Night Hunting (4/5)

Note: I will be switching between first person and third person from here on out. It will depend on the mood of the chapter, keep an eye out for it.

"Sigh."

I sighed in boredom and looked at Hyena who was taking care of the heavy lifting for us. After the mission with the "Tentacles Ghost", there hasn't been a single monster or beast we took on that was strong.

What did I expect? I made a party consisting of me, one of the strongest S Rank Skydancers in Allegro, Hyena a B Rank evolutionary that can compare with weak S Ranks and Ruki, who has probably broken the scale used to measure Skydancers.

Furthermore, we're only hunting in the Theta Region which pretty much lacks any strong monsters due to the high concentration of Skydancers living in the region.

Sigh, this is such a pain.

"Watching Hyena clear the floor is no fun, why don't we call it a night and go back home."

I wasn't seeing the prospects in continuing to hunt like this, so I proposed a suggestion to Ruki and Hyena, who obviously felt no joy in overpowering opponents so easily.

"Sigh, you are goddamn lazy for someone who proposed this night hunt in the first place!" Ruki yelled at me, hands waving around and spit flying.

"What, it's not like I expected Theta to be so peaceful even at night!" I shouted back at her and put my small finger in my nose "And besides, shouldn't you have expected it? You know, having telepathic powers and stuff?" I continued after wiping the snot away from my fingers.

"Don't ask me that, you know I always turn off my telepathy!" She pouted angrily.

Of course I knew that, but she wouldn't shut up unless I said something.

"Whatever, I am not going home after a few hours of no fun. It will make this entire hunt seem worthless and a waste of time more than it already was!"

Ruki walked away and left Hugo and Hyena to clean up the mess of the monster they'd just killed.

"Hehe, what did you expect kid? You can't call a girl out in the night and bring a friend along." Hyena joked lightly, trying to elevate the awkward atmosphere.

"Don't call me kid, you're not much older than I am. And it's definitely not about that. If anyone could understand that feeling, it would be me."

I waved him off and walked over to the direction Ruki went in.

'Lord, where could she be?'

While looking around for her, I came across an eerily familiar place.

"Do you remember?"

I jumped up in shock at the sudden startle her voice brought. Ruki's voice was pleasant, helping to disrupt the unpleasant memories surfacing.

"I meant this place, do you remember all the fun things we did in this place as children?" Her voice sounded out calmly under the night sky.

I chuckled a little and turned to see her sitting on a swing.

"Of course, how could I forget all the times we snuck into this place at night, while your brother always tried to ward me off while keeping watch because you asked." I don't know what got into me, but bitter emotions rose up again and my tone dropped.

"You sound downcast, what's wrong?" Ruki cocked her head and asked.

"Ah, it's nothing, just remembering some stuff." I tried to laugh it off, but a woman's instinct never fails.

"Don't give me that!"

"Huh?"

"I know what you're thinking about and for the thousandth time, just forget what happened. It can never happen again!" She said that so many times that my mind had already said that before she spoke. Neither I nor she knew yet how wrong this was.

"I can't just forget about something like that?" I sighed slowly and walked to the swing seat next to her's and sat on it.

"Why not?"

"Because it is the force that drive's my goal!"

"So you're still not giving up on that, huh?"

"Nope, I will not stop until justice is served in its most prevalent fashion!"

Ruki smiled at my words a little and looked at the ground.

"I don't get you, Hugo."

"Hmm?"

"Well, you're strange. For one your personality somehow changes so quickly, yet it seems it never changes at all, you give weird tests to administer the personalities of people, you're lazy yet motivated, driven by a unique-sense of revenge. Yet you have also never lost sight of your friends and people who helped out on the way to become who you are now..." Ruki paused for a while. This was an opinion of mine she hadn't said out loud before.

"... So tell me, Hugo, would it be wrong to call you the perfect person?"

She leaned closer to me, her eyes sparkling weirdly. It almost seemed like love. No, not the eyes of someone who was in love but rather, the eyes of someone who thirsted knowledge. At that moment, Ruki seemed like she wanted to know what made me tick.

"Hey guys, I'm done cleaning up..."

A loud yet tame voice reverberated in the air, standing before us was Hyena standing there with a stunned expression.

"Cough, did I interrupt anything? I'm really sorry, please forgive me."

"I-its not like that!" Ruki yelled out in protest but Hugo couldn't even be bothered by this.

"Whatever, let's just patrol some more parts and maybe expand the perimeter some more, we need to see whether there's still some stuff we didn't pick up." Hugo shrugged and put his hands in his pocket.

"Ok!"

. . .

In City Z's most prominent park, a lone tree stood and within that tree... was a man. He lay there, stalking within the leaves listening in on conversations.

"Hahahaha, perfect being, huh? He is far from that, Hugo Smithson is far from perfect. His multiple flaws makes me want to kill him and see what makes his exterior so appealing!"

A man wearing glasses cackled to himself, seemingly unaware of his environment.

He and Ruki had similar goals, but different beliefs. His appearance would prove to be the trigger for the loaded gun that was Hugo's life.