Chapter 2: Hunt

Slowing coming out of the pillar of light, Ruby finds herself looking at Rusty's back. He was looking at the surroundings with sword and shield in his hands.

"It's colder than I expected." Ruby says as she buttons up her shirt after the air brushed her cheek.

Looking around, they noticed several groups that were already out of the pillar of light and were heading down and into the forest at the foot of the mountain.

"You're not in a hurry like usual." Ruby looks at Rusty who looked nervous for some reason.

Rusty looks at her and forces a smile. "W-well… I didn't think the mountain would be this steep." He says as he looks down the mountain.

"But this isn't the first time we jumped unto a mountain though?" she was puzzled.

"J-just call for equipment." He changed the topic. "It's better to get the cooldown started since we're going to be down here the whole day."

Although a bit confused Ruby still followed his request and stepped forward with her staff.

"Clear the area." she instructed.

Before she started, she tapped the butt of her staff on the ground twice.

"Angels of Eden, listen to my prayer."

As she started to chant, the glass-like crystal on her staff started glowing and the air started to violently swirl in front of her.

"Se Dol Setra Wo Woro."

Upon finishing her call, she taps her staff again on the rocky ground. And upon doing so, the swirling air violently implodes and creates a small glowing circle of light in front of them.

"I've called for the usual equipment."

After getting told so, Rusty walks forward to the pocket of light and puts his right hand inside. And after feeling something inside, he pulls back his hand revealing a translucent piece of armguard.

"This feels a little different from last week." He inspects the gear. "Did you upgrade it?"

Because Rusty noticed the changes, Ruby felt proud of herself. "Of course! I'm finally a Tri-Star Cluster Rank. My Support Gears are now stronger. Not only that, I also was granted access to more Artifact Prints."

Hearing her brag, Rusty felt a little sting inside his chest. As if he could see a bridge getting bigger between them.

But as he grabs his chest out of frustration, he was reminded of the tattoo he had in secret.

He remembered that he had an Eden Crest, the mark of someone who wants to connect with their Goddess Hanlea to be granted a fraction of divinity.

He's fully aware of the dangers of attempting to activate this power for the first time. So instead of showing it to Ruby now, he'll only use it when it is truly needed.

I've heard people explode violently if the Crest rejects them. I'll use it as a last resort if Ruby's in danger.

Such thoughts floated inside his head which made him not tell her anything about it.

"You've been quiet for a while now. Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah."

Just as when they were looking at each other, they noticed something large moving at the foot of the mountain, completely towering over the forest.

It was a crab-like creature, but instead of claws for arms, it had tentacle-like limbs to move which is destroying the forest it's passing through.

"That's a General class Torum!" Rusty looked at the beast with excitement.

"But that's the opposite of where everyone's going." Ruby says as she points at the direction where the other Collectors have gone down and disappeared to.

"Well, who cares! The Torum Core on that thing would fetch a large price!"

Seeing as to how Rusty was excited to attack the giant beast, she yields and lets out a sigh.

"Fine, but we can't spend all of our AP recalls trying to take it down." She bargained a bit.

"How many AP recalls can you do now?"

"I can do 20 recalls now. They gave me five more after my promotion."

"So, we got 19 left now." Rusty says while looking at the gear on his right arm.

Ruby lets out a puff and taps her staff twice on the ground again.

"Angels of Eden, listen to my call. Se Wo Woro Ax Dol."

From beneath Rusty, the air explodes and creates a white light and envelopes his feet. When the light subsided, a pair of translucent greaves were formed on his legs.

Without saying anything, Rusty puts his shield and sword on his back then offers his hand to Ruby. And in turn, Ruby held his hand and got closer.

When she hopped to his chest, he immediately grabs her legs and carries her like a princess.

"Hold on tight."

"I always do."

With the boost provided by the greaves, Rusty starts running down the mountain and towards the direction of the titan sized beast in the distance with a speed so fast it shakes the air around them.

As they continue to get closer to the beast, Ruby puts her index finger and thumb together forming a triangle.

"Initiate Marking…" she says as she looks through the triangle. "Scanning Creature…"

As they get closer, Rusty starts slowing down while using the trees in the forest as camouflage to not get seen by the crab-like beast towering over them.

"Bio-signature scanned! It's a Siege Class Torum." She says as she lets out a disappointed sigh. "It might be large because it's a scavenger kind of beast."

"Damn it! I could've sworn this was General Class." Rusty was equally disappointed. "I guess the size is just for show."

Because the towering giant was too large to notice the tiny duo in its sights, the two managed to slip underneath it and went ahead of its course.

When the two finally arrived at a certain hill, Rusty puts down Ruby on the rocky ground.

He tried to reach for his sword and shield on his back, but while looking at the gigantic beast approaching, he let out a sigh and didn't take them.

"It's too large and armored for my basic weapons. I'm going to need something stronger." He says as he looks at Ruby behind him.

"How about Grand Executioner AP? That's a large sword."

"No, it looks like the armor is too thick for a sword to penetrate. I'm going to need a hammer. Grand Smith should be the go-to for this."

"But if you focus on breaking the armor, how will you kill it?"

Rusty looked at her and then gave her a smile. "Are your offensive calls just for show or what?"

Realizing that, Ruby lets out a short gasp. After that, she starts pouting as she realized as well that her partner was making fun of her.

Out of annoyance, she uses her staff to hit him on the head lightly. "Fine, I'll do the finisher."

After that, Rusty steps away from Ruby and watches her tap her staff on the ground again.

"Smiths of the Earth, listen to my call. Dol Dolika Se."

Instead of a white hole appearing, the ground itself cracks open and a large metal hammer emerges out of it.

"Got what you ordered." Ruby leans sideways to the hammer.

Without looking at the hammer, Rusty casually grabbed it like it was normal and lifted the hammer which was the same size as his whole body like it didn't have any weight at all.

But in truth, he was just so strong he could lift it without any problem. The greaves on the other hand, were not strong enough to not crack from the sheer weight of the hammer.

"You put most of your upgrades on Smith tech, didn't you?" Rusty says as he notices the cracks on the greaves.

"I wouldn't have if you weren't so abusive on your weapons." She refuted. "You break them faster than the cooldowns could reconstruct them."

"I told you to invest in your Sky tech!" he refuted back. "You're just wasting your chance to get recruited into better teams."

Ruby starts pouting and stares daggers at his back. "Are you trying to get rid of me or something?"

Rusty twisted his lips and immediately averted her eyes when he turned to her for a bit. "If you put it like that…"

She glared at him enough to make him start having a cold sweat, but after a while, let out a heavy sigh and shifted her attention to the approaching giant.

"Let's put that aside for now. My current Star Tech allows me to summon Rail Shot. That should be enough to kill it if you break its armor."

Seeing her change her mood, Rusty let out a sigh as well and shifted gears. He looks at the towering crab-like giant and focuses his senses on its movements.

"Provide support."

"That goes without saying."

With those as their last words to each other, Rusty dashes towards the giant beast with his hammer.

As he continues to run towards the beast, he does little hops with every step. And with enough momentum, he springs himself up and towards the beast.

With him and the hammer having airtime, he uses his right fist and taps his chest three times.

"Spirits of the World, listen to my call. Ax Dol Dolika Axcre!"

Upon invocation, the back of his hammer suddenly ignites and pushes the hammer into a rotation along with Rusty who was holding him.

As he continued to fall, he became a wheel of flame as his hammer was being propelled by the explosive flames.

When his hammer landed on the back of the giant crab beast, the sheer impact of the clash between metal and shell created a shockwave that made the trees in the forest bend away from the source of the explosion.

However, it wasn't enough to break the shell. It simply cracked it.

"Tough nut, are we?" He spoke to the beast even though it was incapable of speech.

Even so, it understood his intent which made it let out an ear deafening screech.

Normal humans would have their eardrums ripped open from the screech, but for Rusty who was a citizen of Eden, it was simply a childish whimper.

Just as Rusty was lifting his hammer, he notices one of its tentacle limbs fly at him. Immediately, he swings his hammer to parry the attack.

Unfortunately, he did not expect it to be softer than it looks, and his balance was thrown off as his hammer was thrown further than expected.

Moreover, the tentacle was unharmed.

It immediately went and wrapped around his body to restrain him.

"Shit!"

As he tried to get himself out, he saw another tentacle over his head and was about to crush his head with a slam.

But instead of getting scared, he simply looks at it calmly.

And as he expected, a rain of spears made of light penetrate the tentacle and pushes it away from his head making the beast hit its own head with its limb.

With the beast distracted by such an attack, the tentacle wrapping him was weakened. And with a shout, he spread his arms out so hard that it ripped the tentacle and sprayed its purple blood on him.

Ignoring the blood on him, he bangs his chest with his fist again three times.

"Spirits of the World, listen to my call. Ax Se Setra"

Almost immediately, his fist ignites into flames that seemingly doesn't harm him. When he grabs the hammer, the flames creep on it and sets it on fire.

Just before the beast tries to attack Rusty again, he jumps to the sky to evade with his flaming hammer. And with it, he lets gravity do the work for him.

As he falls towards it, he takes a deep breath and grabs the handle with both hands while focusing all his strength on his arms.

When he finally lands, he slams his hammer on the beast's shell, breaking it with an explosion of flames, and exposes its soft insides.

Because of such a fierce attack on its head, the beast lands its belly on the forest beneath them as its legs became too shaky to support its weight.

"Ruby, NOW!"

Hearing his signal, Ruby draws an impressed smile as she taps her staff on the ground with her other hand spread out.

"Stars of Celestia, listen to my call."

Immediately, a large circle with writings in the sky appeared as if the stars themselves were drawing it.

"Wo Dol Dolika Setra Wo Woro."

Upon invocation, a hexagon appears in the center of the large circle and started rotating rapidly.

"Rail Shot!"

As she points her staff at the beast, the hexagon as it rotates shrinks into a tiny light. And before it could create a sound, it drew a line through the sky which traced itself to the beast.

With the entry point being its exposed shell, it had a hole in it the size of a human head. But the exit point, which was the lower belly was blasted off and had chucks of its innards and blood splattered all over the forest floor creating a purple forest.

After a while, Ruby catches up with Rusty and looks at him trying to dig through the chunks of innards and meat of the giant beast.

"You still haven't found the Torum Core?" she asked as she covers her nose with her hand.

"The thing's insides are too soft that the explosion of the Rail Shot turned it into minced meat from the inside." He says as he keeps hacking and slashing the purple meat all over the place.

"Well, do that before other Collectors show up to vulture the carcass." While saying so, Ruby searches through her tiny satchel on her waist and takes out a small metal box that has a button on it.

"Isn't it a bit too early to call the Guild?" Rusty asked without his hands stopping.

"It's a large piece of meat. We can get a few extra chips for it."

"A few? How much are we looking at?"

"Well, considering the dismantling fees, commission fees, delivery fees, and income tax, I'm looking around 10 gold chips."

Hearing the small number, Rusty let out an exasperated sigh and hung his head over his shoulders.

"That's such a small payout for a kill this big…" he cries inside.

"It can't be helped. This thing is impossible to bring back to the city on our own."

As Rusty continues to dig into the flesh, his sword finally hits something hard enough to get it lodged inside. Seeing that, his mood turned from sour to excitement.

"About time this thing showed itself!" he excitedly pulls back his sword.

When he finally pulled out the thing, it was a green glowing crystal that looked more like a colored rock.

"Can you scan this for me?" He offers the crystal to Ruby.

Ruby then puts her index finger and thumb together and scanned it with her magic.

"It's a C-grade Torum Core. Not really that expensive, but the size should make up for it." She gave her assessment.

"How much are we looking at?"

"Probably around 30 gold chips?" She guesses. "Probably, if they don't try to haggle it down."

"Not bad then. It should cover the rent for the next six months."

Hearing those words, Ruby pouted while looking at Rusty who was happy looking at the large crystal on his hands.

"You know, you can always live with me and my family." She suggested. "Everyone at home considers you as family."

Rusty pauses for a bit as his smile disappears. After that, he makes a melancholic expression as he looks at the crystal core.

"You know I can't do that."

"You know what happened wasn't your fault. It was the Guardian's."

"No, it was mine."

He looks at Ruby with a lot of shame in his eyes. Even though he had such feelings inside, he still forced himself to look at her.

"Your father shouldn't have sacrificed his life in exchange for mine."

"I-"

Just before Ruby spoke, a loud horn suddenly reverberated and stole their attention.

Looking at the sky, it was an airship made of wooden materials and was tied to a balloon.

Using searchlights, Ruby and Rusty were made visible by the crew on the ship.

And because of that, Ruby's words were cut off leaving Rusty to have the final words.

"I am thankful for his sacrifice, but he shouldn't have died for me."

-End of Chapter-