Kapitel 67: Class Rumble - Monster Hunter part 1: Chapter 66

By the moment he stepped inside the gate, what came to his view was you simplistic image of a rainforest. With the constant drizzle of rain and the cold blow of the winds, the simple reaction to this environment would usually be a complaint. A lot of students would be eagerly disturbed by how annoying the environment was for them.

But to this particular person, he could only stare with a cold gaze before him and embrace the wet sensation of rain.

By his first step, he splosh and splash on the muddy path that was in front of him and was now making his way on one path…one path alone could lead to many encounters…and one direction was enough for the moment.

~Bzzz~ ~Bzzz~

From afar, he could hear the buzzing noise of a drone camera following him around. This particular camera was one of the many that would watch over the participants as they traverse through the rainforest.

He saw this drone as an annoyance, but he simply left it alone and continued on his way through his chosen path.

As he walked, it followed…

The reason for this was because for each group that walked throughout the land, around three drones were sent to follow and catch everything to what they were doing.

It both secured a show for the audience as well as a certain protection that would act to protect those who were in lethal danger.

Hamil thought that maybe he could escape this drone by simply using his 'Light's Reflection' skill and disappear from its view, but with the digital watch he carried on his wrist, it may have a GPS tracker inside it to track him down. And since he was the only person on his group, anything he would do and say would all be caught by the drone…he couldn't do anything all to suspicious of an act.

"..." seeing it follow, he could do nothing but go along with this evasion of privacy.

Meanwhile on another side of the land, Tyler River and his group were all hunting down a group of F-rank Goblins.

With him as the of the leader of the group, their tenacity to go through hunting monsters that were weaker than them made it look like a slaughter to the drone's caught scene.

"hehehe." his psychotic smile would sometimes let out while he played chase with the scared F-rank monsters.

After a while, they were able to hunt all of the monsters that were in the area.

"How much did we get?" asked Tyler as he stood over an E-rank monster's corpse.

"Well, we've hunted at least 15 F-rank monsters and 3 E ranks… if we add that to our current score, that would get us…36 points all in all." said his teammate who carried a bow with him.

"Hmm, not enough." as he said this, he stepped off the corpse and then proceeded to head north.

"Where are we going now?" asked the boy who carried a Halberd.

"This hunt isn't enough to bring my blood to it's boil…if anything, I need to hunt a bigger prey."

"...okay then." Said the boy who carried the halberd. Hearing Tyler say those egotistical words kept them in silence but soon they just went and followed him to assist in his hunt and to gather as much points as possible.

On another side of the land, another clas was also on their hunt. This particular class, was none other than the promising class-A students, lead by Martha herself.

On that hunt, they were chasing down a D-rank monster. This particular monster was very much known for its ability to hide its body through the many colors of nature. This monster was a Crofgi Lizard. With it's body that was the size of a 20ft gator and its long and sharp tail that could easily break a boulder, this particular lizard was running away from the team. It was eager to do anything just to survive.

Its speed was very formidable to the team, along with it's ability to zig and zag across the many attacks the Class A would throw, no attack was fast enough to strike even an inch of its skin. One particular student who was known for her reputation to never miss, was continuously missing each and every arrow she would fire.

This particular student was Iris.

~Swooosh~

*miss*

No shot was ever close enough.

This was very concerning to the team, especially to Martha who needed the points since it seemed like its been a few minutes since they saw another monster.

While they were chasing it, Iris was seemingly off from her mood. It was as if she wasn't fully focused through all of the shots she had recently fired since this whole challenge started. Like her mind was somewhere else.

Seeing this happen to Iris, Martha did her best to take out the monster as fast as she could.

Richard was also going for the D-rank monster but unlike the other members who were constantly helping each other with the hunt, he had no intention to work together with Martha in hunting down the monster.

They chased it until finally, they came across a dead-end.

As Richard came face to face with the monster who was backed to a corner, Martha also came down from the one of the trees and shot down the Monster with her flame spears, expecting that this would finally take out the monster.

But to her surprise, Richard pulled out his long sword and started to swing it not at the monster but instead, he intentionally blocked off her attacks. Not one single spear came close to the monster.

"…Richard." as Martha spoke out his name in such a forced and angry tone. Richard then turned around and planned to take on the monster all on his own. With a single swing of his long sword, he made intentions to kill this monster in just one swing, but the monster didn't just simply let the sword struck him down, no, instead with his sharp tail, he swung it against the sword.

*Swish!*

Like two metal bars hitting against one another, the sword and tail would face edge to edge, but not long after, the tail was starting to wore out, and after a minute of exchanging clashes, Richard was able to strike down the monster down at its skull.

As he killed it, he looked back to Martha with a intimidating expression but Martha did nothing but sigh in annoyance over his arrogance and his willingness to compete even though the situation doesn't call for it.

She knew that Richard was always after her position, so she somewhat understood why he was acting like such a prick today. Still, she couldn't initiate a conflict right now in the group, it'll only lead to their downfall by the end of it all. Instead, She had to take care of another person aside from the prick.

And that person was Iris.

When she approached Iris, Iris immediately apologizes to her before Martha could even put in a word.

"I'm sorry Martha…I…I just don't feel like it's my best today." said Iris.

"What's wrong? Usually you would never miss a shot on our classes, even to moving objects, but today…" said Martha as she couldn't figure out what was wrong with Iris.

"I'm sorry, and I promise I'll do better next time." said Iris as she promised that she would do better and that she won't let the team down again.

Seeing Iris say that promise, Martha smiled in appreciation for her effort to be better, unlike a certain someone. And soon they continued on their hunt, but before they could, Martha suddenly felt a terrifying bloodlust coming from a certain direction.

"!!!?" the intense mana it surrounded itself was almost suffocating and the stench this feeling carried smelled rancid.

She instantly told her team to hide and they followed, even Richard followed her orders because he too notices this overwhelming power of bloodlust.

Not long after, an Orc guard suddenly walks across he trees. Just like what they have read in the books, Orc guards were C-rank monsters and to hunt such a monster with only their level of power would mean suicide if nothing else. The only thing to do was hide.

With the rain's help, everyone was able to blend in the muddy ground by covering themselves in mud and hiding their scent.

It was crazy to put in a monster of this caliber to a bunch of teens who weren't even strong enough to hunt it. The reason for it being there was to act as a lesson towards survival. Hiding was one of the teaching taught to many and as common sense implies, Hiding from a monster was always a good thing to do.

This particular Orc guard was specially torn and filled with blood lust as it carried with him, two swords on his back and no shields. It means that this Orc guard was especially meant for Attacking.

Martha thought that maybe the reason for the orc guard to come here was because he was lead by the smell of a recent hunt they took on. The monster they hunted wasn't an Orc so it couldn't be possible for an orc guard to come to their direction, but despite that logic, it was just their bad luck that made it possible to encounter such a beast.

When the orc guard came, it smelled a certain stench of a dead monster. And that monster was from Richard's recent hunt.

Having notice the smell, the Orc guard couldn't help itself and decided to approach the corpse.

This was bad, the direction of the Orc and the corpse was just between Martha and her team, if she can't do anything about that Orc coming to their direction, chances are that they would be found out by the beast.

Martha had to do something to lure this monster away from them, as such she did the only thing that was reasonable at the moment.

She conjured up the smallest flame spear she could create and fired it at a tree that stood the opposite of where they were.

As she fired, it flew across the muddy road and soon it struck the tree.

Even though it was raining, Martha was capable of lighting the flame even from a distance as long as the flame came from her mana.

Not long after being struck by the flame spear and Martha soon increased the power of her flames. It started to get swallowed up by the flames and not long after, the whole tree was on fire.

It quickly caught the attention of the Orc guard and this gave them the chance to ran away.

One by one, they distanced themselves away from both the Lizard's corpse and the flaming tree.

But as they did, the somewhat clumsy Iris suddenly trips down and it suddenly caught the eye of the Orc Guard.

"..." the silent realization of death overwhelmed her and not long after, the Orc guard without hesitation, dashes down to her direction. Martha saw this and tries to help iris but before she could, Iris took the initiative and ran towards the Orc itself. This caught Martha off-guard and so did the other teammates.

Martha tried calling out to her but Richard suddenly comes out to reach Martha and closed her mouth from screaming. He didn't want to let the orc know that there were other people hiding besides Iris in that one area.

Martha tried to struggle her way out of Richard's grasp, but his Warrior strength overwhelmed her's. she wasn't built strong enough to overpower him physically.

Iris came and took out one certain arrow and aims it at the Orc. As she pulls the string, the Orc started to pull out one of his swords while he was also running to her. But before they came to clash, Iris fires her Arrow and it struck the face of the Orc.

As it clashes against the Orc, he expected it to be an weak attack but instead happened was that a smoke suddenly explodes the moment the arrow struck the Orc's face.

Something was on that arrow and it made the Orc furious.

The orc screamed and scratched its face, as if it was trying to get rid of the substance that was on itself.

"RRRRAHHH!!!!" the sensation of that powder like substance was unbearable, almost as if a million fire ants were simultaneously biting down on the beast.

The irritation wouldn't go away. Even with the help of the rain and with the mud which he used to rub his eyes, the pain wouldn't go away.

A minute later, the pain was finally starting to subside.

And not long after, the feeling faded away…and his vision came back. But by the time he came to his full senses, the people were already gone.

".…" the scene of not a single person dead by his hands made him go bloodshot man.

"RRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" the orc's scream was even more raging, to a point that his scream alone shook the forest.

And through that scream, Hamil was able to hear it.

"..!?" he heard the scream…and hearing that scream came from a very familiar species, he could only assume that something was fighting it…or someone…someone strong or crazy enough to do so. He could only picture Tyler by one of those people to fight such a beast.

So he followed that scream.

As he made his way through, he was suddenly hearing something from a distance…it was bushes shaking. Almost as if something was running across the rainforest to his direction.

So he hid.

He jumped on to one of the tall trees and hid on the branches. He didn't want to use his skill to hide because it would be caught by the drone. Even though it was the perfect chance to use such a skill.

'...hmm, it looks like four…no five people.' using his sensitive hearing, he was able to listen to the people coming his way.

"Just keep on running!" said a female voice.

'...this voice…it's from-' before he could finish deducing who that voice came from, the people were now seen.

'...hmm, it's Martha….I see, so they met the Orc guard and were running away from it…just like what happened in the novel…so that scream must be because of them or more exactly, from one of the bow users…although in the novel, the bow user was only used once in the story…anything after that, she was just turned into a background character…she was simply written so that this incident would happen…'

And as he looked down, he could see the Archer be hastily gasping from exhaustion.

He continued on his thoughts of what was to come to Martha's way in this event in the story.

'Before long, the Orc will come back to take them on and that's when the Archer will be extremely hurt, but not dead…so I don't think I'll have to save anyone…if I do involve myself, then the story will probably change…for the worse…this story after all was a way to help Martha increase her growth as a person…this incident will help her break through by beating an Orc guard with the help of the rest of her team.'

As he looked down from the tree, he could see the Archer fixing her hair from all that running, but as he look to her, he suddenly notices a mark on her neck…

'...A star?'

before long, he realizes what that mark was and who this archer was…

That mark was the Undying mark of betrayal…