*Sniff sniff sniff*

Cleo, crouching on the forest floor, observed the boar dragging its nose across the ground, as if searching for something. Her spear was lying next to her on the ground, ready for action.

She looked to the side where she could spot her sister crouching behind a bush, her knuckles white from tightly clasping a makeshift spear. Normally she would have laughed at the tense face her sister was making, but now even she herself could feel cold sweat running down her back.

Turning her attention back to the single boar in the small clearing in front of them, she thought through their plan again.

If the boar got close enough to one of them, they would try to surprise attack it, aiming for the eyes if possible. Then the other person would run towards it as well, attacking it from behind.

If it didn’t want to come close to either of them, the farthest person would try to distract it by making a sound somewhere, then the closer person would once again try to surprise attack it.

It sounded pretty simple when they had discussed it, but now, with the boar in front of them, she couldn’t help but doubt herself.

Isn’t it a bit too big? Do we even stand a chance?

Her spear felt so tiny and useless compared to the beast.

She couldn’t imagine how her sister must feel, with her wooden stick and its badly cut tip. Calling it a weapon was a borderline insult.

Cleo’s own alignment also gave her some instinctual knowledge on how to wield a spear, which her sister didn’t have either. Her sister was truly much worse off, so it was actually quite impressive that she wanted to fight nonetheless.

And this boar wasn’t even the biggest one. She had spotted many larger ones at the start of the trial. She was glad that none of them had charged her and her sister, opting instead to go for the larger groups.

Running away from the smaller ones had been tough enough already. In her opinion, it was surprising they got away at all, but it was probably because another group had distracted their own pursuing boars. Her sister hadn’t noticed, but Cleo had led them closer to other fighting noises when she realised they wouldn’t be able to shake the boars off otherwise. Especially with Laira running on fumes, her stamina was truly horrible.

Once they came within a certain distance to the fighting noises, the boars had run off in a different direction and Cleo quickly led them away again. They never ever got to see the other group, and Cleo was glad Laira hadn’t noticed anything. She would probably feel guilty for putting others in danger, just so they could escape.

But Cleo didn’t have those qualms, their own survival was more important than that of others. She had already realised that many more people would die in this trial anyways, if she survived at the expense of others’ lives, so be it.

*Sniff sniff sniff*

Cleo’s attention snapped back to the boar, who was now getting closer… to her.

The bundle of fern hiding her from the boar’s view seemed to be infinitely thin now.

Her hands tightened around the spear, her muscles tensed in anticipation.

Drops of sweat formed on her forehead.

Soon-

*Crack*

The boar’s head whipped around, looking in the direction of her sister’s hiding place.

Cleo’s heart skipped a beat, but when she saw how distracted the boar seemed by the noise, she realised that this was her opportunity.

With a yell she sprang into action, her spear shooting forward, aimed at the head. The whole movement was smoother than she expected, surprising even herself.

The boar squealed in surprise and pain when the spear hit it directly in the ear canal.

It started thrashing around, the wound seemingly much more severe than it looked.

Cleo cringed at seeing the animal so clearly in agony, but she hardened her resolve and stabbed forward with her spear again. This time she didn’t manage to hit anything too important, only cutting open a bit of its side.

Her sister had also come rushing over by now, deathly pale in her face, but still able to start stabbing at the boar as well.

Together they took many more stabs at the animal, dodging its erratic thrashing here and there. It lasted longer than expected, but eventually the boar succumbed to the wounds and stopped moving around much, only breathing raggedly. Soon that also stopped.

Laira dropped her spear and collapsed to the ground, her hands shaking.

“T-that was awful,” she stammered between heavy breaths.

Cleo also sat down, the adrenaline still pumping through her.

“Yeah… though I think we got very lucky. I must have hit something important at the beginning. It didn’t even really fight back after the first wound.”

Laira didn’t reply, simply closing her eyes while still breathing heavily.

Cleo didn’t mind, also resting a bit. Even though the fight was relatively easy, she was still exhausted.

After a while of catching her breath, she looked at her blood covered spear.

She grabbed some nearby leaves and wanted to start cleaning her spear, when she noticed that there was a blinking light in the corner of her eye.

As soon as she focused on it, a blue text box sprang up in front of her.

Walking your Path

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Using your aligned weapon, you have proven your worth and defeated an opponent equal in grade.

Continue walking your chosen path and be awarded with even greater prowess!

Quest: Be a major contributor to the death of 3 opponents of equal or higher grade, using your aligned weapon [1/3].

Reward: Choose 1 from 3 aligned Copper I skills.

Accept Quest?

“Oh… oh!”

Cleo jumped up in excitement, instantly accepting the quest without thinking.

Quest Walking your Path accepted!

“Sis! I got a quest!”

Laira opened her eyes and looked up at her sister jumping around.

“Great… and what does that mean?”

“I can get a skill if I finish it! My first skill!” Cleo was dancing around, almost tripping over the dead boar as a result.

Laira raised an eyebrow at her sister, but couldn’t help but smile at her antics.

“And how do you finish it?”

Cleo stopped, looking at the floating textbox again.

“Ah… I have to kill two more boars.”

Laira’s smile froze.

“Two more…”

She lay down on her back in resignation, closing her eyes again.

“Fuck.”

****

“Can you see anything?”

Laira craned her neck, trying to spot Cleo in the tree’s crown above.

“Give me a moment!” Cleo shouted back down.

After killing the boar and discussing Cleo’s quest, they had decided to cook some of the boar’s meat before they would continue to hunt.

Cleo had cut some messy strips of flesh out of the boar's body using her spear, whilst Laira tried for a long time to start a fire, using a primitive fire drill. She did succeed eventually, but not before letting loose multiple expletives and losing some skin on her hand.

Once they started cooking the meat and eating it, they became thirsty soon after.

Laira and Cleo hence discovered a serious problem.

They had no water.

Which led them to the current situation of postponing any further hunting and Cleo trying to see if she could spot anything from higher up.

A *crack* resounded from above, followed by a bunch of curses and a branch falling down.

“Careful!” yelled Laira.

More curses came, followed by “I’m fine!”.

After making sure that her sister wasn’t in danger of falling anytime soon, Laira lowered her head back down and looked around the area nervously.

Holding Cleo’s spear tightly in her hands, she let her gaze wander around the trees surrounding them, trying to spot anything suspicious. Though she was sure if anything really was creeping up around them, she wouldn’t notice until the last moment.

And even if she would, the idea of fighting those crazy boars again gave her the chills. Even in the last fight, where the boar didn’t even really fight back, she felt like vomiting throughout the whole ordeal.

She really wasn’t made for this.

And they had to kill two more for her sister’s quest. She just hoped that things would get easier once Cleo got one of those “skills”. Whatever that meant.

She herself didn’t get anything after the kill. Cleo said it was probably because she didn’t count as a major contributor to the fight, which stung a little, but she honestly was glad. She didn’t want to have to fight even more boars.

The leaves started to fall down around her. Laira looked up to see Cleo making her way down again.

She jumped the last bit, rolling herself off the ground.

“And? What did you see?” inquired Laira, handing Cleo back her smooth and durable spear, picking up her own rough makeshift spear again.

Cleo grabbed her weapon and then picked out some leaves from her hair.

“Yeah so… I saw some hills to the east, across the starting area.”

“And,” she continued, “I saw smoke up north. The rest of the area seems to be just forest, but I couldn’t see too far. ”

“Oh, smoke? That means there must be people up north, no?”

Cleo nodded. “Yep. Definitely. A pretty huge group as well, judging from the amount of smoke. And I think I know why. I’m not completely sure, it was a bit far, but I think I saw the shimmer of water.”

Laira’s face lit up. “Water! Yeah, they must have chosen that spot for the water!“ she said and then sighed. “They must have had more foresight than us.”

“Yeah…,” Cleo frowned, “but I’m actually not sure we can go there. It might be dangerous near large groups.”

“Can’t we just go to them directly? If they’ve survived for so long, they must be pretty strong, don’t you think? They can probably handle any stray beasts that try to attack us.”

Cleo made a pained impression at that. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea for my sister, who doesn’t even have a proper weapon, and me to join a random group. If they let us in anyways.”

“Cleo.” Laira put a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “I understand that you are distrustful of others here. And I do trust your judgement. You’ve always been good at things like this. However… we need water.”

Cleo opened her mouth to say something, but Laira kept going.

“And that’s not the only thing. We apparently need to kill many more beasts to get stronger. Do you think we will always leave every fight unscathed, like we did in the last one?”

Cleo looked her sister in the eyes, then looked down and shook her head.

“No…”

Laira patted her shoulder.

“Being in a bigger group will be safer. We can hunt boars with more people, reducing the chance of us getting hurt. We can check it out from a distance first, if we find their camp suspicious we can leave immediately and only try to get some water. You said it yourself, that if things get too dangerous we can always join a group later. And I think killing so many boars is too dangerous.”

Cleo, still looking down, shook her head again.

“Also, I’m not as helpless as you might think.” Laira waved her own spear around a little.

Cleo stood there in silence, pondering something.

Laira also turned quiet, giving her sister time to think.

After a minute, Cleo clenched and then unclenched her fists and looked up at her sister again.

“Alright. We will check it out. But if I say we leave, we leave. Okay?”

Laira smiled and ruffled Cleo’s hair. “Of course! As you command, captain.”

Cleo snorted and ducked away from her sister’s hand.

“Then let’s go. It’s a bit far and the day isn’t that long anymore. I want to set camp somewhere before nightfall.”

“Aye!” Laira gave her sister a sneaky salute and followed behind her.