The village leader put on a thick coat and took her to a small board made of rickety wood with torn pieces of paper bolted on it, fluttering in the slight breeze of that day. With Teerom and Jurie on its back, the lion followed and stood behind them, its head lurking above them as it watched Madella pick out a quest. Due to the papers being torn by a downpour a couple of weeks ago, it was difficult to read the already scribbly and childlike handwriting on them.
"And these are real quests?" She took one off the board and inspected it closely. It had the sketch of thin snakes with wispy patterns on their bodies and above the sketch was written 'Tier I ---' (the dashes meant that the villagers didn't know what the monster was called)
"We're illiterate folk. Only a few of us know how to read and write." The village leader said apologetically.
"That's alright. I'll take this one." Madella handed him the paper, "Where is it?"
"Oh, the snake monster infestation! I wonder how many of them there are now," He said as he turned, trying to recall which way the site of the infestation was, "A farmhouse that way, South. We abandoned it five months ago. Those snakes are small but use some strange Water-Magic-based poison."
"Water-Magic-based poison?"
"Yes, one bite, and suddenly water starts rising up from inside you. You've never seen a man drown on land before, have you?"
"Can't say I have," Madella, "But you've heard of it before too haven't you, Teerom?" she smiled at him and he returned it with a nod. Jurie, confused, nudged Teerom and he began explaining where he'd heard it from; of course, Aneros' story.
They passed through the village and over a run-down bridge above a thin river, continuing for a dozen minutes before seeing the farmhouse in the distance, which despite the bright sun above was covered in a layer of blue frost.
"You stay here." Madella took the sword and left them to watch from a safe distance. The farmhouse consisted of a relatively large house that served as the base of a three-storey and comparatively dark tower. It was surrounded by a field of dead crops and a perimeter of low thin stone walls that she stepped over with some struggle.
Carefully listening for any sound, Madella stepped toward the farmhouse, taking the long route on the overgrown path instead of crossing the lumps of dead crops. The snakes could be anywhere. Her breathing wasn't anywhere near stable; she huffed and puffed shakily, asking herself 'what would a real Monster Hunter do right now?'
Making it worse was that she sighted no snake, but now and then she'd hear a little slimy slither or even a hiss. Perhaps it was her imagination. But if it was, how would get the money she needed? Resolutely, she shook the fear and anxiety from her head – well, most of the fear – and slowly pushed the house's door open.
Nothing but the dusty old interior with all its furniture still intact and upright greeted her. She moved in, forgetting to check the ceiling. Again, silence. Her eyes scanned the room. A round wooden table in the far-left corner on which there were plates and cutlery as well as a pot holding a strangely intact Amoreviola flower.
She felt warmth wrap around her knuckles and fingers that gripped the sword tightly. Before she could think about it, as if by some animal instinct, her body turned and swung the sword with frightening speed and strength, slicing a long thin dark snake with wispy blue patterns on its body in half. Its two halves fell to the ground and turned into water, slipping through the cracks in the wooden floor.
Numerous hisses and slimy jumps ensued as at least 20 snakes jumped at her from the darkness of the ceiling. Madella struggled to think, but her body moved on its own and, like a seasoned swordsman, sliced the snakes apart in a flash.
"What the-" Before she could finish, her leg kicked forward, breaking the door in front of her down. It led to a hallway with stairs at the end of it leading both up and down into the basement. Now she saw the glowing sword and the strange mystical black lettering on them that read 'Possession'.
But why did a low-ranking knight have a magic sword? It wasn't Madella's business to think of that right then. The sword drew her body forward and made her swing it around. It had incredible control over her as it could even make her jump out of the way of a snake's attack, land acrobatically on the wall, and spring off with one foot to counter and slash the snake down.
Everything occurred too fast for Madella's mind to keep up; her body made its way through the corridor to the stairs. As she did, the sword began glowing and the runes gradually turned a deep sickly reddish purple. They were reacting to something. Something that would shatter the floor and send her tumbling down into the basement with all the remaining snakes.
It was a giant slimy black snake, its head nearly as big as Madella. The patterns on its body were different with the wisps being a brighter blue and bending and twisting into themselves. She screamed as it opened and snapped its huge white fangs at her, but her hands slammed the sword into the top half of its head, sending it rolling to the right into an active furnace that charred its back slightly, making it screech horribly.
She jumped, realizing a moment later that she'd dodged another of the little snakes. The giant snake recovered and lurched at her as she hung in the air. Dozens of little snakes sprung from the walls at the same time, and that moment Madella thought was her last.
But she should've had faith in that strange sword she wielded. It made her spin in the air and a boiling fiery yellow shot from it, flooding the room, dissolving the smaller snakes and taking out a large chunk from the giant snake's body.
Her feet found the wall again and jumped up for her hand to grab the stairs above. The giant snake wound its body back and then elastically jumped up to her. The sword lost its glow and the runes turned back to black. Her body went limp for a moment; she would've fallen back down had she not climbed up and crouched to dodge the snake.
The sword was no longer moving her body for her. Panicking, she climbed the spiral staircase, jumping and rolling to dodge the giant snake's relentless attacks. But it was too fast. It took only a matter of twenty seconds for it to catch up to her just before she reached the top of the tower.
Again, she felt hopelessness fill her mind as well as regret. Out of every job, why did she choose a Monster Hunting quest? Wait, why did she? Who knew when the answer would bless her, but she had no time left to think about it. The snake's jaws opened again and its long white fangs reached for her furiously. She felt a violent pull on the back of her neck and the next moment she'd flown through the roof of the tower.
The snake bit down, realized it had missed, and prepared to try again. She glanced at the sword still in her hand as she hovered in the air above the tower. The runes were still black and the only glow it emitted was the glint of the sun on its steel. The wind stopped rushing into her back as she began to fall. She had to win this battle.
Learning from the way it felt when the sword controlled her body, she spun to build momentum and extended the sword out on her third spin after noticing the snake had jumped and was in range. The blade cut halfway into the snake's head, but that was enough to make its entire body turn flaccid and plummet back down through the entire tower. She used its slimy and squishy body as a cushion to prevent her legs from breaking and curled into a ball to protect herself from the debris released by the snake's body crushing the walls and stairs as it descended.
In disbelief, she stood, huffing and trying to find balance on the squidgy body below her. Effortfully, she tried to pull the sword from the snake's head, but it wouldn't budge. She stared at the sword and in its glint, she saw something incredible, indescribable, but it was nothing short of a feeling of comfort, of safety.
"Fine, you can have it." Smiling, she hopped off the snake and left the house, returning to the others who had gone back to the bridge just in case any monsters escaped from Madella. The village leader stared with awe at Madella and so did Jurie, but the one with stars in his eyes with pure admiration was Teerom.
There was a tang to the way she walked, partly attributed to her slight limp, but regardless she had victory in her eyes mixed with surprise.
'Cooooool,' was the only word echoing in Teerom's mind. The lion, however, was fixated on the sword, its gaze slowly shifting to Madella… or perhaps behind her.
The village leader paid them five gold coins and fed them old loaves of bread and vegetable soup before bidding them farewell along with some other villagers.
On their journey, Teerom and Jurie asked Madella for the details of her battle with the snake monsters; her most frequent answer was "I don't know, the sword was swinging me around"
The lion began emitting deep meows. Thinking that it was trying to communicate with them, they shuffled up to its head and listenened carefully. Four meows followed by a sigh and then again two meows.
"I think it asked how much longer it has to walk," Teerom said.
"You can understand it?" Jurie asked.
"No, it just felt like that's what it said. I think it went 'How much longer till Lusitra? *sigh* I'm a king for fuck's sake.'"
"Hey," Madella tapped Teerom on the back of the head, "No swearing."
"That's what it said. Or at least what I think it said." Teerom pouted. The lion meowed again, twice.
"What did it say this time?" Jurie asked, making intense eye contact with him.
"I-I don't know, but it's suddenly really scared, nervous." Teerom listened closely to it's meows, "T-Two princes? I can't understand anything anymore." The lion stopped meowing and sped up, toward Lusitra, toward their future.