Hitoshi needed to hurry with this assignment.  He’d obviously made some bad karma with the Professor for coming down to see her when he was supposed to be seeing the Principal.  He wanted to be on Moriko’s good side.  He’d heard stories of what happened when you got on her bad side, and he’d prefer to never test to see if those rumors were true.  The best idea was to just be a good student and get the seeds for her before she got upset and started punishing him for being a slacker. 

It seemed that he was in luck, too.  As he ran towards the well, there was something sitting right in front of its base.  As Hitoshi came for a closer look, he realized that it was exactly what he was looking for, a Coda Flower Seed!  Quickly grabbing it and throwing it into one of his pockets, he smiled and took a look around.  He still needed seven more of these things, and the Training Course was anything but small.  He had two options.  He could either climb down the small cliff in front of the well or he could leap across the stream to his right.  Being the daredevil he was, Hitoshi ran for the cliff.

The cliff wasn’t all that big.  Maybe 20 or 30 feet high, but it had been set there for training with climbing a rope. There was a huge, wooden pole at the edge of the cliff with a rope attached to it.  He didn’t know why, but he always liked going down the rope.  Call him adventurous, but whenever he was out, drilling with Moriko, and she took the stream path, he always took the rope.  He walked towards the cliff, ready to take the rope yet again, hoping that he’d be able to find more seeds at it’s base.

He’d arrived at the rope and turned himself around, slowly beginning his descent.  As much of a slacker as he was, rope-climbing was not something he had a hard time with.  Putting his boots into crevices built into the side of the cliff, he slowly worked his way down.  He had his eyes closed most of the way, slowly putting one hand down, right after one another.  As much as he was in a rush, he couldn’t risk his health.  Professor Moriko would never forgive him if she had to come down there and help an injured Hitoshi.

Hitoshi was about halfway down the cliff when he stopped to take a break.  Getting that running start from the cabin definitely had not been a good idea.  He’d gotten exhausted very quickly.  It’s a shame, really.  He’d gotten off to that quick start, trying not to disappoint the Professor, yet here he was, dangling from a rope, exhausted.  ‘At least this place isn’t easily seen from her cabin’ he thought to himself.  The good thing, however, was that he’d managed to already find one of the seeds he needed.  He was ready to take a quick rest and get back to it.  That was the plan, at least.

Fate, not wanting Hitoshi to have this little time of rest, threw an event into motion to get him off that rope as soon as possible.  He was dangling about 10 feet above the ground, starting to close his eyes when he heard a brushing sound.  His eyes bolted open and he started looking around.  He looked both up and down, but didn’t see anything nearby.  That sound.  He knew that sound all too well.  The first beast he’d ever encountered in the Training Course.  It was a Mandragora.

Among all of the beasts that were hopping around the Training Course, the Mandragora was probably the sneakiest of them all.  Mandragora were some sort of plant-type beast.  They were shaped like a small bush, but with a flower-like set of leaves on top of them and a concealable set of deep-red eyes.  These beasts were chosen for the Training Course by Moriko herself.  She told them that the Mandragora were there to make sure the students always were aware of their surroundings.  These creatures could conceal their eyes and look like regular bushes, letting many students pass them by, not even knowing they’re there.

Hitoshi took a deep breath and decided that he needed to keep moving.  If there were Mandragora around, watching him, he needed to stay on the move.  Being up in the air and under attack from one of those beasts would not lead to anything good, not anything good at all.  He looked down for a moment, double-checking just how far he still needed to go.  Once he’d checked, he looked back up and gasped.  His vision went dark as a huge bush-like Mandragora landed on his face, completely knocking him off the rope.

The entire thing had caught him completely by surprise.  There must have been a Mandragora following him when he started descending the rope, just waiting for the right time to pounce on him.  He felt rough, dry leaves against his face as the body of this beast was pushing on him.  The two fell together and Hitoshi, of course, was on the bottom.  He landed with a thud and let out a grunt of pain.  His back was filling with pain as his eyes squinted.  He had to get up before this thing hurt him even more.

The Mandragora let out a high-pitched screech as it found itself on top of Hitoshi.  It jumped into the air, landing on his stomach, taking up most of the man’s body.  Hitoshi immediately started coughing as he felt it pounding down on his stomach.  Opening one eye, he reached down to his holster.  As he grabbed for his Steel Sword, the beast jumped again, this time higher.  Reflexes moving as fast as he could, he brought the sword into the air and slashed at the Mandragora as it came down.

The monster was immediately cut in half as the steel impacted it’s soft, bush-like form. Letting out a shriek of terror, the two halves landed on the ground, next to Hitoshi’s stomach.  The young warrior soon laid his head back on the ground, taking deep breaths, trying to recover from this surprise attack.  It was rough on him, but he’d managed to defeat that cunning beast.  Rolling his head to the side, his eyes widened as he saw another Coda Flower Seed, right next to him. 

He smiled and pushed himself up, adding that seed to his collection.  2 down, 6 to go…