(Audun's POV)
If I were to describe my first group hunting experience with a single word, it'd be boring.
Honestly, I might have even described it as a downright snoozefest.
Our pre-hunt preparations were negligible at best, amounting to a hearty breakfast and a few words of encouragement, but anything more seemed unnecessary.
After that, we set off to meet up with Effie in the slums of the outer settlement.
The tall huntress was clad in her bronze, ancient Greek armor, her powerful limbs and muscles rippling with violent potential.
She gave us a welcoming nod and waved at our approaching cohort.
"You models sleep well?"
Nephis strolled forward and shrugged.
"Kind of."
The hunter chuckled.
"Short and sweet, I respect it. Anyway, we should probably talk game plan before we get ourselves killed in there."
The four of us nodded.
Effie picked up a random stick off the floor and began drawing an odd-looking caricature on the ground.
"I'm no artist, but this'll do for now."
The abomination that she had drawn on had 6 legs, 4 eyes, and two massive tusks sticking out of its maw.
She looked at the four of us with a slightly more serious look.
"This is our target for today. It's an awakened demon that loosely resembles a boar if you ignore its extra set of legs and eyes. The bastard has terrible hearing but a good sense of smell and sight, so if we're lucky and play things right, we should be able to ambush it easily. Its attacks are pretty linear and easy to dodge, and it isn't particularly strong or anything, but if you're not careful of its tusks and hind legs, you'll get shishkababed or flattened into a bloody pancake."
She nodded her head sagely.
"Overall, it'll be more challenging than most, but still relatively doable. Also, since it's found a little deeper in the ruins, it'll take a couple of hours to get there safely."
Effie shrugged as we carefully noted her words.
After a beat of silence, Sunny shot the huntress a quizzical look.
"Any reason why we're hunting this abomination specifically?"
Effie gave Sunny a weird look.
"Why? Because they taste the best. Why else, doofus?"
.....
....
...
.
After our brief strategy discussion, we departed down the white stone road leading to the ruins.
Immediately, the utility of Sunny's shadow was put on full display as he followed, albeit reluctantly, Effie's directions while scouting ahead.
Thanks to their teamwork, we were able to traverse the ruins carefree, well, as carefree as you can be in a place teeming with blood thirsty abominations.
A few hours of walking in silence, ducking between buildings or taking cover on roofs, and we located our target.
The abomination looked eerily similar to Effie's questionable sketch, though it was quite a bit bigger than I had imagined.
Two large ivory tusks, a mane of primal brown fur, four bestial eyes, six muscular legs, etc etc.
By all means, it was an ugly duckling, one that we'd have no qualms whaling on.
As soon as it came into sight, Nephis, Effie, and Sunny split off in different directions while I sat behind some rubble with Cassie, quietly observing the hunt in case anything went wrong.
And thankfully, everything went according to plan.
Nephis drew the beast's attention and provoked it into a reckless charge.
Exploiting its linear and straightforward method of attack, Effie and Sunny performed a pincer movement, attacking the beast from both sides while Nephis ducked out of the way.
To make a not so long story short, everything went according to plan, and we were left with the cleanly decapitated carcass of our target.
They had purposely avoided making any unnecessary cuts, especially to the body, since our goal was its meat, and accidentally puncturing the creature's bladder wouldn't be ideal.
Considering the abomination was an awakened demon, the same tier as the Carapace Demon that had terrorized us before, they did shockingly well, coming out completely unscathed, albeit a bit dirtier than before.
I let out a quiet sigh of relief next to Cassie.
"Audun, how'd they do?"
Sunny waved at us with a roguish grin on his face.
"They did better than I thought."
Cassie raised an eyebrow.
"Meaning?"
I let out a vestige of a laugh.
"They're unharmed, and now we've got enough food to feed a small village."
The seer gave me a knowing smile as we walked towards the rest of our group.
I quickly helped Effie break down the corpse into usable materials, stripping its pelts and carving out its meat while tossing out any unwanted byproducts.
After that was over and done with, we divied up the prizes of our hunt, though I offered up my share because I had done practically nothing except serve as Cassie's bodyguard.
With our target eliminated and the others thoroughly worn by the battle, we headed back a little earlier than intended, tracing our way back through the ruins and eventually making our way back onto the white stone road we had departed down.
We parted ways with Effie not long after arriving at our current dwelling, and after resting for a bit, Nephis asked me an odd question.
"How long will the supplies in your bag last?"
If it's just the three of us, about a month. Why?
Nephis nodded slowly and looked at the other two.
"Would you two entrust me with your share of the meat?"
Without much hesitation, Cassie and Sunny agreed, though one was far more willing than the other.
Recognizing the look in her eye, that calculating gleam, I knew that she was about to do something big.
Do whatever you're going to do, I'll start on dinner.
Nephis paused before shrugging, walking out of the house with a concerned Sunny in tow.
After a couple of minutes, they walked back in, and Sunny gave me the full breakdown of Nephis' most recent exploit.
Our first day of hunting ended with a riveting speech and the beginning of Changing Star's heroic story in the Dark City.
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(Week 1)
After the success of our first hunt, our cohort had become rather infamous in the outer settlement.
And of course, it was all thanks to Nephis.
That woman was working all of us to the bone, well, uh, working everyone else to the bone.
I had become something akin to an overseer, making sure that the situation never escalated past a "difficult hunt".
Every other day, we'd venture into the ruins and slaughter a large abomination, taking just enough meat to hold ourselves over while offering up the rest to the people in the outer settlement.
Honestly, this seemingly hellish schedule wasn't all that bad.
The days in between each hunt were relatively relaxing, especially since I was taking a back seat to let everyone else grow.
Also!
I forgot to mention.
Caster, the scion of the Han Li clan, joined our ranks.
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(Week 2)
Everything was chugging along nicely.
Nephis' influence was beginning to expand; her infamy carried across the outer settlement with utter reverence for not only her deeds, but for the growing sentiment that she was a hero capable of freeing them from the shackles of Gunlaug's tyranny...
Or so I've been told.
Anyway, I've been hanging out in the background comfortably, becoming a sort of nanny for our cohort.
And well, because of this, I've noticed a few things.
For one, Cassie's begun to change.
She had always been a bright and relatively energetic person, but the undertones of despair and the weight of her visions began to bleed into her personality with each passing day.
I wasn't sure what was going on, but I tried my best to help, and although I was brushed off most of the time, I was able to get her to open up a little bit about her plight.
Sunny has also been changing subtly.
He was still the same cynical yet brutally honest asshole, but recently, he's had this complex look in his eyes, a tragic mix of jealousy and acknowledged inferiority, especially whenever Caster and Nephis were together.
He's become more withdrawn, taking the role of a scout and spending more time with Effie, learning more about the ruins with an empty determination.
On the topic of Caster.
My initial hunch was right.
That fucker was definitely up to something, but at Cassie's request, I left him alone.
She told me that he was a necessary evil, one that would help us locate the gateway, though that didn't stop me from being put off by the thinly veiled hostility in his eyes.
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(Week 3)
Things have been getting weird recently.
For starters, Cassie's been avoiding me for some reason.
Every time I get close, her face would redden, and she'd give me some bogus excuse before making a hasty retreat.
Originally, I wasn't necessarily irritated by the change; in fact, I was just happy that she didn't look as stressed.
But after a few days, I grew increasingly confused.
And after seeking out Nephis for answers, she gave me an odd look before responding in a measured tone.
"She's... had some weird visions recently. Don't worry, Cas is fine."
I could do little more than shrug and deal with her antics.
Over the past week, I've been keeping my eye on Caster, specifically the way that he's been treating Sunny.
The legacy had been deliberately cutting Sunny off whenever he tried to speak and was making active efforts to "exclude" Sunny from the party.
And I could see the toll that it was having on my friend.
Caster had essentially taken his spot as the core of the party, and he couldn't do anything about it.
More often than not, I'd see him practicing swordsmanship in a quiet corner, alone and anxious.
I, of course, brought this up to Nephis, but she brushed it off as an insignificant concern, saying that "He'll be fine" or that "it doesn't matter".
Over the past couple of days, I've tried to approach him, but I could feel the subtle aversion he had in his eyes, that tiny glimmer of self-reproach.
Nephis wasn't helping much either; in fact, I don't think she realized that our original party was falling apart.
She had been spending more and more time with Caster, planning for things in the far, far future that she had yet to share with me.
I had also faded into the background, not because I was becoming an outcast, but because while everyone was working towards this grand heroic outcome, while they were basking in the worship of others, I was trying to hold everything together.
And yet, despite my prowess, despite my centuries of experience...
I could only watch as things began to fall apart.
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(Week 4)
I've done my best.
Done my absolute best.
But even I have my limits.
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(A/N:
Sorry for the late upload!
I finally caught up to the most recent chapters of shadow slave, and you guys were right, there's a lot of foreshadowing in the second and third nightmare that relates to some of the more recent events, and I've been changing around some of my plans in lieu of the new information.
Besides that, I decided to gloss over the buildup for Sunny's departure because you guys should already be familiar with it, and I figured I should focus a bit more on my own character's thoughts on the matter.
I used a different format just to speed things up, and if you guys don't really like it, feel free to tell me so I can keep that in mind for later.
This was a bit of a lazier chapter imo, since it just kind of mimics what happened in the original, as I lay the groundwork for my bigger changes to the canon.
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this one!
I've been getting pretty busy, so I've only really been able to upload every other day, which sucks, but I can't do much about that.
School's starting up soon, so I've been crunching out all the summer homework I've been granted by my dutiful professors, and thus, I've had less and less time to write...
Anyway, leave a comment or a review if you haven't already, and for those of you giving me power stones, tysm!
See you guys later!)