Grass the Swift!

After a great night of drinking and scolding from Sharron, we returned to our dorm in the hunting lodge, and fell deep into blissful slumber.

Although my arm was mostly healed by now, I was still required to have at least another week or two of leave before I would be permitted to go on a hunt. Usually this is ignored, and people go hunting anyway. Unfortunately for me, Sharron is much stronger than I am, so I decided to respect the rule set in place and keep Sharron from shattering my legs. Of course, she is unlikely to do so, but I'm pretty sure she is capable of it.

And so, the team set off on another hunt without me. This time, they were hunting a Flibbertigibbit, a small, blue goblin-like creature. They tend to be seen in forests, prancing around while singing and talking in gibberish. They have sharp claws and teeth and like to bite and scratch those who come close. They aren't the most dangerous creatures but can cause serious harm to people due to their incredibly quick speed.

'I'm glad I'm not going with them. That pest will take eons to catch.' I lampooned while eating some breakfast with Grass.

Over the past few days, Grass had gotten incrementally bigger, going from a small puppy to the size of a small dog. He is surprisingly quick and smart, so I naturally took some time to reach him tricks.

"Sit!" I called out to Grass, who responded by sitting down.

"Do a barrel roll!" I shouted. Grass then leapt sideways with tremendous speed, spinning in mid-air, landing around a metre away, before zipping back in front of me.

"Backflip!" I called out, but only received a confused look from Grass in response.

"I guess I haven't taught you that one yet. Time to eat!"

We sat down in the restaurant and started to order and eat some lunch. Grass' palate consisted mostly of fruit and vegetables. He did eat meat, but much preferred to eat fruit. His favourite food were apples, and could eat many times his weight. Grass ate voraciously fast, with most food being gone as soon as it arrived.

However, while we ate, a group of hunters were kicking up a stink with one of the receptionists. As to what, I was too lazy to find out. After a few moments, the party turned and stared daggers at me.

'Hm? Did I steal their seat?' I immediately thought, noticing their blatant anger.

"Hey, you!" The tallest and angriest called out, storming over. He was around the Sam height, of not slightly taller than Mark,

"Uh, can I help you?"

"You're in Marks party, right?" He asked with a stern expression.

"Yeah?"

"Well, your little party... Stole our hunt!" He yelled with boundless fury.

Stole their hunt?

What does that have to do with me?

"Uh, I'm sorry? I'm injured, so I had no say in what hunt they went on." I said, bewildered by this man's attitude.

"Oh, I know. And if you think you can get away with stealing our hunt, there will be trouble." He said, glaring at me from the other end of the table. "And don't think your little bug will save you."

As he said this, some of his party members immediately chimed in, egging him on.

"Yeah! Boss will kick your ass!" One yelled from the back.

"And your bug's ass!"

"Yeah!"

"I've got my eye on you."

The arrogant one said, and turned around with his party and left the restaurant.

"Well, that was dumb." I said, while looking at Grass, who was sitting on his empty plate while looking up with curiosity.

After finishing my lunch, I decided to take Grass to a Specialised Hunter training facility, that existed not too far from the lodge. I got many strange looks from others, but I wasn't too sure if that was due to the large Grasshopper on my shoulder, or due to the fact that I had grown horns. Considering that I had in fact not grown horns, I was more inclined to believe the former.

The training centre was a decently sized dome shaped building, with many different machines, targets, training dummies and more.

"Alright, Grass. Let's see how powerful you truly are." I said, deliberately trying to sound as ominous as possible.

Our first stop was the speed machine, which tested speed. Grass was sat at one end and to red beams of light were shot out, one metre apart. Grass dashed through the lines with great speed, which was clocked in at an astonishing of roughly 0.033333 seconds! This means that Grass' speed is around 30 metres per second, almost 3 times that of an average person!

"Holy crap... Grass, you're insane!" I called out in joy, picking him up and looking into his curious, beady little eyes. "I wonder what else you are good at.."

Going around the gym, I tested the many attributes of grass. In terms of attack power, he might as well not exist. It was barely enough to count as an attack, let alone a decent one.

His strength, however was almost as great as his speed. He was capable of lifting around 60-70 kilograms. Considering he was still an infant, I had high hopes of a fearsome grasshopper mount/companion. If he grew, that is. He had been staying at around the size of a small dog for quite a few days, and my hopes were quickly dwindling. I would have tested his defense, but his carapace hadn't fully hardened and I was worried he would be hurt.

After these tests, I decided to try out my throwing cards, as I hadn't had the chance to since I got them. The heart cards were slick, and had a great height to them that made it easy to throw, but heavy enough so that it could cause some damage. I quickly got the hang of throwing them, and was able to give curves to the trajectory. I had to be very careful when throwing, as the cards could easily slice apart my fingers. The indents left by these were very fine, and smooth.

The diamonds cards were similar to these in terms of weight, but did not penetrate as far due to the serration. The indents left, however, were much more jagged and imperfect, and would cause serious bleeding on a living creature.

The clubs cards were much heavier, making them harder to throw. They weren't as streamlined which reduced their effectiveness, but it was the effect they created which truly stunned me. As I threw it toward the dummy, the card collided with it as though it had a (metric) ton of force, smashing apart a large chunk of the dummy.

"Holy crap... I wonder how much that is going to cost me." I muttered aloud, staring at the card with a mixture of fear and excitement.

When throwing the spades cards, the weight and feel was identical to the hearts. However, when thrown, two illusory cards spread out on either side, making it hard to determine where it was headed. This fact was enhanced by another strange property, which was the fact that the card seemed to bend and curve in the air, with the mirages dancing around it. This was truly mesmerising to look at.

I decided to also test my throw speed, which clocked in at an astounding 124 kilometres per second!

"Grass, I think we'll make a great team." I said, patting on top of the head. Grass wiggled his antennae happily in response.

"Oi! You over there!" A low and rough voice called out from behind me.

"I hope your gonna pay for the repairs on that bloody dummy!"

Oh crap.