2 years later
Trish was now seven years old, and it was her birthday again. Like every birthday since she was three, she got another set of armbands as a gift. It always confused her, but her mother just waved it off as a family tradition for a young girl.
She was excited for today because she got a day off of training every birthday to go into town, and this year, she was allowed to go alone.
She was all dressed up and was heading towards the door, but her ever-stern father blocked the door. She looked at him, her visage marred with scrunched eyes and an upturned lip, and waited for what she knew would come.
Nonplussed by her expression, he once again said the same thing he had told her for the past two weeks in training. “You are fast and strong enough to deal with any normal goblin easily you may see along the way, but remember to be wary of any trolls. If you see one drop everything and sprint away, DO NOT HOLD BACK,” emphasizing with such reverberation it hurt her ears at the final words.
Her mother said, “Don't forget to wear your beautiful new bracelets!” trying to hide the worry in her voice but mostly failing.
“Don't worry, Mom and Dad, I know.
Her father, Cid, Looks at her incredulously. “You ready, huh? Are you sure you haven't forgotten something?” her father's stern voice almost pinning her down.
She had to step back from the pressure and think hard, going through her mental list.
Her cheeks turned a deep crimson. “I forgot my bow…”
Her father puts his large hand on her head and ruffles her hair.
“My little shadow, you must never forget your soul.” Her usually stern father spoke with such softness it almost made her miss the words spoken,
He handed her the bow he had carved for her, a wooden bow as dark as ebony; it almost seemed to absorb the light around it. A silver inlay of gorgeous roses wrapped around the entire bow, giving a deadly beauty feel.
“I'll Name it Tragic Passion,” Trish Proclaimed.
Trish's smile seemingly radiated, and she jumped up and down excitedly, her bow held tight in her palms.
“Happy birthday, my shadow. If you had looked, you would have noticed your bow was gone and replaced with this bow made by me and your mother. The wood is a secret, but the string is made from your mother and your hair, and with a touch of your mother's magic, the bow will now grow with you. Take it and go to town.” he spoke, his voice filling with pride.
Her eyes sparkled with held-back tears. “Thank you so much, Mom and Dad,” voice quivered. She grabbed her bow and a quiver of arrows hanging in its usual spot by the door with those final words. She opens the door and starts running down the dirt path to reach the village five kilometers away.
Bright pinks, radiant purples, and vibrant red flowers sprinkled alongside the path, all planted and managed by her father. He says it has a mild irritant to goblins to keep the roads clear.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
After she reached the halfway point, she came to a bend in the road. Slowing down, she saw a huge tree had fallen over, covering the whole road. Stopping momentarily, she delivers a swift kick to the tree, making it fly over one hundred feet to the right of the path, knocking over many massive trees that look very similar to oak trees on Earth.
Raooargraaack
The roar was so loud and violent it was not only so loud it could be heard for kilometers in all directions. The very ground shook so violently that Trish fell on her face. The ground was rumbling so violently that she would have mistaken it for an earthquake if it wasn't for the roar that caused it.
Her body shook as violently as the ground, except it was out of sheer terror.
She had been careless. Her father had warned her time and time again.
Not even a full second had passed before it had appeared before her, just as she was straightening out after shakingly getting to her feet. She first noticed that it had forest-green skin and a foot as big as her entire body. Quickly looking upwards, what she saw confirmed it was a troll.
A single thought, one word, reverberated in her head as loud as the roar just before.
“Cedric.”
Tears began to flow again, and she didn't know why.
A sliver of a memory of a bow and a corpse flashed across her mind. Shaking her head violently to clear it and focus, she prepared to run as fast as possible. She turned to her left to run back towards her house. She knew her parents could easily take this beast.
Just as she was lifting her foot to start running in that direction, the troll was right in front of her, swinging a stiff right jab at her, its fist dwarfing her. One hit, and she would surely die.
Just in time, she jumped backward, barely dodging the punch.
Entering a trance-like state, she made an almost instinctual response, drawing her bow. She readied her arrow, and just as she was about to fire an arrow, her father's teaching finally truly hit her. The obsidian bow was pulled taut, making a perfect U-shape.
Unbeknownst to her, a sliver of silver appeared from behind her. It then morphed into a Semi-transparent figure much taller than her, wielding the bow she had died with, and was mimicking her very moves, both releasing their arrows at the same time aimed directly at the troll's eyes, both hitting true. Its ugly brown eyes were no more as it had one arrow sticking out of one and the other having been vaporized by the silver arrow.
The figure remerged with Trish as if he was never there, and the trance Trish was in began to fade.
She heard a ding and a voice she thought she had heard many times before.
“New skill, Cedric Assist,” the voice said sarcastically. “I mean, I guess you've earned the skill. He's only dead because of you. Not that you even remember how lovely it must be just to forget the bad stuff, huh.” emphasizing each word with more and more sarcasm as she spoke.
The beast, roaring in pain, swung its arms in the direction she went, clipping her right shoulder and snapping it in twine.
She let out an ear-piercing scream. Losing all sense of reason, she instinctively gathered her mana; even as her bracelets absorbed it, they could not keep up, and she let loose a massive ball of chaos magic from her fingers.
Her balance was off because of her shattered, bleeding arm and the massive force of the release of the magic. She could not keep steady and nearly fell, causing her to miss the creature by millimeters, barely grazing its shoulder, but where it hit, it seemingly deleted it from existence.
Everything in its path was gone. The tops of thousands of trees behind the creature ceased to exist, and then a massive explosion could be heard off in the distance.
The sound was comparable to the Troll's roar, luckily shocking Trish back to consciousness.
At the same time as the sound was made, the voice she had heard before started talking, but she could not make out what it said.
Not wasting another moment, while holding her mangled arm, Trish ran full tilt back toward her house.
“FATHER MOTHER HELP!!!!!!” Trish bellowed with all her might.
Since the appearance of the troll, only three seconds had passed. With the final word screaming from her lips, Trish saw hundreds of arrows suddenly materialize from above her head, slamming into the troll who had just managed to heal from its previous injuries.
The troll now looked like a comically massive pincushion leaking blood like a sieve.
It let out another massive roar, and hundreds of roars followed suit. The ground convulsed at its might, causing an actual earthquake, the ground splitting all over the forest and consuming many thousands of trees, changing the landscape forever.
Before she could even realize how much danger she was in, a bright blur passed her, and a familiar green light touched her forehead. As it went by, all she heard before passing out again was “Leonis Cor.”
That was all she remembered of that day. In her slumber, she dreamt of another world where she seemed much older, fighting a much smaller troll next to a zombie wielding a bow, and every few seconds in the dream, a very annoyed voice could be heard repeating Pain Management skill level increased.