you said you wanted to be strong to eliminate threats, right?"

"There's no way to make a code that releases all the force present in me at once, isn't it?"

"What do you mean by code?"

"It's man, you know, up, down, left, left, R2, triangle, square, then I release the absolute power!"

It could only be a joke what I was hearing, I couldn't believe she was such an idiot.

"It's a joke, right?"

"Boring old man, I need to improve faster, but for now, I can't just concentrate on training, I have some commitments to resolve and I need money..."

"You'd better keep your mind only on practice, but I understand, just try not to forget about your first mission."

"I will only forget my mission if I end up forgetting."

I thought about saying something about that nonsensical comment, but I'd be playing her game, so I just let it go while I pretended to understand.

"Well, I'm leaving, if you had a cell phone I would keep in touch through FalaZap, but I doubt that someone your age knows how to use it."

Haruka then got up and started to pick up her things to leave, while waving at me, I just wanted to know if everything would work out for her mission, on the other hand, your proposal wasn't bad, a cell phone right? Maybe I'll buy one in the future.

After that day, I didn't hear from the girl anymore, she literally disappeared, I ended up asking to get in touch with her, but the only means of contact we had with her was no longer working.

For a while I was worried, her mission day finally arrived, it was a team hunt, while the other hunters arrived, I wondered even more where she was, soon they would go out to start the hunt, on the other hand the girl still You gone.

"Sebastian, where's your apprentice? Everyone is already here, we can't wait any longer."

"- Sorry, I don't know where she is either, but I guarantee she will arrive soon."

"Unfortunately Sebastian, we can't wait any longer, we'll leave immediately to eliminate the infestation..."

Before he finished speaking, the girl finally arrived, she looked pretty tired and exhausted.

"I arrived, are you all ready?"

"Girl, where have you been?!"

"If we don't see, my cell phone was stolen, my boss increased my workload and I was late on the subway, do you want to know anything else?"

"Stolen?! How did you allow a thief to steal your cell phone?"

"Oh! It was like that, he came up to me and said, Raise your hand, you lost the trout! Then I said Calm down! then he took my cell phone and ran away."

"What is your training for? You took down 3 statues alone, how can you not defeat a mere thief?!"

At that moment Haruka looked at me with a sadistic and serious look, with a scary smile, she seemed to be with an unparalleled anger.

"You know, old man... What I wanted most was to smash that unfortunate man's face, but a dumb idiot stopped me from hitting humans..."

I had forgotten about that, after Haruka's comments in her apprentice assessment, she was banned from using her abilities on humans, I didn't think she would follow that order to the letter, but I was proud of her too.

"Have you finished wanting to know about my life? So let's go, I want to break something."

"Okay... Good luck girl..."

It was a very simple mission, eliminating such a low level youkai infestation shouldn't be a problem for a team, it didn't take long for them to finish opening the portal, so all the hunters including Haruka had already passed to complete the mission, now I just he could follow his hunt from afar.

After the arrival of the group of hunters, the vision they had of the small town was deplorable, the army worked with organizations to contain supernatural threats, but they were not much help in combating the creatures, it was very rare to see a human It's normal to win a tier D threat, even with such weaponry, the poor soldiers only managed to evacuate a few people, those who stayed to hold back the advance of the youkai didn't stand a chance.

A young man took the lead of the group, he seemed to be well trained, but in the hunters' world experience was superior to strength.

"Ok guys, let's clear the area as soon as possible, they are level D youkai, they are powerful in group, so we should go together too, we are not training anymore, so we need to be careful."

Those were wise words, teaming up to fight the threat was a very interesting idea, coming from an apprentice, I could only say that he had some idea of how strong the enemy was.

"Did you hear the guy? Brother, I didn't come here to hold anyone's hand, I came to kill youkai, if you want to play nanny, it's your problem, understand?"

After the ignorant words of a troublemaker, the atmosphere among the apprentices was not good, the mistake of less experienced hunters was to think that they would solve everything themselves, is the famous thought of the protagonist, it is quite normal for people's ego to take them straight to death, with hunters was no different.

"Right... Go there alone then, when you finish killing everyone, tell us, I want to go home soon."

"You're that girl who passed the apprentice test in a month and a half right? What was your name? Haru... Harin... Karu? Well whatever, I don't care, but if you think I'm going to protect someone like you, you better forget, I don't fight for weaklings, much less girls."

"That's cool, it looks like those generic anime characters that only serve to occupy space in the script, great speech I must say, worthy of the Nobel Prize, then go! Show me what you can do!"

"Tsk, that's why I hate girls... Let's get it over with, those who don't want to babysit come with me."

"If you need help, call Batman!"

Haruka had gotten what she wanted, part of her plan was to separate the most troublesome from the others, the idea of sending the short-tempered hunters ahead was really interesting.

"Why did you do that? Now we have only 5 people, it was better for everyone to stay together."

"Man, I did you a favor, that madman was sure to kill us, he caught the other troublemakers, now we just need to follow them from a safe distance."

"Are you using them for bait?"

"You're high? I only sent 5 idiots to clear the way, if they die it's ego's fault."

"..."

Really Haruka's idea wasn't very nice to the other hunters, but they also had in mind that she wasn't actually wrong, the idea of making the most hateful clear the way ahead was just a plan so she could analyze the threats well, if they were indeed successful in eliminating all youkai alone still benefiting her.

After entering the city the atmosphere of the place was calm, it was as if there was nothing in that place, the bodies of civilians and soldiers were everywhere, just the fact of being there was very uncomfortable for the apprentices.

"Haruka right? my name is Davi, those are Oscar, Inkar and lastly..."

"Please don't waste your time telling me your names, I have a bird's memory desu, so it's quite possible that I don't remember you."

Haruka wasn't much of a talker, she was one of those antisocial types of people, so she didn't usually talk to anyone much, not that she had that kind of interest either.

It only took a moment of distraction, when the hunter's eyes returned to her front, all the hunters who had been there a few moments had already disappeared.

"What? it's your fault Daniel! Because of you I lost my sight baits."

"My name is David... And what do you mean baits? So you were actually using those guys?!"

"No, I didn't use anyone, not directly... They were hunters who came here to kill or be killed, just like us, right now I'm at risk of life, it may seem like not but I'm already being observed."

"What do you mean by that?"

"My analysis wasn't finished yet, but I can feel they're already here, apparently we're in combat against the Prime class, no superhuman class could do that, in a few moments, he disappeared with the other hunters, I must say that I believe they have already died too."

"This is impossible! there's no way this could happen so fast, they were in front of us right now."

With the disappearance of the first team, the hunters could not hide their fear, they only thought against what they were fighting.

"For you it may seem impossible, but to my eyes no, the prime class can also use magic, probably an illusion."

"Illusion?"

"Now do you understand? The boy with the Mayan name and Davi also disappeared, oddly enough, I couldn't see them disappear, it started after the fog that is below us appeared."

"Fog?"

A very dense fog covered the hunters' legs at that moment, it was as if it had appeared out of nowhere, in the middle of that situation, they separated and disappeared without a trace, inexperienced hunters are the first to disappear in combat, even at low levels, corrected they are even more powerful together, in the blink of an eye 7 out of 10 hunters had already disappeared into that fog.

"Help! Someone help me!"

"Please! Help!"

"We need to help, come on, the 3 of us can help them!"

"How do you know that?"

"It's very simple, the owner of that voice, it's probably the one over there."

The girl pointed with her sword to a post half hidden in the fog, at the moment Oscar managed to focus on what she was pointing at, he was displaced, it was the body of that troublesome hunter, totally broken and lifeless, the young boy couldn't hide his pallor.

They couldn't waste a second, Haruka had in mind that the current situation was complicated.

"Our time is running out, the fog will swallow us too, tell me what skills you have fast!"

"I... I'm a wind user!"

"I'm a Lightning user."

"The boy with the name of the prize, can you open this mist into a circle using your wind magic?"

"Yes... Yes!"

"Okay, the rest is up to me and you'll hit him, at my signal, you'll have to open the fog boy wind, we need to be fast, I can feel the presence of 7 of them, the creator of this fog, must be one of them, we need to eliminate the superhumans before the fog covers us again."

Preparing for combat Haruka just closed her eyes, her goal was to hear the youkai's movements, her eyes weren't much help in the fog, so if she couldn't count on her vision, she would use her ears while focusing. in the noises and sounds coming from the fog, the wait was terrifying.

In a few seconds the dense fog grew higher, covering the hunters, this was the perfect moment.

"Now wind boy! Open the fog fast!"

The boy then placed his hands on the ground while doing his wind control magic to open the dense fog, what once covered the 3 hunters, now had been dispersed, at that moment 6 youkai appeared, all of super human class, they were like normal people , but their skin was white as snow, their eyes were red and black, their clothes were old and worn, they all had a kind of horn on the left corner of their head, they moved forward quickly, without waiting, in a swift action, Haruka advanced towards the youkai, drawing his sword and cutting off the heads of two of the creatures, while with his speed coming from the ability to control lightning, the hunter with his electrified spear, pierced the other youkai, eliminating the four creatures in the blink of an eye, it was a well-synced attack, but before you knew it, the prime-class youkai emerged from the fog behind the poor wind user, he was big and strong, his appearance resembled something in between. a wendigo and a human, without them having time to react, the creature reached over the hunter's back with its hand, ripping out his heart next.

There was nothing to be done, however Haruka wouldn't let the chance to take down the prime pass, with the use of her soul user ability, she advanced fiercely towards her target, but with an unthinkable attack, the creature landed a blow. fast and powerful on the girl, causing her to fly violently hitting a wall, on the other hand the lightning user advanced towards the creature, the confrontation was already decided, the one with the greatest resistance and strength would emerge victorious, the battle was resumed in speed and precise blows, the creature even being hit by the hunter's electrified spear, did not seem to get weaker, quite the contrary, his blows got stronger and faster, the hunter knew that if he was hit it would be his end, but keep the use of his ability was killing his spiritual magic, by a slip, the hunter was hit, after the impact, he started to spin wildly in the air, the bloodthirsty youkai didn't miss the chance, the hitting him with a punch almost burying the same in the ground, the pain was agonizing, when the hunter thought it would be his end, Haruka emerged from the fog attacking the creature by surprise, with a broken arm and two fractured ribs, the girl used her technique of body enhancement along with his soul magic, to deliver a blow that tore the youkai's arm, in that brief opening, with all his strength, the hunter pierced the creature's back with his spear, causing immense damage to the youkai, but that was not enough to kill the creature, with a deafening scream, the youkai wrenched the spear from its own body, while preparing to use it as a weapon.

Even injured, Haruka positioned herself, standing face to face with the powerful youkai, preparing for what would be her last blow.

"Ouch! You almost broke my sword... Get ready and I'll send you to a very warm place!"

The girl closed her eyes, concentrating her strength on the body enhancement technique, the sudden use caused unimaginable pain for the girl, but she was focused only on killing the creature, making use of all her magic the girl carried her sword to the ultimate blow.

The creature advanced towards the girl, ready to kill the hunter, but without the youkai noticing, the lightning user launched an electric blast that hit the youkai full on, paralyzing the creature for just 2 seconds, with a clean and swift cut , in the blink of an eye, Haruka split the youkai in two, falling unconscious right after killing her opponent.

Inexperience and lack of preparation was what led those hunters to their death, but it was still considered a victory for some members of the organization.

I couldn't understand the new ACP principles, consider a victory even with 8 dead hunters? It was only then that I began to understand the disgust Haruka felt.

After that mission, Haruka was admitted to the hunter hospital, to treat her wounds, despite struggling with hating hospitals, she had no choice.

After those events, I received an unusual visit, to say the least.

"Good morning Sebastian... Where's the troublemaker?"

"Hello... Carlos, good morning, talk about Haruka? She is still hospitalized, her injuries were severe, but she is not life-threatening, knowing she must be eager to get back on the hunt."

"I see... Well, the reason for my visit is because the council of elders chose to gather some apprentices, the objective is to form something like a team, one of my students was chosen, he fought side by side with his apprentice in the your last mission, the other two should arrive in the next few days, i've been assigned to train them along with you."

"Just out of Doubt, who is this boy you're talking about?"

"His name is Jean, he has the same form of power as mine, therefore he is also in the same rank as that troublemaker."

The sudden arrival of Carlos announced a project designed by the elders to gather promising apprentices, but what was their real intention?

“Why do they want to bring our apprentices together?"

“Sebastian, I don't ask silly questions, I'm just following orders, deliver this message to your apprentice when she leaves the hospital."

"..."

"Very well Carlos, I hope we can understand each other well during the days you saw."

"Believe me Sebastian, I have no desire to help you train that girl, we are creating a new weapon to give to the corrupted on a platter, you know how dangerous that power she has is, the right thing would be to kill her while we still have the chance."

"Carlos... I have a lot of respect for you, but if you try to touch her with the intention of doing any harm, I will most certainly make you see hell."

"Tsk, who knows, I hope this time doesn't let another murderer escape, that bastard you were master has already caused us enough problems."

I was silent after hearing those words, among all the hunters I was the most aware of how dangerous that magic that Haruka had was, but I wouldn't let anyone touch it, even if I had to go against everything and everyone.

"Thanks for the warning…but I have complete faith in my apprentice, so you needn't be worried."

"..."

Apparently working with Carlos is going to be even harder than training the girl, my life apparently isn't going to be easy.

As the inevitable partnership with Carlos was formed, near the hospital where Haruka was recovering from her injuries, there was the silhouette of two strangers.

"Is that the soul user?"

"Exactly, I expected more from someone with this magic, but apparently she was just any."

"Yes my sovereign, I have full knowledge of him."

"At the right time, I will bring her to you my sovereign."

"Great, let's go, I don't want to draw the hunters' attention…"

Unknown eyes stalked Haruka, who were they, what were the strangers' plans for the girl?