“I’m sorry for what I said” the voice said.

Rafe turned his head to face her.

“I…It’s all good. You shocked me there. I thought you were back at the room”

Twilight shook her head.

“No, no. I decided to go for a walk myself, and here you were. Still, I just wanted to know if you knew about the whole thing back at the castle. Just intrigued, you know?”

‘So she followed me’

“I get it. But I honestly don’t know what happened”

Twilight’s expression seemed to warp for a second, soon returning to a friendly look a moment later.

“I see. Well, I’m heading back”

“Right”

At that, she began to walk away, an indiscernible look on her face.

Rafe sighed deeply. What could be going on in her head?

Several weeks passed in the blink of an eye. Now, they had been members of the guard for five months. In this time frame, the famed Ryu had still not returned from his ‘expedition’.

Life as a guard was quite luxurious, with full meals and good sleep, though sleeping in a comfortable bed, waking up well-rested had become commonplace now, losing it’s thrill. Rafe decided to head outside quite often, battling as many creatures as he could. Of course, he did a lot of scouting beforehand ensuring it was safe and making sure he did not bite off more than he could chew. Though, he made sure to push himself, putting his life on the line. The scouting was simply to ensure he wasn’t just giving it away. Why was he pushing himself like this? Because he wanted to continue to grow stronger; much stronger.

The members of the guard may not have known it, but this world had much more frightening things than nightmares, which were horrific beasts themselves, not to cause any misinterpretation. He was surprised the entire guard wasn’t wiped out when he first heard a nightmare had appeared.

But that was the next mystery…why did a nightmare appear? They had nothing to gain from a rift and they didn’t associate with lower ranked creatures.

It seemed a wicked storm was brewing, and Rafe wanted to be ready. So, he had to become much stronger; he had to work himself to the bone. And so, he did.

Everyday, he left the fortress, walking a fair distance in order to not be disturbed, and he hunted. Of course, he had his duties as a guard as well, which had a fair bit of fighting and hunting for the other guards to feast. But it was nowhere near as productive as his own adventures, since he had the whole guard with him when on duty, making the monsters light work; he barely had to lift a finger.

Right now, he was out again, scouting for a new hunting spot since the creatures at his old one were now far too weak for practice. Sure, it would take some time to kill them, but there was no time where he questioned if he would win; all he questioned was when.

Over the past few months, Twilight had been rather distant. She tried to act as normal as possible, but ever since their conversation those months ago, she had changed; her attitude towards Rafe had changed. Jed had noticed it too, and Rafe and him ended up talking about it.

But they never brought it up to Twilight. Jed had tried to fix the bond between the two of them, but it didn’t work out. Twilight simply acted as everything was okay and there was nothing to worry about. It seemed she had abandoned any thoughts of reconciliation.

But, Rafe didn’t really care. Well, for the most part. For some reason, he felt a little off about it, but he tried to push that feeling aside. It was an obstacle.

“Perfect” he muttered, staring at the grotesque face of a Fsyo. Fsyo’s were impossibly ugly, tall Dreads with almost duck-like facial features with large black beaks and huge eyes. Antennas came out the top of their twisted heads like demonic horns, incredibly vascular, which was strange but the monsters of this world were. It’s body was hairy, fur covering neigh every part of it’s mangled structure. Whilst it couldn’t actually smile, the warped and creepy structure of it’s face almost made it seem to have an insane smile on it’s face. This originally creeped Rafe out, but after killing over three of these dreads now, he felt confident.

These dreads were incredibly aggressive, attempting to tear their foes apart the minute they caught sight of them. This could be used to Rafe’s advantage, since the dread barely thought, simply attacking. That is to say, it was terribly predictable.

Whilst the dread may have had the physical upper hand, Rafe was much smarter.

As the hideous monster charged at Rafe, he simply stood there, allowing the distance to close. Tightly gripping his trusty Dao, he broke out into a small smile, preparing a strike of his own. The moment the dread came into range, Rafe slashed at it’s human-like leg, shattering the sturdy bone within, mercilessly tearing through it’s leg muscles. Using his ability, which he tried to limit the use of, he pulled the sword out with unbelievable speed, then sprinted a short distance away.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Sure, he could have just sped behind the Fsyo, slicing through it’s neck and dispatching it, but Rafe’s goal was to improve his fighting skills, not just kill the dread. If he became dependant of his ability, what would he do when he grew fatigued. Plus, it cost too much energy to use all the time. Perhaps he could kill a decent amount of monsters before falling incapable of fighting, but what if there was a full army? He’d be neigh useless after that. He had to be able to fight, his ability to be a last resort. It was better that way.

“Damn” he said, watching the creature stumble over the broken leg.

He didn’t feel too bad after that small use of his ability. So, he prepared for another attack. This time, no ability use. Otherwise, he was wasting his time.

However, the monster soon fell to the ground, succumbing to the agony of the broken bone, as well as the loss of balance. Rafe observed, unimpressed. It seemed he would gain no experience from this. And so, he slowly walked over towards the injured dread, a dark expression on his face.

Each step was crisp and calculated, his eyes observing the surroundings in case a monster appeared out of nowhere, though it was unlikely, since he’d already scouted the area before, too ensure there weren’t any monsters nearby.

He spat on the struggling creature. It was a waste; an utter let-down. He had wasted his time on this thing.

With that, he slashed the grotesque dread’s neck, causing blood to gush out, leaving the enraged creature in shock. Coughing repeatedly, the dread rolled around confused, before the coughing quietened down, and the creature died.

‘What a pathetic sight’ Rafe spat, ‘I’ve got guard duties soon, I’ll head home for now. I can relax for a bit then go out on patrol’

A long walk later, he’d arrived back at the behemoth gates. Noticing Rafe, a few of the guards waved. Over the last few months, he’d garnered a bit of a reputation with his efficiency to kill monsters. Since he’d battled much more than the guards over the last few years, and alone, he was evidently much more skilled. In front of the guards however, he never used his ability; keep your cards close to your chest kind of thing. You could never know who’ll betray you. Human hearts can be cold sometimes.

“Ready to go, Rafe?” Alexander asked with a joyous smile; he was a right fucking nutjob, but Rafe found him to be quite fun. Over the last few months, they were on patrol together, and so they soon became good friends. Sometimes, Rafe wondered if Alexander even knew what kind of situation they were in. Perhaps he thought it was a game. There was a strong possibility too, since he acted as though he couldn’t die, or if he did, he’d simply spawn back into the world as though nothing happened.

‘Moron’ was the first thought Rafe had. But after seeing Alexander’s evident skills, he realised there was a reason for the narcissism, even if it would eventually kill him. After all, anyone can die, even some of the thought-to-be immortal gods seemed to have died.

“Yeah. Where we on patrol?”

Alexander’s smile got wider.

“East”

Rafe suddenly became excited as well. East; where the majority of the formidable monsters resided. Whilst Ryu and his expedition team had slain a number of them on their journey much further down the path, they obviously hadn’t killed all of them. Only the ones in their way did they bother killing, and that was only a small percentage of the wild beasts that lurked in the east forests. For psychopaths like Rafe and Alexander, this was heaven.

Of course, they weren’t the only ones on patrol east. In their patrol team for today, there were eight others, since most teams consisted of about ten people. With ten stranded working together, killing a few dreads would end up as light work.

Rafe and Alexander didn’t enjoy that, and so they bent the rules a little. They’d go off a little away from the group and fight monsters on their own, still in sight of their patrol team. If they seemed to be losing, the patrol team could step in and slay the dread with them. Of course, this led to Rafe and Alexander being labelled some…unique names. For example: ‘fucking psychos’.

So far, the patrol only had to step in once, when Rafe was fighting a dread species he’d never encountered before. At the start, everything was going to plan, it seemed like a one-sided assault rather than a battle, but as the creature seemed to be dying…it transformed. The lizard-like creature with a centipede-like body began to shed its scales, revealing human-like skin and a stinger beneath the tail it had just removed. Its face turned from that of a warped, starved gecko to that of a shaved bear with purple skin. It was horrifying. Even Alexander froze for a moment and went looking at the commotion. As soon as the scales were shed and the stinger was set free, it lashed at Rafe, piercing his arm with its stinger. In seconds, Rafe became sluggish and his orientation was severely thrown off; he was incapacitated.

Luckily, the patrol team noticed Rafe losing it, almost passing out against one of the tall trees of the forest, and stepped in, getting into formation and striking at the beast. Patrol teams were incredibly efficient, not just because of their numbers and skill, but because of their structure. They were assigned roles such as offence, defence, support. In the odd case, a team was blessed with a healer…Rafe’s wasn’t. But they did have two huge tanks for defence that had been gifted huge shields, one from the almost impenetrable scales of a horror that had been killed during the battle of the rift.

With a formation like that, the transformed dread became easy work. If anything, it was tedious.

As they headed towards the East Forests, Alexander and Rafe caught up with what the both of them had been doing the past couple days. Since, inside the fortress, they didn’t see each other too often, as they were both busy doing what they deemed important. For Rafe, it was a lot training, forging himself into a much stronger being. For Alexander…it was flirting with Scarlet.

“She blew me off” Alexander sighed.

Rafe laughed.

“How many times is this now, my friend?”

Alexander gritted his teeth.

“Four, erm…wait five”

Rafe couldn’t help but laugh again.

“You best move on, man. She’s not interested. Too dedicated to her goals”

“A rift?”

Rafe nodded. Whilst he didn’t share much information he received from other people, Alexander was actually an important member of the escape group. He’d known about it for far longer than Rafe.

“Urgh…perhaps once we escape, she’ll be willing” he said, looking down.

“If. It’s if we escape. Let’s not get our hopes up too high”

Alexander spat.

“Why not? What’s wrong with high hopes? Keep your pessimism to yourself”

Rafe shook his head and turned away, observing the vast forest ahead of them. They were close now. No one in the group was shaken. They’d been here countless times with no trouble. In fact, the only trouble the group ever had was Alexander and Rafe. Trouble makers. Always going around trying to kill as many monsters as they could alone. If they got injured, the whole group would be at fault. It was a pain.

Soon, they were in the forest, scouting around for any monsters around the path.