The Hidden World

Yuna followed Yuki into the dark forest. She was surprised that there was no hesitation or fear on his face. She would have expected that a human from a relatively peaceful world would be more scared. But Yuki marched right into the gloomy forest.

At Yuna’s waist, she wore a sheath that contained a longsword that she wielded with two hands. As she walked behind Yuki, she saw that he too was using a sword but one that had only one edge.

‘Maybe I can talk about sword techniques with him,’ Yuna thought to herself. ‘But I’m not sure if he would know that much about swords. He might be a beginner.’

Ahead of them, Nataru stopped. He turned and faced the mass of students behind him.

“Here we will split up,” he announced to them. “You all can either go by yourselves or group up. There will be no groups larger than two people, however. The goal for today is for you all to hunt and kill at least one monster. When your hunting time ends, you will bring back all of your kills here. During your hunting time, you can do whatever you like here in the forest.”

“The instructions for the advanced class is slightly different,” Nataru continued. “Your goal is not to kill one monster. Rather, it is your assignment to kill one monster. If you are unable to do so you will receive a failing mark for this and it will ultimately affect your ranking. You are the advanced class; you should be able to kill at least one goblin.”

‘This shouldn’t be too hard,’ Yuna thought. ‘The captain taught me how to track monsters before.’

More importantly, this was a chance for Yuna to get closer to Yuki. If she could get him to let her partner up then they could hunt together and hopefully become more like friends. Yuna didn’t think that she was close enough to be considered a friend to Yuki. Even though she went to his room to eat dinner multiple times, all they did was sat in awkward silence as they ate.

Nataru dismissed them and sent the students off to go and do their hunting. Yuna took a deep breathe then walked up to Yuki.

“Do you want to partner up?” she asked him a bit nervously.

Yuki turned his head and stared at her with contemplative eyes. Then he seemed to reach a decision and gave her a shrug.

“Okay!” Yuna replied.

Yuki went off and started to walk leisurely about the forest. Yuna followed him and they walked silently for the first couple of minutes. But soon Yuki’s lack of urgency began to confuse Yuna.

“Are we going to hunt anything?” she asked him.

“That’s what we are doing,” Yuki replied. Yuna looked at him, asking for more clarification but Yuki didn’t give any.

“But aren’t we just strolling through the forest?” she said.

“Aren’t you looking for tracks or anything?” Yuki asked back. “You can’t find those if you are rushing everywhere.”

Yuna close her mouth, realizing the truth behind those words. It should have been something that she knew. But the person that wasn’t even from this world and that probably had little to no experience hunting was the one that reminded her.

‘Get your head together,’ she ordered herself. She took a deep breathe and calmed her mind.

She looked around her surroundings as she searched for any clues as to the whereabouts of a monster. Then she saw on the branches of a bush a tuft of brown fur. Looking closer, she found pawprints of a creature imprinted onto the ground near that bush.

“Yuki,” she called.

Yuki walked over to her and crouched down. He reached out with his hand and softly touched it before moving his attention to the fur that was caught on the branches.

“It’s just a wolf pup,” Yuki said. “We can hunt it if you want.”

“Nevermind then, I don’t want to kill a baby,” Yuna said, shaking her head quickly.

Yuki said nothing and stood back up and peered into the dark foliage of the forest. What he was searching for, Yuna didn’t know.

“There are goblins here, though,” he announced.

“Really? How can you tell?” Yuna asked surprised. She didn’t find anything that suggested goblins.

“In the other bushes I saw pieces of goblin clothing as well and chipped pieces from their weapons,” Yuki said. “Going off of that and where goblins usually like to live then I would say that there is a small encampment up ahead.”

Yuna looked for herself and say that there was indeed fabric hanging from branches and well as small and oddly shaped rocks.

‘Wow, he noticed all of those things,’ Yuna thought.

“Then let’s go get the goblins,” she said out loud.

Yuki nodded and then started to walk quietly into the darkness. She followed him carefully and soon they reached a clearing. In the clearing were a few crude tents as well as goblins. Around ten goblins from what Yuna could count.

“I can get most of them,” Yuna whispered to Yuki. “You can support me from behind since you are a support mage.”

“No, I have to kill one myself,” Yuki automatically replied. “That’s the assignment.”

Yuna nodded to show her understanding. She had forgotten that everyone in the advanced class had to kill one monster. She just didn’t want Yuki to get hurt since he was a human.

“I’m just going to go in then,” she said as she began to creep toward the goblin encampment.

“Then I’ll buff you, go,” Yuki said.

Yuna slowly crept closer until she was within a stone’s throw from a goblin. Then she leapt out and swung at the head of the first goblin. The blade didn’t quite cut through as well as Yuna was expecting and it through her off for a split second. The goblin with its neck half-severed gave out a piercing shriek and the other monsters were instantly alerted.

‘Crap, this is bad,’ she thought as she finally killed the first goblin.

Then she felt a rush of power flow over her and she turned her head to see the glow of a spell circle. Yuki seemed to be buffing her just as he had promised. She met his gaze and he tilted his head slightly toward the monsters charging behind her. The message was clear.

Yuna rushed the other goblins and with the added strength from Yuki’s strengthening spell she was able to easily kill the eight. But before she could stab the last one, Yuki called out to her.

“Leave that one for me,” he said as he walked toward the cowering monster.

Yuna stepped aside and in one clean swing, Yuki lopped of the head of the goblin. Then he calmly cleaned his blade on the body of the now dead monster as blood spewed out from its neck.

“That’s it for today then,” Yuki said. “We just need to bring the bodies and we will get credit.”

“You don’t want to explore some more?” Yuna asked, trying to prolong the time that they had together.

“There is no need,” Yuki replied. “It would be quicker if we—”

His head suddenly snapped up and his back went rigid. Yuki’s eyes narrowed as he glared at horizon with an intense expression.

“What is it?” Yuna asked, confused.

“There is something coming this way, something that doesn’t belong,” he said in a low voice.

“What?”

“And it’s almost here,” he added.

As he said that Yuna began to feel the earth shudder as something heavy hit the ground. She felt it again. And again. And again. Something huge and heavy was heading towards them. Then the world dimmed and Yuna saw the outline of a gigantic creature that rose above the trees and seemed to be made completely of some sort of rocky material.

“It’s a golem,” Yuki said.

“What?” Yuna asked. She seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

“An artificial monster created by a magician,” he replied. “Depending on the strength of the creator and the materials used to make it, the strength of a golem can greatly vary.”

“How do you know this?” she asked, impressed.

“I read,” Yuki answered shortly. “What’s important is that we can’t kill that thing. It seems to be made out of metal and we can’t defeat something that hard.”

“Then what do we do?”

“Run.”

Yuna stared at him with a blank expression. The idea of running from a fight went against everything her instructors taught her.

“You can run,” she said raising her sword. “I’ll will try to stall it so that you can escape.”

“Are you stupid?” Yuki replied flatly. “You will die a pointless death. What we are going to do is you run off opposite of the direction I run off to and we will meet back up to the scheduled meeting place. Understood?”

All Yuna could do was nod. She acknowledged the fact that Yuki’s plan of action was considerably better and more thought out than hers. Yuki turned away and began to jog.

“Be careful,” she said before running off in the opposite direction.

After a while, she felt the shaking of the earth fell less and less. She looked back and saw that the golem was walking away from her much to her relief. Then she realized where it seemed to be headed. It was going the same direction that Yuki had gone.

‘Oh no,’ she thought.

No matter how strong Yuki was, he was still a human. He would have lower stamina and an overall weaker physique than an elf like her. Soon he would tire or if he was sprinting was already tired. Then the golem would catch up and then.

‘I have to go back and help him,’ she thought.

This was both for her mission and for herself. If he died then she would have failed her mission. And there was also the fact that she didn’t like the idea of Yuki dying. Even though they never really interacted, he was the first person that she could at least consider the closest to being a friend. And because of that, she wanted to save him.

Yuna made up her mind and started to sprint toward the direction Yuki ran off to. Within the next minute, she began to feel the shaking of the earth again and she sped up. Then she saw the body of the golem and was about to sprint out charging before something stopped her right in her tracks.

There was a person who was racing about the golem. Jumping nimbly to dodge its clumsy attacks while also striking out with what seemed to be daggers. It was an elf and one that Yuna recognized.

‘That’s the girl I saw when I was rushing to the meeting with the captain,’ she realized in shock.

The girl seemed to have intercepted the golem and stopped it from proceeding. How she had came in, Yuna didn’t know. But what shocked her the most was that the girl seemed to not only be stalling the golem but was winning.

Then out of the blue, another girl appeared that was just as attractive as the elf. This time it looked to be a beastkin with light brown cat ears. She seemed to be the elf’s partner and together they danced around the golem.

The elf was jumping off of the limbs of the golem and delivering powerful blows that caused the golem to shudder and groan. The golem was unable to hit such a quick foe and was soon bombarded with blow after blow. And to make things worse for the golem, it seemed like the elf was an earth elemental. Yuna could see that wherever the blades struck, it sunk in smoothly and the area around seemed to freeze up.

The beastkin fought just as gracefully and she used her bare hands to inflict brutal punches to the body of the golem. Punches that would shake the golem and sometimes even shift it. Each punch blew off a chunk of the artificial monster despite being made of metal.

This went on for several minutes before the golem was completely immobilized. The pretty girl elf seemed to have targeted all of the golems joints in a quick and clean manner. Then she cocked her head and stared directly at Yuna.

Yuna gasp and held her breath as she stared into those sparkling gray eyes. The message being sent through them was clear. The elf was telling her to leave.

Yuna turned around in a daze and ran away, not wanting to anger the person that single handedly defeated a golem and that had possibly just saved her only friend.