The Hunters" Guild is different from other divisions.Most of this is due to the fact that they raise monsters to accompany their awakeners as scouts, trackers, mounts, and a number of other purposes.
As to how they do this… it is a division secret.
Whether they capture monsters, or breed them in captivity and train them to a.s.sist their awakeners… no one knows for sure.
But none of that mattered to Jake Smithson, who was now facing off against a group of awakeners from this very division… and their pet Hippodogs.
These gigantic animals with the heads of hippopotami and the bodies of wolfhounds were growling and barking, drool dripping from their fangs as they eyed Jake and his party with barely-restrained frenzy in their gaze.
Jake was feeling the tension in the air ratchet up dramatically.
He"d seen the kind of damage a hippopotamus can do: bite strength to rival a large crocodile, and swinging their heads sideways to use their fangs as slashing weapons – and with the power needed to rival crocodiles, that was a fearsome amount of power.
"A direct hit from one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds would mean game over for me. Wait, the old man said I should try negotiating. Nothing to lose…"
"There is some sort of misunderstanding here! We are from the Grand Duelists, tasked to see these awakeners safe in their territory!"
"That should do it. They"d have to be mad if they think they can attack a member of the Grand Duelists and get away with –"
A member of the Hunters" Guild rode in on a horse-shaped monster, and barely ran him through with a lance.
"Do you have any idea what you"re doing? Do you seriously want to make enemies of the Grand Duelists?" Jake shouted again, but the only reply was another attempt by the awakener to run him through.
"Something"s not right here, Jake thought. Since those masked guys showed up, there has been this feeling of wrongness in the air.
Attacking even after I revealed the division I am affiliated with?
This is either a declaration of war, or they"re going to try and murder us and cover it up.
Either way is not good."
The mounted awakener gestured, and the hunters began the attack, the Hippodogs moving in first.
Jake and his party were being forced back, and the situation was starting to get out of hand.
"There are also a bunch of awakeners there, standing still and watching us. I don"t know what they"ll do, so I can"t antic.i.p.ate their actions…
…Honestly, why did Igor point to the west?
This was something I should have thought through."
He thought about going in a different direction, but immediately regretted that he did not make a case for it, thus ending in this situation.
"Did someone just pull a fast one on me? Does that mean we got tricked by Morris and Igor?
Unlikely, they"re defending against the lances and arrows and dodging those Hippodogs, too – the Hunters" Guild is also after them."
"Liam, you hanging in there?"
"Hha, that"s a good one," Liam replied, deadpan. "No, I"m dying and I can"t get up."
The past events after the tutorial had given Liam quite the sense of humor, even in the face of imminent death.
"I seem to be rubbing off on you, you"re turning into a weirdo like I am," Jake replied with a chuckle. "Is that what you say in a situation like this?"
"This is the part where I laugh, right?"
"Yeah, it"s about time I stopped treating this like a joke and get serious with work."
"Get serious?" Liam asked, dumbfounded. "With work?"
"You"re still talking about work when we"re in a jam like this?"
They saw him work soon after that, as thanks to the nearby brook, Jake summoned another Aqua Blade.
Liam asked back as if he was dumbfounded.
In this situation where there is no way out, Jake is talking about some sort of work that wasn"t understandable.
At that moment, Jake started working.
"Hope these ugly f.u.c.kers give points too!" Jake cried out as he commanded his Aqua Blade to strike at one of the hippodogs.
It struck straight and true, pa.s.sing through the monster like a spinning circle of watery death, and when the hippodog collapsed with its head missing, it was a sign that battle was now about to be joined.
***
The battle quickly devolved into hand-to-hand combat, with Jake and Liam showing off their amazing teamwork, which they had been training ever since the tutorial area.
There was just one problem, though.
The Hunters" Guild was several tiers of power above Evergreen.
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The two Grand Duelists were doing their best, but the gap in power was sizable, and the level of their division"s awakeners was something that Jake couldn"t handle yet.
When a familiar voice screamed, that signaled Jake and Liam"s situation going from bad to worse.
"s.h.i.t!" Liam cried out, and spun his head to see Igor already injured, and Morris at wit"s end trying to protect him.
Igor wasn"t a front-line combat awakener, and being forced into a situation like this wasn"t of any help.
"You okay?"
"Barely…"
Jake formed his party to protect Igor, but it was only a matter of time before another scream was heard; this time it was Liam and Morris who were injured.
"s.h.i.t!"
Of course, Jake doesn"t worry too much about himself because of his armor and his consumable items.
"There was a problem, though.
I could use them, but I"m not sure if I could get away.
I could share my consumables with my party to help them out, but not when we"re pressured like this.
Still, the way these consumables are designed is that I can maximize their use. If I use it on them, it might end up being a waste."
He no longer had any time left to think about the situation further.
"Ahhh!" Igor cried, as a mounted charge that he barely dodged caused a huge gash on his side to open up.
With the three of them only left standing to defend, Jake had to make a decision immediately.
"Drink this, this should give you a boost for a moment. Once we drink at once, we break through. Understood?" Jake asked as he withdrew three cans of Red Cow from his inventory.
No time for use the Aloe Lotion, just drink the Red Cow, break through and buy enough time for Jake to buy recovery items at the mall.
It"s a Hail Mary that even he doesn"t know whether it will work.
The situation is bleak, and this is the best he can do out of a bad lot of alternatives.
He was about to hand over the cans when a voice interrupted them.
"Who dares a.s.sault the guests of Evergreen!" a commanding voice came some distance away.
"Vice Master!" Morris said.
And from where the headquarters of Evergreen was, a man with a long coat and a sword crackling with a blood-red aura emerged.
***
"Drive the a.s.sailants away," the vice master ordered in a rumbling baritone that nearly shook the ground.
"By your command!"
Several hundred awakeners yelled as one as they made themselves known, standing behind their vice master, right before they readied their spears and charged on foot.
"Spears?" Jake asked, a bit weirded out at the weapons they were wielding. Most of the awakeners he"d seen had so far carried swords, the Grand Duelists included.
He never saw a unit of combat troops wielding spears before.
And as they swept into the Hunters" Guild, Jake saw their impeccable tactics: rush in with two rows, with the first row drawing the attack with their shorter spears, and while the enemy is distracted with the first row of awakeners, the next row of awakeners will sweep in, with their longer spears to finish the job.
"Different lengths for different types of attack? Come to think of it, those shorter spears looked more like halberds than spears, they"re designed to catch the enemy"s counterattack!"
Against awakeners with near-G.o.dlike ability, such a tactic would be useless, but in a close-quarters war, this technique is quite simple and effective.
"Good to know we"re out of danger," Jake thought as he saw the tide of the battle start to turn, as the masked men and hunters were too busy avoiding being skewered to try and go after him and his party.
The battle turned even further as the vice master of Evergreen joined the fight: the spearmen charged, disoriented the front lines, and made a s.p.a.ce for him and a few of his troops to join the fray.
And with one flash of red, a masked awakener"s head went flying into the air.
"Whoa, that was fast! Never saw someone do that so quick! Could it be his swordsmanship?"
The relentless attacks continued to come, and he crushed all opposition in his path.
"d.a.m.n. Evergreen"s vice master is rather powerful.
He looks like he"s around my age, no, closer to Liam"s.
He makes Damian look like a toddler. Which reminds me, he"d probably wipe the floor with me if I dueled him."
Everyone in the tutorial are all adults, so he found the man"s power surprising.
Of course, given that he"s the vice master of a division, small as it was, it was still incomprehensible.
"Man, I still have a long way to go here in Nohas," Jake thought. "Though the Grand Duelists is part of the Ten Stars, there are still places I need to go, things I need to see here."
He turned and saw Liam, Morris and Igor being guarded by spearmen, and that snapped him out of his funk.
"Wait a minute, I can still help!"
With his morale regained, Jake waded into the battle once more, and what was a decisive advantage by Evergreen slowly began to turn into a rout, what with a brilliant awakener and combat-savvy troops holding the front.
Cherry blossoms swept through the battlefield and flashes of crimson light momentarily turned night into day, as when their wielders crossed eyes, their style of fighting began to complement each other, and both became as flashing bringers of death, cutting through the enemy awakeners as the rout well and truly began.
The mounted awakener growled out a word that Jake found hard to understand.
"Withdraw."
Though they left many dead, the Hunters" Guild still managed to retreat with a majority of their forces.
Jake let out a relieved breath he didn"t know he was holding as he heard the awakeners cheer for their victory.
***
"Apologies for meeting you in such dire circ.u.mstances. I am the vice master of the division Evergreen; my name is Song."
"I"m Jake from the Grand Duelists."
"I"m Liam, also from the Grand Duelists."
As soon as the battle ended, Jake found himself thinking about how plain he looked; the vice-master of Evergreen looked like a member of one of those pretty-boy male idol groups.
His pale complexion and delicate features belied his fearsome swordsmanship; everything he could reach with his sword ended up shattered into pieces.
"You wield a sword like that while having that kind of face?"
"Again, I"d like to apologize on behalf of my division for having you go through such trouble to help us. I didn"t have a good feeling earlier, so I had set up a patrol," the man said graciously.
"Apology accepted, but with the ambush earlier and the condition of this place… we"re too late to mediate between you and that other division, right?" Jake asked, getting to the point immediately.
If war has indeed broken out, he should hurry back to Carter and tell the division about it, but the answer that followed was a complete shock to him.
"You are correct," Song replied, sadness in his voice. "There has indeed been a declaration of war. There is a problem, though – you cannot return to the Grand Duelists."
***