Forgotten But Not Lost

25

"Oh, it's so adorable! Hey, senpai, what is this one called?" Yume asked pointing towards a small fuzzy white animal with tiny pawed limbs and a flat face and ears so small that they were hidden in the fur. It was looking up at her with small beady black eyes.
"

That's a Chimo. They are harmless creatures that don't mind humans. Most people believe that there is something sacred about them and wouldn't do anything to hurt them." Shirou told her, keeping his voice down. "I know you like seeing new things, but if you don't keep your voice down, you are going to scary all the animals away."
"Yeah, Yume knows, but she can't help it. It's just too cute." Yume, controlling her voice a little better as she poked at the fluffy creature. "Yume wishes she could have one as a pet. Hey, senpai, can Yume keep this one?"
"That wouldn't be a very good idea. They tend not to live very long if they are taken too far away from the trees they were born in." Shirou told her.
"Is that so." Yume said sadly. "Sorry little Chilu. Yume can't keep you."
Shirou didn't bother correcting her on its name. He had honestly stopped caring after the girl kept mispronouncing mud goblins as mud puddings. It wasn't worth the energy to correct her all the time.
It was the second day of their little camping trip and Shirou had already instructed Yume in how to set up a functional campsite and identifying some of the edible plants in the area. Today he was starting to teach her tracking. Or he was trying to. That turned out to be much harder than teaching her the basics of how to use a bow or a katana.
It wasn't that Yume had no tracking skills at all. It was that she just couldn't focus. She would awaken the [Tracking] ability, sharpen her senses and focus her will on identifying all things in nature around her, and then ten seconds later something would snap her out of it and she would be staring at a butterfly. She was composed of two contradictory character traits: persistence and fickleness.
"Yume, try to focus. You wanted to see the bear, didn't you?" Shirou reminded her. They had been following the bear's trail for nearly an hour and were just behind it.
"Right." Yume said, giving a sharp nodded and taking a deep breath. Her eyes became less focused as she took in all of her surrounds as a whole before isolating individual elements and focusing in on them. She spotted the next claw mark in a patch of dirt close by and moved in that direction, her head turning this way and that as she took in her surroundings.
She snapped twigs as she went and left plenty of signs that she herself had been there, which wasn't ideal for a scout, but she was at least able to follow the bear's trail. Hiding one's own presence was the hardest part of being a Hunter. They followed the tracks for another minute before Shirou stopped her. "That's close enough." He said, surprising the girl out of her trance. "Get in the tree."
Shirou helped Yume climb up into the tree next to them. They laid down on their stomachs on the branches and made holes in the leaves so that they could see. Yume gasped in delight as she saw a large brown bear lazily moving through bushes fifty feet ahead of them.
"It's so big and fluffy." Yume said, hardly able to contain her excitement at seeing the bear. "Yume has never seen a real bear before. At least, she can't remember ever seeing one."
Shirou didn't really understand why she was so amazed by the bear. In his mind, a bear was just a large animal and an omnivore that had no territorial instincts. Dangerous if provoked, but because it had such a wide selection of things that it could eat, it was unlikely to attack a human when there were creatures and berries that were much less capable of defending themselves about. Best course of action when meeting a bear would be to just shrug your shoulders, keep your distance, and live and let live.
Yume had the same kind of childlike wonder about her as Megumin did, seeing the world with eyes unclouded by fear or mistrust. Being so blissfully unaware of their situations as to not realize that a Hunter hunts things or that an explosion might hurt someone.
No, that wasn't quite accurate. Shirou had long suspected that Megumin was just emotionally distancing herself from the world and its consequences. She probably understood the death and fear around her more than she let on. Shirou could tell by the way she would shake about in her sleep at night, occasionally waking up and asking if she could lie with him until the monsters went away.
Perhaps Yume was the same way, and everything he had seen up until this point was just a brave face she was putting on, the same way Rin always acted as though she was in complete control until it was just the two of them. It had taken over a month before Rin dropped her guard completely around Shirou and let him know that the stress of life affected even her. He probably wouldn't find out if Yume's bravery was being used as a veil, or if it persisted all the way to her true self.
"You aren't going to shoot this one too, are you senpai?" Yume whispered to Shirou giving him a serious look, as if promising horrible consequences if he said 'yes'. She had not been happy when Shirou had shot a pair of deer the day before. Another person who never considered where the meat they ate every day came from.
"No. We have plenty of food for now." Shirou assured her, wondering what she would have done if he had said yes.
After his reassurance that they wouldn't be killing the bear, Yume went back to her cheerful gushing about how she wanted to hug the big fuzzy creature like it was a giant teddy bear. Shirou wasn't entirely sure what a teddy bear was. Perhaps it was a breed that had existed in their previous world. It must have been a smaller domesticated breed, kind of like how house cats were to their more wild and larger cousins.
After watching the bear until it moved on, Shirou decided it was time for them to put the [Tracking] skill to better use. "Yume, it is time for you to have your first real hunt." Shirou told her.
Yume scowled. "I don't want to hurt cute animals."
"We're going to be hunting monsters." Shirou clarified to her. The scowl slid slowly off of her face.
"Oh. That is our job, isn't it?" Yume said, still not sounding too excited about the prospect of killing things. "As long as Yume doesn't have to hurt any cute animals, it will be okay."
"Don't worry. Goblins aren't cute at all."
Shirou and Yume had found a trail left by some goblins and followed it until they found the ones leaving the trail. Shirou taught the girl the importance of routinely leaving the tracks and scouting head before coming back to the trail, rather than just keeping your nose to the tracks.
If he had not stopped her earlier, she wouldn't have noticed the bear until she had practically bumped into it, she was so focused on the trail. Another lesson she was learning was how to move around the brush, using it as a shield to block vision rather than moving through it and causing noise. But even with this lesson, Shirou was all too aware of the amount of noise her shoes from the old world were making. Even though it was late summer and there weren't yet the blankets of leaves on the ground, she still made an uncomfortable amount of noise as she tried to sneak. He'd need to talk to her about changing her footwear to something quieter. Itsukushima would probably take care of that when he gave her the second-hand clothes given to graduates of the Hunter's Guild's training program. If not, Shirou could help her later.
Yume and Shirou caught up to the goblins where they had stopped in a clearing to set up a temporary fire for cooking. It was often how things went. Attacking while the enemy was busy preparing food or eating was the best opening. The need to be away from the dense brush when setting up fires always drove them out into the open more often than not. However, Shirou only spotted two goblins, while the tracks before suggested that there should be three. Didn't matter. Even if the last one came back, they would be able to handle it.
"It would be best if we shot them at the same time. I'll aim for the one on the left, you aim for the one on the right." Shirou told Yume, pulling out his own bow.
"Right." Yume whispered back, taking out the bow she had been given. Shirou glanced down at the rather worn bow. The wood still had some life in it, and the string was recently replaced, but its power was waning with time and wouldn't last forever. She'd need a replacement for that eventually.
Shirou nodded back at her and started to draw his own bow. "Tell me when your ready, and we will shoot on a five count.
Yume took a deep breath and started to notch her arrow. She stood up straight, counting on the bushes and the goblins' own distractions to hide her. She got her feet into stance as best she could on the slight slope of the hill and raised her bow. All of her focus was on steadying herself, as if she was on the practice field again. It would help her now, but sooner or later she would need to deal with things like moving targets and uneven footing. The practice field conditions were too ideal, meant for archers who would be on a castle wall, rather than it the dense forest. "Ready."
"Alright." Shirou said, drawing back his arrow. "Five. Four. Three. Two. One." They both release the arrows from the strings, Shirou purposely firing slightly after Yume to compensate for his bow's greater strength making the arrow travel faster.
The two arrows hit and almost the exact same time, Shirou's taking his goblin through the head, killing it instantly, while Yume's arrow passed through the lower back of her target, close to its hips. The goblin gave a horrible shriek of pain as its spine and bladder were both pierced by the arrow, causing it to collapse to the ground, unable to move its legs. Even so, the goblin started to try to crawl away towards the bushes on the far side of the clearing.
"It's not getting away like that, but the noise it causes can draw trouble. You should finish the job." Shirou instructed Yume. He waited a moment for the girl to comply and draw another arrow, but the young hunter never moved. "Yume?"
Shirou glanced over to see the girl's eyes locked onto the retreating form of the goblin, her hands had a slight shake to them and her breathing was more rapid than before.
Shirou frowned, not understanding why she was suddenly so shaken. He hadn't sensed any sort of mystic properties about the goblin's screams that would have carried a killing intent, nor were they close enough for her to be overwhelmed by the smell of blood. So why was she so shaken?
With her hands so unstable she wouldn't be shooting her bow, and even injured to this extent, a goblin could still lash out if they got close enough to finish it with her katana, and they didn't have any healer with them. For safety's sake, Shirou drew a second arrow and shot the goblin through the back of the head, silencing it.
One the noise had died down Shirou turned to Yume. "Are you alright?"
Yume lowered her bow and nodded. "Yume is okay." She said weakly as her breathing began to slow back down. She still looked pale though. Whatever it was that had gripped her hadn't gone away completely.
"Then we will take what we can and move on. It is best not to linger after you make a kill." Shirou said, starting down towards the corpses. He stopped at the first goblin he had shot and quickly removed the arrow, wiping the blood off on the grass before returning it to one of his quivers. He then stripped off its talisman necklace and pocketed it, hardly even caring what the mud goblin had been collecting. He then moved on to the second goblin, the one that Yume had shot. "Your arrow got his spine, just above the hips. Looks like the shaft broke when he fell. Pity. The arrow can't be recovered." Shirou said as he examined the wound. "It was a good shot though."
"We… we just killed them." Yume said meekly. Shirou blinked in surprised and looked back at Yume who was staring at the dead goblin. "They didn't fight back or do anything. We just came along and killed them."
"Yes, that's right." Shirou said, not seeing a problem with this. Then he remembered Yume's aversion to killing animals. "Yume, these are not ordinary animals. They are goblins, one of the races that have made mankind their enemy."
"They probably had families and friends." Yume mumbled weakly.
Shirou frowned, even more confused than before. It sounded as though she thought that the goblins were somehow people. Shirou blinked to himself, realizing that it might be closer to the truth than he had ever really considered. They were capable of using tools, forming language, and banding together for survival. Perhaps the differences between them and humans weren't as large as Shirou considered. He had never really given it much thought as he killed them by the hundreds.
Then again, in the beginning, Shirou wasn't all that opposed to killing humans either. He still wasn't about it if the situation demanded it. Goblins were at war with humanity. So as a human, it was pretty much natural to kill them before they could kill him. But it seemed as though Yume didn't share his feelings, or lack there of, on the matter.
Shirou wondered if the others in his early party had ever thought the same as she did. Perhaps that was why they often viewed him as some kind of monster even though he was constantly helping them, because he was able to kill hundreds of thinking, feeling creatures without a hint of remorse.
Well, it was in the past. For now it was best to focus on the present and get Yume to forget about this notion that goblins were equal to people. "No, they wouldn't have had any family, nor were they likely to ever have any. Goblins don't care for their young past a week, and in goblin society, only the elite are permitted to have children at all. Mud goblin's like these would have never had any kids of their own."
"That… that's so sad." Yume sniffed a little, wiping at her eyes. She was so distracted, she didn't notice the rustling in a nearby bush.
Shirou sighed, got up and walked over to Yume, putting a hand on her head. "Yume. I understand that you care for other living things, but I suggest you forget that sentiment when it comes to monsters." Shirou said, trying to calm her down. "There is a reason why people call them that. They have been at war with humanity for hundreds of years. They hate all humans and will try to kill you on sight, regardless your intentions."
The goblin that had been seeking up in the bushes shot an arrow straight at Yume and Shirou batted it out of the air with a throwing knife he had drawn in his free hand. Yume was surprised by the sudden attack on her and turned just in time to see the goblin trying to make an escape.
Shirou threw his knife and it landed squarely between the goblin's shoulder blades, bringing the creature down. "Remember. Even if you feel sympathy for them, they will never return the feeling. They are not like that bear where if you just pay them respect and give them their space they will leave you alone. This is war, and it is kill or be killed." The girl was still confused, but the attack on her life had jarred her out of her guilt induced shock. "If you can't accept that, then I suggest you give up on becoming a Hunter."
"No! Yume will become a good Hunter! Eldritch said she could!" Yume said, shaking her head rapidly and causing her braids to fly about. "Yume can do it. She just… wasn't expecting the pudding to scream like that."
"Yes, goblins tend to be screamers." Shirou admitted. "Just so you know, they don't feel as much pain as they sound like they do. You could stab a goblin a dozen times, and so long as you didn't get it in the head, the lungs or the heart, it will continue to try to move. I've seen a goblin continuing to try to fight even with a dagger buried in its throat, just because its windpipe could still transport air to its lungs, so long as the knife wasn't removed. It is the only reason why goblins are dangerous, they just ignore pain. So remember this, when they are screaming like that, it is because they are trying to call for help, not because they are in pain."
"Yes, senpai." Yume said, nodding her head. She was recovering quickly.
Shirou bent down and retrieved the talisman from the goblin that Yume had gotten in the back and throw it to the girl. "Your first kill."
"But you were the one to kill it." Yume said, looking down at the talisman. It had two rather odd shaped fangs dangling from it, as well as some kind of bone.
"No. I just put it out of its misery. It would have died from your arrow anyways. It was only a matter of time." Shirou said as he walked towards the goblin in the bushes in order to retrieve his throwing knife. "We'll find another group. Next time I expect you to fire more than just one shot. After the first arrow you won't be firing at a still target. You'll find it is a lot harder to hit an enemy that knows you're shooting at it."
"Don't worry senpai. Yume will try until she succeeds. Yume won't shut down again like that." Yume assured him.
"Good. Now let go."
Some people have asked if I have a backlog at all this is coming from or if I am writing on a daily bases. I actually am writing these short chapters out on pretty much a daily bases. It's about two or three hours of writing a day, which I can still do alongside my classes, so long as nothing else comes up.