Chapter Text
The fangs of the Jagras sank into her teammates’ flesh. Wounded and battered, they did their best to repel them, as they crawled on the foliage to recover their weapons. The skin of those small iguana-like fanged wyverns was covered in green scales, with blue and red stripes on the sides. Those were the kind of monsters that traveled and attacked as a pack. They were considered very weak by everyone, but theirs was a team of total beginners: they’d still managed to get ambushed by Jagras.
Erika and many other young hunters at the start of their career had come to the New World of their own free will, aboard the argosy, and the local veterans jokingly called them “the Sixers”, although they were an unofficial group that wasn’t there at the Guild’s request: no more fleets were needed, since the mystery of the Elders’ Crossing had been solved. There was one thing all the Sixers had in common: they were all young and very inexperienced.
They counted at least fifteen specimens, while there were just three of them. With their long and slim bodies, the Jagras were able to agilely dodge the shots of their bowguns. Erika’s leg was bitten and her teammates had to drag and hide her in the vegetation to give her time to medicate herself. Her two companions killed ten Jagras, but they ended up disarmed and wounded. The killing blow was nigh. Erika lay prone among the bushes, scared to death by what she was witnessing. It was terrible: she felt useless. Her companions were about to die and it would be her fault. She shed a couple of tears, as she prepared for the worst. Then she saw her switch axe: it lay three feet from her, just outside the bushes.
Erika snapped. She felt mad at those creatures, mad at herself for being so powerless. She gritted her teeth and began crawling towards her weapon, but she stopped moaning: although she’d bandaged it, her leg hurt like crazy; the bite wound was deep. But luckily for her, those monsters didn’t hear her, as focused as they were on approaching their prey. They walked towards the wounded hunters with caution, although they’d overwhelmed her, while making low intimidating sounds. With a huge effort, Erika was able to crawl to her switch axe. She managed to stand up by using the tip of her weapon as a crutch.
She tried to keep her balance and her sudden confidence began waning: after all, she didn’t have so many chances to kill the remaining Jagras. She’d kill at least one, had it dared come at her. Then the others would notice her, leave the other two hunters alone and kill her first. She honestly didn’t care: they were doomed to an embarrassing death anyway, killed by the weakest monsters in the continent, but she would at least try. Had she been lucid, she would’ve fired her SOS flare. But instead she acted impulsively, driven by her anger and frustration, not to mention the pain in her leg. She let out a moan and all the monsters turned to her.
“What are you doing? Have you lost it?!” shouted the others.
The five fanged wyverns roared and approached her. The girl’s heart skipped a beat, as she collapsed again. One of those monsters was already in front of her. She stared into its tiny yellow eyes with slitted pupils, surrounded by black circles. Time seemed to stop. Then, all of a sudden, Erika heard a woman’s voice shout:
“Get down!”
Erika instinctively obeyed. She rolled sideways and lay on her back. She heard a mechanical sound, like a triggered being pulled. A piercing pod flew into the Jagras’ mouth, now open and ready to bite the girl. The sharp projectile broke through the monster’s skull, came out of the back of its head and killed it instantly. The four remaining Jagras stepped back, growling and hissing. Erika heard the sound of metal armor and footsteps in the foliage. Then the woman’s voice asked:
“Are you hurt?”
Erika nodded and looked behind her. She saw a woman in alloy armor. She carried a Barroth hammer on her shoulders. When she walked past Erika, the girl noticed a ponytail dyed in purple coming out from behind the helmet. At that point, while Erika’s teammates joined her, the woman drew her weapon and attacked. The Jagras roared at her, but they could do nothing. The woman’s hammer blows were well-aimed and precise. With a couple of hits, she snapped the neck of two of them, while the other two stepped back in terror.
The huntress tightened her grip on the handle of her hammer and dashed at them. She began spinning and repeatedly smashing their bones. The two beasts couldn’t resist that series of hits: they died in seconds. The woman put down her hammer and sighed. She turned around and stared at the three unfortunate newbies. She looked at them silently for a few moments. Erika had watched the huntress’ quick fight. Her expression had shifted from astonishment to awe, after seeing the stranger’s talent.
“Are you a team?” the woman asked.
When the three of them nodded, she went to recover their satchels, which had fallen in the attack. She gave them back and fired an SOS flare.
“You may leave everything at the resource center, when the rescuers take you back to Astera,” she said.
Then she picked up her hammer and added:
“I’ll stick around and be on the lookout. I wouldn’t like more Jagras or some other monster to come back and cause trouble.”
She was about to walk away, waving at them dismissively. Erika gulped, before calling her:
“Wait!”
The huntress stopped and turned around again. Erika exclaimed:
“Let us thank you for what you’ve done!”
She reached for her pocket and pulled out her zenny. She checked how much coin they’d brought and clenched her teeth in frustration. The woman approached them and Erika whispered:
“We have only two-hundred zenny: the boys didn’t bring any. But I can get more as soon as I recover! Just pick a fee and we’ll pay you as soon as we can!”
Her friends nodded in agreement. They spent a minute in silence, during which the only sounds were the calls echoing through the jungle. Eventually, the woman chuckled, which confused Erika. The stranger raised her hand and refused:
“Relax, it’s okay. You needn’t pay me. Just be careful, next time. You were lucky I was passing by.”
At that point, she rummaged through her satchel and pulled out a bag of coins. She tossed it to Erika, which was speechless when she saw the huntress war carrying around two-thousand zenny. The woman explained:
“These are for your medical expenses, so you won’t have to spend your own money. I can earn back this sum quite easily with an investigation or two, anyway: it’s no problem.”
Erika felt her eyes getting watery: she was moved. One of her two partners rolled up his eyes, the other one giggled. Erika replied with a faint voice:
“Thank you so much! Can you at least tell us your name?”
The woman was quiet for a few seconds, then brought her hands to her head. She took off her helmet and revealed a kind smile. Erika could now see her hair dyed in dark purple, with a shade of blue. She had amber eyes. Her skin was furrowed by a couple of slight wrinkles. She had a small mouth with thin lips and a tiny nose. Erika noticed two scars on her face. The first one were three deep claw marks on her right temple; the second one was a vertical cut on her left eye: it began under her eyebrow and went down to her cheekbone. If it was a more severe wound, maybe that eye would be an empty orbit. The woman introduced herself:
“My name’s Xavia. I have to go now, though.”
“Thanks again, Xavia!” Erika exclaimed.
Xavia rapidly walked away and found a vantage point. She began keeping an eye on the surroundings from above, holding her hammer.
A fifteen-year-old girl with long black hair and blue eyes exhorted:
“Come on, Ratha, let’s hurry: it’s getting dark.”
The monster next to her croaked and gave her its side to let her saddle up. They had to find shelter for the night. They found it after about an hour spent flying: a cave covered in moss. The girl got off her monster’s back and petted its head. The creature let her pet it, pleased. The girl sat down on a rock and looked outside the cave: it had just begun raining. Ratha put his head on the girl’s lap to ask for more stroking. His young mistress mumbled:
“So this is the New World. We’ll be staying here for a while: we’ll have to get used to it. I just hope Narga and Nami were able to come ashore.”
The young girl had been escorted from the Old World by three of her monsters. She’d been called back from her village by the Guild, which had requested one of the inhabitants to leave for an urgent mission in the New World without prior notice. She and her pack had paid a ferryman and had traversed the ocean on a boat of modest size. But during their journey, they’d been attacked by a bunch of Plesioth. Despite the girl and the three monsters’ efforts, the boat had sunk. She’d managed to mount Ratha and he’d taken off. However, she’d lost sight of Narga and Nami.
“Come on, we’d better get some sleep. Goodnight, Ratha!”
She beheld the jungle outside the cave for another while, watching the rain ticking on the rocks and the fronds of the trees. When she got tired, she leaned her head on the monster’s neck and fell asleep. Her first few hours in the New World hadn’t been so pleasant.