Miyuki took a deep breath as the boat took her deeper into the complex network of rivers that was the Peruvian Rainforest. Whoever called the quagmire of heat and stickiness the “dry season” deserved to be dragged out into the street and shot. She swore to herself that if the weather dared ruin her hair she’d stab someone.

  She distracted herself from her more violent urges by focusing on the trees passing by and the air rushing past. She had to admit that it was nice to be in such clean air. Both the scent on the air and the mana surrounding her sang with life. Her muscles relaxed as she let nature's calm flow through her.

  Now that she was in a better place she went over the mission’s information one last time. A team of Scouts detected the mana of a new Artifact and investigated. They were thankfully able to narrow down the area to a circle about one kilometer across. The advance team couldn’t locate the specific location or retrieve the Artifact since they had to retreat due to the feeling the Artifact’s Defender gave them. They had then deemed it dangerous enough that they needed a ranking Hunter to come in to finish the job.

  As she was approaching the drop-off point, she went over her equipment. Her weapons of choice were a pair of custom enchanted revolvers based on the Smith and Wesson Model 10s. Instead of shooting .38 rounds they fired special bullets made entirely out of mana. There were two enchantment circles placed on the grips, one on the base of the barrel, and one placed on the outside of each chamber. The first on the grips would turn the chamber to the specific type of bullet she wanted. The second accepted her own mana to conjure said bullet. The circle on the barrel would conjure a bullet ready to be fired while each of the chamber’s circles let her aspect it in different ways.

  Once conjured she only needed to pull the trigger to fire the mana-bullet at speeds meeting or exceeding that of any regular round. The mastercrafted and enchanted weapons were given to her as a present for finally entering the Keepers as a Scout.

  There were two reasons she preferred the weapons. First, they were very utilitarian and had something for pretty much every situation. Second, her mother hated them. She wanted Miyuki to be more of a caster focusing on flame and illusion spells like her. After a while her act of rebellion became proficiency and eventual mastery. At that point she would have it no other way. In fact, she would say that she was able to become a Hunter Class because of this utility.

  She finished her checks by inspecting the aspect circles. On her left, the one she called “Element,” the circles for flame, frost, lightning, acid, light, and darkness were in perfect shape and ready for action. She switched to her right, or “Special,” and similarly checked the circles for piercing, explosive, healing, necrosis, tracking, and dispelling to find that they were also ready.

  Just as she finished the last steps of her pre-mission ritual, her guide slowed the boat and turned toward the river edge. After reaching the tangle of roots that made up the shore, she looked to the guide who gave her a nod and pointed into the forest. Understanding the instructions, she disembarked and entered the forest.

  She expanded her mana sense to get a feel of what was around her. Natural Artifacts produced their own mana creating a constant current flowing away from them. This flow is what she was going to use to locate her objective. At the shoreline she could barely sense anything abnormal making her once again thankful for human technology.

  She took out her phone and went to the GPS app. She sighed as it said she had a six klick trek jungle ahead of her. With a grumble and a slapped mosquito she started her journey.

  The trees along the shoreline weren’t very tall with only the occasional reaching ten or so meters. She was careful going through the foliage for whatever forced the scouts to retreat. The further she entered the rainforest the more powerful the flow became. The rainforest progressively shifted into a jungle. The trees grew taller, the vegetation thickened, and the overhanging canopy progressively blocked out the light leaving everything in near-dusk.

  Another two in she turned off the GPS and only followed her senses. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as a feeling of protective rage starting to surround her. The feeling of intrusion the flow instilled in her also grew.

  She eventually reached the point where the scout turned back and understood why. The undertone of rage made a sharp turn and overrode everything else in the now intense mana stream. In such a situation the standard procedure is to mark the location and retreat for reinforcement or a replacement. Soon, the already overbearing canopy became thicker and thicker. The mottled light falling to near darkness. As the light disappeared so did the animals and sounds of the jungle. Eventually, the only noises were her footsteps and cautious breaths.

  A few minutes later she heard what sounded like someone whistling to her. She took a few more steps and heard the whistle again, only louder. She started to compile the local mythologies that may explain these phenomena. There was more than enough time on the flight to Peru to familiarize herself with the most likely suspects. She was in the deep jungle, a feeling of righteous anger, quiet surroundings and a repetitive whistle. From these things she decided on a creature called the El Tunchi. It is supposedly the spirit of someone who got lost and died in the jungle. They then become a spirit that protects nature and whistles a tune. If someone whistles back, they invite the spirit to them and will become lost and die.

  If she wanted to get the creature problem over with, she could just whistle back and kill the spirit where the mana and it will be weaker. Unfortunately, this would cause the Artifact to become temporarily dormant and she would have to spend she didn’t know how long looking for what could be the size of a pebble. To avoid that headache, she didn’t whistle back and got back to following the flow. It was good this Defender had such an exploitable rule.

  As she approached the Artifact, the spirit’s whistling became louder and more insistent. When she felt she was closing in on her goal she found a crack in a hill just wide enough for a human to slip into. As she approached the crack the by then near-deafening whistling stopped. The sudden and complete absence of sound was almost disorienting. She knew that it was finally time for the spirit to give up its rules and take out the intruder. She slowly drew her revolvers and charged the circles. She shifted the cylinder in Elemental to light mana and the cylinder in Special to dispelling. As the circles charged, they changed from near indistinguishable carvings to looking to be inlaid with blue crystal.

  The reason she chose these specific bullets was simple, counters. Light mana was effective against most spirits and dark-natured creatures while the dispelling bullet could destabilize their form or cancel out whatever spell they may use. The bullets formed almost instantly, both humming with power. She slowly turned and scanned her surroundings for the spirit. Both revolvers were raised and waiting. Fingers on triggers and ready for anything.

  A benefit to the area being devoid of life is that any movement would be the spirit and not some random animal. The physical stillness stretched on for almost a minute. As she was beginning to consider moving forward into the cave to further provoke it, a dark mist flitted between some trees.

  She turned to the now empty space. While she still didn’t know its general form, she did know it was getting agitated. She rolled her eyes as she pointed Elemental at a nearby tree and pulled the trigger. The sound of a snap and crack of the revolver firing and a hole being made ended the silence. Because of the gun’s magical nature, the expected boom was missing. Without gunpowder the only sound came from the mana bullet breaking the sound barrier.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  With a finger-thick hole bored through the tree the El Tunche screamed. Even at its previous loudest the spirit couldn’t damage her. Unfortunately, that scream was on another level. She felt every part of her shake when the vocal assault started. Everything from her eyes to her very bones vibrated. Her ears soon ruptured under the assault. She could still feel the scream while her ears stopped functioning and bled. She stumbled at the damage with her vision spinning as she reoriented herself. The inner ear canal quickly drained making her vertigo worse. Miyuki suspected the spirit would start with a sound-based attack, but the sheer volume of the blast was far past her expectation.

  As she stumbled the El Tunche exited the shadows and lunged forward, never lowering its shriek. The spirit’s skin was a brown so dark it was almost black with a shrunken face and two branch-like arms. Its fingers were elongated spikes resembling thorns. These thorns were pointed forward and aimed directly at her chest. If those hit, her heart and lungs would be shredded.

  She let herself fall to the jungle floor. Although the drop dodged most of the thorns, one still caught her shoulder and left a deep gash. The wound was deep and significantly lowered the usefulness of the arm. After hitting the ground, she immediately rolled toward the passing spirit and aimed Element. Due to her injury the aim was sloppy, and she could only point in the spirit’s general direction. She tried to aim for its head or chest, charged the circle to conjure a light bullet and pulled the trigger. She was accurate enough to put a large hole through the target’s lower half and made the scream falter.

  The El Tunche turned from the open cave and returned toward the forest for another strafe. While she had a free moment she turned her Special’s cylinder to a healing-aspect, conjured the bullet, and shot herself in the left shoulder. Even though it was a physical projectile the bullet dissolved on contact and infused her arm with healing energy.

  Unlike a dedicated spell, the healing bullet was slower and unfocused. Unfocused healing mana only accelerated the natural healing of the body, as such it was unable to do things like regrowing lost limbs or removing projectiles. Because of these limitations it was excellent as first aid but often required a trip of a professional healer to remove scar tissue, remove any foreign bodies, and/or repair anything that didn’t heal right.

  Since she fired directly into the wound, most of the energy went into her arm with only a wisp going toward her ears. The cut immediately stopped bleeding but didn’t have nearly enough time to completely close.

  The El Tunche turned again and lunged. Now both dizzy and royally pissed off, she shifted Special back to dispelling and began shooting both revolvers. The circles were constantly being charged as she fired bullet after bullet. Her left arm was still healing so the one light bullet it fired only clipped its arm while one of her dispelling shots hit it square in the forehead. The bullet shattered and its pieces vanished. The spirit halted as its head snapped back and stopped its forward momentum. Thankfully, the effect worked causing the scream to end. She had put the chances of the attack being a spell vs a physical ability at 50/50. With the spell disrupted her own vibration stopped.

  Finally able to orient herself she rolled, stood and faced her still staggered opponent. Still unable to hear anything other than a piercing tone, she smirked. She finally had the upper hand and capitalized. She used her still unsteady left hand to punch two more holes in the spirit’s chest while using her right to once again disrupt another scream. The attacks prevented the spirit from recovering.

  The fight was over with a single charged light bullet to the forehead. It finally dropped to the ground when the top of its head turned to dust and slowly dissolved. After she took a relieved breath and turned to the cave, she stopped. Her instincts were screaming at her that something was wrong. This feeling combined with the Artifact’s flow not slowing after its Defender was killed confirmed that she wasn’t done. Without hesitation she released her hold on her ears and tails while dodged to her right and spun back to face the jungle.

  From the ground a larger version of the El Tunche’s clawed arm shot up. By a hair’s breadth she got out of the way as more whistling started. Unlike before, instead of just one source there was a cacophony of dissonant tones. Just as she was getting her balance back it was lost again. At least if she threw up all she’d be losing was some bland piranha.

  As her body reverberated she saw forms appear from behind trees. From what she could see, they were perfect replicas of the original spirit except slightly smaller and their claws didn’t seem as sharp. With jaws still unnaturally distended they slowly left their hiding places. They crawled over branches and trunks like, well, spirits looking for a new meal. Sometimes in her line of work the best descriptors were literally what she was facing.

  They remained where they were, watching and screaming. Miyuki fell to a knee under the onslaught and reverberation. As soon as she did, one of them launched forward claws ready. She ducked just in time for it to not skewer her and instead leave a line across her shoulderblade. With that hit she had at least a basic understanding of how much weaker they were compared to the original. The original spirit was able to get through the Hunter-Class uniform easily while the second blow was barely able to get through the blade-resistant property. Even though her armor resisted the attack, she still felt a line of pain running from the edge of her shoulder to near her spine.

  She had to dodge harder and roll on the bad shoulder as the other duplicates did their own attacks. She was fortunately able to hit one with a desperate shot. Even though it was barely clipped by the light bullet, it was stunned and fell to the floor. When she was able to put a second bullet in the duplicate it dissolved like the original. Hoping she didn’t just make an army of even smaller bastards, she did her best to refocus on the others. With one of the voices missing, the sonic attack slightly lessened.

  “Damn wooden banshees,” she said, holstering both revolvers and starting to put together a spell. Since her balance was ruined and her aim was worse than shit, she had to switch to spellcraft.

  She started throwing together a very basic and sloppy spell in her mind. She used the rings of mana flow, light-aspecting, and push. After she solidified the mental image the insultingly inefficient spell circle appeared on her right palm. The setup was standard for the spell known as Sustained Flash. She was able to get it done just in time to point it at the squad of murder whistlers and push mana into it. The circle instantly released a blinding light pointed directly at the spirits. They quickly veered off while their sonic attacks turned into pained screams.

  She turned off the spell when she was confident they pulled back. She struggled to hold down her lunch as she simultaneously regained her balance and started up a new spell. It was much harder than the previous as instead of three rings there were five. Because she had to make the circle in her mind, the more complicated it became the harder it was to manifest without errors.

  With more focus she was able to push together the rings for mana charge, light-aspecting, heavy condense, shatter and push. She was struggling with putting the Shredding Light spell together. Five rings were her usual limit and still feeling queasy wasn’t helping. When she conjured the circle she filled it with mana and waited for the spirits to return.

  She returned to her feet and drew Element as she waited. The spell didn’t take much longer to fully charge so she cut off the flow and held off the cast. Just as last time, the first attack came from them restarting their sonic assault. As she stumbled again an arm came up from the ground attempting to skewer her from below.

  Miyuki smiled as she pointed the spell toward the arm and released it. Shards of solid light erupted like a shotgun and blasted the spirit under her. With one more voice gone the sonic attack lessened once more.

  She started laughing as she recharged the spell for another attack. She didn’t need to wait long as she saw three more appear for a final attack. She shot one with Element and cleaned up the last two with one more blast.

  The jungle finally returned to its previous silence. She breathed heavily as she dispelled the circle. While she hadn’t used a lot of mana in the quick fight it was noticeable. She was going to start pulling in atmospheric mana to fill up her stores until she realized the Artifact was still going.

  “Fuck me,” she said as she started her hunt for whatever the El Tunche was pulling now.