"All right. Fall in line." I rested my hands on my hips, my voice cutting through the quiet hum of the guild outpost.

  I studied them. The brutal reality of the hunting grounds had completely stripped away their earlier arrogance. Hoiler was hunched over, clearly still nursing battered ribs despite the guild healer's immediate attention. The rest of them kept their eyes anchored to the dirt, too ashamed to meet my gaze.

  "Heads up, kids," I commanded, keeping my tone coldly detached. "There are no answers hiding in the mud. If you want to survive out there, the only direction you look is forward."

  Slowly, reluctantly, they lifted their bruised faces.

  "Why do you think you failed today?"

  Silence hung over the group. They exchanged nervous, sideways glances.

  "Patrice." She flinched, her eyes widening. "Tell me exactly why you failed."

  "...Because we lacked... teamwork?" she guessed, her fiery temper fully extinguished.

  "Kenny?"

  "B-because... I lost control. It’s my fault," he stammered, trembling slightly.

  "Mathilda?"

  "Because... we didn't communicate," she whispered.

  "Hoiler?"

  He squeezed his eyes shut, dragging a trembling hand down his face. "...Because I'm weak."

  I let out a slow, heavy exhale. "Wrong. Every single one of you." I began to pace, my boots crunching rhythmically against the gravel. "You failed because you have zero foundation and absolutely no self-awareness."

  They stared at me, thoroughly confused.

  "A solid foundation—the repetitive, boring, physical basics—is what makes your skills actually effective. Self-awareness tells you where your flaws lie and exactly where your limits end."

  "But a hunter is supposed to surpass their limits!" Hoiler protested, a tiny spark of his old defiance returning.

  I stopped dead and pinned him with a glare. "And do you even know where your limits are, Hoiler?"

  He swallowed hard and averted his gaze.

  "If you want to shatter your limits, you have to map them first. You need to understand your strengths and acknowledge your boundaries. You hone that by mastering the basic." I swept my gaze over all four of them. "Not everyone is born with the sheer talent you possess. But if you squander it on blind cockiness and hesitation, that gift will just rot in your veins."

  I turned my back on them. "Dismissed. Go report your failure to the administration."

  It was the only real advice I could give them..

  I found Hans waiting by the weathered wooden gates of the outpost.

  "Was it bad?" he asked, crossing his arms.

  I leaned back against the rough timber of the wall. "Worse. It was a joke. Why in the hell did the guild assign greenhorns to hunt those monsters?"

  Hans rubbed his temples. "Don’t put this on me, Ramond. You know the situation is desperate." He let out a ragged sigh. "The dark caves are spawning faster than we can clear them. The contracts are piling up to the ceiling. We need bodies on the front lines, immediately."

  "Tch. It's bullshit. The academy system is a joke. These kids barely know the basics, yet they're already learning flashy skills." I scoffed. "If the guild wants surviving hunters, they need to stop training circus performers."

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Hans shook his head sadly. "I don't disagree. But our hands are tied."

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, fighting an oncoming headache. "Whatever. My babysitting shift is done." I pushed off the wooden wall. "Do me a favor and look the other way for an hour, Hans?"

  He narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing?"

  " I need to go back and kill that troll before it tracks the kids down. "

  Hans groaned, but he didn't stop me. "Gods... Just make it quick and quiet."

  "Always."

  I plunged back into the dark canopy of the forest, breaking into a dead sprint. I needed to execute the bastard before it retreated into the deep woods to heal.

  When I slid into the destroyed clearing, the space was empty. The unconscious mountain of flesh was gone. I dropped to a crouch, my eyes instantly scanning the torn earth for a trail.

  Nothing. No dragged dirt. No heavy footprints.

  A sudden, icy prickle crawled up my spine. My combat instincts screamed.

  Above!

  I threw myself backward just as a colossal fist plummeted from the sky.

  KABOOMM!! The earth cratered exactly where I had been kneeling, throwing a shower of dirt and stone into the air.

  The troll hadn't run. It had climbed into the canopy, laying an ambush for the man who knocked it out.

  I drew my dagger in a flash of steel and scrambled up the trunk of a towering pine.

  The troll roared, slamming its massive fists against the base of the pine to shake me loose. I didn't wait. I bounded nimbly across the overlapping branches, treating the canopy like a staircase while the enraged monster tore through the forest floor below, smashing every trunk I leaped from.

  "HRRRAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!" it bellowed, blinded by fury.

  "Heh. Not used to the prey playing games with you, are you?" I taunted, scaling higher until I reached a thick, sturdy bough directly above the clearing.

  Down below, the troll crouched, preparing for a high jump.

  BANG! A concussive shockwave rippled through the dirt as the beast launched its massive bulk upward, its jagged claws reaching for my throat.

  Perfect. "Got you, bastard."

  I grounded my stance on the thick branch. As the monster's grotesque face eclipsed my vision, I drove my boot downward with every ounce of physical strength I possessed, planting my heel directly into its snout.

  CRACK! The horrific sound of breaking cartilage echoed through the trees. The mid-air impact instantly killed the troll's momentum, sending it plummeting backward.

  BAM! It struck the earth headfirst, bouncing once before groaning, stubbornly trying to push itself up on trembling arms.

  I didn't give it the chance. I dove from the canopy, dropping like an executioner's blade. I landed squarely on its broad back, driving the full length of my steel dagger perfectly through the back of its skull and out between its eyes.

  Dammit. I'm definitely going to need a new dagger.

  I wrenched my ruined blade free from the bone and walked away from the troll’s twitching corpse, wiping the foul blood on my trousers.

  A sudden, familiar chill crawled up my spine—the unmistakable pressure of a high-level aura.

  "Did Hans rat me out?" I asked, throwing a weary glance over my shoulder.

  "Please. Half the forest heard that obnoxious racket," Tris purred. She was leaning gracefully against a splintered pine, a knowing smirk playing on her lips.

  "What do you want, Tris?" I sighed, rolling my stiff shoulders.

  "Just satisfying my curiosity. It's not every day a mere 'guide' gets caught poaching monsters in the training zones." She pushed off the tree, closing the distance with the predatory grace of a panther. In one fluid, blinding motion, she drew her longsword and cleanly decapitated the troll. The massive head hit the dirt with a wet thud. "You always forget to take the head, Rammy. Trolls regenerate."

  I stared flatly at the rolling head. "I scrambled its brain stem. It wasn't getting up."

  She giggled, a bright, melodic sound that contrasted wildly with the blood on her steel. "And you completely ruined your dagger doing it... again."

  " It was necessary, or that bastard would have hunted those kids down. Besides..." I pivoted, locking eyes with her. "Why in the hell did you approve that hunt? Piglets? Frenzy Red Bears? A damn troll? Those are vanguard-level targets, Tris. Not fodder for greenhorns."

  The playful tease instantly drained from her expression. "It is a calculated risk, Ramond." She stepped into my personal space, radiating quiet, dangerous authority. "Do you truly believe the guild makes these assignments blindly?"

  "I think it's reckless negligence," I scoffed, brushing past her shoulder to leave.

  "Report to the central guild hall first thing tomorrow morning," she ordered, her tone shifting to absolute command. "You are being reassigned."

  My boots stopped dead in the dirt. I looked back over my shoulder. "To what role?"

  Her dangerous smirk returned, accompanied by a slow, deliberate wink. "To the one you were born for."

  She gestured gracefully toward the edge of the woods. "Now, if you don't want the sentries and cleaners to find you standing over a poached troll, I suggest you vanish. See you tomorrow, handsome."