Having A Hunter Make A History Test Was A Mistake

Rita read and read the first page of the data repeatedly. Her eyes glued to the screen. It has been hours of decoding and the more she decrypted the harder it was to continue. Looking down to the single page of the entry she read it once more.

The sighting of a hunter was rare. The sighting of a 0th generation hunter was even rarer. The 0th generation hunters act as a balance. Although the first Herrscher was recorded at year **** That wasn't the first ever eruption.

The first eruption was thousands of years ago. The reason why they weren't recorded nor known is because they were shut down before they could grow in power. The Herrscher at that time were hunted down immediately before they could even awaken their full powers. The space around them was contained to prevent the leaking of Honkai energy that would affect the environment.

The first ever appearance of the 0th hunter was at year **** When I, the observer. The only living soul that watched the hunt of a 0th generation hunter and lived to tell about it. I acquainted myself with them with the deal that information about this is to be kept away from other people. Eventually I myself integrated into the hunt. I became a hunter, but the 0th generation hunters wanted me to be their companion to record their hunts, so that later generations can learn of their ancestors' hunts.

The first hunt I witnessed was when I was accompanying Elijah. One of the 12 0th generation hunters. His raw strength was capable of tearing apart Honkai beasts with his bare hands. The fight I witnessed when I saw him and The Herrscher of Ice clashed. His fist punching the ice projectiles the Herrscher sent, his kicks splitting her walls and barriers.

A Herrscher was being overpowered by raw strength. A Herrscher was being toyed by a human. A Herrscher turned prey, and a hunter that was enjoying the fight.

When the battle finished I watched as Elijah dragged the Herrscher back to their base. The Herrscher wasn't chained, but she knew. She could feel the gap between their power and when they arrived in the hunter's base she didn't dare to cause any trouble. All around us were hunters that had their weapons ready. This scene looked more like a nation sending a delegation to another nation, but the Herrscher was currently a prisoner.

They asked for her cooperation, but she rejected the offer and asked them to kill her. They took the rejection, but did not give her the death she wanted. They brought the Herrscher into a facility that even I can't enter. Occasionally loud screams and spikes of Honkai energy would come from the facility and one could only imagine what the hunters were doing to a Herrscher.

Rita put down the data tablet back to the table, the other pages were still under decrypting and it would take a while before she could read the second page, but for now she needed to keep her end of the deal. Pulling up a hologram she started to tweak with the security around the 2nd divine key.

Now that the recording was tampered she stood up and exited the base. Walking away from the base she made sure no one was watching her before giving the go to Duke.

Duke who was now around the location received the message and smirked.

"I wonder how strong you are. Kevin Kaslana. The only man worth to be cloned as a guardian for a divine key,"

While Rita made her way towards the divine key without getting caught by surveillance and guards, Duke was in the main room, in front of him was a boy. A boy that resemble Kevin Kaslana.

When the boy saw Duke, his eyes widened before taking a stance.

"You," The boy coldly spoke, the atmosphere around them became cold as ice began to form on the floor.

"Hello. Even though you are a clone I doubt they left you without memories," Duke smirked as his greatsword slowly appeared beside him. The sword floated as he walked closer to the boy in front of him.

"Duke. The strongest third generation hunter," Kevin spoke as he formed an ice greatsword, with his current build it was actually cute seeing his tiny body holding up a greatsword.

"Kevin Kaslana, former leader of fire moth," Duke nodded and grabbed the handle of his greatsword.

"Why are you here?"

"I was bored,"

"Figures. You hunters are all the same. You especially. Where was all your love? Not even a month after her death you go out looking for amusement. Did you even grieve?" Kevin mocked Duke, the two had met and they had met in the past. Before the official meeting the two had clashed when Kevin tried to evacuate civilians from a village, Kevin saw Duke for the first time. Duke was carrying a woman to the group and kissed her before turning around and heading back to the village.

Kevin at the time wanted to question the woman about the man, who was he? Why did he run back, but when he heard a loud explosion in the village he quickly followed behind the man and when he arrived there was nothing but blood and corpses of Honkai beasts.

"Kevin Kaslana, a soldier of fire moth," The man turned around and the familiar mark that he has seen worn by dead people that they were unable to identify caught his attention.

"What is that mark? I've seen it many times. Who are you people?" Kevin asked, both his hands raised, his gun pointed and ready to shoot Duke.

"I am Duke. A hunter," Duke replied before he disappeared. Kevin looked around to find him to no avail, and when he came back to look for the woman she was no longer there. The villager said that they'd never seen the woman and that the man took her away a few minutes ago.

The next time Kevin laid eyes on Duke was when a village was burnt down, the villagers all dead, and Duke was holding a head. He was hugging it close, Kevin could recognize the familiar face and he could piece one and one together. It was the first time Kevin saw a hunter truly go crazy.

As time passed by, Kevin could see Duke hunting again, his face normal, no grief, no sorrow, no pain. Kevin hated him. He thought that Duke had already forgotten the woman and went about his life. Kevin confronted him only for the two to clash. During the fight Duke spoke.

"So what if she's dead? Can I do anything to bring her back? No. So why bother. The hunt is all that matters," Duke spoke emotionlessly as he struck Kevin on the shoulder and pushed him away.

"Never speak of this topic again. It has become a thing in the past that I do not wish to remember," Duke warned him, but time and time again Kevin would always mention this topic to spite him. In truth Kevin hated how easy it was for him to ignore the deaths of others, especially the ones close to him. Kevin wanted that, but he didn't know just how much Duke was haunted by the deaths of the people around him.

"What was her name? Lucia…" Duke swung before Kevin could finish, his sword cutting through the floor and a crescent shaped slash formed and hit the wall behind Kevin.

"Ah yes, Lucia Rossweisse," Kevin smugly smirked as he shot Duke only to be blocked by the flat side of his greatsword.

"A hunter and a civilian falling in love. How sweet, but sadly Lucia was framed and killed. Such a tragic love story," Kevin chuckled as he dodged Duke's attacks and shot his gun at Duke.

"How about you? A soldier falling in love with a researcher, and in the end because of your greed for power you couldn't even come into contact with her anymore," Duke smirked as his sword lit ablaze, his hand seemed to be unbothered, but black scales could be seen slowly covering the skin of his hand.

"Draconic type Honkai beast blood," Kevin muttered, the irises of Duke turned into slits like a reptile, his teeth slowly growing until most of them were now sharp.

"It's been a while since I've used this form," Duke smirked madly and in an instant he disappeared and reappeared in front of Kevin, his sword plunging forward.

Kevin managed to create an ice wall that curved to the right which made Duke's sword hit nothing. Kevin took this chance and raised an ice spike from the ground, hitting his abdomen, but the spike cracked as Duke's body was covered in black scales.

"Hadn't you brought up that topic. I would have spared you even though you are just a mere clone that has no more than a fraction of his power,"

"But in the end you are all the same. Valkyries, humans, fire moth, mantis, flame chasers, anti entropy, schicksal. You all strive for survival, that is what makes us different from you all. We hunters wouldn't think twice to let ourselves go extinct for the fun of it. We exist to protect humanity, not to survive. That is why we fight as if it is our last. Now times up. I'm getting bored," Duke pointed his sword towards Kevin, but before he could jump back Kevin could feel himself getting pulled towards Duke.

"Before I kill you let me ease your death a bit with some good news. The Honkai had never spent this much time trying to erase a civilization. This is the first time it took more than a thousand years," Duke smirked while Kevin knew what he meant when he said that.

"Even if you all die the Honkai would still lose against us,"

"Draconic feast," A head slowly formed behind Duke, a dragon that had black scales on its face, amber eyes that pierced Kevin's soul and teeth that was taller than an average human height.

"This was a mutated Honkai beast mixed with some other creatures. Who knew that it would create a creature that we thought was just a myth," Duke told him before Kevin was swallowed by the dragon and seeing that there was no resistance the dragon head slowly disappeared and Duke's body gradually returned back to normal.

"Fuck," Duke cursed as his shoulder tore open, and soon followed with his other shoulder. His torso soon was also ripped open, but he stood tall. He didn't fall down to his knees nor did he lose consciousness. This was the price he had to pay. After a while his Honkai blood started to heal him and slowly the wounds were closed. Soft footsteps could be heard when he was in the middle of healing, turning around he saw Rita with her scythe.

"If you have any plans on killing me, know that it will not end well for you," Duke smirked, Rita had that plan when she first arrived, but after hearing that conversation about Lucia. Those words somehow affected her decision.

"You dated my ancestor?" Rita bluntly asked, while Duke chuckled in amusement at how she worded it he nodded his head. He used his sword as support as he walked towards Rita.

"I've done the end of my deal. You may now collect your price," Snapping his hand the figure of little Kevin fell down, his body torn by something sharp all over, the wounds were similar with wounds a scythe would make.

"If you ever want to talk about it…" Duke started, but then stopped. "Nevermind let it be a memory in the past," Duke shook his head again. This inability to make a decision was slowly eating at him. This uncertainty was slowly driving him mad.

"See you around Rita," Duke disappeared while Rita was still staring at the spot he was standing.

"Yo.. you're still alive," Rita fell down on her knees as tears fell down to the floor. She wasn't sure before if that was him, but now she was. He had changed so much in the years. His brown hair was now black, while his once green eyes were now amber.

When she first saw him she thought nothing about him, but when they met during dinner. As the conversation continued she slowly felt familiar with his presence.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know if we can ever go back to how we were in the past," Rita stood up and picked up little Kevin's body to report to the overseer.

"But know that I still and will always love you," Rita spoke in her heart before trying to figure out how she'd report this to the overseer. But then a body fell down from thin air and a note was attached.

"Tell Otto that this guard notified you that something was wrong. She led you here and when a fight broke out she died in the hands of the protector and you defeated it, and don't worry I did some tweaking to the camera footage so that it would show this scenario." The body belonged to one of the guards that was on shift, she quickly returned to the base and checked on the cameras to see that the guard ran and kept on running until he met Rita outside the base, and then she and the guard ran to the divine key and that was where they were last spotted.

The next few days were uneventful as most people continued on with their daily lives. Civilians continue with their lives, their lives surrounded by ignorance. Valkyries trying their best to protect civilians. Anti Entropy trying to continue research Honkai and lastly the hunters, who continued to hunt down anomalies that should not be revealed yet.

St. Freya was crowded as they were preparing for an exam, Ethelred looked down on the stadium, some students' faces were anxious and nervous, while some had accepted their fate or were confident. His waist throbbed in pain as he walked down the stairs. Yesterday's spar was not enjoyable for him. Fu Hua was hell bent on at least breaking a few of his bones for the sake of training.

"Did you really have to hit that hard?" Ethelred asked the girl beside him who was reading her notes.

"Unlike you I have to do this test to pass," She spoke in an annoyed tone. Ethelred smirked as he knew of a way to mess with her.

"You do know that I am responsible for making part of the history quest right?" Ethelred smirked, Fu Hua's attention turned to him in an instant and glared at him.

"What the hell did you do for the test?"

"I improvised," Ethelred smirked and left her behind, opting to walk faster to the teacher's room to hide.

"Edmund!! Get back here!!" Fu Hua shouted as she tried to catch up to him, but unfortunately for her they were already close to the teacher's room and all that Fu Hua saw was Ethelred sticking out his tongue before closing the door.

The bells rang, signifying the start of the test and Fu Hua was now nervous.

"If he was responsible for half of the questions. I may be fucked," She Looked down to read the first question of the test.

Fu Hua managed to do the tests, but when it was time for history she paled.

Half the questions had questions with similar answers and with fifty multiple choice questions and twenty essays it made Fu Hua quite nervous with her results. Ethelred knew her, he knew her very well. The history she missed when she was healing was one of her weaknesses. She had years worth of history to catch up and she needed to do that.

"Ethelred you bastard if I lose my position in rank one because of history I swear I'm gonna beat the hell out of you," Fu Hua bit her thumb before continuing with the next question, skipping the previous question for later.

Ethelred had purposely minimized the usage of years and flat out giving out the events and made the students to slowly put in the years themselves and the questions were very long.

At the end of the day when the results were given many wondered why Fu Hua had her gauntlets on hand, but soon when they all saw the scoreboard she ranked second and first was Bronya Zaychick. The students thought that Fu Hua was going to try harder for the physical exams, but how wrong they were, the purpose of the gauntlets was for something more brutal.

The students around all discussed their history tests the most. It was the first time they struggled at history and thought that Professor Welt had stepped up the difficulty, but little they know it was just a hunter doing a prank on his beloved.

That night Ethelred was not seen and neither was Fu Hua. The two were on the outskirts of the city, Fu Hua who was chasing the man down while Ethelred who was dodging her punches.

"Come on you gotta try harder if you wanna hurt me," Ethelred taunted. A tick mark appeared on her shoulder as she used her ability to try and put him into an illusion, but that ability was immediately shut down by his eyes.

Lunaes was a Honkai beast that had abnormal control over Honkai energy, one of the reasons using a divine key wouldn't be advantageous is because he can cloud the weapon with Honkai energy and disturb the weapon's activation. All Ethelred needed to do was use his eyes and see the Honkai around them then control it.

When Fu Hua stopped to take a breath Ethelred stood in front of her just a few feet away from her. Fu Hua took a stance and hit him with all she had. Ethelred didn't even try to dodge as he opened his palm and caught Fu Hua's fist. Although he felt some bones fractured there were no heavy injuries that needed his immediate attention.

"It seems like it's time for me to help you regain some of that strength you've lost my little flame bird," Ethelred grabbed her chin and tilted her head up to meet his gaze.

Leaning down he gave her a soft kiss to calm her down, the latter did enjoy it for a while before pushing him away and huffing, her hands crossed in front of her shoulder and her head turned to the other way.