Banda and Eres stood patiently by the open wooden gate of the town as they had been instructed. Barely half an hour passed before a group of five walked towards them, their presence a step above the common rabble of the slum.

  “Otto sent us. We’ll guide you to the hunting ground.” The largest of them spoke after taking note of the pair’s appearances. Tall, muscular, and bald with dark skin, he held the type of glint in his eyes that only came through some measure of hardship and competency.

  “And what exactly is a hunting ground?” Eres asked with an air of authority.

  “...some regions around here have a lot more monsters than most. Makes it easier to gather shards. Otto claims them all, and hunters like us work them.” The man was slow to respond at first at such a basic question, though he hid his surprise well and answered fully and carefully.

  “I am Buzur. Igin, Eme, Gestu, Kiri.” He gestured out the rest of the group.

  A thin man with long beard, with a quill of arrows strapped to his back and a bow in his hand. A young woman in long robes and a cap of leather and leaves. An old man with a thick white beard and cloth wrapped around his head carrying a walking staff.

  And a young man with blond hair, donning leather armor, two swords on his waist, and an look of arrogant irritation in his eyes. None seemed happy with being subservient to the pair, though only he spent no effort to effort to hide his displeasure.

  “We’ll escort you through the forest, and support you against the problem.” Buzur continued.

  Eres took note of the underlings appointed to them. They were superior to the common thralls, in poise and the implication of their occupation as ‘hunters’. None could be trusted, as was to be expected in a place like this. Not their loyalty nor their abilities nor their knowledge.

  But Eres never intended to trust them anyway. She had no interest in their names, nor their loyalty, nor even their competency. All others aside from her chosen champion were pawns and enemies to be used and crushed as her path demanded.

  Eres uncrossed her arms, and the authority of her demeanor rose. “Then lead the way.”

  ---

  Igin sunk an arrow into the head of a stray wolf and quickly retrieved it before returning to the front of the group. The hunting team lead the way through the misty forest with barely a word. Each acted as needed with minimal wasted effort.

  The absence of talking, with communication done mainly with looks and gestures were reminiscent of beast packs. They seemed somewhat capable to Banda’s eyes, though warranted no more than a passing glance of his time.

  The archer led the vanguard, along with the yellow haired human who held a thin sword in each hand who only stepped in to deal with the beasts the archer couldn’t handle. At their sides were the old man who used similar arts to Eres, and the tall muscular human who wielded a large axe with more strength than the others.

  And in the center alongside him and Eres was the woman who had not yet displayed her powers, though none of them showed any sign of discontent towards her inaction. The woman in question noticed Banda looking at her and smiled back, which he ignored.

  “You must be strong, if Otto tasked you with this.” Eme spoke anyway, her smile unfaltering by his lack of interest. She waited a few moments as Banda remained silent, then asked another question. “I haven’t seen you around before. Did you come to the town recently?”

  Banda glanced back at the human with persistent questions. “...why are you not fighting?”

  If she felt any amount of surprise by the sudden question, it didn’t show on her face. “I’m a healer. If I’m wounded or run out of aura, I can’t help anyone else. Usually, it’s just me alone in the center… so you being here makes me feel more at ease.”

  Eres glanced at the flirtatious woman with dispassionate eyes but kept her silence as she focused back ahead.

  “You heal wounds?” Banda asked further.

  “To an extent.” Eme answered. “But don’t get too reckless. I’m not Bau.”

  “Bau?” Banda had not heard this word before.

  “You don’t know?” Healer seemed somewhat surprised this time. “She’s a Goddess of Healing. The divine physician. The greatest healer in all of Eden. Well, what I mean to say is I’m only mortal. Ah, and be careful not to get poisoned either. Bau cured Enki but I have no such arts.”

  “It was a curse, illness, and poison, and she did it with the help of her daughters.” Eres corrected, without looking over at them.

  Eme looked at Eres with dull surveying eyes. Eres had not spoken since they left, though her interjection here seemed somewhat territorial. She turned her eyes to Banda who still hadn’t shown much sign of attraction and came to a decision.

  “Is that so…” She replied softly after a short pause, and kept silent as they walked, sinking back into a calm amiable demeanor.

  Kiri slashed clean through a 3 foot long lizard that partially concealed itself on the trunk of a tree, and clicked his teeth as he glanced back to the center.

  “Why are we even wasting our time on them…? These greenhorns won’t last a minute in the grounds. That bastard Otto’s probably just sending us all to die.”

  “Stop it.” Buzur said as he focuses on his surroundings.

  “You’re fine with being his canary?” Kiri snapped.

  The big guy didn’t respond, but the nature of his silence showed he was somewhat in agreement with his comrade’s sentiments.

  “What kind of monsters are we hunting anyway?” Eres asked bluntly.

  “Otto didn’t even tell them!” Kiri yelled.

  “Harpies…” Buzur answered for the party, the expression on his face dropping as well. “Half bird, half woman. Mid-Grade monsters. Mid-Grades are roughly five times stronger than humans, compared to the mere twice that low-grades are.”

  “A whole flock as settled on a ridge up one of the mountains. 30 or 40, maybe more. All around the peak of rank 1 as far as anyone can tell… The problem is a flock that big has to have a leader. But no one has seen it and survived, so we can’t be sure how strong it is.”

  “Harpies are fast. They attack from above with their talons, strong enough to dent shields and claw clean through armor. Their screeches disorient the senses.”

  Big Guy gave details and information in abundance, as if in hopes it would make them more reliable than the complete uselessness he half expected.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  “Don’t bother telling them.” Kiri said, steeling his frowning expression in anticipation of the danger before them. “It’s on us to survive this.”

  “Mountain.” The archer Igin reported from ahead, drawing everyone’s attention forward.

  “Hunting formation.” Kiri ordered. “No mistakes.”

  Each of the hunters grew sharper and quieter in their focus to the danger ahead. Buzur took the vanguard alongside their hostile tempered leader, while the archer went off to the side on his own and the old man moved to the center with the healer woman.

  The party moved in unison as Banda and Eres followed with the center, and soon passed the edge of the forest and onto the slope of the mountain’s base. The ever present fog Banda had become accustomed to quickly thinned, as though it were constrained to the trees behind.

  He had a clear view of the land and the sky around him now. Far easier to detect monsters, but likewise, any monsters roaming this region could detect them far easier as well.

  Unlike the damp soil of the forest, the ground of the mountain range was dry and firm. Thin grass covered most of the land, interspersed with patches of gray rocky ground. What little trees it held were scattered around sparsely in clusters, their trunks tall and narrow and their leaves like thick green quills.

  The party moved with purpose with a clear direction in mind up the gentle uneven slope, sticking to the clusters of trees or large rock formations jutting out like buildings as cover.

  Anxiety and tension slowly rose on their expressions the further they travelled, checking every direction incessantly. Suddenly the two at the vanguard froze in their tracks, and directed everyone’s attention to the strange flying creatures Banda had spotted a moment before them.

  Banda would have mistaken them for human women if he had not been told of them, or guessed at them being another type of beastmen.

  They had the faces and proportions of women but the limbs of a bird. Feathered wings took the place of their arms, with which they flew in a hovering upright stance.

  Their chests were bare of clothing. The top half of their legs were covered in feathers from the waist down, and the lower half were large thick talons with sharp curled claws.

  Four of them in total, and they were heading right towards them.

  Kiri gestured with his hand as the group took cover behind two separate clusters of trees, where they waited patiently in silence until the pack of harpies drew near.

  Buzur sprinted into the open without warning with his eyes locked on the monsters above. The harpies let out hostile screeches that sounded like a threat at the sudden emergence of another creature, their expressions tightening into vicious scowls.

  The frontmost harpy shot down towards the large human with a violent flap of its wings and an arrow sunk into the side of its head.

  Shock and fear fell down the remaining harpies’ expressions as they watched their kin fall dead from the sky. The shrill whistle of a second arrow followed but this time it was easily dodged by its more alert target.

  The gaze of the harpies snapped over to the trees the arrow came from. Hostility usurped their fear once more, emboldened by the failed second attack of their prey.

  “Hooooahh!” Buzur bellowed out as he banged his mace against his shield to pull their attention once more.

  The harpies hesitated indecisively for a moment before choosing to dive down at the prey wide in the open. A third arrow sailed towards the pack, which they evaded once more, but a glowing blue arrow pierced through the neck of a harpy from the other side.

  Banda glanced over at the old mage near him who had his hand still raised. The human had conjured the arrow from thin air, much like Eres’ Flying Palm technique, though its speed much faster and its killing potential more obvious.

  The harpy it struck fluttered erratically through the air, chocking on its own blood that filled its throat. Fear returned to the fickle harpies once again, but the hunters didn’t give them time to respond

  Buzur charged towards them with another roar, as Kiri shot out from the trees in a blur. His harpy target moved quickly enough to avoid the first slash aimed at its head but not the second which cut one of its wings clean off.

  Still in his charge, Buzur swung his weapon. The studded head of his mace detached from the handle, connected by a glowing blue chain that lengthened unnaturally long, and whipped towards the last harpy like a flail.

  The harpy darted to the side mid air, and a fourth arrow pierced through its chest. Disbelief coated its expression before anger and desperation took its place.

  The harpy inhaled deep with gritted teeth as if to scream with all its might, but an arrow pierced threw the back of its throat and through its fanged mouth before it had the chance.

  With spluttering gasps and failed screeches it fell to the ground with a thud, where Kiri walked over from the one winged harpy with bloodied swords and a malicious grin.

  Several flashes of his sword severed the limbs of the monster as it squirmed violently on the ground in agony. Kiri stabbed his sword down into its stomach and twisted it. The tears streaking down the harpy’s face and its pleading cries only served to encourage his cruelty.

  He stabbed again and again and again. Each brought new tormented sounds from the pitiful creature, each growing softer and weaker as the harpy’s movements dulled until finally it reacted no more.

  Kiri lingered over it for a few moments with heavy breath, before shifting his posture as he regained his composure. He used his sleeve to wipe some of the blood from his face and gave the harpy a swift kick to the head before using his sword to dig out its core.

  “...We were once seven.” Gestu, the old man, said as he and Eme walked past them to join the rest of the hunters.

  Losing some of their pack to the harpies explained their anger but not their wasteful actions. Banda was not unfamiliar to such pointless maliciousness, but he could not understand it. Not back in his forest, and not here.

  Igin knelt down next to the mutilated harpy’s corpse and turned its head with one hand, but seeing the state of his broken arrow embedded within let it drop with a sigh.

  Buzur glanced around to confirm all of the monster cores had been collected. “Let’s not wait around too long-”

  “Why are there only four?” Banda asked him directly.

  The tall man looked back with half concealed surprise at the sudden question. “...Harpy flocks might be several dozen but they hunt in smaller packs to cover a wider territory.”

  A similar system to how yeren patrolled their territory, Banda thought. He had figured as much but wanted to confirm.

  “They’re cowardly monsters.” Buzur continued. “If they aren’t sure of victory, they’ll let out a cry that be heard for miles and miles. Can’t rush them either. More than a few enemies and they’ll call for the others just the same.”

  From what Banda had seen and just been told, the way to kill the flock was to track them down and quickly them swiftly. A very simple, practical method of hunting.

  “Hunt them faster.” Banda ordered.

  Kiri grew more annoyed. “You greenhorns keep your mouths shut-”

  Banda’s intent fell upon them. The five hunters froze in place at the weight of his presence.

  A strange, visceral sense of dread filled their limbs and lungs as if their very bodies instinctively felt the threat he posed. A sense mirrored by their thoughts as they met his gaze. Cold and sharp. The eyes of a born predator.

  Humiliation showed on Kiri’s face once he recovered from the shock of his initial fear. He hesitated in place, torn between the choice he desired and the choice he knew in the pit of his gut to be wisest.

  But in the end, he swallowed his pride and took the lead without a word. The rest of the party followed in equal silence, none wishing to be the first to break the silence.

  The group moved quickly over the open mountain range and before long a new pack of harpies appeared in the horizon.

  The hunters gave each other quiet looks and got into position again. One half took cover behind horn shaped boulders and the another beneath a single tree, as Buzur stayed out in the open.

  Just as the ones before, the pack of three harpies grew hostile and bold at the sight of a lone prey. Igin aimed an arrow as one dove down from the sky, and two large rocks slammed into the throats of the two harpies behind.

  Banda burst out from beneath the tree in Feral Form. The harpy jolted his head in his direction but Banda tore out half its neck before it could react anymore.

  He hit the ground and and lunged towards the two remaining ones hovering erratically as they failed to screech through their crushed throats. They both flapped their wings to escape at the sight up him, but Banda grasped a leg in each hand.

  The harpies pulled him higher in the air as they raised their large talons, ready to kick at him with their free leg. But before they could, Banda twisted their leg as he pulled them to the side and smashed them against each other.

  Blood and gore and fragments of bone fell on the hard ground below, and the bodies of the two harpies followed.

  Banda landed effortlessly and near silently besides them. He was twice as strong as these strange human-like beasts in this form. They were fast but fragile, with mediocre skill and even worse intelligence. He wouldn’t have to bother crushing their throats next time. Their skulls would break easily.

  Banda turned to the humans who looked on in shock at the carnage. They were weak, but they knew this land. Which made them useful to him. He did not want to stay out in the wilderness for long.

  “Find the next pack.”