Chapter 106: Scarred Shadows
The base grew dark as the sun sank fully beneath the horizon, leaving the night sky exposed and scattered with stars. Beneath the thick forest canopy, the darkness deepened significantly, the heavy leaves blocking out the ambient starlight.
Despite this Rebecca felt no fear as she stepped into the shadows, maintaining careful caution. She placed her boots deliberately against the damp ground, turning her gaze from left to right, her ears tuned to any movement emerging from the brush.
She let out a soft breath, carrying both relief and frustration. While she had no desire to be ambushed by night creatures, she was eager to encounter one. She wanted to test her new weapon, her patience wearing thin. She had rested only briefly earlier, sleeping during the day had always proven difficult for her.
Boredom and anticipation had driven her to this specific monster zone. Few hunters ventured here at night; most stayed away out of fear or sheer exhaustion. Nighttime made the monster zones far more dangerous, as nocturnal creatures emerged, some significantly more lethal than those encountered during the day.
However, every hunter knew a specific class thrived within the gloom: assassins, who turned the surrounding darkness into a lethal asset, with certain skills in their arsenal depending directly on the shadows themselves. Yet a secondary class could also turn the night to its advantage, the archer class, to which Rebecca belonged. She carried immense pride in her discipline, having spent years sharpening her senses and body to master her craft.
Though an arrow sat nocked against her bowstring, she refrained from drawing it back. White bandages remained wrapped around the body of the bow, concealing the carved runes beneath. Activated runes emitted a bright glow, and she had no intention of signaling her presence to nocturnal predators.
More importantly, she wanted to hide the weapon from other hunters. In a monster zone, human threats were often far more dangerous than the beasts themselves, and greedy hunters would not hesitate to kill her to claim such an extraordinary bow.
A sudden rustle broke from the bushes ahead. Instantly, her instincts took over, and she activated her skill, Perception. A faint silver glow flared in her eyes as the world zoomed forward, sharpening into vivid clarity. Every leaf and twig on the bush stood out in stark detail, revealing a round, shadowy figure huddled within the foliage.
It was a slime. Rebecca drew the arrow back, feeling the immense tension in the bowstring. The weapon carried incredible force. The moment she released her fingers, the arrow tore through the air, faster than a blink. The shaft struck the slime dead center in the brush.
The creature let out a high-pitched squeak before disintegrating into a cloud of blue dust. Rebecca's eyes narrowed. She stepped forward calmly, pushing aside the branches. Reaching her hand down into the leaves, her fingers closed around a small, glassy slime core. She lifted it, opened the small leather pouch at her waist, and dropped it inside.
She let out a disappointed sigh. She had hoped for a stronger target, one that would justify activating one of her weapon skills. Using a full skill on a lower D-rank slime would be complete overkill.
*Just another one of these monsters,* she thought to herself.
She had expected this section of the zone to harbor Gloomfangs, Crimson Wolves, or Hexhorns. Instead, she had encountered four slimes in a row. It was a rare moment where she found herself actively wishing to face a lethal threat.
She kept moving forward, determined to find a larger monster. *Maybe a guild came through here. Just like that time it was so hard to even find a single Hexhorn. Yes, that must be it. The hunter's will have to wait a whole month for the monsters to respawn. If that's the case, this monster zone is going to be abandoned for a while. No wonder I didn't run into many hunters either.*
Suddenly, she slowed her steps, her brows pulling into a tight frown as a figure appeared far ahead in the gloom. With her Perception skill still active, her vision pierced the dark.
"A hunter?" she muttered, tilting her head slightly.
The standing figure was looking around the trees. As her vision sharpened, she recognized a man with long black hair, dressed in a dark gray robe. Her eyes narrowed as her focus magnified the details, on the back of his robe were stitched designs of dark clouds.
Rebecca gasped, her eyes widening in immediate shock. She recognized the emblem instantly. He was a member of the Black Cloud Guild.
Rebecca took a half step back, the damp earth yielding under the heel of her boot with a soft sound. Cold sweat prickled against the nape of her neck as her pulse spiked into her throat.
*It's one of them. But what is he doing here in this monster zone?*
Up ahead, the man turned his head slightly, his dark gaze cutting through the gloom. Instinct surged through her nerves, she exploded into motion, her body gliding silently across the shadow-drenched forest floor, careful not to let a single dried leaf crack underfoot.
She threw herself behind the thick, rough trunk of a tree, pressing her spine flat against the coarse bark. Her lungs clamped tight as she clutched her wrapped bow against her chest, holding her breath to keep the rising panic silent.
*What's a member of the Black Cloud Guild doing here at night? This is just a fractured monster zone.*
The realization clicked in her mind like a cold blade sliding into place.
*Are they looking for someone? Are they looking for him?*
Slowly, she rotated her body against the tree, resting her palms against the bark. She leaned her head out just far enough to peek around the trunk, her silver Perception skill straining her vision to isolate every sharp detail. The hunter had already resumed his march forward.
A thin, pale scar sliced down his straight jawline, standing out against his skin. His dark eyes held a hard, unyielding intensity, set within a grim, serious expression. Suspended at each hip, two long black daggers rested inside their leather sheaths, the hem of his dark gray robe swaying back and forth with the steady rhythm of his stride.
*I can feel it. He's close. But where?*
The man came to a sudden halt, his jaw muscles flexing as he ground his teeth together in sharp irritation.
*Damn it, that stupid mage. I told her this wouldn't work. How the hell am I supposed to just trust my instincts without knowing where I'm even going? I'm not some fucking magnet.*
A faint sound snapped through the dark behind him. In a single fluid motion, his right hand plunged to his hip, drawing one of the long black daggers from its sheath with a faint ring of steel. He spun on his heel, his dark eyes sweeping through the dense wall of black trees.
*A monster?*
The forest branches rustled once more, and a sudden wave of cold night air washed over his exposed skin.
"It's just the wind," he muttered under his breath, his voice low and raspy. He slid the black blade back into its sheath, turned his shoulder, and continued his march through the woods.
On the other side of the tree trunk, Rebecca spun back to face the opposite direction, shielding herself behind the wide wood. Her eyes were stretched wide in terror, her breathing ragged, shallow, and completely unstable.
A heavy, suffocating weight pressed down on her ribs, making each quick gasp feel like drawing in fire. Her chest heaved up and down in frantic, uncontrollable surges, her heart hammering so violently against her sternum she could feel the pulse thudding behind her ears. She stood frozen in place, her mind struggling to reject the terrifying reality of what she had just witnessed.
Yet her eyes had never lied to her, not once. The silver light of her Perception had carved every feature into her memory. She knew that face. The jagged little scar tracing his cheek, the straight line of his jaw, the cold, murderous gaze, every single detail belonged to the monster from her past.
"It can't be," she whispered beneath her breath, the words trembling against her lips.
Her fingers clamped down around the metal body of her bow out of pure reflex, squeezing so hard her knuckles turned stark white as her hands shook violently. The dark, buried trauma she had spent years trying to suppress burst through her mental defenses, flooding her mind with horrific clarity.
The memories replayed over and over behind her eyes, an endless, violent loop that tore at her chest. Hot tears welled in the corners of her eyes, tracking down her cheeks before igniting into pure, unadulterated fury.
*I'm going to kill him.*
She bit down, her jaw clenching with such extreme, punishing force that the raw pressure throbbed deep into her gums, the pain lost beneath a blinding wave of hatred...