The Marked Demon

"Damn! Just. Sit. Still!" a girl muttered as she ran through a dense forest, dodging trees left and right.

Ice shards were being materialised around the girl and launched deeper into the woods every few seconds. The target being a blue furred wolf, which had a few ice shards sticking out of its skin already.

The girl ran and ran, panting while still moving her arms back and forth, every time her hands moved an ice shard was launched.

She's been chasing the wolf for 5 minutes now and she was running out of patience. The girl then pulled her right arm back and instead of moving it forward immediately, let her arm stay in the air as ice appeared out of nowhere right above her palm. This particular shard is shaped longer than any of the shards she's thrown before.

It was a spear made out of ice!

Once it was complete, she halted her steps and pushed her arm forward. The spear launched with speed as it was boosted by her momentum!

It traveled through the air, even cutting a few branches along the way, its speed unhindered, until it pierced the blue furred wolf in the neck. The wolf fell and slid on the ground, it died without even being able to let out a single noise.

Seeing that her attack landed, the girl squeeled with joy and ran towards the wolf. But as soon as she saw the wolf's body, she cursed in her mind feeling stupid.

'Crap, I was supposed to hunt these things as cleanly as possible!'

As she was cursing in her mind, she heard a rustle from a bush near her. She stood still while getting ready to attack.

Then, a figure jumped out of the bushes, passing the girl just above her head.

The girl's eyes widened and launched a thin blade of ice towards the figure's neck. At the same time another figure jumped out of the bush!

As soon as she saw the second figure she flinched as she didn't expect another one to appear, realizing her mistake she hastily made another ice shard. But before she could launch it the first figure died from the ice blade, falling on the ground, and the second figure landed right in front of the girl.

At that moment, their eyes met as their faces were only a few inches away from each other's.

"Ah!" the second figure let out as they tried their best stopping their momentum, but it was futile and they crashed against the girl.

The two fell on the ground with the unknown figure on top of the girl.

"Ugh!" the girl groaned in pain.

Her eyes, which were closed after the figure fell on her, shot open as she pushed them off and got away.

She readied her stance, creating a few ice shards in the air and a knife made out of ice in hand.

"Ow.." the figure slowly stood up.

---

After standing up, he looked around. And just a few feet away from him, he saw a girl in a green robe holding a blue knife with several more of those knives, which he could only assume as ice, floating around her.

The girl had straight black hair that barely went past her shoulder, a pair of round black eyes, and was around 5'2". She had a pretty face but looked like she hasn't taken a bath for days. Well, not like he had taken any either.

'Ah, right!' he looked around and found a blue furred wolf with some of those ice things protruding from its body, making it look like a blue hedgehog.

He grinned, looking pleased 'There it is.'

He was just about to walk to the wolf's body when a clear, feminine voice rang through his ears.

"Hey, stay where you are." the girl spoke.

He turned his head towards the girl and said, "This is my prey, alright? I was the one chasing it, and before you say anything, yes I was able to kill it by my own."

"...What?"

"What?"

The girl looked at him funny and glanced around. Her head suddenly stopped and her eyes widened in realization.

He followed her eyes, and there it was, another blue furred wolf, but this one only had a single ice shard piercing its neck.

"Wait, what?" he said, confused.

"Were you chasing a blue furred wolf too before this?"

The girl nodded, but she was still looking at the second wolf's body.

"Can I take that one?" the girl pointed at the wolf which was cleanly killed.

"...Sure. I was planning on eating it, so the tattered one's fine for me."

The girl raised one of her eyebrows, then her eyes landed on his right hand. He was holding a dagger, the girl immediately understood, nodded once more and didn't say anything further.

He turned away and faced his soon-to-be meal.

Growl

He glanced towards the source of the noise, the girl was holding her stomach with one hand while her other hand was pointed towards her catch. Ice materialised around the wolf's body and it started floated along with it.

She was just about to leave before he said,

"Hey, wanna eat this together? It's enough for the both of us."

The girl glared at him, signaling something that he could only interpret as her not trusting him.

He held his hands up and smiled, "I won't try anything."

The girl glared at him again, but this time her glare was filled with disdain instead of what he thought was suspicion before.

"..."

The girl sighed, and walked towards him.

"Sure." she said, it was like she thought he wasn't much of threat because he was stupid.

His eyebrows twitched. He couldn't help but feel offended.

---

She was now sitting on a log, facing a fire, and on the opposite side of the fire was a boy she met just an hour ago.

His appearance was rather... unique? Or was it bland? He looked around 14-16, had clear blue eyes and short brown hair, which she couldn't tell was wavy or straight because he was wearing a hat.

He also wore a short cloak. Both his hat and cloak were pale blue in color. What she thought was a dagger an hour ago, turned out to be a broken sword, was now in the sheath on his waist. She found this out when he was cutting the wolf's meat earlier.

"So, what's your name?" the boy suddenly asked.

He was staring into the fire, as if he was deep in thought. The light seeping through the leaves gave him a melancholic look.

Now it was her turn to twitch her eyebrows.

'Is this guy an idiot? Why is he making that kind of face after eating lunch, in front of somebody that he just f*cking met? ...Wait, maybe he is actually an idiot. I was confused why he would trust somebody as strong as me, yet he said HE was the one not going to do anything.' she assumed the boy was weak, because who else would struggle catching a weak monster as a brute other than some hunter trying to scrap by?

This line of thought of hers happened within a second.

"Raven. My name's Raven. I'm a fourth rate mercenary." she replied.

"Oh! A fellow mercenary! I'm Adam, a third rate mercenary. Nice to meet you." his previous serious face turned bright.

"..."

'What the f*ck. He's higher ranked than me!?'

"Uhh... Are you sure you're a fourth rate? I thought you were at least a third rate like me. I mean, look at that magic control." he pointed at Raven's wolf, which was now frozen inside a huge ice cube.

"Haha.. I joined just 3 weeks ago."

'At least he knows I'm stronger than my rank.' she thought proudly, her pride, being wounded earlier was about to heal when...

"Oh, really? I joined 2 weeks ago." Adam said with a leisure smile.

"...How the.." Raven was about to curse under her breath.

"Heheh, I'm quite talented you see?" he rubbed his nose and grabbed the metal badge tied to his waist, a third rated mercenary badge.

Having had enough of Adam's gloating, Raven glared at him once more, stood up and controlled her frozen wolf to float.

"Ah, you're leaving? I guess it's time for me to leave too." Adam also stood up while stretching.

They both looked up at the leaves. Particularly, they looked at where the light was coming from. Then, they both walked south at the same time.

Once Raven realized they were going the same way, she asked, "Are you going to Silvia by any chance?"

"Yes?"

"Oh, okay. I'm going there as well."

"Ah, what a coincidence." he smiled.

'HOW IN GOD'S NAME HAVE I NEVER HEARD ABOUT THIS GUY IN SILVIA!? I THOUGHT HE WAS FROM SOME OTHER TOWN!!' she screamed in her mind while trying to keep a straight face.

Sure, Raven didn't spend a lot of time in the mercenary headquarters, but she thought she would've at least heard about a boy around her age getting instantly promoted to a third rate just 2 weeks after joining.

Then, an epiphany struck her, making Raven feel stupid once again, 'Wait a minute, why am I believing him? He's probably lying. Yeah, that's it! he probably stole that badge! And there's no way he's telling the truth because I would've actually heard about him if he wasn't lying...'

She kept on reassuring herself that Adam was lying, but in the end she dropped her head depressingly. She didn't think he was lying, because he sounded way too innocent and the fact if he wanted to steal the badge he needed to be at least as strong as a third rate as well... The first reasoning sounds stupid, sure. But to her, Adam sounded like a moron who couldn't lie even if his life depended on it.

The person Raven was mocking on the other hand, was trying his hardest not to laugh at the girl. Her face contorted into a frown 10 minutes ago and hasn't stopped. He could more or less guess what Raven was thinking, and just that alone almost made him laugh out loud.

In truth, Adam didn't lie at all. Everything he said was all true. Raven seemed like the kind of person with a high ego. You know, the ones that secretly thinks they're better than everyone else, so he decided to mess with her a little bit.

And the moment he thought of that, Adam's face froze.

'...'

'I'm a hypocrite, aren't I?' he thought. Adam also had the 'I'm better than you' mindset.

His smile turned bitter.

In a forest, a boy and a girl walked side by side, both in a bad mood because of their own train of thoughts.