The man with the massive axe sneered as he gestured a thick finger toward the still-twitching body of a bisected hyena on the snow.
"Didn't your elders teach you not to steal someone else's hunt?"
A system interface hovered above him for Seven to see.
|| Basic Information ||
|| Character: Drake Chio ||
|| Age: 33 ||
|| Talent: Basic Axe Mastery ||
After seeing the man's name, Seven could not help but look at his physique.
In most novels he had read, Drake was a name that means 'dragon' and dragon signifies strength and power— he certainly looked like the kind of man who looked like befitting his name.
He seemed taller than most humans he had seen, probably about the same height as the Archduke, along with a prominent nose, high cheekbones, and a strong jawline that hints to his good genetics.
Wide-shouldered.
His veins bulged like ropes over forearms that could split a log with one swing. But despite all that raw muscle, his zaen output was underwhelming with only two black gates open.
For someone his age, that was not pathetic… but it was far from impressive.
'Cylinth…'
The acting headmaster's name echoed back inside Seven's mind.
Despite being a year younger than Drake, her progress in zaen was far and seemed unreachable for ordinary civilians like Drake.
"Oh ho, look who we got here."
A thinner mercenary interrupted his thoughts, the one with patchy facial hair and a crooked nose stepped forward that revealed a missing tooth.
His saber rested lazily against his shoulder, and his eyes roamed over Seven like he was inspecting an item at a bazaar.
"A lost princeling wandered too far from his wet nurse?"
Laughter echoed from the two more mercenaries beside him: one holding a staff and one had his hands stuffed with bandages as if boxing gloves.
Drake did not laugh.
And so did the fifth one who seemed like the porter, whose eyes darted nervously between the trees while his fingers fidgeted the straps of the bags on his back.
Grr—
A low growling sound echoed through the air.
But the laughing mercenaries who seemed lost in their laughter did not seem to notice it.
'...Amateurs.'
Seven thought.
After all, mercenaries in this world were like the adventurers in the novels he had read, where they number a lot but only few know what they are doing.
These ones in front of him were not even the keen type to observe small hints that could pose dangers— except Drake who now gripped his axe.
"Silence."
Drake said.
As he did, he gave Seven's shoulder a mocking pat or maybe it was his simple gesture to take a kid like Seven out of harm's way.
"Brat. Go home. Your mother's probably waiting for you to come crying back."
Tap. Tap.
He patted Seven twice more.
Seven did not answer. He simply brushed the man's hand off then turned to face him with a look that did not match his age.
'Waiting, huh?'
Mother.
Of all the words the man could have used, it had to be that one.
If there was a word Seven hated more than death, it was 'mother'. It was not because she died, as he would have preferred that.
But.
Because she never once waited for him.
Not after school.
Not when he stood bleeding and alone in front of the house after getting beaten up and kicked out by his stepfather because he was not his real son.
Seven clicked his tongue.
"Tch."
Instead, he turned around and started to walk deeper inside the wild given that being alone was probably safer than being with the noisy idiots behind Drake.
Step.
But just as he did, he froze.
Dead.
His left eye told him that if he took one more step, his head would come rolling to the snow as a silhouette of what seemed to be that of a hyena would bite his neck off.
Step.
He took one step sidewards to dodge… but his ankle twisted under his weight, throwing off his balance.
"Fud—"
"Move, brat!"
Drake immediately shoved Seven aside and swung his axe in full force.
Clang!
Sparks flared on impact. Drake's axe crashed into the hyena's mouth, crushed its molars, tore through its skull and split it into half.
Haah…
Seven's breathing ragged as he stepped behind Drake.
Instinct brought his hand to his waist only to find it empty as he had no sword since the beginning.
He never brought one.
Grrwwwll—!!
A synchronized howl— or more like vocalizations of hyenas that sounded like a howl— echoed as one hyena appeared from the fog, the snow, the underbrush, and behind the trunks.
Their jaws were dripping with saliva.
"Oh ho, what the hell? That's way too many."
The man with the missing tooth cursed as he gripped his saber tightly.
The porter dropped his pack and dropped to the ground with hands trembling given that all of the hyenas were…
"Mutated?"
The one with the bandages muttered.
One of the hyenas had three eyes.
Another dragged a twisted limb, its hind leg bent at the wrong angle, as though broken long ago and allowed to heal in the worst possible way.
Grrr—
All of a sudden, the hyenas stepped aside as if making a path in the middle in which a bigger one appeared right after.
It stepped out from the line of trees, larger than the rest, with fur matted and black as ash. It paused by the bisected hyena corpse Eden left behind and its nose twitched once.
Grrrrrr~
Slowly, it lifted its head to the sky and parted his mouth, revealing jagged and misaligned yellow teeth. It was a command for the smaller hyenas to begin circling the mercenaries.
"Form up! Tire one."
Drake commanded.
The mercenaries instinctively fell into a loose circle in a defensive stance, with the porter and Seven pulled into the center.
Drake took point at the front, eyes fixed on the alpha of the pack.
"...That's a male. Won't be half as nasty as a matriarch."
Grr—
A hyena with three eyes lunged forward, along with the two whose joints seemed out of place.
Seven circulated his zaen and focused it on his fists. Just because he did not have a sword does not mean he was useless.
But.
"Stay put, princeling. Watch over the little porter, will ya?"
The man with the crooked nose and missing tooth gestured for him to stay put. The one who mocked him earlier.
"Let the adults enjoy the feast."
|| Basic Information ||
|| Character: George Hermit ||
|| Age: 21 ||
|| Talent: Not Getting Drunk ||
"Come on then, freak!"
George stepped ahead of the line just, meeting the three-eyed hyena that lunged and the other two behind it.
Clang!
Sparks flew as his saber met the hyena's fangs. But instead of slashing his saber down to split the hyena, he brought his hands instead of the eye on its forehead and tore it out.
"Only two eyes allowed."
He said with a smirk that again revealed his missing tooth.
But as he did, the two hyena that followed the third-eyed hyena was just an inch away from his neck.
He ducked low and slashed upward, catching the hyena's chin.
Blood spattered, but the one beside it did not slow down.
Instead, its front paw lashed out like a club and George twisted mid-air, dodging the first swipe. Still, the second strike caught him in the ribs and launched him into a tree.
Thud!
He wheezed but stood again, grinning like a lunatic with blood in his teeth.
But the hyena was already on him— the one with twisted legs but could still run faster than him.
Slash!
George slashed again, feinted, then plunged the saber into the side of its throat and the hyena screamed and thrashed.
He relaxed his shoulders and rolled it, given that the three hyenas before him were finally slain.
Yet unexpectedly, another hyena appeared from the branch of a tree behind him and was now less than an inch away from his throat.
"Behind y—"
Seven tried to warn him.
But.
C-Crackll!
The branch of a tree moved and skewered the hyena's body from mouth to tail like a barbeque.
Seven looked to the mercenary beside him, the one holding the staff.
|| Basic Information ||
|| Character: Eric Cromwell ||
|| Age: 31 ||
|| Talent: Nature Element ||
"You nearly choked on a bottle of wine last night."
"Nice ho! I knew you'd save my ass!"
"Screw you."
Eric said as he turned around and skewered two more hyenas that were getting bombarded by a punch by the one with bandaged arms.
"Pipe down, Eric. Don't disturb my warm-up."
"Buy me dinner first."
|| Basic Information ||
|| Character: Mandel Paz ||
|| Age: 29 ||
|| Talent: Hard Knuckles ||
Seven frowned while watching. At first, he thought they were amateurs given their complacent behaviour, but seeing them fight was a different story.
Moreover, they still have time to joke around while fighting.
But he saw the porter's face which was a mix of dread and fear. Seven turned to look in the direction the porter was facing and saw Drake before the head of the alpha that was smashed like a log, yet…
…it was regenerating as a black zaen erupted in its body like fire.
"What the hell? …It's more disgusting than that imported wine."
"Screw your blabbering, George."
The mercenaries looked flabbergasted by the current situation, but Seven kept his composure. After all, as a reader, he knew what this was from the start and from the appearance of the mutated hyenas.
Drake seemed to know it too, as he said,
"…Aberrant?"