PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

Faster than the wind, the winged member of the pair flew off looking from side to side with a happy smile and cheerful attitude.

“Happy to be back home Kyuru?” Seeing the fairy’s energetic attitude, Desmond couldn’t help but ask.

Pausing mid-flight, Kyuru seemed to think about it for only a fraction of a second before shaking her head and commenting with a fond expression, “No, I’m just happy to visit this place once again, but this is no longer my home; you are my home now Desmond”

Immediately the emotional waves that Desmond had become sensitive to since that day began to come with intensity, the fairy’s words as always were honest but this time they were filled with unprecedented warmth.

A light pink aura began to form between the two only to be interrupted by the most annoying creature in the entire Serefia forest... An aqua rabbit.

Its plump body covered in soft-looking immaculate white fur, its adorable ears adorned with tiny crystal horns that emanate aquatic mana, with its little nose constantly sniffing; the aqua bunny was as deceptively cute as ever.

That little feeling of nostalgia left Desmond dumbstruck as he saw the stupid rabbit start shooting water spheres in his direction, Desmond’s expression turned exasperated as he used the back of his hand barely covered by a thin layer of soft mana to repel with ease the pathetic attack of the aqua rabbit.

But Desmond had overlooked how stupidly aggressive the aqua rabbits were, not even caring about the clear difference in strength and how easily Desmond had fended off his attack; the aqua rabbit transformed into a water revolver that fired relentlessly.

.....

Genuinely annoyed by the adorable creature’s eternally suicidal attitude, Desmond just waved his hand dismissively causing a small tentacle of water to come out of the ground, grabbing the aqua rabbit by the neck and launching dozens of meters away without killing it.

“I guess you didn’t miss those idiot rabbits,” Desmond commented sarcastically.

Contrary to expectations, Kyuru replied, “I certainly don’t miss being attacked on sight by aqua rabbits... but I’m dying to try some rabbit stew.”

Somewhat speechless by Kyuru’s expression who was drooling at the thought of eating rabbit, Desmond shook his head and prepared to pull out the hunter’s book and start on his way to his mission objective.

Only to have to repel a water bullet again, after a small twitch of anger on his face, Desmond looked to his right only to find the stupid rabbit from moments ago now supported by three other rabbits.

“One after another, you idiots don’t learn, do you?”

Desmond’s words of exasperation were quickly answered by a hail of water bullets that failed to even penetrate the barely perceptible layer of mana that covered Desmond’s body as a passive defense.

Half an hour later, both Desmond and Kyuru found themselves sitting comfortably enjoying the scenery as they both feasted on a nice bowl of rabbit stew.

“Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that it is worthed being harassed by those idiotic rabbits, it’s like they came jumping into the kitchen pan on their own.” Finishing off his third plate of stew, Desmond seemed quite satisfied.

Unfortunately, the only person presents able to comment on that was Kyuru who was too busy gorging herself on her third plate of stew. Quite defenseless against the gluttony of the fairy, Desmond opened the hunter’s book, to review the data of the mission that was entrusted to him.

<Mission: Protect the holy priestess.

Description: The holy priestess of the Church of Eternal Light of the Serit Empire has been marked for death by those who consider her an obstacle, but her faith remains unshaken and her heart remains pure; thus attracting the attention of a celestial.

Objectives:

1) Protect the safety of the holy priestess for thirty days.

2) Protect the honor of the priestess for thirty days.

3) Make those who attack the priestess pay (optional)

4) Defend order and justice. (optional)

Rewards:

1) 10,000 hunter credits.

2) A blessing from the celestial that granted the mission.

3) An artifact. (optional, the level will depend on the fulfillment of the optional objectives).>

From the mission description, Desmond already had some vague idea of ??the identity of the woman he would have to protect for thirty days but would have to wait until he met her in person to be sure.

The objectives of the mission were somewhat clear and vague at the same time, with points one and three being quite simple as they consist of keeping the woman safe and making those who tried to harm her pay, in the first place and when it comes to making others suffer; Desmond had more than one trick up his sleeve though he certainly found the protecting priestess part a bit tricky as protection was not his strong suit.

As for point number two, Desmond found it a bit vague since the meaning of honor and what could harm it was pretty relative but he figured he’d be fine as long as he made sure no one insulted Priestess too harshly or tried to do anything impious to her.

And it was of course point number four that Desmond found the most annoying, aside from how ridiculously vague it was in its description, the fact that it sounded like Katya was asking him to become a hero of justice annoyed Desmond a lot.

Desmond might respect Katya because of her background and her title as Archangel of Justice and Balance but that didn’t mean he appreciated those values ??on a personal level.

In the first place, Desmond had grown up to despise values ??as ambiguous and useless as justice, after all, what justice was there in what happened to his parents?

What justice was there in all the suffering he went through and the sacrifices he had to make? In a world where the weak are devoured by the strong, justice was nothing more than an illusion.

As for the topic of heroes? Desmond had his own opinions about them. Since he was little he had read to Claire hundreds if not thousands of stories about heroes of justice, charming princes who fight the dragon, or champions who oppose the gods; mostly stories tied to ancient mythology since Claire’s parents had a library full of those kinds of books.

And while Desmond admired those heroic deeds, he had always despised the naivete and the half-hearted ideals, that was especially the case after the day of awakening.

Those who are not willing to cover their hands with blood, to make the necessary sacrifices, and are not willing to plunge into darkness; are destined to fail when faced with great difficulties and great evils.

Desmond particularly despised those heroes who gave up or even sacrificed what they loved for the sake of justice, as someone who was completely tainted by darkness while trying to protect what he held dear in his heart; Desmond would never accept the way of thinking of those self-proclaimed heroes.

So he immediately chose to ignore the fourth target and settle for whatever reward he got, he was here to repay Katya in the first place so the reward was never his true goal.

Finishing reviewing the mission description and having given it some thought, Desmond set off with the now sleepy Kyuru sitting on his shoulder heading south, since the little information he got before coming here was the location of the city ??he was supposed to go to serve as the protector of the so-called holy priestess.

He was also given a 48-hour window of time before he had to reach the priestess’s location and begin protecting her, considering that he had nearly a hundred miles between Desmond’s location and the target point unless Desmond was willing to spend a moderate amount of mana; he really would barely have the time to get there.

Not even thirty minutes passed before Desmond’s leisurely journey was interrupted by a visit from another old acquaintance.

“Were these that big before?” Desmond commented on being confused to see Skyr ventis almost twice as big as he remembered.

GROOOOOWL*

Just the beast’s roar let out huge fluctuations of mana through the wind and Desmond didn’t even need to use the analysis function in the hunter’s book to figure out that this was a beast in the mid or high stages of the one-star class.

Remembering how tyrannical the Skyr Ventis’s strength was even among beasts of its kind, a predatory grin soon spread across Desmond’s face as he glared at the Skyr Ventis with intent.

“It’s time to test some of the results of my training”

Hitting the void to the right of him a small shockwave spread out from Desmond’s fist, then streams of highly concentrated mana entangled each other, weaving an azurite gauntlet that completely covered Desmond’s right arm.

Metallic in appearance, the gauntlet had a highly detailed ornamental design of ocean-themed patterns with the image of a leviathan wrapped around Desmond’s arm.

The fluctuations of aquatic and metallic mana emitted by the gauntlet gave an oddly heavy and soft feel that was disconcerting in the extreme, with tiny ripples of pristine blue mana emanating steadily like waves lapping at the shore.

Pushing his bi-element control abilities to the limit, as well as his understanding of the soft and firm aspects of water; Desmond had perfected this dual mana technique after extensive training.

Covered by currents of wind energy, the Skyr ventis ignored the overwhelming sense of oppression it was feeling from Desmond and lunged forward with both scythes trying to rip Desmond apart.

“Tch, a beast is a beast after all.” Clicking his tongue in annoyance, Desmond seemed to teleport to the top of the Skyr ventis and didn’t hesitate to swear at the creature before slamming it with all his might.

“”

At the moment of impact, contrary to expectations, there wasn’t a huge explosion or pieces flying everywhere, instead, it was as if hundreds of soft waves shot out from Desmond’s fist and ran through the entire body of the Skyr ventis before reaching the ground and vanish into nothing.

Dropping to the ground in a somersault, Desmond watched with interest as the Skyr ventis’ body trembled before blood began to ooze from various joints in the beast’s exoskeleton.

The mighty Skyr ventis collapsed lifelessly, all of his internal organs destroyed by the waves of soft destruction Desmond injected into its body with .

With the beast defeated, Desmond looked with interest at the corpse as he took in some of the materials in the Skyr ventis that would be useful for some secondary weaponry while also feeling quite pleased with the results of his ability.