Chapter 39

Chapter 39

The train left the platform and we were off.

"Hey uhh. What's your name? I'm Jay by the way."

The light skinned girl looked at me and smiled.

"Nice to meet ya Jay. I thought you'd never ask. My name is Talia, this is Cori."

She pointed to the man. He nodded at me with a small grin.

I nodded back.

"Well, nice to meet both of you. Do you live in the city?"

Talia rolled her eyes.

"For the moment, yeah. We've been traveling through a few regions these last few months. The goal is to see the whole country and making good money while we're at it."

Cori looked at the ground. He was an odd guy.

"Ahh okay. So you two have been to many other places... If you don't mind sharing some knowledge with me, what are the guilds like in the big cities?"

Talia's eyes perked up.

"So you want to join a guild? You're a D Class Hunter. Pretty much any small guild will pick you up and give you a decent contract, there's hundreds of them in the city."

"Yeah, I assumed so. What about the bigger guilds? Do you know anything about them?"

"Well, there's a couple pretty big guilds in Vice city. The 3 main ones are invite only, you probably wouldn't ever even be able to walk through their doors without being at least a C Class hunter with some kind of crazy skill."

I looked at her with curiosity now. It's not just small talk anymore, this is interesting.

"What are their names?"

"Uhhh let me think. There's the Viridian Guild, that's the biggest one in Vice City right now. The Luna Guild and Fury Guild are definitely tied for a close 2nd."

I grinned and nodded. I turned to look at the cement walls flying by out the window.

"Interesting. I bet they have access to some really neat dungeons"

I could see Talia's reflection in the window like a mirror, she made eye contact with me and continued talking.

"Yeah but we're just a couple of D Class Hunters. Even if they have scouts everywhere in this city there's no way they'd reach out to us."

"Yeah, yeah. I can dream."

She grinned.

"Screeeeeech."

We made it to the troll dungeon.

The escalator up was exactly the same as the dungeon I visited yesterday. At the top there was a very similar room with a floating blue portal at the back.

Talia and I drew our swords, Cori stretched his arms and got into a readied state as well.

We all jumped through.

This is definitely a new dungeon environment for me.

The ground is moist and the air is very humid. There are small swamp patches everywhere I look.

The moss smells weird and pond grass rose up to my knees everywhere I stepped. Thankfully there are no bugs in sight, that's a relief. I hate bugs.

When I look out far into the dungeon I can see thousands of trees. Most of them are pretty short and have long green vines hanging off their sagging branches.Ñøv€l--ß1n hosted the premiere release of this chapter.

We both stood in front of the disgusting creature as it charged forward.

"CRRRUUAAARR!"

The troll made a shrieking sound as it started to swing its arms and charged towards us.

It had a very irregular and awkward movement style. This worked in its favor I guess. It was harder to tell which way it'd swing its arms at any given moment.

The troll was quick, but I was definitely quicker.

It looked strong... but just by the way it moved I could tell I was much stronger as well.

How could this thing be a higher level than me? This seems way too easy.

I out ran the monster and made a quick doge to its right. Its clawed hand flew passed me as I maneuvered myself behind it.

This creature isn't the smartest tool in the shed either...

Talia dodged to the left and the beast started eyeing her.

It made an odd jerking motion and started sprinting towards her and away from me.

Talia could definitely handle this mindless beast herself, but I wanted to show her that I can pull my own weight.

First impressions are everything.

I readied my sword and followed the monster as it hobbled away.

I planted my right leg on a hard bit of ground making sure not to get stuck in the mud and jumped forward straight at the toll's backside.

"Shinnnggg"

"THUDDDD."

I landed a picture perfect slash directly to the back of the monster's neck. Its head came clean off and landed in a patch of moss.

I stared down at its disgusting head and its body fell into a shallow swamp behind me.

I looked over to Talia with a satisfied smile on my face.

"Well, that was easy. Clean hit right?"

For some reason she didn't look happy for me... I spoke up and tried to lighten the mood.

"Come on!! You're upset I took the first kill or something?"

She still didn't even crack a smile. Talia just stood there holding her sword straight ahead looking off in the distance behind me.

"Stay alert Jay! I told you. Don't underestimate these things."

I stared back at her with a confused look.

Then I heard movements of another troll.

They must travel in pairs... or even groups..? Is this what Talia meant?

I turned around and my eyes went wide.

This is not what I was expecting at all.

The body of a troll was climbing out of the shallow swamp... yes, just the body.

I gripped my sword tightly and stared at the abomination before my eyes.

The troll I had just killed... seemingly came back to life and its ready to fight me again!