A short black haired boy with somewhat pale skin sits behind a desk. He taps his foot as if waiting for something, his face has an annoyed expression. The desk sits in the middle of a room that is mostly empty, two small windows behind the desk and a wooden door across the room.
The door slams open, the sound startles the boy, he flinches in his seat as a woman enters the room with a frightened look on her face.
"Urgent D rank bounty!"
The boy rolls his eyes.
"What's the request?"
The woman's face calms.
"There is a reptile type monster wreaking havoc in the forest outside of the city, its expected rank of difficulty as I previously stated is D."
The boy nods.
"What's the bounty worth, and be more specific about the grade of the monster."
She stops to catch her breath before answering.
"100 Gol, and as for the specificity of the monster it is an inferior D rank Monster."
The boy shrugs his shoulders.
"Good enough, I'll collect this bounty for you. Not like I have anything better to do."
The woman's expression grows sour.
"I don't have time for your jokes, I'm looking for a bounty hunter."
The woman crosses her arms, and the boy crosses his arms as if mimicking her, his expression clearly getting annoyed.
"Listen here ma'am, I'm not some receptionist."
He continues.
"Firstly, I'm behind this desk cause I lost a bet. Secondly, I've been a bounty hunter for almost a decade though I've only been active for around a year."
The woman's face shifts to that of only shock.
"But you're just a chil-."
The boy cuts the woman off, he raises his arm and points his finger directly in the woman's face.
"Actually I'm not that young, I just turned 16 last week, I'm just short."
He lowers his arm.
"Now are you going to pay me or not?"
She looks the boy up and down.
"I suppose if you really are a bounty hunter, but I can't until the job is completed, what's your name?"
The boy acknowledges the woman.
"I am called Rouga, a member of the organization called zodiac but, seeing as you're here in our humble headquarters you probably already guessed that."
The woman nods her head.
"He's right about that but to be a member of such an elite group the boy must be quite strong." she thought.
"Nice to meet you, Bounty Hunter Rouga, my name is Ashtoret Claude."
She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small note book.
"Do you have a pen?"
He opens a drawer to the right side of the desk.
"Here" he says, handing the woman a cheap black pen.
"Thank you."
The woman appears to write something in the notebook before tearing a page off and setting it on the desk.
"This is my phone number, call me when the job is done and I'll make sure you get paid."
The woman puts the notebook back in her bag.
"Good luck to you."
She then leaves the building.
"Glad that's taken care of." the boy mutters to himself.
The boy leaves soon after, outside there is a vibrant garden with many multicolored flowers with a walkway in the middle leading to a tall metal fence. From where the boy is standing you could see that the building he just exited is a large house. The boy leans over to stretch. His movements are very meaningful and show confidence as if they have been practiced countless times.
"I guess I should get to work."
He starts to run, his strides short but efficient covering the length of the yard in no time, he slows down just before the fence and lowers his body slightly as he jumps straight over the fence no less than double his height.
He continues on through the city, passing many modern looking buildings, various stores and such until he reaches the edge of the city, a long tree line can be seen stretching off as far as the eye can see. He enters the dark forest, the trees here are so tall and the forest so compact that if you were in the middle of it you would think it was night time.
"I'm not sensing anything out of the ordinary."
He plunges deeper into the forest trying to see if he can find any trails of animals, all his years on his own made him into a great hunter. He finally comes to a stop when he hears the sound of a woman screaming off in the distance.
"Well that can't be good can it"
He tries to follow the sound to the best of his abilities while sprinting through the forest, the sound of broken branches reverberating throughout the forest with every step. It didn't take much time for him to locate the origin of the sound but what he found stopped him in his tracks. A giant limbless reptile sits in the middle of an open field, in front of it a woman on her knees clearly terrified of the creature in front of her, all of her belongings spread throughout the field as if she dropped it while she was running.
"Hey!"
Rouga makes as much noise as he can to possibly draw the attention of the snake, its eyes immediately drift across the field and locks eyes with the boy trying to choose its next move. Before it can decide, the boy swiftly closes the distance before the creature can even react, grabbing the woman and dragging her as far away from the creature as he can.
"Sorry for the roughness, I didn't have time to be careful."
The creature found them in the midst of their conversation, its gaze meets Rouga choosing him as a bigger threat than the woman.
Rouga takes one last look at the woman before readying himself for combat.
"I'll be right back."
He lunges at the creature, his speed seems hard to keep up with for the snake as before the creature could make a move he was already on top of its head preparing for his first attack. The snake shakes its body to get the boy off of it but he was ready for this to happen, he jumps down grabbing the snake by its neck wrapping his arms around it and slamming its head into the ground as he lands.
The creature jerks back startled by the collision but not taking any serious damage
"You're one sturdy bastard"
The boy loosens himself while the creature is regaining its footing.
He stamps his feet into the ground. His body changes somewhat, as if every muscle in his body had woken up from a nap but was now wide awake.
The monster regains its composure ensuring it makes the first move, it might lack intelligence but it has strong instincts and a strong body to enact them. It lunges at the boy opening its mouth as if to take a bite out of him, the snake closes its mouth as fast as it can the sound echoing through the forest but it didn't manage to hit anything, the boy had escaped at the last moment and was already readying his next attack. he stands to the side of the snake preparing a punch, he lowers his body at frightening speeds punching straight up at the snakes head which sends the snake flying upward into the air its body straightening almost perfectly in a straight line like something straight out of a cartoon. The boy wasting no time jumps into the air once again grabbing the snake's head and slamming it into the ground.
This time it took some significant damage, blood dripping down out of its mouth. But it wasn't defeated yet, the damage so far only adding to its anger.
The boy locks eyes with the snake.
"Let's end this."
He jumps at the snake's head one more time but this time grabbing one of its fangs and ripping it straight out of the monster's mouth, blood spraying from the spot the tooth was just in.
the snake collapses on the ground, at the same time Rouga stabs straight through the head of the snake with its own fang ending its misery.
The woman comes out from where she was hiding and sees the boy standing over the corpse of the snake.
"Is it really dead?"
The boy turns around towards the woman as she moves closer to him.
"Yeah this one wasn't too big of a deal, step back though it's not over yet."
he reaches his hand out towards the corpse to a spot right between its eyes, plunging his hand through its flesh.
The boy's eyes light up.
"Ah, I feel it."
He pulls his arm out of the snake's head, in his hand lies a small rugged crystal.
"What is that?" the girl asks with a frightened look on her face.
He stands up putting the crystal in a bag connected to the belt around his waist.
"It called a heart crystal, to these beasts it's their heart or lifeline, also doubling as my proof of the kill."
He pauses for a second before continuing,
"Without it I don't get paid"
She nods.
"So you're a bounty hunter."
He laughs.
"I thought that much would've been obvious."
She laughs.
"I suppose I didn't really think about it."
She continues.
"Where are my manners?"
She extends her arm out towards the boy.
"My name is Andra, thank you for saving me back there."
He extends his arm to meet hers.
"Don't mention it."
He shakes her hand.
"My name's Rouga."
He looks around surveying his surroundings.
"So what were you doing out here?"
she pauses as if thinking of a suitable response.
"Well first and foremost I'm not from around here, I'm from the capitol and I was sent here to request something from a group of hunters native to this town."
Rouga rolls his eyes.
"This can't be good," he whispers.
"What, did you say something?"
He shakes his head.
she pauses before continuing.
"Do you know where I can find a group of people known as zodiac?"
He laughs.
"What?" she says in a confused expression.
He points to himself
"I am a member of Zodiac, formally Known as the Hound."
Her eyes light up.