Chapter 01 - Lucca Bright

In a certain plain, there was a group running for their lives, what chased them could be simple described as a horde of innumerable monsters. One of those people, a young man who was at the peak of his life, was already running for hours, yet, the amount of pursuers just grew. His body was already worn out, but he could only keep running.

After sometime his legs finally yielded to exhaustion and he, and much others, became the monster dinner for that day.

This was a common event in this world, after all people and monsters existences were like fire and water, enemies since as long as they know, engaging in daily battles for their own survival, this is the rule of the world.

A beautiful girl, that possessed black hair and eyes, with a milky white skin clad in nun clothes, showed a gentle smile. She stood up and looked at the slightly terrified children, which listened to her history.

They were the little kids who lived in this orphanage and had daily lessons to learn about the world and his perils. Considering the place where they lived, it wouldn’t be surprising to say that some of the deceased parents of those children had the same fate as the man from the history.

The nun looked back to the children and told them to eat their meal and stay inside the house, since it was dangerous. With unison the children answered “Yes!” and started making havoc as kids in this age always do. The nun couldn’t help but letting a short sight while getting out of the house.

At the shade of the building nearby, she heard sounds of something hitting the wall. As soon as the young nun gazed there, she saw a boy hurriedly hiding his hands.

The boy had a jet black hair like the sisters and white skin, he looked like a normal boy you could see everywhere going through some rebellious phase, as it was dubbed the sister, the only exception being his pure golden eyes.

“Lucca, how many times did I say to you stop skipping the lessons, huh? Just because you’re a little older than most of them, do you think you don’t need to know?” – Said the sister while gazing at his face.

“Ann, I’ve already told you that I know all of that! Just how many times are you going to preach me about this?”

Sensing her gaze, he looked away while slight blushing, after all he reached that age and no matter how you look like, Ann was certainly beautiful.

“Well, it is true that I already told you countless time about how dangerous is the outside world…”

Her gaze switched from him to the road and the big gate of the city that could be seen from the orphanage.

“Haa… This time I will let you off, since I have work to do. Don’t go around causing trouble when I’m gone, make sure to watch your little brother and sisters. Bye.”

You don’t have to tell me that, so thought Lucca, while staring at her back.

He moved away from the shade and stared at the building where she just exited. That was the orphanage Holy Wings. Lucca lived there since as long as he knows and now he was had completed his 14 anniversary.

From the Ann lesons he learned about the world, about the monsters, about society, about family. He doesn’t remember ever seeing the faces of his parents, but that didn’t bother him, since he had Ann taking care of him and all the other little children were like his little sisters and brothers.

He could say that because he was one of oldest members of the orphanage and didn’t have any memory of his biological family, therefore he completely entered the role of being the older brother of the orphanage.

“Hey, hey, how many times did Ann or Lucia told you guys to not get away from the house?” – Said Lucca while grabbing two children who just rushed out of the door.

“Thanks for keeping an eye on them”

Said a girl while taking the two kids from Lucca arms, she looked like 12~13 years old who was one of the other older members of the orphanage.

She looked at him with a down cast face and muttered.

“Are you going to work again today?”

“Of course, Ann and the others sisters are busy healing the adventurer parties that come from the desert today.”

“Ann and the others already warned you not do such a dangerous thing…”

“Of course I know. Ann makes sure to drill that in my head every time, how could I forget?”

Said Lucca while grabbing his tattered backpack and exiting the building.

Within the whole kingdom of Arzllot, it wouldn’t be wrong to call Marlok the worst city to live. The residents had to endure the scorching sun and arid air every day.

Outside the wall, threatening existences lived nearby, be it monster and people alike. There was lack of food and sometimes even water, it would be impossible to even imagine that this desert could host a city if it wasn’t by the invention of mana portals years ago.

Despite all these shortcomings, Marlok desert city was essential point of trade between the north and south of the kingdom, while keeping watch in the rampant monsters that lived in the desert.

Lucca run through the streets and rapidly arrived at his destination, the plaza of Marlok. Inside a big building right in the center, he paid the fee and entered the portal towards his usual workplace, the capital of the kingdom.

Exiting the capital building, which was size bigger than the one from desert city, he saw the vast grey of Retford, the capital and biggest city of Arllot kingdom, which was the complete opposite of the usual orangish color of Murlok he grew.

After minutes walking towards the south gate, he calmly exited the city, there he saw hundreds upon hundreds of people waiting, that was the usual place where people who go hunting wait for the gathering of their members.

After going for the usual spot, Lucca spotted a familiar brawny man, with his trademark purple tomahawk hair, and a slender androgynous looking guy, which had a cute face that could easily deceive some people if they had drunk a few cups of alcohol.

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“Took your sweet time Bright”

Said the brawny man who looked fed up with waiting and was already stretching.

“My bad, my bad” – Answered Lucca while looking for something and having a puzzled a look continued – “though it seems I’m not the last one this time.”

“No, you are. This time it will be just us, Marlene and Rubi won’t be coming today.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah, this time it’s just us guys.”

Lucca and his companions walked together towards the south of the capital, while pulling a cart. The same type of scene could be seen within the whole plains, adventurers going everywhere to complete their missions.

After a few hours walking, they were welcomed by the mountains, their objective for today.

Lucca et al stopped to catch their breath and gazed the mountain. After some minutes to rest, the trio moved to the thrill and started climbing.

Their objective for today was to hunt down condors, a big vulture like bird that could easily reach 6m when fully opened their wings.

They had received a quest to hunt five of those and bring back their bodies.

The brawny man grabbed some stones and used them to hit a distracted condor who was dazing in a branch of a tree nearby, invoking the hostility of the beast, which started flying while aiming at him.

The brawny man, who was an experienced warrior, waited with his guard down until the condor decided to attack, when he received the signal for the other party members, he quickly turned and lifted his shield, blocking the condor claws while moving the axe in his dominant hand to attack it.

The condor saw the attack coming and easily stopped with its great beak, what he didn’t expect was that the other two members of the party, which were hiding, where waiting for this moment and launched two sneak attacks from his back.

At the same time an arrow and a dagger pierced the back of the unaware condor. He started agonizing and fell down, seeing the chance, the experienced brawny man used his whole weight and swung the axe again downwards, easily chopping off the defenseless condor head.

“This was easier than I thought.”

Said the androgynous man while getting out of his hiding place.

“That’s because we got a sneak attack on him. They are just normal beasts, aside the flying, they are easy to hunt.

But don’t get cocky, even if they weren’t monsters, those claws and beaks could kill us easily if we don’t pay attention.”

“Well, we are lucky that this time we only have to hunt normal beast.”

Lucca said while picking his dagger off the condor back.

As the experienced brawny man predicted, the rest of the hunt wasn’t as easy as the slender looking man thought, but it wasn’t anything out of their abilities, after stopping the condor attacks, it was an easy prey.

The brawny man provided a solid vanguard, while the slender man provided ranged support through arrows, Lucca could use both his daggers to fight at close combat or use throw daggers to sneak ranged attacks, like the ones before.

They were a well-balanced party that wouldn’t have any problems taking normal beasts.

In this world, the different type of species of ‘animals’ (beings devoid of intellect) could be divided into four groups:

Beast, as the name implies, normal animals that could vary between tiny hamster or rabbits to lions and rhinos;

Magical Beasts, animals that could wield magical power, mana, and had slighter higher intelligence. They weren’t completely guided by their instincts like the normal beasts;

Monsters, aberrations of nature born from the mana themselves or extreme mutations from normal living beings, such as plants, animals or even people, the greatest enemy of mankind. The mutations were born thanks to the distorted equilibrium between their body and magic, turning simple animals in blood seeking fiends, making them into being who could only live by their primal instinct, contrary to normal magical beasts.

The monsters born from mana themselves are aberrations that were existences born out of only magic, making them extreme volatile existences that seek only the echoes of despair of their birth.

Lastly, Perfect Monsters, the highest threat for the people since ancient times, those are monster that became strong enough to acquire intellect and kept the outrageous power of their monster nature, those were the most rare type of monster in the nature, since it was abnormality within monster too acquire intelligence to being with.

But each and every one of them was treated as calamity that could at raze a small town by itself, not mentioning the fact that usually they commanded their familiars, monsters of the same type, due to them being their evolved forms. They were often described as Demon Lords or Demon Kings.

Arzllot Kingdom is so concerned with each of those, that they made the desert city in one of the most desolate places of the kingdom, just to keep an eye on the six well know perfect monsters that inhabit the Marllok desert.

After finishing the hunt of five condors, they packed the corpses on the cart and were ready to go back to the capital, when Lucca stopped the two men.

“Since we finished the hunt earlier than we expected, maybe we can hunt one or two more so we could have those for ourselves?”

“Huh, you want to take one for the orphanage, Bright?”

“Yeah…”

“I don’t mind eating bird for dinner today”

“Then let’s continue, we still have plenty of time until sunset”

And so they turned to the mountain once again to hunt more condors.

Little did they know that this decision would save their lives to the disaster that was about to befall in the outskirts of the capital.