I pondered how to cook the fish. We had enough stew recently, maybe I would just grill it over the fire? We did have some salt, so there was that. It was the only seasoning we had. I sprinkled some on the fish, put it on a stick and grilled it.

I had no idea what kind of fish it was, but it was reasonably large. Sadly we only had one. We shared it between us girls. Torben had his own food. It was heavenly. Probably because we had crackers for so long.

“Ah, this is great.” Helena said. “I never thought plain fish could be this good.”

“Did you not complain about the one in the mess hall when we first met?” I asked.

“Ah, how young and naive I was… I had not yet experienced the horror of the cracker.” She said solemnly.

Considering my past, I had eaten worse than military crackers, to be honest. But after my time at the academy, and getting used to its food, they really were rather depressing. Especially the lack of variety.

“We need to hunt something larger for dinner.” Skadi said.

She had a point. The fish was nice, but we would need more food tonight. It was gone way too quickly.

“You can take a quick bath if you want, I will keep watch.” Torben offered.

We gratefully accepted. We also had Nyx making sure he did not peek. Trust was good, an undead guardian was better.

Afterwards, he took a quick bath as well. Meanwhile, we packed up our things and got ready to move. We had refilled our water supplies and were ready to continue the hunt. About half of our time was already gone.

None of us were good at tracking. But we did get lucky and found an obvious trail of a boar. We followed it eagerly. As we got closer, we dropped our backpacks and tried to sneak, something we failed at. The animal noticed our presence.

Animal? What we found was the size of a horse. It mostly looked like a boar, except for the horn on its forehead. The creature stood in a small clearing and was studying us as we emerged from the trees.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Um…” Torben said. “I don’t think that is a creature I know. Some sort of dire boar maybe? Definitely a monster and not an animal.”

“Do you think it is capable of magic?” Skadi asked.

Torben eyed the horn. “Maybe. The teachers should have killed anything too dangerous but fighting something unknown is…” He did not get to finish his sentence. The creature made the decision for us and charged.

“I will help! Skadi, Nyx we need to stop the charge!” Torben shouted.

Nyx grew to her full size. Torben and Skadi’s skin darkened, they were strengthening themselves. My undead companion took the brunt of the assault and was sent flying into a nearby tree. Thankfully she seemed fine.

What was I going to do? A necrotic dart would taint the flesh. Of course, survival was more important than food. But the situation was still under control.

“Cassie, can you weaken it with a potion?” I asked.

“It’s moving too fast, we need to slow it down first!” She responded.

“I will try to hit it with some ice.” Helena said.

Sadly, I had neglected offensive ice spells. My ice dagger was pretty unimpressive. I would not be able to help much there. I grabbed my staff tighter. Maybe I could whack it?

Helena targeted its legs with ice darts. The creature stopped and looked at us. Then its horn glowed. My eyes widened and I immediately tried to use my water shield. The spell should conjure a barrier to protect me. I tried to pump a lot of mana into it, to compensate for my lack of experience. A shimmering barrier appeared in front of me, just in time. Helena jumped behind me.

A lance of fire left the horn and hit my barrier. I started sweating, but the wall of water before me held. A potion sailed over my head towards the monster. Apparently, Cassie had taken cover behind me too and was now throwing something. There was a small explosion next to the boar and soon it was swallowed in black smoke.

Helena and Torben readied their weapons and waited for it to emerge. Nyx, on the other hand, jumped right into the cloud and seemed to land on the monster.

“Nyx is on top of it, shoot into the cloud close to the ground!” I shouted.

I dropped my shield and we all unleashed magic into the beast. My ice dagger was not as good as Helena’s dart but it was something. Cassie used fire, Torben and Skadi earth. We all fired projectiles into the smoke.

The beast screamed. As the smoke dispersed we could see the damage. Its lower part was covered in wounds from our magic. Its back was being savaged by Nyx. She had shrunk a bit to better cling to the monster and was using her claws quite effectively. The smoke had slowed its movements and seemed to interfere with its breathing. The boar walked a few steps and collapsed. Skadi quickly hit it’s head with her axe to finish it.

“Nice work!” Torben congratulated us. “Also, a good shield Koyuki, I was worried when I saw that attack. Did you not say your water magic was bad?” He asked.

“Um. I spent a lot more time training my death magic. I… I was not sure I could pull it off in combat.” I said blushing.

“Koyuki always underestimates her abilities.” Helena said and placed her hand on my shoulder.

“A fine kill.” Skadi said, admiring our victory.

“And hopefully a tasty one!” Cassie added.

We stared at the monster we had slain. Nyx sat on top of it. She had shrunk to the size of a cat. Then she started kneading the corpse, while purring.

“Good job Nyx, you did well.” I praised her.

“So… how are we going to carry that back?” Helena asked.