Lifeline - Tales of Arcadia Insert (Female reader)

CHAPTER 1: An encounter with the wicked

"Hi there, sweetie"

The faint, familiar voice echoes through your mind as you see a blurry image of the woman who gave you life, the woman who held you gently in her arms as you opened your eyes for the first time.

"RUN!!!"

"Father!"

"Micheal, what are you doing!?"

Everything happens in a flash, your parents' voices ring in your ears, tears pouring down your eyes. This is when your peaceful life was ruined, the day you learned that evil exists. The day you lost...

You gasp, waking up from the terrible memory you relived in a nightmare, sweating and out of breath. As you snap back to reality, you realize that it's already morning, you brush off the terrible feeling and decided to gather your stuff and climbed down the tree you slept on.

As the sun further rises in the sky, you travel by foot across a thick forest, carrying your backpack full of essentials. Your eyes under your coat's hood, you closely pay attention to your surroundings, resting your hand to the retracted sword strapped to the side of your thigh.

Traveling alone endlessly is never a joy ride but it's better than having to put up with other people who will only end up becoming a burden for you. Besides, it's not like you have a chance at meeting someone who won't backstab you and do Merlin knows what if they ever find out what you are.

As you walk, you find yourself looking at the sky, thinking of what to do next, it's something that you often think about, sometimes you would also end up questioning the purpose of your existence. Still, you observe the wonder and purity of your surroundings, you've crossed many forests before this one, but you could still appreciate how serene this place is. The way the sun shone through the trees, the smell of the rain from last night, birds dancing and chirping as they rest on the branches of the trees. It's just simply beautiful you almost forgot that "bad" was ever a word.

Your happy bubble popped when you heard a faint chatter in the distance and what seems to be the screeching of an animal. You tread lightly but quickly as you follow the noise behind the trees, there you see a camp situated below the ledge of a steep hill. Your blood begins to boil as you see an injured hippogriff tied up from head to toe, the poor creature struggles to release itself from the binds, much to the disliking of its captors as they start to kick at it.

"Hunters..." you whisper under your breath with pure hatred and rage in your voice. You could feel your hand clench on the tree, all you could think about is to erase cruel monsters like them in an instant, but you know you can't do that, no matter how heartless they are, it still isn't right. Despite that, you instinctively know what you have to do.

The hunters laugh at the thought of the big pay waiting for them at the market thanks to the 'monster' they caught. Hippogriffs are strong and fast creatures, with half of their bodies are of a horse and from head to their front legs is part eagle, mighty wings attached to their backs. They were known as trustworthy steeds that noble and worthy knights and wizards used to ride, now there is only a few of them left and are hunted for their parts and the magic that can be extracted from them. Well, little did the hunters know that you're about to ruin their day.

Suddenly, tree roots grabbed four of the hunters as they scream for dear life, the others tumble back in fear and shock. Then an arrow is shot on the ground from out of nowhere, another is shot at the vial attached to the first arrow and sky blue smoke fills the lungs of the hunters standing near it and cough as they collapse.