An old lumberjack

In an old cabin, hidden away in a dark forest, there, many murders had taken place.

Tales mentioned that the cabin housed an old lumberjack who would only come home in the middle of the night when the moon was full. According to those tales, he would swing his axe at anyone who had dared to enter his cabin — swiftly chopping their head off.

But the cabin wasn't the only thing that had accumulated a mountain of tales over the years, the forest too was equally haunted. When the sun was still up, it looked like a normal forest, but whenever the sun went down the forest became pitch black and the spirits that resided deep within the forest emerged, the moon's beautiful glow was the only thing that prevented the forest from becoming completely pitch black. but the moon wasn't always present, sometimes the clouds would block it's glow and sometimes it just wasn't there at all.

Luckily tonight wasn't one of those nights, the moon shined bright which illuminated thin parts of the forest, that included the cabin.

The cabin sat peacefully in a middle of a small clearing in the forest, from time to time students holding cameras would come in, they wanted to know if the tale was true, unfortunately for them, it was.

This time 4 people entered the cabin. After a while the cabin's door swung open, the same 4 people emerged from inside the cabin, leading them was a man wearing a black hoodie, he had dark purple hair and a bloody bat in his left hand.

The bat he held felt odd, although it looked like a normal bat something about it just felt odd. He then waved his hand at one of the women that were following him, signaling something. All of a sudden the bat turned into a beautiful silver sword, the sword had a faint white glow to it, and attached to its guard were 3 pairs of wings, ironically, seeing a sword — that was made to kill — bathed in blood was even more disturbing than the bloodied bat, Seeing its white glow covered by a dark blood red felt wrong.

While they were walking, a blue-haired guy came forward.

"Hey, John!" He yelled,

"What'd you think of my fighting skills back there? hm?"

He asked, waiting for an answer, but the guy leading them — John — stayed silent and continued wiping the blood off his sword.

"Pffffttt!!!!" A brown-haired girl laughed.

"Did you see that? Pwuahahahaha!!!"

"Fuck off!!!" The blue-haired guy raised his middle finger

"You got ignored!!! HAHAHAHA!!!" She laughed even harder.

"Did you see that!!! Jay just got ignored!!!" She yelled while putting her arm around a pink-haired girl's shoulder.

The pink-haired girl sighed "Tina, don't... " she said with a tired face.

"What? C'mon Quinn, we just finished an assignment. Lighten up a little!" She said before she continued laughing her ass off

Jay continued bickering with Tina when all of a sudden John lifted his sword up to Jay's neck almost slicing it in the process

"W-what's up John?"

John didn't reply, he didn't even bother to look at him.

"Was I being too loud? You want me to shut up?" Jay asked nervously.

John inched his sword closer to his throat, shutting him up immediately. He then removed his sword from his throat and pointed it at a bush in front of them.

He then put his finger in front of his lips, implying they stay quiet. Jay nodded, drawing his sword, he slowly approached the bush making barely any noise. Then, he suddenly disappeared and reappeared on top of the bush stabbing the bush from above.

A loud squeak came from the bush. When he lifted up his sword, a bloody bunny was stuck to it. He threw the bunny on the floor, John stepped closer and kneeled in front of it, as the bunny started to bleed out, it suddenly disintegrated into black dust leaving behind a glowing blue gem that was about 2 cm tall.

"Was it a conjured?" Jay asked,

John swayed his head left to right, implying it wasn't.

"Oh, so the bunny was possessed?" He asked again, raising his eyebrow.

John once again swayed his head left to right.

"What? Then what was it?"

After a while, John finally spoke, "The bunny wasn't a conjured, the parasite on its back was."

He grabbed the gem and threw it towards Jay, "keep it."

"Nice! Although it probably won't sell for much, Thanks anyways!" Jay smiled.

Suddenly, John gripped his sword tighter and went into a battle stance, the leaves of the trees rustled. Everyone got into a battle position.

In front of them appeared a herd of deer stampeding towards them, John instinctively slashed all the deer that were unfortunate enough to be in front of him, once he realized they weren't a threat he put his sword back. 'It was just a few deer…' He thought, sighing in relief.

Jay then stepped closer to the dead deers,

"how much do you think these'll sell for?" He asked Tina.

"Don't know, why're you asking me?" Tina shrugged.

"Oh well, we can't carry all of these back anyways." Jay got up,

"Quinn, can you use 'disguise' yet?" He looked at Quinn who stared at the deer in pity.

Then, once again, the leaves shook, John flinched. Then, a group of highschoolers emerged from the dark, they happily laughed and chatted away without a single care in the world

'What? High school students?' John thought.

John lowered his sword and waved his hand at the group, signaling them to lower their weapons.

"Look were here! Huh? Who are those?" A student looked at them in confusion.

"Are you cosplayers?" Another student asked, looking at their clothes and weapons.

"Yes we ar-" Tina got interrupted

"No." said John with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

John drew his sword and sliced the first kid's head, the blood from his neck spurted like a fountain, drenching John and the other student's in blood. The students were frozen in fear, after processing what had just happened, they collectively screamed, some of them fell on their knees while others attempted to run, but none of them could escape John's holy blade, that was now completely covered in blood, there were almost no traces of it's white glow.

While the students screamed and panicked, Quinn, who was staring at John saw a faint grin appear on his face, She was usually happy to see John smile, but this case was an exception.

The group looked at the dead students' body in pity, even thought they felt bad for the students, this was the best death they could possibly have in this forest, if they had left them alone they would have died brutally to the hands of a spirit. If they offered to guide them out of the forest the highschoolers would probably decline anyways, and even if they did agree, either John runs out of patience or some spirit woudn't be able to resist so many humans in one place. But even though this was the case they still wanted to atleast try to help them.

"They were going to die anyways." John said in an annoyed tone, John then drew his sword out again and pointed it at the trees in front of them, the group looked at the direction John was pointing at, it was faint but they could see a sillhouette of a tall and slender spirit.

"They only survived because that thing was hunting" The group had came to the same conclusion, there was absolutely no way they could have survived the forest alone.

John grabbed a piece of cloth from his pocket and started wiping his blade once again, but after a while the cloth became too bloody to be able to absorb anymore blood, when he tried to wipe the blood of his arm it only smudged it further. He looked like he was wearing red gloves, and in a forest full of starving spirits, being engulfed in the scent of blood was dangerous, but John did not seem to be worried at all. He then threw the cloth on the floor and turned away.

"Let's go." John commanded the group. When John and the group syarted to walk away the spirit disappeared.

After a bit of walking the group felt tons of eyes watching them, they did their best to ignore them but it proved to be difficult. It was the haunted forest after all, a place that was infested with spirits.

John on the other hand looked completely fine, he did not look bothered at all. He had all ready gotten used to the hungry stares of the spirits as he would always be sent here — to finish assignments that the higher ranking Sectors were too afraid to do — all the time. But it seemed John wasn't the only one who was forced to get used to things he didn't want to, the forest on the other hand got used to seeing John mercilessly murder most of it's habitats, although new ones would always replace them, seeing them dead wasn't a very good feeling, if forests can even feel those kind of things at all.

Even though there was tons of spirits around them nothing dared approach them, it wasn't because they were strong — although they were— it was because the competition around was too fierce, even if the spirits were dumb they could still feel fear as that was one of the only emotions that kept them alive, and right now fear was the only thing they could feel. Their hunger wasn't even comparable, all kinds of predators had gathered to prey on the Exorcist, exorcists were much more fullfilling than those measly highschoolers

— who probably had no spirit other than their own — Plus, the blood dripping down from John must've smelled absolutely delightful to them.

When the group had finally reached the forest's exit, a small and modern-looking rectangle that was sticking out of the ground came into view, when the group got closer to it, a button next to a pair of metal doors could be seen, it appeared to be an elevator. John with his bloody hand pressed the button leaving a fingerprint of blood.

When the group entered the elevator there were buttons that counted from 1–5, Quin — the pink-haired girl — came forward and pressed the 5th button, the elevator ride was quiet but the atmosphere was unusually calm, when the elevator doors finally opened in front of them appeared a very clean and straight hallway, at the end of it two big doors sat, luckily the group had no business there.

They got out of the elevator and enterd a door that was on the right of the elevator, once they were inside, the group stared in awe at the size of the office, they hadn't seen such a big office before, John on the other hand had seen this office time and time again,

'They could have atleast changed the layout of the office, it's the very same one.' He thought.

A black-haired man who seemed to be in his mid-forties sat behind the desk and turned around, he looked at John's arms and hands which were covered in blood. He then looked at the blood that had dripped drown onto the carpet with an annoyed expression. After a while, he coughed before finally speaking.

"ah, are you the group from Sector 2? Hmm, what was it? Nets?"

"It's Nest..... sir." John spoke, although it seemed like he forced the last part of his sentence, the man didn't seem to notice.

"Ah, ofcourse, my bad. Well, did you finish the assignment i gave you?"

John looked at Quinn and gave her a nod.

"Yes, sir. The spirit was estimated to be at least a rank 31, it had a kill count of 16. It used a conjured body instead of possessing one, and as for it's ability, when we were battling it, it appeared to have used some sort of telekenetic ability. Allowing it to throw the axe at us and then pull it back." Said Quinn

"Hm, very well. Thank you."

But as soon as John and the group turned around to leave, he spoke again.

"To be honest i would've made you write a report about it, but since you belong to Sector 2 i don't have the authority to do that. What a shame..."

He sighed before continuing,

"Well i guess the gem you got from killing it should be enough to pay for that, hm?"

The room fell silent,

'Ah, so he wants the gem.' John thought, 'This shameless old bastard, should i kill him? Would i be able to?' but before he could answer Quinn intervened.

"As you said before, we belong to Sector 2, so unless we make our way up the ranks and get transfered to Sector 4, you do not have the authority to command us."

"You already broke quite a few rules by asking us to defeat a spirit for you when we don't even belong in the same Sector." Quinn continued

"Hahaha, very well then. I will look forward to the day you

arrive at Sector 4, i'll give you a warm welcome with open arms!" He said, while giving a creepy grin,

"Tsk." John turned away and gritted his teeth in annoyance.

'Atleast that's done with.' He thought,

Once they got out everyone was silent, the atmosphere felt tense, and after a while of silence, Jay spoke

"John?" He asked.

John turned his head with an annoyed expression "What!?" He said.

"Nevermind, it's nothing." He muttered.

John turned away and started walking back into the forest, "We're going through the forest, it's quicker than going around it." He said in a more calmer tone.

While they were walking, they once again they felt eyes from all directions — watching them — , John wasn't too bothered by this before, but since his patience was already thined out, he was getting more annoyed by the second. He paused and drew out his sword, the group was surprised, they didn't know what John was going to do, then John took a deep breath and continued walking, the group gave a sigh of relief. They weren't worried about John hurting them, instead they were afraid he might hurt himself.

As soon as John withdrew his sword the atmosphere suddenly felt more calmer, when all of a sudden something appeared right infront of John, causing him to bump into it. But instead of hitting something cold and flesh-like — which was what John expected, — he felt like he had hit his head on a cold peice of rock.

John looked up, and to his surprise, It was the same spirit from before, the one that was following the students.

The group stared at it for what seemed like minutes, after a few more seconds of staring John took out his sword and waved his hand signaling that the others do the same. So they did, they took out their weapons and prepared for battle, but the spirit just stood there doing nothing, still as a rock.

The atmosphere felt tense, everybody was staying alert, wondering who would make the first move, John or the spirit.

The group could probably deal with it quite easily so they tried signaling John to make the first move. John turned around and nodded, he stood up straight, leaving his battle stance, he then kneeled on one knee as if he were preparing for a race. He took a deep breath in and a deep one out, then all of a sudden he ran.

He ran straight towards the spirit pointing his sword straight to it's stomach, hoping to pierce it. The spirit did nothing at first but when John got near, it tilted it's head slightly downwards, looking directly at John. Although it had no face John could still make out an expression, it wasn't scared, or nervous, it wasn't even surprised, instead it was smiling. It's smile reached from ear to ear, literaly. John got both creeped out and annoyed by this, but he ignored it and continued with his plan.

He didn't like the way the spirit smiled at him, thinking about it made him want to kill it even more, so he ran even faster, he was so close to reaching it but once he was about to so, he suddenly dissapeared and then reappeared above the spirit, aiming for it's head. This was John's plan, to take the spirit by surprise.

'Sayonara, bitch.' John thought as he was about to hit it's head, when all of a sudden he felt a sharp pain coming from his stomach.

John coughed up a good amount of blood, "What." He looked at his stomach in shock.

The group, stared in disbelief.

"John!" Jay yelled.

"What.... is, that?" Tina shivered, staring at John's stomach.