Hey there; the name's Rhyss.

This is the first fanfic I've ever posted, although I've been writing fanfics for...I dunno, six years?

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

For 363 days of the year, the port town of Essel (located on a northern peninsula of the Yorbian continent) was a quiet, picturesque place meant for dates, honeymoons and retirees. During those remaining two days, though, the port's atmosphere did an about face. Hordes of people came from the surrounding areas, swarming the town's hospitality businesses like locusts descending upon crops.

The residents didn't particularly look forward these two days that took place in the end of the first week of January; the crime rate had a curious tendency to jump from the normal 3% to an unheard of 20% during those two days. But they knew that their small port town couldn't survive without it, because during those two days Essel made a fifth of their annual income.

So every year many residents boarded up their windows or flat out left town with all of their valuables. Each policeman was offered double the usual wage so that a solid police presence could be kept on the streets. And all of the residents who had gathered the courage to stay to work the hotels, inns and restaurants braced themselves for horde that would come to Essel with only one goal in mind: to get on the ship that would take them to the Hunter Exam site.

There were so many applicants for good reason. In this world the status of "Hunter" was a special one that came with lucrative benefits. Said benefits included 95% of all public facilities being free of cost, almost unlimited access to any location across the world, being able to take out immense bank loans, plus a couple more that were all available with the flash of a Hunter license card. But only the elite of humanity could become Hunters and the exam had a notoriously high failure and mortality rates.

Not that it discouraged anybody from entering.

So it didn't surprise any residents of port Essel that hundreds of applicants flocked to the ports with boats that took them to the exam. In fact, every inch of the port's concrete surface being covered with people wasn't an unprecedented event.

In the opposite direction of the sea was a line of trees and benches, usually reserved for couples on a date or tourists taking a break from walking along the seaside shops. But now only a girl with a white colored jacket-hoodie sat on a shaded bench. A hood was pulled over her head, obscuring the top half of her face. Leaning back with her arms and legs crossed, she appeared to be observing the sea of people spread out on the port.

To a passerby, her presence itself would have been a stark contrast to the other exam applicants. With their scars and crooked noses, most of the people standing on the concrete looked like they had been in their fair share of brawls and tight spots. Many of them were muscular and carried weapons blatantly; they oozed with an aura that screamed "I've been arrested before!" In contrast to them the girl was young; a teenager that didn't look like she had seen the inside of a jail before, much less done time. The skin that was not covered up was devoid of scars and she didn't carry around a big weapon on her back or hip. The part of her nose not covered by her hood wasn't crooked.

The girl stretched her neck, which was starting to stiffen after half an hour of people watching from this position. Observe, analyze, and look for relationships between people, the dynamics, the threats, the weak links, the pack leader. It was a practice that had been drilled into her since she was young, tagging along with her mother as she conducted anthropological research. Now she found herself doing it automatically every time she entered a new, unfamiliar environment with people in it.

She really wasn't seeing any relationships at the moment though. It felt like she was looking at a bunch of lone wild dogs crammed into a small area. All of the applicants' postures were stiff, eyes wary. Not many made small talk and all seemed to be spaced evenly from each other, as if they were trying to keep as much distance between each other as they could. Several kept a hand on their weapons.

Yes, wild dogs was the best way to put it. They were all wild, hungry dogs, baring teeth and raising hackles to scare others off while thinking about whether or not to form a pack. The tension made the air heavy, as if there was much more humidity than expected.

Her father's words, part of a reply to her asking for advice on the Hunter Exam, came back to her. "Be careful, Asterra. Keep your head, watch your back. Ambition, fear and desperation make people unpredictable."

He had been right. This crowd was a stew pot of those emotions already and she wasn't even at the exam site yet; what was it going to be like when she actually arrived there? If it was worse than this, she was going to have a hard time following her mother's advice. "Get numbers on your side, as quickly as possible; you can't win alone."

Was now a good time to find somebody to pair up with?

Her gut told her no. The heavy atmosphere that seemed to make any small talk awkward told her no as well. Plus Asterra wasn't sure if she wanted to team up with these people specifically. She couldn't shake off the feeling that it would probably bring more misfortune than fortune.

Something fuzzy nuzzling her hand coaxed her out of her reverie. Asterra looked down to see a stoat-like face staring up at her. "Guess I'm not alone if I'm with you, am I, Kikiri?" Asterra smiled as she stroked the stoat's head, taking care to avoid the three horns that erupted in a triangle pattern from its forehead.

"Got that right," Kikiri chirped before laying down his head on her lap again. As a Dokujo, Kikiri posessed the ability to use human speech and had been a godsend to her younger self. As the child of an archaeologist and an anthropologist that rarely liked to stay in one place for too long, Kikiri had been one of the only concrete things in her life.

"Hey, is that our ship?"

Asterra looked up towards the sea upon hearing the question. A caravel that had been hanging around the horizon was starting to pull in. A few minutes later it stopped so that its starboard was facing the pier, revealing its name: The Maiden Voyage.

Asterra frowned at the name. Who in their right mind would name their ship that?

Ropes were thrown off the side and onto concrete. Port workers started scurrying out, tying ropes to the kevels on the pier to keep the caravel in place. The crashing sound of water indicated that the anchor had been dropped as well.

The applicants all cocked their heads toward the incoming boat, their curiosity piqued. Was this the boat that would take them to the next exam? It matched the description that had been written on the flier announcing this year's Hunter Exam.

A deep voice, amplified by a megaphone, answered that particular question. "Good morning, applicants!"

Nobody answered back; they all just stared at the ship.

"I SAID, GOOD MORNING, APPLICANTS!"

Asterra winced at the obnoxiously loud volume of the voice.

A few yelled "good morning" back, while one voice hollered out, "Who do you think we are?! Preschoolers?!"

"Well compared to how old I am, you lot might as well be preschoolers!"

A brief smile ran across Asterra's face, while the other applicants started yelling back in outrage.

"Aww, shut up and man up, you babies!" the voice boomed again. "It's called a joke! Learn to laugh at one! Anyway, I assume that you lot are the applicants that I'm supposed to take to Port Dolle! Is that right?"

A roaring "yes" answered him.

"All right, good! Well, turns out we're on a tight schedule right now so I'll have to make this stop short!"

The sound of wood hitting concrete echoed as a gangplank hit the pier.

"Applicants, we'll be setting sail in ten minutes! Get your asses on board fast if you don't want to get left behind!"

Ten minutes?! Asterra stood up on the bench and scanned the port. There had to be at least two hundred people standing near the pier, waiting to get on the boat. She looked at the gangplank more closely. It looked to be about four men wide and had very low handrails—an unusual design for a gangplank. All the ones Asterra had seen before were usually wide enough for one person to climb up it and had high handrails to prevent people from falling into the water.

Nevertheless, there was no way that everybody could get on-board in ten minutes.

Not even three seconds had passed when an applicant screamed and broke from the crowd. He scrambled up the gangplank and made it up to the deck and didn't stop until he was on the other side of the deck. The other applicants followed suit-two, three more applicants broke away from the crowd and sprinted up the gangplank. Ten seconds had passed when the main part of the horde seemed to ripple then finally surge forward with a roar, realizing the situation that they had been dumped into and what actions they had to take.

Human bodies converged onto the entrance of the gangplank. Applicants trampled each other, shoved each other; all stops were pulled, all social rules and considerations thrown aside as each applicant did everything in their power to fight their way aboard the ship. Within twenty seconds of the announcement the population density of the area in front of the gangplank had gone from zero to three people per square foot.

The lucky few that had been nearest to the gangplank managed to board without too much trouble. The others weren't so lucky.

Screams pierced the air as applicants were knocked off the pier. More were knocked off the gangplank by those stronger than them, falling over the railings that barely came up to their waists. All plunged into the sea, which was in low tide; those that fell in could not clamber back out and attempt to board the ship again. Some of the applicants tried to claw onto the wooden hull of the ship but to no avail, as there were no handholds on the hull. Coincidentally (or not) there were no small ships around to help the applicants. Once they were in the water, they were done for.

Asterra drank in the scene in front of her—the desperation, the fear, the ambition—and gulped. Ever since realizing that not everybody could board the ship, she had known that something like this would happen. Limited time, limited space—competition was unavoidable in these circumstances. She had not, however, braced herself for the magnitude of the scene and the shock that it would bring.

How the hell was she supposed to get through that horde?

"Asterra!"

Her hands shook, her breaths shortened, beads of perspiration trailed down her face.

How the hell was she supposed to board when people were losing their minds and morality in front of the gangplank?

"Asterra!"

How the hell was she supposed to get on board without getting killed?

A flash of pain on her ankle—like something had scratched her—brought her back to the present. "Asterra!"

The girl looked down to see small lines of red on her ankle and Kikiri standing next to it. "Kikiri?"

"You can't think straight if you panic! Calm down! Think! What's the number one rule?"

The familiar question dragged up a mantra-like response from the depths of her mind. "Never, ever panic," she said, repeating the phrase that her father had drilled into her.

Kikiri nodded.

Asterra closed her eyes and took a deep breath, filling her lungs with air and the oxygen that her brain need to think. And once her lungs had been filled to maximum capacity, she expelled, letting the carbon dioxide, the heat, the panic leave her body.

When her hands stilled and breaths back to normal, she looked at the scene again. This time she forced herself to look past the fear, the desperation, and the ambition and to instead look at the distribution of people, other points of entry. The gangplank couldn't be the only way to get on.

She first focused on the how the people were distributed. In her head what her eyes saw were translated into words, strung together into simple sentences inside of her mind.

The majority of the applicants were focused in the area near the gangplank.

Most people were falling into the sea from that area.

Getting onto the gangplank did not guarantee getting onto the ship.

People on the edges of the gangplank were most likely to fall off.

There were hardly any people at the ends of the ship.

Asterra blinked, repeating the last fact. There were hardly any people at the ends of the ship.

So if she were to try to board the ship, she would be better off trying to do so by circling around the horde of people and attempting to do so from areas near the ends of the ship. At the very least there would be less people to shove her into the sea. But from there, where would she go?

From what she could see, some applicants were resorting to jumping across and grabbing onto the ledge; it had a very low success rate. Not a good idea.

Others were climbing up the ropes that held the boat to the pier. She thought about doing that, until she saw an applicant grab another applicant's legs and yank him off the rope. Apparently even having a small number of people doing the same thing as you was dangerous.

Asterra scanned the ship again, focusing on the areas with no people, and spotted a dark, thin and long object hanging off the side near the front of the ship. The anchor chain.

That looked promising.

Her eyes strolled up the chain and stopped at a small hole in the side where the chain led into. A little distance above the hole was the ledge of the ship. The distance between the two seemed short enough for her to reach the ledge and pull herself in. In case it wasn't, there was a rope running horizontally beneath the edge that she could use.

Her train of thought was interrupted by the megaphone-amplified voice from before. "Five minutes!"

"Crap!" Asterra jumped off the bench and slung the black sling bag on that had been sitting on the bench next to her over her shoulder. She had spent half of precious time panicking then thinking; now she needed to act. "Kikiri, let's go!" she yelled, extending her arm towards the creature. Kikiri leaped onto her it and scrambled up, diving into her hood and curling around her neck. "What are we doing?" he asked.

"Climbing the anchor chain!" she replied.

I really hope this works, Asterra thought as she started running parallel to the ship. She kept to the grassy area as much as possible to avoid the other applicants.

"Three minutes!"

Asterra veered to the left, towards the ship's front, as she put more distance between her and the crowd. Grass became concrete and her footsteps became harder and louder. Her muscles began to smolder.

"One minute!"

The edge of the pier and the blue of the sea neared; every breath felt like it wasn't enough. The smoldering in her legs grew and burned more and more as if somebody was adding tinder to it.

Nine feet, five feet. Asterra put forth a burst of speed to ready herself for the jump. Three feet, two feet, one foot, zero. Her foot stepped onto the ledge and she bent her knee. For a moment she felt like she was frozen there, but then a roar ripped out of her throat as her leg extended and she was in the air, high above the water.

The anchor chain got bigger and bigger as she reached her peak height and continued to grow in size as she began to fall. But then she realized that she was falling faster than the chain was growing in size. The distance was larger than expected; she still had several feet to go.

Shit, she thought. She straightened her body to make it as long and thin, to minimize point of impact. "Kikiri, jump onto the chain!"

"What?!"

"Just do it!" Asterra extended her arm and she saw a flash of red-brown run down it. All she saw was Kikiri sailing towards the anchor chain before she was slammed into the sea. The force of impact punched the air from her lungs and a burst of bubbles exploded from her mouth and nose. For a few moments she couldn't do anything and stood there, sinking. Then the realization that she couldn't breathe hit her and alarm bells were ringing in her head, warning her that her brain was starting to starve for oxygen. Her hands clawed at the water and her feet kicked, propelling her towards the surface, towards air.

Cool sea air slapped Asterra's face as she broke the surface and rushed into her throat and lungs with each gasp. She treaded water and rubbed sea water out of her eyes.

"Asterra!" Kikiri's voice reached her ears and she turned towards it. Through blurry vision she saw a dark, long object against wood brown.

"Make it?" she gasped.

"I made it! Now your turn! Just swim straight!"

"30 seconds!" megaphone voice yelled again.

Asterra tipped her body forward and she dipped her hand into the water and pushed it back. Her body moved forward, though not as far as she liked. Swimming in a full set of clothes was nothing like swimming in a swimsuit.

"Come on, Asterra!" Kikiri encouraged her again.

Quit thinking and swim, a voice in her head told her viciously and she obeyed, dipping her other arm into the water and pushing it back. Stroke by stroke, she made her way to the anchor chain.

"Ten seconds! Nine! Eight!"

She quickened her strokes, her arms dipping in and out faster than the steady beat of the countdown.

"Seven! Six! Five!"

Her arms started to burn.

"Four! Three!"

She couldn't get enough air.

"Two! One!"

Asterra's palm smacked something cold and hard, and further fumbling revealed loops.

"Grab onto that!" Kikiri yelled.

She snaked the fingers of both hands into one loop that was above the water and pulled herself close to the chain.

"Zero! We're off, applicants!"

Brave port workers untied the ropes binding the ship to port and the gangplank was pulled in. Some managed to hold onto the piece of wood and scrabble onboard. Others, whose grip had slipped or had been shoved off, fell to the sea and the realization that they would not be participating in this year's Hunter Exam.

The sound of metal grinding on metal caught Asterra's attention. She tightened her grip on the chains as her body was pulled out of the water. For a few moments she just hung there, in the open air, like a piece of meat being dried. Then her arms and shoulders began to protest as they felt the combined strain of swimming and holding up 145 pounds of flesh, organs, and bone that the water had supported until a few seconds ago.

Creak. Creak. Creak. The anchor moved up agonizingly slowly, as if it had some sadistic plan to drop her into the sea by waiting until her arms gave out. One of her hands began to slip and she fixed her grip. But her hands were still wet from her swim so the fix was temporary. She was soon fixing her grip every few seconds, every muscle in her upper body screaming every time she did so. Asterra felt around with her feet to see if there was nook that she could shove a foot into. But her feet must have been near the middle of a chain link because all she could feel was empty space. "Kikiri! How long to the chain hole?"

"Almost there!"

A quick look upwards told her that Kikiri wasn't lying to comfort her. The hole was about a foot away and the rope she had seen earlier was there too.

Once the rope was in arm's length of her Asterra grabbed it with both hands. She used it to support her as she walked up the rest of the chain and onto the small foothold that the metal border of the chain hole provided. She then ducked under the rope so that her back was now leaning on it, then grabbed onto the boat ledge.

Come on, don't give out now. Just one more haul.

Asterra gripped the ledge tightly and jumped off the chain hole border. At the same time she pulled herself up. "Raaaargh!"

Her torso rose above the edge of the boat and she flopped ungraciously onto it so that her stomach was pressed against the wood of the ledge. Then she brought her left leg up and swung it over the ledge. It was too tiring to lift her right leg over, so she pushed her left knee into the inside of the boat and used the leverage to flip over the ledge.

What air she had left was knocked out of her as she landed back-first on the deck of the caravel. For a moment she lay there, chest heaving, feeling numbness pervade her limbs. Her field of vision was filled with the blue of the sky and blurry outlines of brown masts and white sails.

"Asterra!" She felt Kikiri leap onto her chest and soon his stoat face replaced the masts and sails. "You made it! You're in!"

If she hadn't been so deprived of air she would have laughed.

She was in. She was on the boat.

She was going to the Hunter Exam.

Thanks for reading to the end :)

I am always open to suggestions for improving my writing-after all, I'm hardly perfect.

See you in the next chapter.

-Rhyss