Monster Hunter: Legends

Training

We all wake up early after a good sleep. Our beds were much more comfortable than back home. I see everyone in a way I hadn't seen them in a while, without armor. We normally have it on since our life revolves around hunting. It's nice to unwind from time to time. "We have to meet Niel later on in the day." I remind everyone. "Niel told us to prepare new armor because our old ones won't do."

"That won't be a problem. We have a bunch of jewels we gathered from the mines." Dion says confidently.

"You're right!" I respond. "What are we waiting for? Let's go shopping."

We make our way back to the city from our calm little grove beside the river. You can hear clatter and chatter from the people talking to the market owners, negotiating the price of a potion. We walk over to the blacksmith and tell him our specifications. The man had a scar on one eye and long white hair. He pounded on a hot blade with a hammer.

"I am Alred, the blacksmith." He introduces himself. "How may I help you?"

"We would like to buy some armor." Raph places his bag of jewels on the blacksmith's workbench. "Does this work?"

Alred looks into the bag and laughs. "Ha! What do you think of me, an idiot? You can't buy anything with rocks!"

"These aren't valuable?" Dion asks.

"They're as common as foot fungus on that lad's foot!" He points at Mil.

"Wow... I have foot fungus right now!" Mil adds.

"Come back with real money or don't come back at all!" He waves us goodbye and resumes his blacksmithing.

"Great, how are we going to improve without good armor?" I ask my team.

"I don't know what we're going to tell king Garil." Raph says.

Alred interrupts from behind. "Did you say King Garil?"

We jump; none of us noticed he was within the group circle. "Yeah, we're supposed to train with Niel."

"Why didn't you just say so?! The king told me to help you guys out. I heard what you did for our city. Wait here I'll bring you something." He disappears when he enters the door of the shop and returns moments later with a cart that had armor on display. These are some of my finest armors. All hunters in Scarlet city wear a set of these."

I begin to notice how big of deed we did when we protected the people from the monsters. We're getting the royal treatment from the king. Since the dragon hasn't really done anything, they've somewhat pardoned us disturbing it. Yet... If we plan on ever getting back to our land we'd have to go through the cave. What am I talking about? It's great here!

We wave back at Alred. He didn't make us pay a single zenny. Stocked with strong armor, that would compare to some of the Elite armor back in our land, we head over to prepare ourselves for our first days in training.
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We met Niel back at the river and he lead us to a forest. It was a nice and serene place, an excellent place for a picnic, at first glance. "Today we shall start your training." He says readying his weapon.

"Eh?! We're fighting you?" We all say in unison.

"Mm." He nods "All at once." One thing was defeating us all one by one, like what Gail did, except he wants to take us on all at once! Does he really think he can do that?

He displays a very fine looking greatsword resembling Raph's, but much bigger. "Shall we begin?" He gives a cocky smirk.

Raph and Mil don't lose any time. They begin the fight. Niel sidesteps twice making my teammates stumble. He goes to slash at them when I and Dion clash swords with him. His eyes open wide when we make impact. He jumps back a few feet dodging a bullet and arrow that passed inches away from his face and explode far away from us. They shoot again and he protects himself with his sword. His feet drag through the floor by the force of the projectiles Garil and Cole were throwing. Despite the difficulty of shooting and reloading arrows, Cole was shooting multiple arrows faster than Neil could slash them. He resorts to dodging most of what comes at him. Take advantage of his distraction and sneak from behind him. I prepare to strike him when his sword turns randomly and swings at me. I was mid attack and I couldn't react fast enough. The flat part of his sword bashes into me sending me crashing into a tree. From that point it all went south and I watched him singlehandedly take them all out.

He withdraws his sword and picks us all up. "You might just be trainable. You have potential. You just lack discipline and teamwork. Tell me what your goal is?"

Cole steps forward "We want to make it back to our land over the mountains. For that we need to slay the dragon."

He laughs "Ha! Not even the entire city's army can defeat the dragon... You have a long way to go if that's what you wish. You're not seeing that land in a long time."

The shock of the news is too much. All we know and remember seems so far now. I drop to the floor "Please, train us to become the best we can! We have to get back to our land!"

"If that's what you want then here is your first training mission." Niel begins to walk away. "We ventured to the very center of this forest. It's almost sundown which that's when the monsters come out here. Survive the night and make it back to the city and I'll train you to the fullest."

"But that's crazy!" Raph shouts at him.

"It's how I learned." He waves and disappears in the woods.

"Wait!" We run to where he disappeared and there are many cross paths that lead to different places. I look back to the sun setting. "Maybe the monsters here aren't that strong." As soon as I said it a multiple loud roars were heard in the distance. "I just had to ask."