The hero is now gone, but I’m still here, now what? (Undergoing editing)

Pulling on the loom that is her innate reservoir of light, Lucille plucked meters worth of string out from within and weaved it into a fashionable clothing- one that looked like the Academy uniform that she had so far dreamt of, her make coalesced around herself, growing into its proper form as Lucille willed it so, bit by bit, designs got etched; a tiny frill on the collar, a small pocket on the chest, a skirt, and finally a pair of black combat boots as well as two elbow-length gloves- she hasn't tried this before, casting multiple techniques at once by adding minute features into her make so that she can save time.

When she opened her eyes, Lucille felt her “clothing” wrap around her body, a small boost of vitality on her collar so that her throat doesn't strain itself from swallowing too much air as she moved, another on her chest so that her heart can take on the strain of beating too hard, another on her hips so that they end up fine even after moving her running around, then finally, a boost of speed in her legs as well as a boost of strength in her hands for the actual combat- comparatively, her current make is smaller and weaker compared to when she just weaves one Technique but the myriad of vitality boosts it offers is good for her health in the long run.

And well… it's not like she's fighting Demons right now, so the situation isn't really at such a big deal that she needs to use her strongest Technique right off the bat- that would just be overkill.

Lucille called her Pledge and the tiny blade came into her hands, then, without further ado, she stepped into the circle she drew on the ground around her training dummy- a scarecrow that she personally made herself wearing her old clothes, - she took a step forward, her feet feeling light as she started to dance around the stationary humanoid made of hay and wood.

She started to increase her speed and all the while, she tried to maintain her breathing, taking in lungfuls of air whenever she could but otherwise simply took in tiny gulps during her quick paced movement.

Once she felt she was fast enough, Lucille started her training by pulling off an attack-

She dashed to the right of the scarecrow and struck its ribs, ripping out cloth and causing hay to spill before taking a major leap backward not a second after she stabbed, then just as her feet landed on the ground after her jump, she pushed her soles again and leapt for the scarecrow a second time, she executed a slash, this time on the neck- deadly, precise, and more than enough to kill a weak Demon.

She stopped and took in a deep breath before funneling Light into her boosts, keeping them stable and extending their time limit.

How long was that? She couldn’t help but ask herself, but that question is irrelevant since- “uhm… did you?..” She asked the boy standing to her right, her childhood friend, Nickos, who was holding the stopwatch with a small smile on his face, he nodded and showed her the time, Lucille neared him and held it, “3 seconds,” she sighed, “the princess would be disappointed,”

“... yeah… right, she’d be disappointed- I get it though, you want to be like her,” he nodded, “I also admire her speed, how fast do you think she can move her hands?” Nickos asked with a lecherous grin, forcing Lucille to slap him back to reality- as always, “You can't just do that!”

Lucille rolled her eyes, “I can and have, over a hundred times already,” she said with a grin of her own, “don't think about the princess like that unless you want to die,” she said simply, “you know how the other boys around the village feel about her,”

“But can I really help it?!” Refuted Nikos, “she taught us- kids her age, how to properly read and do proper jobs! And that's not even adding the fact that she gives us food! She's strong- amazing-  I- she's so kind and so perfect!”

“None of those are related to your perverted thoughts or your disgusting grin,” Lucille narrowed her eyes, “if you want to appreciate the princess then work hard, we're entering the Academy and if you want to get her attention, you're gonna have to be strong,”

She knows she will work hard. If not for the princess’ attention then for herself.

“I…” Nickos hummed, “you know what? You're right,” he nodded and stood up from his seat before standing in front of the dummy, he called his Pledge, a bell that boosts his and his allies’ Techniques before ringing it, he got his Pledge one charge down to use a boosted Minor Strength on himself, then he punched the scarecrow, causing it to erupt from the inside out but despite that, Lucille wasn’t impressed.

 She only stared at him dryly, hands on her hips, “what is wrong with you?”

“What?! The princess will look at that and be impressed right?! And, I mean, I'm one of the only students who has a supporting Pledge! She'd want me on her team, invite me, then I'd refuse at first before she starts breaking down my barriers-”

Lucille shook her head as the guy she knew all her life started fantasizing openly about the princess.

And well, it’s not like he doesn’t stand a chance but… well Nickos is good looking, even she had to admit he had that going for him- with a muscled body from working the fields, a chiseled jawline, and a height that far surpasses her own, hell, save for his lecherous thoughts about the princess, he's also a pretty good guy, heroic too, as he's willing to stand behind archers to offer them arrows when a small horde of monsters descended on their village some time ago.

And yet… “- and then once we get close enough, she's gonna start making her moves and then I’d surprise her by kissing her first-”

“She's the one making her moves?” Lucille cocked her hips, “really? Who's the guy between you two?”

“Pffft- everyone knows that girls like her are gonna be the one dominating the relationship,” says Nickos with a shameless shrug, “I'm simply the poor log getting swept up by the river, the leaf getting blown away by the storm, the anvil getting… pounded by the-”

“You can stop now,” Lucille shook her head, she swears this guy, “well, if you don't want to train, then don't,” she shrugged, not that it’s a guarantee that he wouldn’t enter the Academy with her since Nickos would pass the Academic test just fine, meanwhile, the tests for Techniques would be a given since it’s what he specializes in and as for the physicals?.. Well, he definitely found a team to help him fight those dummies.

Lucille sighed, “Don’t train if you want, just don't regret it when some other guy sweeps up Neophyte,”

“Hah! As if they can take the princess’ heart,” he grinned, “if I can’t do it, then no one can!”

“Her maid and some other noble lady did,” Lucille retorted dryly.

“Then that means that the guy that gets into the princess’ relationship circle will be alone in a room full of girls!” He grinned, “ha!”

“... sure,” Lucille shook her head before facing the people she noticed have been making their way towards her and Nickos for a while now- her mom and dad were walking towards her with a basket of food and a small knapsack respectively.

Deciding that making them walk all the way is rude since she already noticed them, Lucille gestured at them and she and Nickos walked towards her parents, her friend still continuing to talk about how nice it would be to be in a relationship with the princess.

She met her parents halfway, she smiled at them while her friend waved a greeting, “thank you.” Lucille started, “for… trusting me, not just with the bag of stuff and the food,”

“Eh- should I go? I feel like I should go…” Nickos muttered.

Her Dad handed her the bag before hugging her, “Lucille, you know we trust you more than anything right?” She nodded and broke the hug before strapping the bag onto her back, “come back safe okay?”

She nodded and her mother stepped in and gave her another hug, “good luck,” she handed Lucille the basket before breaking the hug.

“You know, this feels like she's going to die or something,” Nickos said with a shrug, “I mean, seriously, we're just gonna go hunt some monsters-” Lucille threw the bag at him, “what's this for?”

“Carry it,” she glared, that's what he gets for ruining the moment, “now come on, we need to leave so that we can come back before night falls,”

Following after her, Nickos jogged and when he caught up, the first thing that came out of his mouth was a question, “so… how uh, what's inside of this thing?” He asked, “feels pretty heavy,"

“Rope, hiking gear, rolled up sleeping beds in case we stay in the forest, and a few blades in case you need a weapon,”

“Oh.” Nickos nodded, “so, uh, what are we going to hunt?”

“A few Iron Tusks, Ground Shakers, and Dirt Poppers,” she worded it out in a way that she numbered her targets from the easiest to kill before getting harder with each passing monster: Iron Tusks were simple, with their boar-like features and their porkine build, she could easily kill one, even if they're as tall as her and far larger by a wide margin, meanwhile Ground Shakers were massive yet slow beasts that lumbered around, lugging their fat, bulbous, tear-shaped bodies full of fur using a myriad of tiny legs, they are by all means, nothing more than a glorified beetle larvae and are something that she could easily kill, even when it'll take time for her to do so.

But… then there's the Dirt Poppers, they’re what she considers to be the hardest creature she can fight with her style of battling; usually, the damn things are just annoying to fight, and that goes for most people.

But to her and her fighting style that requires quick execution of slashes to swiftly bring down her enemies, their methods of burrowing into the ground and only attacking when the opportunity arises is a nightmare- and it doesn't help that the gigantic worms were armored with hardened chitin that looks like tree bark either, allowing them to blend into the environment unless they decide to willingly show themselves and preventing her to kill them before they could bury themselves.

Most of the time, the monsters don't really show themselves, staying hidden and more often than not preferring to wait for their chosen target to pass their camouflaged forms before making their move and burrowing into the ground unseen.

“Okay, so I'm gonna run when we see an Iron Tusk,” Nickos said, bringing Lucille out of her anxious thoughts, “because those things are smart, and they know to target backliners,”

“Smarter than you then,” Nickos gave her a dry stare and Lucille giggled, “okay, okay- I was joking, but don't worry, no Iron Tusk is gonna try to kill you since they're gonna be mainly focusing on me,” she said with a grin, “I won't let them get past me,”

“Them?” Nickos said with a raised eyebrow.

“It, then,” Lucille corrected, “alone,”

“Good,” he nodded.

For a good while, there was nothing in the forest and she walked alongside Nickos in silence, they went past several of the noted landmarks around the area, such as the twin trees- a pair of trees whose branches intertwined with one another, looking as though they were twins holding each other's hands, - or the Rock of Solace, a large boulder which, due to weather erosion and rain- or maybe monster influence, no one really knows, - had a massive hole at the top that looked as though it was a massive beanbag chair, often, villagers would find themselves sitting on it to relax.

Including among them is Nickos- “you can come down now,” Lucille said from the bottom of the manmade stairs as she tapped her foot impatiently, “you know how I feel about waiting,”

“Let me relax,” he said with a self satisfied grin, “and imagine the princess sitting on my lap, feeding me fruits with her hands as she giggled from my jokes,-”

“I will come up there,” Lucille threatened and Nickos got up, albeit begrudgingly and grumbling about unfair Pledge gifting, when she heard that last one, Lucille repeated her sagely words to him for the umpteenth time “you do realize that you can be like that one party member of one of the ancient Heroes right?” Lucille mentioned as they started to walk again, “like… uh-”

“Foover the monk,” Nickos said with a sigh, “you say his name all the time but you always can't remember it at the start,”

“Yeah! Him!” Lucille said, ignoring her friend's jab as she pointed a finger at him and jabbed him on the ribs, making him flinch, “you know, the one with the beads who can boost the bodies of his allies! Including himself!”

“...” Nickos sighed, “do you really think that being a monk suits me?” He said with a sigh, “you know how things go for monks, they always get treated as or pushed into a stereotype,” he said like it was a valid reason, “also, I need to become bald in order to become one so no, I don't want to, the princess needs to see my hair in order to fall in love with me,”

“Sure,” Lucille said with a roll of her eyes, “but you always have that option you know? Get yourself boosting Techniques and use them in tandem with your Pledge, I bet with your Pledge, after years of practice, you're probably gonna be more powerful than Foover, and that’s after he uses all 10 of his Beads for himself,”

“... no,” Nickos said, “I'm not going bald, Neophyte will make fun of me and it'll be the end of my future chances of wooing her,”

“... suit yourself,” Lucille shrugged, “personally, I think she's a fan of Foover,”

“No she's not,” Nickos retorted and Lucille giggled.

More landmarks were passed by them as they made their way deeper into the forest; the blowfish lake, misty signs, skeleton guard key, metal embrace, and finally, when they passed by the ring of trees, they stepped into the darkest part of the forest.

Lucille and Nickos turned silent and a serious expression grew on their faces, they needed to be wary since where they were was a hunting ground full of monsters; with a dark environment devoid of any light, eerie atmosphere, and silent surroundings, the Inner Forest is the perfect home for creatures with a passion for eating flesh, as it allows them to hide from those who would otherwise slay them, human or otherwise.

Most of the time, other monsters are more than enough to keep each other’s population in check but on the rare occasion that the monsters start to horde, they would not hunt each other and instead start to tolerate one another, growing more hostile as they breed and grow in number, and their aggression only gets worse whenever they pass other monsters.

They start to bottle up and after some sort of threshold is reached- a stampede happens and the monster horde runs out of the forest en masse, killing anything in their way towards an unknown goal- but it is theorized that they are following the scent of the Demon Lord and thus, their goal is actually reaching humanity's enemy.

What happens after they reach it is a mystery and most do not want to find out.

Lucille hummed, “so, you think that there's going to be anything dangerous here?” She asked Nickos who replied with a shrug, “the last extermination was a week ago and father said that they've culled most of the monster population here,”

“Maybe we'd find regular boars instead of Iron Tusks,” said Nickos before he paled, “... or I'm pulling shit out of my mouth and we'd actually run into a Grisly Spider a few steps into the forest,”

Lucille faced the direction that her friend is looking at and grimaced at the sight of the 10 foot wide- including legs, - spider in front of her; with greyish skin that blended with the mist of the Inner Forest and long, spindly legs that ended in sharp barbs.

The creature stalked forward, its odd shape skittering past trees with but a single gait thanks to its long legs. Mandibles clacked and pedipalps shook as it tried to find its prey, and both stopped moving the moment that it locked its gaze with Lucille's, and she knew then that this would be a long fight.

“Nickos, boost me,” she said with a gulp.

“You don't need to tell me that!” When she heard those words, the toll of a church bell echoed inside Lucille's head and she felt strength seeping into her very being, well, it wasn't the speed boost that she hoped for but extra strength and defense aren't really bad either.

Well, here goes nothing?