77: Gray… Everywhere

Angelica dragged all of Class Zero out of bed at dawn, “bright and early” as she put it. Of course, nobody agreed with her, but it made no difference to the teacher who had already made the plans with a professional hunting team. Dressed in comfortable clothes, with their costumes underneath, the seven students made their way towards the Hunter’s Association with Angelica trailing behind them.

Angelica, on the phone with a certain Roxanne, just kept an eye on them as they navigated through the streets. Though some could be considered directionally-challenged, others had enough maturity, sense, and resourcefulness for her to place her full trust in them.

Once they did make it to the Hunter’s Association, Angelica waved and nodded to the hunters before returning to her call. As she backed off, she motioned towards Ryker and Electra, smiling to let them take the lead. Walking into the Hunter’s Association after she heard a spark of conversation begin, she laughed and nodded to the various hunters mulling about in the morning.

[So, how’s life been treating you, love?]

“Everything’s going well, I miss you more than anything,” Angelica climbed the stairs to stand on a secluded balcony. “I’m glad they’re old enough that I don’t have to supervise very closely. The older ones can also help watch the younger ones.”

[That way you can call me~]

“That way I can call you~” Angelica laughed, drumming her fingers against the railing. “I may or may not be using you as an excuse to get a break. I just miss you and wish we could spend more time together...”

[I... I was about to make a joke about being your side fling as ‘an excuse,’ but that’s a very sappy comment...] Roxanne trailed off. [I hope we can too... We were talking about me stepping back as the day-to-day leader of the guild, but I’ll still be busy for the time being, I’m sorry love.]

“It’s okay, it’s not like I’m going anywhere,” Angelica sighed as she stared off into the distance. “Just come back more often, and stay safe. I just don’t want to see you on the news for a bad reason.”

[There’s no reason I would, don’t worry,] Roxanne reassured before pausing for a second. [How’s Nyssa though? Is she holding up alright?]

“Holding up alright?” Angelica shook her head. “She’s thriving. She’s really come out of her shell recently, especially with the whole situation with Celeste. So don’t worry about her at all, she’s... finally having some things to look forward to in life other than sleeping.”

[That’s good,] Roxanne sighed, relief evident in her voice. [I’ve been eating too much... I feel like I’m getting fat...]

As the conversation between the two lovers continued, the students and hunters outside caught each other up with their basic capabilities. The hunters, in addition to sharing some basic information about themselves and their specializations, talked the students through their basic routine for an expedition into the wild.

Once they finished up their conversation, Angelica, who had chosen a spot where she could see them, wrapped up her own conversation with Roxanne and leapt off the balcony. After landing with a gentle step, she walked back over while running her hand through her hair. “Ready to get going then?”

Hearing a chorus of “yes”s, Angelica nodded towards Seraph and Kael, “Lead the way then. Are you all walking, running? Or taking a car?”

“We’re just walking,” Seraph pointed towards the not-so-distant wilderness, “The town isn’t that large anyway, it's quite walkable.”

“We start here and take an assigned path,” Kael rubbed his fingers against the hilt of his swords. Heading forward, he looked back towards everyone as they walked. “Every patrolling team takes a different path to the true wild areas to ensure there’s especially unsafe right by the town.”

As a group, they made a direct line towards the edge of town before walking along its edge for a couple minutes. Once they arrived at a conspicuous crack between two towering trees, they started heading off into the wilderness. The ground crunched under their feet as they continued walking, in the distance, fog obscured their vision as the skies stayed overcast.

Though the morning sun had risen, the morning felt quiet, and the forest area they traveled through stayed cool. Small animals darted around in the corners of their eyes, some leapt from tree branch to tree branch as the sounds of life created a quiet mask over their ears.

“Who’s taking notes today?” Kael asked his team. “Orin, right?”

“Yessir, I have it pulled up here,” Orin showed a holographic screen floating above his wrist. “Just let me know, and you all too, let me know if you observe anything that seems out of the ordinary. Since you all haven’t been around the area, just say anything that catches your eye, I’ll filter out everything that’s normal.”

“There’s an increase in red-winged birds over green-winged,” Seraph called out as she floated in the air. “Very unimportant though.”

“Might as well write it,” Orin shrugged.

“There’s a newly destroyed tree,” Mira pointed out to their left. It only just peeked out of the fog, and Kallix needed to use a couple beams of light to highlight it for Kael, Orin, and the students to notice.

“What about the burrow by the right?” Albion pointed towards a hole by the base of a tree. A small ring of sticks lined its edge, as animals could be seen rushing in and out on the regular.

“That one we expect to see around this time of year, but I’ll write it down for the sake of recording it,” Orin nodded, “Thanks for pointing it out.”

As they kept walking, the trees became denser and denser. At one point they ended up squeezing through a crack between branches, but after the crack, the forest thinned out into something more like a wasteland.

“Starting here is what we consider the true wilderness,” Kael explained in a quiet, but measured tone, “It’s characterized by a real lack of any natural resources, large creatures, and a lot of... annoyingness.”

“We have to worry about giant monster swarms, but we can’t live out here in all honesty,” Orin explained, stroking his beard. “I studied the north way back when I was still an academic. I specialized in this area, actually. There’s no reason to settle this area, it's absolutely barren, holds no economic value, not beautiful enough for tourism, horrendous weather, and is far from absolutely everything, but breeds danger to our society on the daily.”

Nyssa had to agree with the assessment. Trees dotted the area, but even they didn’t provide much respite from the dreariness. The ground... gray. The sky... also gray. Craters pockmarked the areas and in the distance, animals could be seen lumbering in packs, scavenging the barren ground for any sort of sustenance. Rocks seemed more plentiful than anything, on each rock crawled bugs, feeding on bits of... radioactive-looking moss.