webnovel

A meeting

[It's been three hours since I started walking through this forest, but there is still no sight of man-made structures.] "haa, hopefully, I reach a stream so I can fill my camelback." sighing softly, my ears perk up as I softly hear water running. In the distance, I pick up my pace and see a small stream looking and listening to my surroundings. I hear birds chirping. "Good nothings off for now, but I really don't want to know if there's bandits or Grimm nearby." crouching down next to the stream, I pull the camelback off and about to start filling when I notice my face is different. I had gray eyes, but now my left eye is silver, but thankfully my hair is still brown, and nothing else is different. I'm still 6'2 with a semi-athletic build.

"Oh, come on, you piece of shit; god, did you have to change my left eye silver I didn't see it anywhere in the stats." I feel a slight tug on my left leg looking down, and there is a messenger handing me my stats again. Reading over it again, I see what should have been there but is there now.

Passive silver eye can turn most Grimm into stone, but since it's one eye, it's not as effective, only affecting 10 Grimm at a time, determining if they are more potent than the host they will be immobile for 30 seconds cooldown is 3 minutes.

Slightly crushing the scroll a bit, I returned it to the messenger, and it left. "So there are hidden skills and the like of course I have to figure this out myself, but that god just painted a huge target on my fucking back with this shit. I want to punch something." Getting up, I walk over to the thickest tree I can see and punch it with my full rage. The tree splits and rends at the impact of my fist falling over fully up rotted with a 5-inch hole where my fist was. Looking at my fist, I start to feel it with my other hand to see if I fractured anything, and to my surprise, my hand is completely fine.

"Ummmm alright, I…. okay, I didn't expect the old blood to be so potent. Well, there's nothing I can do about it now need to get as much water as possible for the trip." Filling up the camelback, William puts his pack back on but soon hears screaming of people and Grimm. [hmmmm, if I go and help them, I'll have to reveal myself, or I could leave them to their fate.] "I hate myself sometimes." facepalming, I start to run towards the noise of gunfire and screams.

After 2 minutes of a dead sprint, Willian finally gets to a small village being attacked by a pack of Beowulf's and ursa's 30 in total left from what looks like 50 with what looks like 20 fighters' bodies ripped in half, missing head's, limbs disemboweled with the ground stained blood red. With people running about trying to get away from the slaughter without thinking any longer, I rush towards the closet Ursa and unload my rifle into it, rending its flesh with it falling on the last bullet, throwing away my m4, and unclipping the beast cutter from my hip and the m1911 with my blood boiling I rush towards the next ursa as it's distracted by a couple of fighters. Jumping in front of its face with an overhand slash crushing the bone-white head indenting the ground with its skull wholly destroyed. 

I hear someone yelling at me, "IS THAT A HUNTER THANK THE BROTHER'S."

 "GET THE VILLAGERS TO SAFETY. I CAN HOLD THEM BACK!!" After the fighters, I now see a mixture of humans and faunes fall back to help protect the villagers.

Seeing the retreating fighters, the Grimm starts to push back harder without thinking any further, morphing the weapon it creaks and bends, revealing serrated wiring in between portions of the beast cutter.

Bringing a horizontal strike, the weapon whips 20 feet cutting and rending 12 Grimm in one swing; pulling the whip back, an ursa comes from William's activating his aura got hit, pushing him 6 feet back William unloads three shots from his pistol, all hitting the said Ursa's head killing it. Then hearing what could be declared, a heavenly female voice says, "skill unlocked Hunter's quickened arts." Grinning to myself, I disappear in front of the fighters and reappear behind 6 Grimm whipping them in two while firing the remaining five bullets in my gun, killing three beowolfs charging at a child. Putting a new clip in my pistol an Ursa charges me again, but I fire a shot right before it is about to hit me, and it staggers back as I morph my weapon back to its club form and impale the ursa's chest with it killing it. 

Looking back at the group of fighters, they kill the remaining Grimm, but as soon as I drop my guard, I hear a loud screeching noise in the sky. A nevermore looking around for my m4 that I threw away in a bloodthirsty rage picking it up again and loading a new mag in I start to unload into the sky hitting the nevermore 15 times it circles around to me shooting its feathers at me as I turn to smoke dodging and ducking near misses while putting in a new clip and unload into the nevermore again with an ear-splitting screech it dives bombs at me I pull out the beast cutter and morph it into the whip bringing and overhand slash down while unloading the rest of the m4 rounds into the nevermore at the beast cutter slashed it in half with the corpse slamming into some of the rubble kicking up a large amount of debris. 

Panting slightly and pulling back my weapon, I hear all the remaining villagers and fighters yelling at the victory pulled out of the desperate situation. I smile softly at the people still standing when I hear an authoritative feminine voice call out saying, "I know we all are happy, but we still have to see if there are anymore survivors, so get to work and get a portion of people with medical knowledge to help the wounded." After the small speech/command, the people started to work, pulling some people out of the rubble and patching up people's wounds. With said person walking towards me, a woman ahead shorter than me, probably mid 30's with an athletic body, bull horns, in somewhat bulky and tattered armor with a Dane axe. "And what's your name sir I'm Aimy White you saved a lot of people today with that intervention of yours and your unique weapons." 

William "Hello Aimy White my name William Newman I'm not a hunter just a wandering traveler that lost my map I heard the scream and gun fire and decided to help."

Aimy "Well thank you for helping us William if you're not too busy wandering around could I hire you to help escort my people to Higanbana it's the closest town from here."

William "How much are you offering?"

Aimy" 2,000 lien, and if you want big man, I can throw myself in that reward too if that's not enough." saying enticingly, and to prove that point, Aimy pulls down her shirt a bit, showing some cleavage.

William "Sure I could use some lien and a partner for a night since you don't mind." I reply tantalizingly, "Also how long of a walk is Higanbana?"

Aimy "Roughly a two day's walk and if you have any experience with patching people up could you help most if not all were injured so if you could help them I can pay you more let's say 500 lien for each person you save?"

William "Deal where are they?"

Aimy points to a quick makeshift tent as I walk in. There are roughly 20 people within all having grievous wounds. I start cleaning, patching, and sticking up wounds as I check them. There's a kid with a severed leg, deathly pain, and a feeble pulse.[this kid won't even last an hour with how shity the patch on his leg is, maybe my semblance can help.] Looking around, I flag down one of the people helping. "Where's this kid's leg?" I ask them to reply, "one moment," and bring me what looks like a cooler with what looks like the kid's leg. Quickly taking the leg out despite the cries of protest, I activate my semblance while holding the kid's leg against the exposed wound.

With the wound and leg reattaching itself to the kid with just a pain complexion now sighing out in relief, the helper looks at me with their mouth ajar, and eyes widened for a moment then they rush out and get what's I believe is the mother running to the child and crying profusely thanking me over and over.

William "your kid's going to be fine don't worry."

Mother "thank you thank you thank you thank you." I quickly put my hand over her mouth for her to stop thanking me. 

William "It's okay to thank someone, but I was just doing my job, and the kid needs some food in him here soon and he'll be all better before we move, hopefully if not on the way to Higanbana." She proceeds to nod her head up and down like a bobblehead as I leave the tent to find Aimy looking down on my watch, saying it's 4:00 pm; we should be moving here soon to get away from the Grimm. As I walk around the mostly destroyed village, I find Aimy and walk up to her.

William "So if you don't mind me asking how many people did this village have?"

Aimy "90 and before you ask we lost 50 people."

William "My condolences but if I remember correctly, we should be moving soon because of the Grimm." I reply as Aimy looks at me, understanding my words ring true to the situation.

Aimy "Yeah we are leaving within the hour also I heard you have a healing semblance that pretty damn rare to have with that you could be a doctor so why are you wandering?"

William "My semblance comes with a downside where it's better to wander around and offer a helping hand when needed."

Aimy "I'll take you word for that and the way you fight seems like you fight Grimm a lot why don't you become a hunter you'll ace it with ease. Also here's the pay for helping the wounded." As she hands me 10,000 lien as I put it in my pack. William "Thanks and I'll be around if you need me." As I walk towards the forest to open the shop and take inventory.

As soon as I enter the forest, a messenger pops up in front of me, handing me a scroll reading. "Old blood compatibility maxed improving body please try and stay awake." [What?] After reading the scroll, my entire body feels like I'm being stabbed, bones fracturing and expanding muscles, with blood pouring out of all my orifices. A multitude of messengers surrounds me as my vision fills with blood.

Next chapter