Red Snow [Monster Hunter Story] /english ver.

Chapter 5

"Good idea - the arrow," Brandon turned around and stretched out his arm for Runa, "I knew you would think of something."

She reached for his hand and pulled herself up, before she brushed off all the snow that got stuck on her.

"Uhm... well I wasn't sure if it would work. It could have gone very badly. And I'm sorry I panicked, I just didn't expect to get attacked from behind. I'll be more careful next time, I promise!" she stuttered while her eyes were glued to the ground.

Brandon gently grasped her arm, "But it did work, Runa! The monster is dead and we are alive, that's all that matters."

She didn't respond.

"And besides... " suddenly his voice changed from its usual rough tone, to sounding very smooth – almost calming, "You getting ambushed was my fault, not yours. I misjudged the situation even though I already felt something was off. So I'm the one that needs to apologize."

Runa searched for words, but couldn't find any. She just glanced up in Brandon's eyes, uncovering a light blush across her face.

Her reaction confused him a bit.
Brandon was leagues better at reading the movement of a monster than the thoughts of a woman. He wasn't sure what to make of her behavior, so he let go of her arm again.

"Anyways..." he cleared his throat, "We'll have to discuss this later."

His speech was quickly back to its normal pattern. As Brandon stepped back, he noticed Runa holding a spot on her lower back.

"You're injured. Does it hurt badly?"

She shook her head, "No, it's not that bad. My new armor did a good job. I think it's because of the fall."

Brandon made sure there wasn't any blood, to confirm her pain wasn't caused by claws or teeth.

"Can you continue?"

Runa pulled out a first-aid medicine and opened the lid.

"I'll be fine after this." she reassured him, before drinking the whole jar in small sips.

"Good," Brandon exhaled, "Now let's hurry back to Tess and Donniel. I bet they're already waiting for us. Now comes the hard part after all."

He turned around and was head over heels back to his mates, but Runa stopped him in his tracks.

"Brandon..." she said, almost whispering, while she wiped her mouth with her sleeve, "Thank you..."

Brandon glanced over his shoulder and gave her a nod with a warm smile on his face, then continued heading back to the others.

'Hmm, this girl... She's capable of more than she thinks.'

Runa quickly began searching for her bow. It only took a few seconds before she spotted it. Wasn't too hard to find it against the white contrast of the snow.

Unfortunately she also found parts of her bow missing. Some of the attachments needed for the application of the coatings had come loose.

The rest of it seemed fine though and she had no time to repair it anyways, so she just strapped her weapon on her back and followed Brandon through the storm.

==========

The Blangonga rolled around recklessly, which caused it to fling several clouds of fine snow into the air. The influence of the flash bomb was close to an end.

"Great, now we really made it mad!" Donniel shouted over to Tess, "We better group up again! What in the world is taking them so long?"

"Don't worry, we're back!" Brandon called out, as he came closer with Runa behind him.

Donniel instantly rushed over to her.

"Runa! Are you okay? Did something happen to you?"

"I'm fine, Brandon helped me out," she tried calming her worried companion.

"I'm so sorry we left you on your own over there. We should've been more careful."

"No need to stress about it, Donniel. Everything ended up okay. I'm alright, really."

Brandon intervened, "What's your situation? Where is Tess?"

"Oh, we had no problems. The flash bomb worked perfectly and we killed the small fuckers. However, I don't think it'll be affected much longer," reported Donniel, "And Tess is over at-"

He didn't need to finish his sentence, as Tess already drew their attention on her own. The three could hear her shouting from behind the dusty snow clouds.

"Ehm, guys... sorry to interrupt your reunion, but I could really use some help here! Seems like our friend has recovered from his little timeout, doesn't look like he enjoyed it!"

They all followed her voice until they stood right next to her.

"Welcome back! Don't think big guy here is too happy about seeing you though." Tess was already in combat stance.

The rest promptly followed suit. Everybody went to their positions and unsheathed their weapons. Now they finally stood together again, facing their enemy as a unit.

Brandon called out to his team once more.

"Alright guys, you know what to do! Let's get this over with!"

The time for messing around was over. It was about to get serious!