Hunts.

Ginger had first heard about these from Ira and then from other students as the second Stride went on.

A Breather was indeed a three-day break from school classes, but it could be used for better activities than sleeping, relaxing, and doing homework.

Students were allowed to join organizations in Proin known as Hunting Limbs, which primarily handled the liberation of areas that were haunted by monsters such as Blighted and Condemned.

These organizations were closely tied to dragon welfare associations despite not being entirely run by them. In fact, it was rare to see a mature dragon employed in a Hunting Limb, whether at this level – tied to educational institutions – or higher.

Missions in areas deemed to contain relatively insignificant threats, and in relatively remote areas where urgency wasn't quite relevant, were outsourced to Hunting Limbs. As long as a student pledged themselves to a Hunting Limb, they could go on these missions, these Hunts, during the Breather.

Of course, it wasn't all about fighting monsters. There was so much more to discover and explore where certain variants of abominable creatures nested.

…

Ginger sighed.

'Here we go,' he thought as he approached the skinny man while pulling out the pamphlet from his sling bag.

The man noticed his approach and his brows, as grey as his voluminous, messy hair, shot up.

"Ah, look at this! We meet again, young dragon!" he said cheerfully.

It was clear that he recognised Ginger, which, to the plump dragonling, was probably a good thing. This was the same man he met on the day he came to Ravi. The pamphlet he had, had come from him as well.

"Yes…sir," the boy said awkwardly before freezing.

He just now realized…

It was rather curious that dragons had human-like forms while they weren't in their denatured states. The only other creature he had met that resembled a human, was a Djuka, like his Mana Essence Mechanisms and Manipulation instructor, Professor Hennigar, but even he had distinct traits that differentiated him quite a bit from a typical man.

The same wasn't true for this skinny man.

There was nothing to make Ginger doubt that he was human, except perhaps the lingering suspicion he felt towards the man's identity; a feeling of complete denial that he could just be a regular human in a street full of other unique species.

Perhaps this was what made Ginger not question it the first time he met the man.

"Spacing out, are we? Already? Best make good use of time, young dragon. What do you need? Are you here to sign up – as I hope you are?" the man said, his rather large, green eyes widening with anticipation.

Ginger gave a weird smile that he hoped appeared polite.

Taking a good look at this man, he started to have doubts about whether or not his choice had been the right one.

The set of wrinkled corduroy pants the man wore looked to be as ancient as the Wild. His white shirt, drowned in sweat and pressed against the skinny contours of his chest by a pair of suspenders, made the plump dragon even more unsure about him.

But in the end…

"Yes. I'm… I'm here to sign up," the boy finally said.

"Great! Haha! I knew you were ours the moment I saw you!" the man said as he drew closer to perhaps… hug Ginger?

The boy didn't allow it.

He politely side-stepped while keeping a gentle smile, but deep within…

'How could you already be sweating so much in the morning?' he questioned this more than the man's sudden action just now.

To make things less awkward, Ginger coughed and pointed at the red crest on the wall next to the door of the pathetic building behind him and the man.

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"I… I see you are marked as up to standard by the school," he said.

The skinny man nodded aggressively.

"Ah, of course. There is nothing that any other highly-rated shop or Hunting Limb has that we don't. I'd even argue we have greater integrity."

Ginger stole a glance at the ugly building again.

'Really?' he thought.

He had learned in the previous Stride that Draggard-Phoenix Institute quality-checked all the services offered in Proin to their students every month.

The large, red crest branded on the building was a sign that everything was in order for this Hunting Limb. There was another criterion used to measure the services provided by every organization in the town. It was tied to the large glowing orbs floating above the entrances of each building, but Ginger wasn't knowledgeable about that yet.

The boy grumbled.

'They are… good?'

Perhaps seeing that Ginger had a lot of doubts, the skinny man hopped to the door of the building.

The structure was quite clearly a single story – the only one of its kind on this street. In addition to being lopsided, a decent portion of its components were misaligned and chipped to the point where it almost seemed as though someone was trying to make a loud, unsavory statement.

"After you," the skinny man said as he swung open the door.

Ginger took a deep breath and stepped forward.

'Maybe it just looks like this on the outside. I mean, the inside could be…'

Upon entering the building, the optimistic notion died in Ginger's head.

He couldn't have been more wrong.

Ginger was so shocked that he barely registered the door closing behind him as the skinny man joined him inside.

'Shunting Shamans…' he thought.

There was a lot of junk everywhere.

Stacks upon stacks of paper heaped up to Ginger's knees greeted him from the floor, making it hard to advance further. Old furniture; tables upon which thick rolls of maps, sets of mugs, bottles of ink, paint brushes, moldy bread, and chests sat, could be seen.

A bold sign to Ginger's right read, 'Reception' but he didn't buy it. This was barely a reception.

A great snore stole his attention.

A chair set on the somehow wet floor held a young man who was fast asleep, a thick, open book leaning against his head which was flat on a desk before him.

Ginger blinked rapidly.

"Excuse the mess, haha," the skinny man said as he kicked away the mounds of paper.

'Why should I?!' Ginger wondered.

"Oh, you actually found someone?" another voice suddenly came from the doorway to the far end of the room.

A girl walked in, her features as human-like as the skinny man's, only, she was rather pretty.

She had a strange purple shade to her shoulder-length hair, and her eyes looked like two deep black moons. She was a bit taller than Ginger and was adorned in a plain, sleeveless black shirt as well as a piously long off-white skirt.

The fact that she matched all this with a pair of thick, travelling boots that had a hefty thump per step, threw Ginger off quite a bit though. She was dressed like a typical resident of the Wild. Sort of.

"Oh yes, my dear. Here we have… uhm… what's your name?" the skinny man asked.

Ginger was momentarily stunned by the girl, but he quickly reined himself in.

"Ginger."

"Right! Ginger! Odd, but Ginger it is! He has decided to join us!" the man announced.

The girl sized Ginger up. When she unwaveringly stared into his eyes, he thought he noticed a bit of a dark, hateful look for a split-second, but that might have just been because her dark eyes were rather… unnatural.

The girl walked up to him.

"I'm Shan. Nice to meet you," she said as she extended her hand. Ginger shook it.

He shivered a little when he felt the skin texture on Shan's hand.

It was rough. Very rough.

This surprised the plump dragonling, but it in no way unnerved him. In fact, this was the singular fact that made him start to think that perhaps he had made the right choice.

*

A few minutes later, Ginger was sitting down facing the skinny man and Shan, a warm beverage in his hand.

"I am Shan's father. You can call me Fai. I head this Hunting Limb. I like to believe me and my children are the best at this trade in Proin, haha," the man said with pride.

Ginger nodded.

'So just these three?' he thought and looked at the young man still sleeping by the desk. No one had bothered to wake him up.

"Oh, don't mind him. He's a bit tired. He's quite the hard worker," Fai said after noticing where Ginger's attention fled to.

The plump dragonling had a lot of questions to ask following that statement and several other things concerning this Hunting Limb, but Shan doled out her own inquiry first.

"Why did you choose us?" she asked bluntly. "You are a First Year, right? I'm sure your parents or friends recommended some other Limb that has better ratings and all. Why did you come here despite that?"

Shan's eyes once again dug into Ginger's without flickering. The plump dragonling didn't shirk away from her gaze. It quite reminded him of the crippling stare of a Death-Seeking Moose from back home. It was best not to look away from it.

He sighed.

"A friend of my teacher said I should look for Hunting Limbs that are lesser known and unimpressive-looking instead of ones that most others go to. So, I came here," Ginger said.

And that really was it.

Ira had encouraged him to not join a Hunting Limb that was well known. He encouraged him to not take a safe choice.

Since Ginger had already come across a Hunting Limb without knowing back then, one that looked rather shady, he decided to give it a shot.

He feared that the way he phrased his words might have offended the duo, but that didn't seem to be the case.

"Interesting advice," Fai said with a deep smile, and then his face turned strangely stern.

Ginger was taken aback.

"Well, whether you will come to appreciate this choice or not depends on what you are looking to gain from joining us. I am rather eager to know about that, however, just as you have chosen us, we will have to decide if we want to choose you," Fai said.

"What?" Ginger was surprised.

The skinny man pointed to the wall above the stacks of maps to Ginger's left.

"Tell me. What do you see on that wall? Do you see a long-fang badger or a twin-tail snake?"

At Fai's words, Ginger turned to the wall, and immediately, his hair stood on end.

He quickly leaped from his seat and dropped the cup which was in his hand.

A pulse of Mana Essence cried and poured towards him with as much aggression as that of a storm.

And within this outpour, was a shape… a rather dreadful shape.