Nightfall

Chapter 12: The Boss

I followed Jason all the way back to camp. The demons initially tried chasing us, but aided with our incredible speed we quickly escaped their view in the dense forest. To put it in perspective, the walk out there had taken several hours; the trip back took less than twenty minutes. I had no idea how fast that meant we were running, but we rocketed through that forest.

Then, all of the sudden, we broke out of the dense brush and I found myself in the familiar clearing of tree stumps. The sight relaxed me and I let down my guard. The devils trap we had carefully formed around the camp was not going to let any of the pursuing beasts through.

As I caught my breath Jason walked over to me, shook my hand, and congratulated me. His grip, unsurprisingly, was like iron

"Ya did it bro. Good job! That was definitely a worthy opponent. So, ya' passed, you are officially done with training. Now I can get ya' back to Ruby and y'all can go do all that vigilante stuff."

I laughed then replied sarcastically, "Yeah, can't wait to get shot at and blown up a week after I finished training."

"You'll be fine as long as ya' don't do anythin' dumb!"

"Well you know me, stupid is my middle name."

We both laughed and headed back to camp to celebrate with yet more fish and granola bars. There was a small period of time in which I was completely relaxed, but pretty soon it occurred to me what the next day would be like and I spent the rest of the night preparing mentally for the trek back into Eden. Jason, like always, didn't seem too concerned by the upcoming two day marathon, and started up a fire for us. He even entertained me with stories from his life as a hunter as night fell.

As it turns out, he quit hunting for good ten years ago. It surprised me to hear that given the huge amount of power and skill he still possessed, but then again, hunting was definitely not for everyone. He told me stories of tough battles he had gone through, and of all the different monsters he had encountered. It was fascinating to find out that he had actually fought a demon lord and won; albeit it was a weak one. That battle was his last as a hunter, so naturally I tried to pry into his mind and figure out what had happened to make him walk away from the job like that. However, no matter how I asked he shut me out. Even in the dim glow of the campfire it was obvious that he didn't want me to know all the details; which in a way, made me want to know them all the more. All I was able to deduce was that something had definitely happened during that assignment, but curiously, it wasn't the demon that had done the damage. His departure from the job seemed to be linked to the military/ government. How it was related, I have no idea, but it was obvious that he had nothing positive to say about them.

Then, after what seemed like such a short amount of time, it was time to end the day. Apparently it had been dark for hours, even if it only felt like a few minutes. His stories made the time fly.

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The next day started uncomfortably early with a quick packing of our tents and minimal equipment. It took almost an hour to pack up, and by the time we had clipped the last of our clips and buckled the last of our buckles the sun had just began to push its way into the sky.

Subverting my expectations the marathon did not begin right away. We ate a quick meal and waited a few minutes for the sun to fully rise. Then after Jason deemed it safe to travel he led me to the edge of the demons trap. We were about to cross the invisible boundary line he stopped and paused.

He turned to face me, hands resting on the straps of his backpack, and said, "Hold up a sec' Stone. I wanna show you somethin 'fore we go. Consider it a partin piece of knowledge."