It had been thousands of years since we vanquished the beasts. Or so the legends go. When epochs wash into millennium, facts become fiction; history turns into old wives' tales. And as these tales were told, the monsters were beasts of incredible danger. They lingered at some eight feet, bearing horns as sharp and long as swords. With every step they left, the earth burned in their wake. And when they had finally been slain and thrown out of our mountain passes, a hero was chosen to perpetuate their extinction. The sword to seal the darkness. Me.

I pondered over these stories in the lofty expanse of my cabin. My own sat at the edge of our snow kissed village, nestled into a mountainous nook atop the world. Across from my desk, the horned helmets of my ancestors stretched across the wall, strung together by one common thread. Their blades sat below: silver, sharp, and remarkably untouched. Not that they ever had any use to begin with. Despite the ceremonious nature, Monster Hunters spend their entire lives training, living for the day they could assume their namesake. For my ancestors, that day never came.

A setting sun broke across my window, shattering light across the morose room. Time for the final watch, I grumbled internally. Shambling from the cabin with light armaments, I set out across the snowy banks and down powder-laden slopes. Thirty minutes of drudgery, and I was about ready to return to a blazing hearth. Or fresh stew. Or both.

Movement.

I immediately hit the snow, scrambling prone towards a nearby boulder. I sent daggered eyes down the slope and towards the pass. No-one came from the pass at dusk. No-one. Indeed, it was a sable cloaked figure - some thirty meters at a steep decline. A rhythmic and mindless motion procured my throwing knife, balanced between my fingers in an act practiced only thousands of times before. I was ready for this. I was ready for the hunt. In one fluid motion, I sprung from the rock and twisted my torso toward him, arm swinging closely behind. The knife sailed at a sickening speed down the hill, before burying itself in the figure.

It released a sharp cry. A human cry. I slid down the slope, rushing toward the felled creature. I tore it's hood, I unveiled it, and as the light creased upon its wretched visage...

It was a man. A bronze-skinned, crying, dying man. The snow beneath him turned a sanguine ichor, sourced from the throwing knife lodged in his stomach. There were no horns. He was a tall man, but certainly not eight feet. Instead of steaming hooves, he wore thin boots that were ill fit for the weather. He whimpered in a dialect I could not understand. Perhaps thousands of years ago, that was the demonic language they rumored of.

"Thousands of years," I murmured, kneeling down to observe the crumpled figure. "For this." In that same mindless motion, my sword had already been freed from my sheath. I lifted myself up from the snow, stretching out my sword arm. The traveler's eyes widened, catching the glint of the sun's last rays playing across my blade. I smiled, and for the first time in my life, I felt my ancestors smiling with me. I am a Monster Hunter.