I sat on a tree stump, resting my head exhausted on my sword’s pommel, waiting for Rune to arrive with the carriage and our carving tools.
Rune has been my companion for years now and accompanied me on all my hunts.
My helmet was long discarded as it broke earlier, and my dark red hair clung to my face.
The forest behind me was fully ruined, with most trees being heavily charred.
Today was a harder fight and I could feel every sore muscle.
If I had known how hard fighting a drake was…
I guess I’d still would’ve fought it anyway.
The carcass of this thing was almost 20 meters long and even dead, its body continued to look dangerous.
In all truth, it was my longest fight so far and showed me I was still lacking in many ways.
Sure, I ‘ve come a long way since stranding in this world, especially for a woman without any remarkable skills.
I’ve never been a genius, not even in my old world.
The only thing I got going for me was my gaming knowledge.
And this world was perfect for that, as it was the world of Frontier Hunter Online.
Reincarnated in a world like this was no joke though, with monsters roaming around and all.
I noticed our big wooden carriage, a basic model made for hunters and with enough space to transport multiple medium drakes, pulled by a pair of Peco birds.
Both of those birds were more than 2 meters tall with very strong legs, making them the ideal mounts.
Properly trained, like ours of course were, they could even be used during hunts.
Peco’s were smart animals and more often than not a hunter’s survival was dependent on their Peco pulling them out of danger.
Before coming to this world, I only knew them from video games, where I grinned and farmed for the rarest variants, of course.
Now, they were truly majestic animals, and I was truly happy with my two flaxen birds.
Rune trained them right after they hatched and both were worth at least a million Zenny.
A minute later, Rune stopped the carriage in front of me with a sour look on her face.
“Are you insane?!” She immediately cried out, jumping off the carriage and hurtling towards me with a tackling hug, smashing us both onto the burned and blood-stained ground with a loud noise.
“Yeeeowwwch!” “To believe you’d solo a high drake alone,” I felt her bury her face against my armored chest and began stroking her turquoise-colored hair.
My armored glove was in tatters and i felt her silky smooth hair with calloused fingers.
Repairs would cost a fortune, again.
“Who else should’ve done it?” I gently asked her, my voice rough from the earlier fight.
It was more than obvious I inhaled too much smoke thanks to the Drake’s breath attacks.
With my armored glove, I gently lifted her tear-streaked face up, “You know there aren’t lots of groups who can defend the village against such foes.
If I had waited for the guild and nobles to get the army moving, there would’ve been deaths.” “But you could’ve teamed up!
The guild master himself said he’d join, didn’t he?!” Oh shit..
She really was mad at me this time.
I couldn’t help but scratch my head, “I thought it was faster to do it this way.” “You’re unbelievable!” Rune snapped with tears in her eyes at me, “Can’t you be more considerate of your rank?!
The quest was posted for eight gold ranks, not one doing it solo!”