A short black haired boy with somewhat pale skin sits behind a desk. He taps his foot as if waiting for something, his face has an annoyed expression. The desk sits in the middle of a room that is mostly empty, two small windows behind the desk and a wooden door across the room.
The door slams open, the sound startles the boy , he flinches in his seat as a woman enters the room with a frightened look on her face.
"Urgent D rank bounty!"
The boy rolls his eyes.
"What is the request?"
The woman's face calms.
"There is a reptile type monster wreaking havoc in the forest outside of the city, its expected difficulty is E class."
The boy stands up and walks towards the woman as his face forms a smirk.
"What's the bounty worth?"
The woman pulls a pouch out of her bag.
"100 gold pieces"
The boy shrugs his shoulders.
"Good enough, I'll collect this bounty for you."
The woman's expression grows sour.
"I don't have time for your jokes, can you please just get a bounty hunter."
The boy crosses his arms, his expression clearly getting annoyed.
"Listen here ma'am, I'm not not some receptionist for bounty hunters"\
He continues.
"I'll have you know I've been a bounty hunter for almost a decade though I've only been active for around a year".
The woman's face grows shocked.
"But you're just a chil-."
The boy cuts the woman off, he raises his arm and points his finger directly in the woman's face.
"Actually I'm not that young, I just turned 16 last week, I'm just short."
He lowers his arm.
"Now are you going to give me the money or not?"
She reaches towards the boy with the pouch.
"I suppose if you really are a bounty hunter, what's your name?"
The boy grabs the pouch of gold from the woman.
"They call me Rouga and I'm zodiac number twelve."
The woman nods her head.
"I understand, I wish you luck in your fight."
She then leaves the building.
The boy leaves soon after, outside there is a vibrant garden with many multicolored flowers with a walkway in the middle leading to a tall metal fence. From where the boy is standing you could see that the building he just exited is a large house. The boy leans over to stretch.
"I guess I should get to work."
The boy starts to run, his strides short but efficient covering the length of the yard in no time, he slows down just before the fence and lowers his body slightly as he jumps straight over the fence which measures at least 10 feet high.
He continues on through the city, passing many modern looking buildings, various stores and such until he reaches the edge of the city, a long tree line can be seen stretching off as far as the eye can see. He enters the dark forest, the trees here are so tall and the forest so compact that if you were in the middle of it you would think it was night time.
"I'm not sensing anything out of the ordinary."
He plunges deeper into the forest trying to see if he can find any trails of animals, all his years on his own made him into a great hunter. Him finally comes to a stop when he hears the sound of a woman screaming off in the distance.
"Well that can't be good can it"
He tries his best to follow the sound to the best of his abilities sprinting through the forest, the sound of broken branches reverberating throughout the forest with every step. It didn't take much time for him to locate the origin of the sound but what he found stopped him in his tracks. A giant limbless reptile sits in the middle of an open field, in front of it lay a woman on her knees clearly terrified of the creature in front of her, all of her belongings spread throughout the field as if she dropped it while she was running.
"Hey!"
Rouga makes as much noise as he can to possibly draw the attention of the snake, its eyes immediately drift across the field and locks eyes with the boy trying to choose its next move. Before it can decide, the boy swiftly closes the distance before the creature can even react, grabbing the woman and dragging her as far away from the creature as he can.
"Sorry about not asking if you wanted to leave but you didn't seem too happy about being with the snake."
The woman looks up at the boy confused and somewhat frightened by what the boy said.
"Sorry , I have a weird sense of humor, I'll have some questions for you once this is all settled."
The creature found them in the midst of their conversation, its gaze meets Rouga choosing him as a bigger threat than the woman.
Rouga takes one last look at the woman before readying himself for combat.
"I'll be right back."
He lunges at the creature, his speed seems hard to keep up with for the snake as before the creature could make a move he was already on top of its head preparing for his first attack. The snake shakes its body to get the boy off of it but he was ready for this to happen, he jumps down grabbing the snake by its neck wrapping his arms around it and slamming its head into the ground as he lands.
The creature jerks back startled by the collision but not taking serious damage
"You're one sturdy bastard"
The boy loosens himself while the creature is regaining its footing.
"Time to get serious."
He stamps his feet into the ground. His body changes somewhat, nothing major but his hands morph slightly as his nails become longer, sharper, and more sturdy as well as the rest of his body seems stronger as if all the muscles within his body have woken up.
The monster regains its composure ensuring it makes the first move, it might lack intelligence but it has strong instincts and a strong body to enact them. It lunges at the boy opening its mouth to take a bite out of him, the snake closes its mouth as fast as it can the sound echoing through the forest but it didn't manage to hit anything, the boy had escaped at the last moment and was already readying his next attack. he stands to the side of the snake preparing a punch, he lowers his body at frightening speeds punching straight up at the snakes head which sends the snake flying upward into the air its body straightening almost perfectly a straight line. The boy wasting no time jumps into the air once again grabbing the snake's head and slamming it into the ground.
This time it took some significant damage, blood dripping down out of its mouth. But it wasn't defeated yet, the damage so far only adding to its anger.
The boy locks eyes with the snake.
"Let's end this."
He jumps at the snake's head one more time but this time grabbing one of its fangs and ripping it straight out of the monster's mouth, blood spraying from the spot the tooth was just in.
the snake collapses on the ground, at the same time Rouga stabs straight through the head of the snake with its own fang ending its misery.
The woman comes out from where she was hiding and see's the boy standing over the corpse of the snake.
"You really killed it."
The boy turns around towards the woman as she moves closer to him.
"Yeah this one wasn't too big of a deal, step back though it's not over yet."
he reaches his hand out towards the corpse and opens his palm, as he does so the snake starts to glow as a pure white aura surrounds its body and then leaves its body, the white cloud of light hovers above the body for a moment before condensing itself into a solid crystal with a small but strong white dot in the center.
The woman looks at Rouga.
"What is that?"
The boy walks over to collect the crystal to show the woman.
"This is the monster's soul."
She gives him a confused look.
"Its soul?"
he nods at the woman.
"Yes, but before I answer any of your questions I have some questions for you."
She nods back at him.
"Good, my first questions are who are you and how did you end up here."
She laughs at the boy as if expecting a different kind of question.
" Well my name is Duma and I was wandering through the forest to collect herbs, when that monster appeared out of nowhere."
Rouga nods.
"You got to be more careful, its not safe to wander the forest alone."
he continues.
"Especially during this time of year, there are very dangerous creatures out here, way scarier than that snake I just defeated."
Her face becomes pale.
"I had no idea."
He laughs.
"you're lucky a bounty hunter like me showed up or things might have gone a lot worse but all in all things went alright but make sure you don't wander around here alone anymore."
he continues.
"Now, where was I?"
Duma looks down at the crystal in his hand.
"I believe you were explaining to me what that rock in your hand was."
he looks down at his hand.
"Ah yes, this is that monster's soul, as a bounty hunter it's my job to welcome its soul into myself, luckily doing so increases my strength but it still hurts nonetheless."
She nods.
"It hurts?"
he laughs again.
"When absorbing another creature's soul you experience all the pain they felt throughout their life, including that fight we just had."
Duma nods once more but the expression on her face says that she definitely doesn't understand what's being thrown at her.
"Sorry for all the trouble but can I ask a request of you for saving your life."
She shakes her head in agreement.
"What is it?"
He smiles at her.
"Protect my body in case things get bad."
She nods.
Rouga closes his eyes clenching the crystal with both of his hands, the tiny dot spreads until the light fills the entire crystal and then it shatters into dust and Rouga collapses on the ground.