After my encounter with the seventh prince of hell last night, I decided that I need more training. And I need to get enrolled as soon as possible so I can stay in my own dorm and have the freedom to sneak off when I want to.
And the only way for me to secure a dorm in the academy is if I have a talent to show.
Right now, I am in the kitchen with my mother, helping her prepare dinner for tonight. Truthfully, I am nervous. I can’t show them my real talent, but I can pick one among the many other talents I acquired last night. And the one talent that I see fit to present as a mediocre huntress is: healing.
As far as I remember, hunters with healing talents usually stay at the back of the groups so they can provide assistance whenever the teams are in trouble. I want to become a huntress and kill demons, but I also do not want to stand out too much or I might get picked out for important and time-consuming missions.
I need to have as much free time as possible and get called on special and dangerous missions, which most healers are required to attend as some hunters might need our aide.
Now or never, Zarah. Tonight is the night that I’ll show them my ‘talent’.
Looking cheerfully at my mother, I grabbed the knife on the nearby counter. “Mom, mom! Look!”
My mom looked over at me and burst out screaming when she saw me holding the knife over my wrist, which probably isn’t the best image that I can present as it looks like I lost my marbles.
“Zarah, put that down! What are you doing?!” My mother’s scream alerted the others. My mother stands by the fridge, closest to the open door frame that leads to the living room. My brother and father rush in to see what my mother is so freaked out about. Their brown hairs were disheveled from training earlier and even more so when they see what I am doing. My brother especially so because his hair is long and tied to a ponytail.
“Zarah!” My brother screams when he sees me hovering the knife over my wrist. He tries to run and grab the knife away from me, but I have already sliced my hand with it. Pain surges over my body as my blood starts to pool out of my wrist. “What are you doing!?” He screams and takes the knife from my hands while I bleed. His silver eyes, like mine, were wide with worry and rage.
“Ducal, get the first aid!” My mother yells, trying to push my father out to fetch the medicines in the cabinet.
“Just wait!” I yell with my uninjured hand outstretched while the other one bleeds. It is painful as hell, but I did not let it show on my face. “Look, I’m fine.”
“Zarah, enough!” My brother yells at me and slams the knife on the table with such brute force that I am afraid that he might have broke it. “This is-” My brother pauses when he sees me hovering my uninjured hand over my injury.
“Just watch.” I say the words more calmly this time when I summon the magic that I stole from the demon the day before.
The wound on my wrist gradually began to close in a matter of two seconds without leaving any scar. In the hunter's society, I know that people see healers as valuable because there are only a few of them on the team. I choose to show this talent because there’s a high chance that I will be kept in the back if I have this type of talent.
After the wound closes completely, I look up to my family with the biggest smile on my face. “See? See?” I boast to them before looking at my father. “What do you think, dad? Do you think I can start training as soon as possible and perhaps return to training as soon as possible? And perhaps, get admitted in a dorm?”
Now that I think about it, getting a dorm will increase the possibility of getting a roommate, which can hinder my original plan. I guess that I am just going to leave it to luck on who my future roommate would be considering if things go the way as planned.
I honestly expect them to have proud and joyous expressions, but what really caught me off guard were the stunned looks on their faces, like they'd seen me morph or something.
“T-The time.” My father stumbles and shakily glances at my mother. “How fast did she close her wound?”
“Less than two seconds.” My brother is the one to answer as he was the closest one to me. He turns to our father. “Dad, I think it’s the fastest rate of healing a small wound among the other healers.”What?
What did he say?
I stood there dumbfounded as I watched my family have a meeting without me and talk about my ‘healing talent’.
I have zero knowledge about the abilities of genuine hunters and huntresses with healing abilities. But I do know that they are pretty rare and usually well guarded. I never met one when the apocalypse started, and I have no idea how their magic work.
Did I overlook something by chance? Now, I wish that I had studied more about talents.
“Logan, get a timer and make sure to time the healing. I am going to cut a vein on my arms. Let’s see how fast she can stop the blood.” My father marches over to grab and wash the knife before positioning himself beside me.“Ducal, don’t be an idiot!” My mother shrieks. She’s clearly as horrified as I am at what my father plans to do. He hovers the knife over his wrist.
“I’m not. I’m testing my daughter’s talent.” He says and fixes me a gaze that’s hard for me to ignore. “You got this.” Then at my brother, he says, “Are we ready?”
My brother nods while my mother backs away. She clutches her hand firmly to her chest nervously. “Ready.” My brother responds and gives me a look that makes me come closer to my father in preparation for their little experiment.
With one precise and swift stroke of the blade, my father grunted in pain as he drew blood. Blood gushes out like a fountain when he hits a vein. I nearly panicked at the sight, but I kept my nerves cool.
Because if I don’t, it’s going to go badly for my father, who trusts me.
The moment I rest my hands on my father’s arm, my brother starts the timer while I focus on closing the wound. Switching talents came easy for me because I already knew the tricks from my past life to glide around it. The wound closes without any difficulty and leaves a scar.
“Two seconds to stop the bleeding, and another three to close it.” My brother makes an announcement, shocking my parents and confusing me.
“Is…” I gulp. “Is that a record breaker or-”
“It’s a miracle!” My father laughs and clutches my shoulder. His eyes twinkle proudly as he looks at me. “You have the talent of high healing!”
Shit. What? High healing? That sounds important. I don’t want to be too important!
“It’s got to be a fluke. Maybe we should try again? How about I heal Logan next?” I suggest, but no one is paying attention to me anymore as they are busy gushing out about my ability.
“She can be a scholar!”
“I knew that she was destined for a greater gift.”
“Dad, can I supervise Zarah on her training?”
They seem pretty excited, which worries me even more. I screwed up. This is definitely not part of the plan!
Next time, I note to myself, I should do more reading on hunters' talents.
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The following day, my father and brother took me to a weaponry store by the academy. It makes me excited that I am going to get a new weapon, but thinking back to the fact that I might have doomed myself in a potential ranking among the healers makes me less thrilled. A soft ring of the bell when we enter the store signals our presence. A shopkeeper wearing a white polo shirt with a black bow tie appears to cater to us. “Welcome to Reon Weaponry. How may I be of service?” He greets us. When he seems to focus on my father, his eyes widen in recognition. “Sir Winters, I apologies for not recognizing you so soon!” “We’re looking for a weapon for my daughter.” My father says after giving him one curt nod in recognition. He then gestures in my direction, which makes the attendant take notice of me for the first time. The man seems surprised, and I cannot blame him because I rarely come to gatherings out of shame that I have no talent. “Well, what does the young miss prefer for a weapon?
After purchasing my new weapon, we decided to head for the academy so I could enlist myself. The academy’s interior feels nostalgic for me because, in my case, it’s been a long time since I walked down the hallway. In my past life, I never got the chance to visit the academy again since I dropped out. I feel a little bit excited now because I can actually be a student here once more. And a student with talent at that. My brother, father, and I are waiting in the dean’s office since they recognize my father as one of the most respected hunters in the guild. Right now, I’m facing my old dean, who is also my father’s high school friend - Mr. Bruce Fierce. My father is telling him about my talent for healing, and the whole time that my father speaks about me, I see Bruce watching me in doubt. Mr. Bruce is not a bad person. In fact, in my past life, he died trying to protect me from an attack by one of the powerful demons. “Ducal, I believe you when you say that your daughter has fin
“Keep those shoulders tense! Don’t make your body fully relaxed when shooting those arrows!” My father barked an order at me while I was trying out my new bow. Don’t get me wrong. I already know how to shoot with an arrow. I just don’t want to stand out as much after the whole scholarship thing happened. From now on, I really have to try to keep everything low profile, even as I fight in front of people, at least. “Dad,” My brother heads over to place a comforting hand on my shoulder before he faces our father. “Give Zarah a break. She just started training.” I can’t help but smile at Logan. No matter what happens, I knew that I could always count on my brother to help me out – even when it means talking to my grumpy father about my training. “She has had the skills before, so her body should remember it naturally.” My father sighs and shakes his head before raising his head to look at me. “I’m sorry, Zarah. I might have had the feeling that you were purposely trying to fail. Of
That night, I got back in my room after some successful demon hunting. I didn’t get a talent, but at least I managed to save a few people that were supposed to die today. Even though it wasn’t much, I feel like I am slightly changing the future here, which is my real purpose anyway. My father did not call me back downstairs for training while they were talking to Archer earlier. Somehow I feel bad about the guy and a little embarrassed for myself because I know that they were getting a little too protective of me, especially my brother. I guess I can’t blame my brother for his reaction since I just broke up with a relationship and got cheated on. He must not want to see me get hurt emotionally again – not that it ever bothered me. I was merely acting to be hurt and crying for a bit in front of him, which I now consider a mistake. “How naughty. You’re still using the window when you can use your shadow weave to enter your room?” I whirl back and pin Verphegor to the wall, only to g
The next few days of my training, I started to take all of my parents’ and brother’s advice seriously. I hate to admit it but it seems like Verphegor’s advice was the right one. Now that I am with my family, one of the best hunters in their time, I should take this opportunity to learn from them. Since I stopped holding back, I noticed that my father’s training with me has slowly begun to increase. They did question me about my techniques, but that was easily dismissed by the fact that I had been in the academy for a while before I dropped out. I almost forgot what intense sore muscles feel like, and I have to say that I welcome it. Every night, still try to look for demons with special abilities, but it seems like they were pretty rare to come around at this time, which is such a bummer for me. These days, the foresight talent that I have stolen has become quiet, which is a little bit of a cause for concern on my part. I wanted to know if the future had changed or not. “Zarah,
A swarm of demon bats flew over our heads. The thing about these demon bats is that they are not regular in size. They are about the size of a chihuahua, with razor sharp claws and fangs that could rip you to shreds. Screams of delight and protest from those who were observing us from outside the electric cage echoed in the air alongside the terrified screams of the children. I twisted my cuff, turning it into a crossbow, to parry a demon headed my way. After that, I shot it between the eyes, killing it in an instant. I barely managed to dodge the second demon coming my way. The area was so crowded that it was hard for me to make any sort of movement. Other scholar applicants were doing their best to protect themselves from the demons, but it could not be helped when some of them were injured after getting scratched by their talons. But that wasn’t the worst injury that they could get, it was the poison that the bat was spitting at the participants. Purple ooze comes out of their
“Zarah, are you okay?” My brother, who is considered as my advisor behind the ring, rushes to me. Every contestant can have one mentor behind the stage to assist them while they wait for their turn in the ring. I give my brother a smile with my lips. “I’m fine. I’m a healer, remember? I can’t say the same for the others though.” I turn to the other kids with me. The only ones here are those who survived the first round. I know that I am about the same age as them, but where I come from — when I come from — I am mentally older. Logan sneers, but not at me. I can only imagine that he is sneering at the organizers behind this. “Zarah, you know what? This is not worth it. If you want to quit, you can just tell us. Father and mother will take care of your educational fees. You are a winter. You do not need sponsors.” I know that what he says is true, but somehow I have a gut feeling that there’s something abnormal about this. From my experience, I've learned that always following yo
The puppeteer. That’s one of the demons that I recognize from my past. It killed a lot of hunters by using hostages before. It’s also responsible for the deaths of many hunters in the past. In other words, it is a pretty dangerous demon, which begs the question, Why is it here? Could my meddling have something to do with this demon’s early appearance? I stick in the shadows while covering myself with my black hood and keeping my sword hidden at my side. Shadow Step allows you to travel and stay in the shadows, but it only gives you that sort of privilege once you get adept at it. Travel is pretty easy, so long as there’s always a connecting shadow. I manage to escape the room through the shadows, trying to find out where the puppeteer is hiding. From the vision, I can see that he is watching from a higher ground, and right now, I have a problem figuring out how to get there. It doesn’t seem like there are connecting shadows that lead to the top platform, where I can get there usin