A young woman leaned against a nearby tree, breathing heavily.

"Damn..." she whispered, gasps of air escaped her mouth as she thought hard.

"Perhaps we should turn back...? Meow?" said her partner in crime, Melyny the Mynx.

"No, now quiet!" the woman scowled. The Mynx let out a quick hiss, but then crouched down to wait. "What to do...? What to do?!" she shouted in her mind. "The velocidrome will surely find us at this rate. Dammit! Why did I accept this job! I knew it would take me awhile to track and kill this thing, but not five days!"

A faint roar was heard in the distance. She did not register it, for it was not the sound of a velociprey, and it could not have been a velocidrome since there was only one per area... And it was not the gurgled sound of a kut-ku. She knew she had to finish this job now, whatever that thing the noise came from, she did not want to find out.

She rolled out from under the tree and flicked her large fan open. "I am Matsuki Ito! Come out and prepare yourself if you are not a coward!" she screamed. However silly this seemed, Matsuki learned many of the monsters knew human dialect, they just failed to speak it and had much smaller brains. The velociraptor crept closer, coming in from behind Matsuki.

It lept with such speed that it caught her off guard. It ripped her leg as it clawed at her pathetic attempt to dodge. Having little armor on, she took a great deal of damage. Matsuki was fine though, her armor was cloth to give her great mobility and it was runed to ward off fire and heat, as well as extreme cold, luckily it had not torn. Her armor cost a great deal to fix, and she was quite low on money since she upgraded her weapon.

The velociraptor roared, summoning velociprey to its aid. Matsuki backed off slowly, her fan open in front of her to fend off any attacks that would surely follow. The veloci finally backed her into a corner of two cliff walls. Matsuki raised her fan up horizontally and brought it down, hard. Dust was picked up in the violent winds that sprang forth, blinding the veloci. She snapped it shut and then spun around, letting her fan flick open, the outer rib of the opposite side she was holding, hitting the velociraptor in the jugular. A deafening crack was heard as the neck snapped. The smaller prey soon scampered off.

Matsuki limped towards the falled body of the Velociprey and retrieved her carving knife and took her prize, the hide and head. She stumbled off towards the village...

~

"All right then madam. I will get your reward." the maiden at the counter said. She scuttled off to flip through a container of files. She soon let out a squeek as she found the one. "Here you are miss. Please, hunt through our service again!" Matsuki left the smiling maiden witha groan.

"Being a hunter is not at all what it is cracked up to be, Melyny." she said to her ally. The melynx already began to run off towards the house, ready to prepare dinner.

Matsuki strode inside and plopped down on her bed, dead tired. Sounds of clangings and clatters filled the house as the melynx began to cook a fried velociraptor dish. All hunters had an ally of some sort, whether it was a felyne ot melynx to help with chorse and quests, or a cute pig that raised luck. Some experianced hunters even had wyverns under their control. Matsuki shook her head and stood up. She walked wearily to the table and sat down, an extravagant dinner laid out before her.

"I always forget why I don't have money..." Matsuki said to no one in particular. She alwasy sen her share of money on her house and garden. Every hunter also had something by their house, and depending on the house size, that extra thing would be greater. Matsuki owned a large stone house, it had a garden of five rows out front. There she grew herbs and mushrooms in the shaded area to make healing potions and antidotes. She always needed those.

"I wonder why I thought hunting monsters would make me feel better..." she said as her dinner got cold and she stared off into the distance... Unaware of any going ons.

"Hey, are you busy?" a young man asked as he entered the room. Matsuki shook her head and blinked twice. "Well, if you aren't, care to help me fight a kut-ku? Some people around the village are telling me you are a nice person to ask for help."

"Some people as in one?" she said, coldly. Her best friend Cho, often reffered new hunters to her. "Fine, fine. Be at the forest and hills as soon as you can. I'll meet you there." Matsuki stood up and walked passed the man, leaving her dinner to waste.

~

"Where is that kid?!" she yelled furiously. The man finally strode in, a great sword on his back.

"Are you a great sword user also?" the man inquired, pointing at the large slab of metal on her back, "It looks rather blunt..." Matsuki sighed and jerked her head towards the cave, where on the other side was the ungaurded area of the forest and hills.

"Do you actually know how to fight? No, don't answer. You'll just say yes. All you new hunters are the same, "I can fight!"" she said mockingly. The man looked rather downheartened but kept his mouth shut. "You will be the one whacking and killing the kut-ku, I will make sure it does not kill you or escape. You have potions... Right?" The man shook his head and Matsuki kicked his shin and handed him ten.

"So, where is it? The kut-ku." the man said. Matsuki went behind him and pushed him through the cave and then unrolled her map on the ground.

"Here." she said pointing to an area on the map. "This place is known as area four. The kut-ku that plag these hills often are found there. Wild mynx roam free there, so keep a close eye on your items."

"So, just go this way?" the man asked. Matsuki nodded tiredly. She hated to help new people.

As they walked into the mapped area, a large, pink, bird-like creature stood there. Its ears opened up like fans and let out a roar as it saw the two.

"Wonderful, now go kill it!" Matsuki shouted, shoving the man in the arse with her foot. He stumbled forward. The man, still in shock, drew his sword and just stood there. "By my Goddess! Attack!" The man snapped out of hit and charged at the kut-ku, only to be smacked out of the way by the kut-ku's tail.

"Ow!" the man cried. He immediatly downed a potion. Matsuki twisted her head to the left and cracked her neck in frustration.

"What a waste.." she thought to herself. This continued until he was out of potions. They retreated to a small area, unable to be reached by the kut-ku, who waited at the entrance for them to exit.

"Heal me..." the man said.

"Good you're talking, you're fine. You have no need to heal." Matsuki said coldly. "If that Cho said Ii was kind, I am. Just not a pushover." She stuck her tounge out at him.

She took a stick and quickly mapped out a tactic he should try.

As they exited the area. The man tumbled between the kut-ku's legs and swung his great sword at the tail. The kut-ku hollared in pain as its tail was severed. It whirl around in a rage, and the man slipped between the legs again, the kut-ku was confused and looked around frantically.

"Stab upwards. Now!" Matsuki screamed. The man plunged his great sword up, but it bounced off the scales of the kut-ku's underbelly. "Oh shit..." Matsuki thought to herself. She might have gotten him into trouble.

She crouched low and whipped her fan out and flung it open, a huge noise filled the area, unrecognizable by anyone. This startled the kut-ku and it fell to its side.

"Get out of there!" Matsuki said, but the man instead stuck the kut-ku in the head. Blood poured from its forehead. Matsuki let out a chuckle and then the kut-ku proceeded to fly off. Matsuki grunted and held her fan with both hands to the side and spun counter-clockwise and swung her fan vertically, a blast of wind rushed past the man, startling him, and struck the wyvern in the wings, knocking form the sky.

The man stood there, his mout gaping at the fan. He thought an item made the sound, but now he was certain that this was the source. And this fan even knocked a wyvern from the sky.

He shook the image from his head and used a escape vail, it sent him to the homepoint of the forest and hills.

"So... The legends are true, a woman with a fan that can hold back wyverns with air." the man said, and he began to laugh malevolently.

Matsuki cussed under her breath, angry that the man left. She didn't even get his name, so she couldn't report hito the hunter's council. She rushed forward and did a front flp with her fan between her hands. It sliced the kut-ku in half.

"At least he weakened it enough for me to actually slice it..." she said to herself. Normal a wyvern with full energy, even one at this weak strength, could resist her fan's blade. Shaking her head, she left the corpse and returned to the village and sat in the tavern, sipping on some fine wine, not the cheap crap they usualy serve.