Otherhunters
An elite task force in Valkyria created by King Erick with the task of killing anything they do not consider human or not approved by the King himself, which are mostly mages and monsters. They wore their signature black raincoat and are equipped with a massive crossbow, built to pierce even a dragon, and many items made to combat or negate any magic. It's said that a group of 4 Otherhunters can hunt down an adult fire dragon with ease. Most Otherhunters have a tendency to be sadistic to their prey, toying with them during their hunts. It's not a surprise to learn that they are also the ones in charge of torturing prisoners in Valkyria.
They were basically created to be the natural predator of any mage.
And one of those Otherhunters is right behind me.
My body continues to shake in fear despite my protest.
"What's wrong boy? It looks like you've seen a ghost."
Should I run? Where exactly?! This guy knows this city more than I do and can move faster than I can run!
Even though I was the author I wasn't really specific with city building, I didn't even make any maps besides the world map.
Maybe I can run to the forest? I can see some big trees past the gate, and the traffic of wagons and carts might be able to slow him down, so maybe I can run there. It won't be any better with that guy chasing me, but at least I don't have to worry about other hunters and guards.
"Looks like you caught yourself a pretty good mage on your back. Is she your friend?"
The Otherhunter eyes me from head to toe.
"From the way your looking at me, I can tell you already know what I am then?
Tell you what, you hand your friend over to me and I'll pretend like I haven't seen a thing. You can go on your merry way like nothing ever happened.
Heck, I'll even pay you for bravely capturing a runaway mage. How does that sound to you?"
The deal he offered didn't surprise me to much since I did once write a scenario in my novel where a Otherhunter tries to make the protagonists sell out one of his friends.
Maybe all the Otherhunters have some sick fetish over making friends betray each other.
But even if I do accept this deal, there's no guarantee that he wont behead me the second I hand her over. Otherhunters aren't particularly known for their honor, In fact its the opposite. It's not uncommon for them to kill or torture the friends and family of suspected mages even if they themselves aren't mages, just to root out one mage.
I started trying to look for a way to escape this situation, but the only way I can see, is through the gate and hope for the best while in the forest.
"I'll take your answer is a no then?"
He scoffs at me and smirks.
"Let's make this interesting. I'll give you a 10 second head start before I crush every bone and organ in your body. Sounds fair, yes?"
Fair my ass!!! 10 seconds before my gruesome death?! You're not giving me a 10 second head start, you're giving me 10 seconds left to live!!!
He raises his hand.
"One."
My body, as if by instinct made a run for it, with the woman still on my back. Running towards the main street dodging nearby passersby.
"Two."
I run trying to dodge the traffic in the road, but the sizeable amount of wagons and carts forces me to run around them.
"Four."
While running around the wagons my panic causes me to stumble and trip in the streets and drop the woman to the ground.
"Six."
I run over to her and pick her up as quickly as I could. As I get back up, I see that I'm not even half way to reaching the gate. I look around for anything I can use knowing I don't have much time left. As I continue to run I luckily found an empty cart without a horse or anything to pull it.
"Eight."
I immediately toss the woman on board the cart and kick the ground behind me as I push the carriage, before quickly hopping on board myself. This causes the cart to hit several other wagons and carts in front of me, making a domino effect of them hitting each other and clumping up.
"Ten."
I made sure we were somewhere in the middle of the group as the count ended in my head, and I prepared myself to tilt the cart as much as I can.
As I saw the hunter jump at least 2 stories high, I immediately tilt the cart to the front making a 70 degree angle.
The hunter smashes the road behind our cart with a massive boom, narrowly missing us, delivering a massive shockwave in the road. Several wagons and carts were sent flying in all directions because of the shockwave.
*******************
A Hunter's perspective
I missed... Or to be more accurate... that kid dodged my attack.
I recalled what happened as I was about to pulverize the cart that kid and the witch was on. But just as I was about to hit it, the kid tilt the cart and was sent flying. Seems like I underestimated the kid a bit.
"Maybe the rest of the pack had a point with me playing around too much during a hunt.
Ah whatever, it will makes things more satisfying once I catch them. Anyways where did they go? I remembered I saw that cart flying near the main gate"
As I look towards the main gate, I see a pile of wagons and carts with several people coming out of the pile wounded but not the people I'm looking for.
I take a closer look at a small gap on the pile and on the other side, I see a wagon driving out of the city and moving towards the forest.
A smirk forms around my lips
Found them
********************
As we were sent flying I made sure the cart was tilted towards the main gate because I had a feeling he was gonna hit us with a smash attack as that was how I wrote the Otherhunters would attack in that sort of scenario where it was to crowded to see and they're forced to get a better vantage point.
I also took a gamble that the hunter wanted to destroy our cart first rather than kill us outright, seeing how he acted when we first met he seems like the type of person to toy with his prey first, the type of person to crush a rat's feet or a moth's wings before finishing them off. Thankfully my preconceptions of him were correct and my gamble paid off.
If he instead used his crossbow at us I think we would have died at that point.
Once I landed close to the main gate with the rest of the wagons, I took an empty carriage that was loosely out of the pile and placed the woman and myself inside.
I emptied the carriage completely to lessen the weight. Since there were no horses or anything like that attached to the carriage, I had to kick the ground behind the carriage as strong as I can to make it move then immediately hop on board.
With the massive pile of debris blocking the gate, it should buy us some time to escape to someplace safer.
Where that safer place is....
I have no idea.
I didn't really notice this earlier, but this body is surprisingly strong. Maybe I transmigrated into the body of a war veteran.
BOOM
A sudden loud boom, like a jet breaking the sound barrier hits my ears.
I don't know exactly what happened, all I know is that my body immediately covered myself and the woman, as our carriage was split in half by a powerful force.
I shielded the woman's fall as we both fell to the ground, I looked up to see the culprit that split our carriage in half, lodged in the side of a tree.
An 8 foot crossbow bolt was lodged inside of the tree, split in half most likely because of that very same bolt.
I didn't have much time to comprehend the situation as a familiar figure started approaching us. The Otherhunter with an unloaded a massive crossbow on his left hand and a sword in his right, seemingly enjoying every second of this.
"Run some more boy. If this hunt satisfies me, you only get to die painfully."