A living legend

Once upon a time, there was a girl from small village. She dreamed to be an explorer, just like her father which she adored. Her father was, retired now adventurer. He travelled across the world and met various people. Why was he living in such a small village then? It's love. He fell in love with a woman living there. He stopped taking on dangerous requests and simply started to cultivate the land. Not soon later, his daughter was born.

Always excited to hear new stories and adventures before sleep, girl begged her father each day. Sword practices weren't her thing though. She was much better with a bow. At the age of 15, she decided that she is ready to travel across the world as her father used to do. She set off after consulting her parents. Her first destination was the closest big city, Prisio. That's where her adventures were supposed to start.

She found her way to adventurer's guild and got registered as newbie adventurer. Excitement was written all over her face. Few minutes later, she was invited by a newly created party of newbies. She agreed to join them as they were also very close to her age. Leader, Rick, decided that they should go to "Nightmares Forest", because there's very easy way to profit from the missions based on collecting rare herbs and fauna samples from there. She was hesitating, but agreed after leader's confirmation that they are going only to collect herbs. Profits should be distributed equally so 20% for each person.

With money on their mind they set off to very dangerous location crossing South with East. Then ventured through woods and took some herbs. When they fulfilled their quota, leader asked his comrades if they should go further and try finding something unique. Girl was absolutely against it, she protested, but rest of the party agreed, so she didn't have any other choice, but to go with them.

After few minutes, they already were lost. Mist covered their range of view and they had some kind of illusion effect on them. They all agreed at that moment that they should run back and go out of this place as fast as possible, it was too creepy and scary. No sooner, they were ambushed by monsters living in this mysterious forest, Hell Grizzlies. With the strength of 50 men, 6 meters in length, they were easily able to kill their prey and shatter even iron armor. On top of that they were also very agile and fast, kids that just recently become adults, like this party, had no chance to even dream about outrunning them.

If you can't beat your opponent, then run. That's the basis of survival for novice adventurers. But what to do, when you can't outrun enemies? That's a taboo between guild members. They don't pry what happened in dungeons and dangerous locations. That's the responsibility of an adventurer to get yourself a trustworthy party. The answer was obvious, but no one wanted to talk about it. It was sacrifice.

Who should you sacrifice? People that came with you from this same village, or a girl that just recently joined you? This was also easy to predict. There was only one misfit in their party. They left this small girl by pushing her into the mud, stopping her from escaping and run away by themselves. "Guild can't suspect you if they don't have any proof, right? Let's just say that we were ambushed by this monsters and she couldn't survive." That was the motive behind their actions.

Miserable girl was left out, completely alone in unknown and dangerous place, all on her own. "That's not how it was supposed to be. Father never said anything about it!" Girl started crying but managed to dodge attack of the two monsters that were near her. She started to run. Getting some time to spare and distance herself more from monsters by running in-between trees that were close to themselves and by doing so, stopping them for some time, she managed to get away from them for some time.

Yet, she was cornered. She found herself facing the wall, very high rock wall. Bears also caught up to her. She was once more in despair. Cornered, depressed, crying, exhausted, that's the definition of this girl at that time. She began to punch the wall as an act of desperation. She knew that this won't make any difference, but she never stopped, that was only thing left she could do to not get even more depressed. Bears got closer and closer, they were already in the range to attack her. One attack is enough to kill a child like her. One of the Hell Grizzlies raised its paw to the air and struck down to end this miserable life. But… she's alive?

In the last second, she started up some ancient mechanism. It opened secret doors in the wall through which she fell and managed to take cover from this two ferocious monsters. She ventured to the deepest part of the structure in order to find something that could possibly help her get out of this place alive. In one of the rooms in this underground-like-shelter, she found small box and a note.

"This artifact will make you stronger, but the weak will pay the price for using not their powers to kill the strong. You can't achieve power without drawbacks. If you are prepared, then open this box and accept its powers." Girl was determined to make it out alive and knew that she can't do it on her own. She opened the box and saw black colored gem and a note. When she raised this gem with her hand, she felt pain near her eye, very close to her right eye appeared a crevasse, as if her face was shattered by mystic powers. She, then, felt better and took the note. "Go East. You can only find the truth there." She knew that sooner or later she will have to find out mystery of this place.

She returned to this opened doors, near which those two monsters were waiting for her. "I wish you would die" she said, and that's what happened, they were shattered into pieces with her wish. As a drawback, she got even more crevasses across her face and neck. "I guess that's the price I need to pay to survive." After getting everything she could from those bears into her bag, which was enchanted with expansion magic given to her by her parents in her 15th birthday, she returned to the guild to inform about what happened.

She reported everything to different receptions than the one who gave her novice adventurer's license. This receptionist was shocked, because not so long before, her former party's members came to her and reported that she died in an ambush. They got sent to jail for abandoning and sacrificing other person. They got what they deserved.

When she showed remnants of Hell Grizzlies, the receptionist backed off in fear but took them and gave appropriate reward for both, collected herbs and monsters and told girl to come to the guild next day.

Day passed and girl was on her way to the guild, when she was her first receptionist concerned about her health. Receptionist asked if everything was alright to which girl responded positively. What was the concern of the receptionist? Girl's face had scars, her hair changed color from brown to gray and her eyes, from naïve-blue, become red. She didn't look like a novice, she looked like a veteran that know the way across the battlefield. When girl went to the guild, she got her license back, but this time with D-rank, her contribution was enough to be promoted straight from F-rank up to D-rank.

That was the starts of the legendary scout, who could hide her presence and not give even a second for their opponents to react. She became and S-rank adventurer, a living legend. The only one scout that managed to achieve that feat while working solo. She is mysterious, always comes and leaves without a trace, nor even sound. She is master at hiding presence from others. She is well known for her amount of information, the best informant in whole Southern region. Now she's into hiding, there's big probability that she's currently residing inside the capital of Koria kingdom, a meritocracy. And her name? Sheila. She's proud of her name given to her by her parents.

After becoming strong and famous, she started her own informant guild that collected all information from every country of this world. What she needed? Information about East. After getting enough information and making preparations, she set off to conquer the East and find the truth. She ventured alone, as she always does. The last time she was heard of was when she was spotted in deserted and destroyed city, Terraspeili. She found a note there, "I'm sorry Kizair, it shouldn't be like that. I'm sorry. It was never meant to be." After that she was never seen again. Is she dead? Or maybe she's still hiding and finding out the truth? Or maybe she couldn't bear the truth and disappeared? Nothing is certain. What we know is that she's a living legend, a true myth of this world. The next time we hear from her will be probably unexpected as always.

By: It_is_me_DEUS#8162

Source: discord.gg /NdqjAZQesA

Hope you like it!