Billy the devil mountain goat, as Duncan unimaginatively named it, could jump. Really jump. As the projectile made with Duncan's enchanted sheath flew towards the goat, it leaped over the attack, which continued on to cut halfway through a tree trunk behind where the monster had been chasing after DJ.

Now soaring through the air, the goat focused on Duncan, who was repositioning himself to meet the monster's descent after his opening attack had missed. It let out a half bleat half roar once it reached the top of its arc.

"Ranged attacks while it's stuck in the air," Phevona ordered, then proceeded to launch splinters from her wand. Duncan and Dean soon followed suit, the latter having found a covered position partway up a tree to shoot from. In less than half a second, an arrow and another crescent of sword mana joined Phevona's splinters.

Duncan couldn't help but think what happened next was extremely cool, despite how difficult it made pinning down the monster. The air seemed to solidify underneath the goat's hooves; then, just before the first of Phevona's splinters impacted against its exposed stomach, the monster pushed off the air and jumped once again.

"Uhhh. I forgot to mention they can have a low-level air walk Ability when they are tier one," Dean yelled as he continued to launch arrow after arrow at the goat. Each projectile the three of them sent at the monster was dodged with another jump off of solid air.

The wolfkin boy's yell got the attention of the devil mountain goat, and it was only thanks to Duncan's enhanced perception that he could make out the weird haze effect created by the goat's next air walk. Instead of parallel with the ground, as each condensed disk of air had been since the monster started using the Ability, these new disks were perpendicular to the ground, almost as if the goat were about to jump sideways instead of upwards in an arc.

Duncan was moving before his brain could catch up with his instincts. Fortunately, he wasn't too far from Dean's tree, and he sprinted right at it, then continued that sprint straight up the tree's trunk. He dodged leaf-filled branches, keeping his enhanced perception focused on the goat as it finally used its most recent activation of air walk.

The goat soared through the air, right at Dean. The wolfkin's eyes bulged in surprise, but he didn't panic. He sent his bow and the arrow he was about to draw into his spatial ring, then pulled out his daggers, prepared to meet the goat as it soared flew at him.

Just as the monster was about to crash into Dean, a gray crescent of mana slashed off both its back legs from below and was followed by a projectile made entirely of Earthling.

Duncan had timed his two attacks perfectly. The first had come from a quick draw and slash of his sword, aimed at the goat's back legs to prevent it from jumping. The second attack was a simple tackle, though this one was slightly more complicated considering he was running straight up a tree, and the thing he was tackling was a giant, monstrous goat that wanted to eat his new friend.

He'd managed it, though. As soon as he impacted the monster's underside, leading with his shoulder, it was sent off course, flying just over where Dean was prepared to receive its charge through the sky.

The goat screeched in pain and surprise at the unexpected assault and could not prevent its descent without its back legs to air walk with. It crashed to the ground, flailing to regain its balance and face what it had previously thought would be prey. Before it could, roots rose from the ground below it. In less than a second, Phevona's root wall had the monster trapped, still on its back and flailing wildly to free itself from its fate. That fate came for the devil mountain goat too soon, though. That day, fate took the form of a large black wolf and the lines of sharp teeth filling its maw.

As DJ finished the kill, Phevona looked up to where Duncan had launched himself at the goat. Dean's outstretched hand was the only thing preventing the boy from falling to the ground. "Nice catch," Duncan said, looking up with relief on his face. "I don't want to know how that drop would have felt."

"No problem," Dean replied, grinning at the human boy. "It's the least I could. I don't want to know what that thing's hooves would have felt like myself." Duncan matched Dean's grin with one of his own.

On the ground, Phevona just shook her head. "Does anyone need healing?"

Dean, who had started swinging Duncan toward the tree trunk, just shook his head. Duncan, who was focusing on trying to meet the trunk feet first, said, "Yeah, I could use a little. That thing was solid, and I hit it pretty hard."

Thirty seconds later, the three students were on the ground, Dean and DJ watching their surroundings as Phevona held her wand over Duncan's left shoulder. "It won't be perfect," Phevona told Duncan as she sent healing energy into him. "Healing enchantments don't work nearly as well as healing Abilities, but it should do a little. It will fix the dislocation but won't heal the damage to the muscles, ligaments, and tendons perfectly. It will still hurt."

Before Duncan could thank Phevona for her help, the three masters reappeared in front of them. "Don't worry," Boetin told his student, who had just finished healing Duncan. "I will heal him when you all are finished for the day. It might be a little cruel, but getting used to fighting through pain is something one can only achieve through experience."

Duncan couldn't help the bitter laugh that escaped his lips, which was not lost on Boetin or the other masters. Cinder shot Duncan a rare reproachful look, but it was Boetin who spoke and a bit scathingly at that. "I promise you, boy, I'm not doing this out of malice or anything other than a desire to prepare you for life as a realm delver and adventurer. You're on a road to power, but that power will likely come at the cost of pain and suffering. If you can't handle even this, you won't make it on your chosen path."

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Duncan unwaveringly held the man's gaze as he spoke. Once he finished, Duncan responded. "I apologize if I came across as disrespectful or angry. I completely agree with your reasoning." He hesitated now. He had grown close with the O'Leons over the seven months he had been on Dintarnum. They had treated him as another member of their family. Even then, he hadn't talked about Rhona Tell beyond mentioning that his mother had taught him to use a sword, so he was hesitant to explain too much with relative strangers around.

"I just happen to have a lot of that experience you were talking about. My previous master also believed it was the best way to learn. She took it further than I would have liked, though. What you said simply reminded me of her, that is all."

The cloudy expression that had formed on Boetin's face turned into something resembling understanding, and Cinder's face held something similar to regret. Phevona and Dean looked at Ducan with sad and questioning looks, respectively.

"Again, I know this will benefit me, and do not hold it against you in any way. I simply failed to hold back my reaction. I apologize."

"No need to apologize, young man." Boetin decided to move on from the topic since it seemed Duncan didn't want to elaborate at the moment. "Now, let's go over your first monster fight, shall we?"

What followed was 15 minutes of the masters going into great detail about what each of them did wrong. Despite the fight lasting less than 20 seconds, they could apparently do many things wrong in 20 seconds.

"You have to adapt to the unexpected faster," Boetin explained to Phevona after Cinder and Zebona had each taken a turn talking with the respective students. "As Cinder pointed out, Duncan was able to react quickly but not safely. If you had reacted faster, you could have set up a vine trap in the branches around Dean, catching the monster before Duncan had to intervene so recklessly. Then Duncan and Dean could have attacked from two sides while the goat was unable to retaliate."

Each master had given their student a lot to think about as they went over the fight. Duncan was even more excited now to go on more monster hunts. He'd been worried about his lack of training when it came to fighting monsters, so he was happy for the chance to use the new sword forms, sword types, and enchantments he'd been training with against actual monsters.

After finishing his critique, Boetin indicated that Zebona should take the lead. The lizardkin moved over to the devil mountain goat, then turned to face the three students. "I'll give you a short example of how harvesting monsters works. Dean has been training with this for a while now, but from what I understand, you two don't have much or any experience with this."

After Duncan and Phevona nodded, she continued. "Plenty of monsters have many beneficial parts to harvest. For example, the most valued parts of a devil mountain goat are the hooves and the horns." With a quick flourish of a skinning knife she pulled from her spatial device, she moved to the now slightly chewed-on corpse and got to work. As she cut off different parts and skinned the beast, she explained the properties of everything she harvested.

"The horns can be used to craft earth aspected weapons and equipment. These are small and only tier one, so they will likely be best used for something like daggers, maybe with durability enchantments since they work well with earth mana."

"The hooves are very sought after since they can often be used to craft equipment with an upgraded air walk enchantment." Each piece she cut off disappeared into a hidden storage device. "The hid is not particularly tough or soft, though it is still a tier one material, so it can be used for some less valuable leather working jobs. We don't have to go looking for a mana heart since it's not a high enough tier to have one. Last is the meat. Most people don't like devil mountain goat since it can be rather tough, but I'm sure Cinder could make something great with it."

Cinder smiled at Zebona, then moved to gather all the meat she carved off the corpse into his own spatial ring. "I've cooked a devil mountain goat or two in my time. I recently found an old recipe from my grandfather that uses it, so I've been dying to get my hands on some. All the better that it's tier one, so the kids can give it a try."

In the end, there was nothing but bones and some less desirable body parts left of their first monster kill. DJ sniffed at the carcass, looking slightly crestfallen at the lack of leftover meat. He started to look at Cinder with a cute 'I'm hungry' puppy face, but the elf didn't seem to notice as he planned out that night's dinner.

"Alright," Zebona said as she finished cleaning off her skinning knife. "Time for the next one."

"Sorry. Next one?" Phevona asked, obviously confused.

"Ha." The lizardkin woman laughed. "You didn't think you were done for the day, did you? This hunt is just beginning."

***

Dean, Phevona, and Duncan dragged themselves through the gates of Kunora as the sun started to set on the horizon. Each one of them had blood, dirt, and who knows what else covering their clothes and gear. Luckily, most of the blood wasn't their own, but from the devil mountain goat and the other three monsters their masters had led them to throughout the day.

DJ followed after them, panting happily. He'd been able to eat more than his fill since Cinder had only wanted the meat from the goat and the boar they had killed. Apparently, the boar was the monster Cinder had used in many of the meals he'd cooked for Duncan and the rest of the family.

"I'm dead tired," Dean said, giving his two comrades a slight smile. "It was fun working with you two. We started getting much better in the third and fourth fights."

"Definitely," Phevona said. She had continued acting as the shot caller throughout their hunt, and she clearly wanted to lead her own team one day. Every chance she had gotten, she asked her master about tactics and what she and the rest of their team could have done differently. "Hopefully we get to do more team hunts like this. I know we have to prepare for the Subject trial, but it's still nice to learn team combat since that's what we will likely be doing most of the time after we reach tier one."

Duncan just nodded, too tired to respond. He was the only frontline fighter, so he'd been tasked with keeping the monsters' attention and keeping them away from his teammates. It had tested even his endurance.

A nudge from behind reminded him he'd actually had a partner in the close-range fights. He slowed down and reached over to give DJ some scratches and pats as they walked through the city streets toward the O'Leon estate. The wolf had used Duncan as a distraction to flank any monster he could. They'd worked well together, and Duncan couldn't help but wonder how jealous Marie would be if she knew he had just fought side by side with a huge monster wolf. A midnight wolf, to be exact. Dean had said he'd raised DJ from birth when Duncan had asked about him between battles.

'I can't wait to eat some of that goat,' Duncan thought as he continued to trudge through the city. 'It will be a Billy barbeque.'