As the sun set the next day, Ike headed into town, a fresh bag of bodies over his shoulder. Three silver clinked in his bag, the results of the previous afternoon’s and this morning’s hunting. In two days, he’d made up for all his years of work under his uncle’s thumb. Ike still struggled to believe it, the impossibility of how easy money came to hunters. Even Rank 0s are insanely strong. It just isn’t fair.

Lifting his hand, he activated Lightning Grasp. The skill came easily now, and held for a half-minute at a time, about as long as he could activate Lightning Dash. By instinct alone, Lightning Dash felt faster, but there was something else to Lightning Grasp, something he hadn’t quite understood yet. He frowned, rubbing his fingers together. Skills were mysterious. How did they work? Why did skill orbs grant power? Why were some people blessed by the System, and others executed by it? How could he create his own skill so easily, when people paid hundreds of gold for Unique skills?

Or could it be that having a Unique skill is the prerequisite to learning more Unique skills? Ike pondered for a few moments, then shrugged. He was no skill scholar. This kind of thing was beyond his understanding. For now, it was enough to understand how to operate them. Better yet that he could create his own skills. Beyond that, skills remained a total mystery to him.

He checked his stat sheet as he walked, curious about the progress of his skills.

[Name: Ike | Age: 15 | Status: Nm | Rank: 0 [Newly Awakened]]

Skills: Common: 3 | … | Unique: 2

Common: Sprinter Lvl 4 | Distance Runner Lvl 5 | Razor Handling Lvl 6

Unique: Lightning Dash Lvl 2 | Lightning Grasp Lvl 1

He pursed his lips, intrigued. All his common skills had leveled up, but his Unique skills took longer to gain levels. Unique skills leveled slower than common ones. Not a surprise, given that they were the highest ranked skills. Still, something to keep an eye on.

A man stood behind the counter of the monster buyer’s counter today, wearing the same heating-spell-imbued choker as Lea had the day before. He made no conversation as he checked Ike’s kills, then counted out his money. Ike’s heart caught as he counted the coins, delighting in the extra copper for his few perfect kills. It wasn’t much, but every copper counted right now. Even if the ‘big monster’ Lea promised paid off his debt, he’d still need money to set off into the wilderness, register at the guild, and so on. He could afford to not care about coppers once he made his fortunes.

Collecting his coins, Ike turned to walk out, only to all-but-bump into a man on the way in. He stumbled back, murmuring an apology, only for the man to catch him by the shoulders. “Ike!”

Ike startled. He looked up.

A distantly familiar face stared back at him, one he knew, but couldn’t place. The man grinned, uncomfortably friendly, and Ike backed away. Taking no cues, the man walked with him. “It’s Ike, isn’t it? Jaco’s nephew? You became a hunter? Since when, man? Should’ve said something!”

“I…don’t know who you’re talking about,” Ike muttered.

“What do you mean? I sell to your uncle all the time!” the man insisted.

Ike shook his head. “I don’t have an uncle. I’m sorry. You have the wrong person.”

“Do I? I don’t think I do, though…” The man squinted. “Are you trying to keep this from your uncle, or something?”

Without another word, Ike shoved past him. His heart raced, and a part of him wanted to race back and deny it, deny it all, but he knew the best option was to walk on. Pretend it hadn’t happened. Pretend to be just as confused and disgusted as a random person taken by mistake would be, and maybe the man would believe it.

I was too naïve. Just because he paid no attention to the hundreds of hunters and adventurers who filtered in and out of his uncle’s plant, didn’t mean they returned the favor. He should have known. Been prepared.

But the outpost was so far away. But most hunters didn’t bother to heft their kills all the way across the farmlands to the slums. But, but, but—

 No. I was stupid. I made a mistake. One sighting, I can write off as coincidence. Two…my uncle’s too paranoid. He’ll march me straight to the marshal.

I need a disguise. Something. Anything.

He reached to his neck and felt around for the cloth he usually wore while scraping the hides. There, he paused. Would he be more recognizable with his mouth covered? Less? After all, if the hunters had seen him, they’d probably seen him with his face half covered.

Ike beelined to the church, keeping his head down the whole way there. Unlike most of the buildings in the outpost, the church had glass windows. Stained glass depicted the Sun Lord’s ascent into the sky, the Moon Lady’s cyclical rise and fall, and the Silent King’s dark underworld. Peering into the depths of hell, he leaned left and right, raising the cloth, then lowering it. Whether it hid his nose and mouth or sat around his neck, the same bright blue eyes glared from under long, gloomy bangs, his hair crowding his face. He frowned, then took off the cloth and retied it over his forehead, pushing his bangs back from his face. Without his bangs to hide behind, he felt revealed, obvious—but at the same time, the clean look of pushing all his hair back gave him a completely different aura, moreso than hiding more of his face. A different person stared back at him from the dark swirling miasma of the underworld, someone bold, fierce, confident.

He took a deep breath and nodded at his reflection. Not bad. It’ll do.

Checking the sun, he steeled himself, adjusting his shirt and tucking his makeshift sack into the back of his belt, then set off across the outpost toward the Wolf’s Head.

Unlike the cold fake tavern full of monster corpses, the Wolf’s Head emitted warmth and light before he entered the building. Regulars wandered in and out, shouting to one another, mugs of beer sloshing around. A ragged taxidermied wolf’s head hung on the end of a pair of chains, a felt tongue hanging out, one glass eye staring at the street, a hollow socket buzzing with flies gazing the other direction. Ike mingled with the flow of people passing in and out, and edged into the tavern. Inside, tables clustered close under candlelit chandeliers. The smell of stew and old beer mixed with the stench of body odor and monster blood. Hunters, adventurers, and the people who manned the outpost bantered, trading jokes and insults. A pretty girl in a low-cut blouse bussed the tables, carrying beer and stew around.

He scanned the room, searching for the girl from the monster sellers’ room.

Noticing him looking lost, the waitress worked her way toward him, then smiled. “Here for a meal or the night?”

“I’m—I’m looking for Lea,” Ike said, nervous.

Instantly, the customer service smile vanished. She rolled her eyes and propped her hand on her hip, pointing toward the back of the tavern, where the building wound around out of sight of the door. “Back there.”

“Thanks,” Ike said, quietly taking stock of her reaction.

He headed toward the back, around a corner, past a dozen tables and two side rooms, and into a slightly less crowded lounge at the very rear of the building. Lea sat there, along with a table full of Rank 1 adventurers, badges glittering on their belts. At the sight of him, Lea stood. She patted Ike on the back. “Good luck.”

Ike glanced at her. He nodded, approaching the table. The adventurers looked up at him, eyes grim.

One leaned her elbows on the table, her hair held back in a series of ponytail ties. She wore metal armor, an enormous axe propped against her seat. Beside her, a slender, tan man in dark leather fiddled with a dagger, not even looking up as Ike approached. On the near side of the table, with their backs to him, a beautiful woman with shoulder-length black hair tucked her hands in her lap, soft cloth robes folding around her. She didn’t move at all, as still as a doll. A muscular man wound an arm over her shoulders, tilting his head back to shoot Ike a warning look.

Ike cleared his throat. “I’m the one Lea sent.”

He turned his head, getting another angle on the beautiful woman in robes. Eyes shut, she sat bolt upright in her seat. Her chest didn’t even seem to rise and fall, nor did her fingers twitch. He licked his lips. Is she alive?

“We know,” the axe-wielding woman said, sitting back. She looked him up and down, then grunted. Her eyes shifted to the muscular man. “Joseph? You’re the party leader.”

Joseph gave Ike a cursory glance, then turned to the wiry man with the dagger. “Ket?”

Ket flipped his dagger and cut his eyes at Ike. Black sclera and pale white irises stared at him, his pupils pinpoints in a sea of white.

Startled, Ike froze, instantly putting on a poker face. What…? How…?

Ket chuckled. He lowered his eyelids again, smirking just a bit as his dark lashes eclipsed his strange eyes. “He’s got guts. He’ll do.”

“Sandra?”

The axe-wielder harrumphed. “I don’t care. Anyone works.”

At last, the muscular man turned to the lady in his arms. He gently rubbed her shoulder, his voice turning soft. “Tana?”

She didn’t react.

His brows furrowed. Anger flashed across his face. He squeezed her, hard enough to force her arms to move. “Tana.”

The woman nodded.  

Joseph, offering Ike a handshake. “You’re on the team.”

Ike looked at Joseph’s hand, then frowned. “What’s your goal?”

“Goal? Did Lea not tell you?” Joseph asked.

“She mentioned a big monster?” Ike prompted him.

Joseph sighed. He nodded, running his hair back. “We’re going after the Salamander. It lives not far outside the wall, in a nearby hollow.”

“I’m Rank 0, is that a problem?” Ike asked.

Joseph waved his hand dismissively. “You can go out with a Rank 1 escort. Unawakened can go outside with Rank 1s, for hell’s sake.”

Ike nodded. He looked at the others. “Should I show you my skills?”

Even as he offered it, his brain worked, churning out ways to disguise his Unique skill. In the next moment, he paused, examining himself. Do I need to disguise a Unique skill? No one else should know what it looks like, right?

A tenor voice disrupted his thoughts. “Can you move fast?” Ket balanced his dagger on its tip, watching it sway ever so lightly.

“Yes.”

“Good. You should.” He stood, snatching up the dagger as he did so.

Joseph nodded, following Ket to his feet. He drew Tana up with him, and unprotestingly, she stood. “Tomorrow. Outpost gates. Dawn.”

“What am I doing?” Ike asked, as the rest of the party stood as well.

Joseph snorted. He paused, looking Ike up and down. “Consider this a kind of…charity. A way to help out young Rank 0s, and make our fight less annoying. You’re there to do sweeping duty. Keep the weak mob enemies off our ass. Can you do that?”

Ike clenched his razor. “Yes.”

A smirk crawled over Joseph’s face, poorly disguised. “Are you worried about the danger? Don’t be. I’m one of the most powerful Rank 1s in the outpost. I should hit Rank 2 any day now. You couldn’t be safer, even if we’re going up against a powerful monster.”

“I’m not worried,” Ike clarified. Not about the monster, anyways.

“Great. See you at dawn.” 

“What’s my cut?” Ike asked as they walked away.

Joseph turned back. “Ten percent. You’re a lower Rank. Won’t pull as much weight.”

Ike hesitated, then nodded. Ten percent of a monster big enough to have mobs was almost certainly more than he could hunt in a day on his own.

The party filtered out, leaving him behind. He stared after them until they left, then narrowed his eyes. Something isn’t right.

He looked at the sky out a nearby widow. Already, the sun lowered toward the horizon. He stood on the precipice of a choice. Stay here, figure out the strangeness associated with this invitation, and go out tomorrow to hunt a huge monster armed with his skills and knowledge. Or go home, complete his day job, blend in, pretend as if nothing had happened.

Ike released his breath. He shook his head. His uncle told him to go get money. That was reason enough to not show up at work for the pittance his uncle paid him. At this point, his uncle’s suspicion didn’t matter. He’d be suspicious whether he showed up or not. Taking one day off wouldn’t kill him.

And as suspicious as the invitation was, the money was too good. He couldn’t ignore it completely. But neither did he have to take the risk blind.

Mind made up, he headed back into the tavern writ large. Scanning the crowd, he spotted a few old men and women sitting at the bar, an empty stool in their midst. He walked up and took the empty stool, looking around.

To his right, an old woman glanced at him dismissively. “What do you want?”

The man to his left glanced up as he sat, then scowled. “Couldn’t be a pretty lady.”

“My apologies.” He nodded at the bartender and put a copper on the table. “Stew, thanks.”

Squinting at him, the old man nodded. “I ain’t seen you around before. New face?”

“Yep. New around these parts. Just got invited to a big hunt, in fact,” Ike agreed.

“A big hunt? Who the hell invited someone as green as—” The old woman cut off. She and the old man shared a look.

They know something. As expected. The tavern back in the slums was the center of gossip and news. Ike stayed away, but his uncle came back at least once a week shouting mad about some fresh tale or another. This business partner had oversold his corpses, that worker was having kids with that other worker’s wife. If his uncle could hear things that ephemeral, there was no question in Ike’s mind that someone in the tavern would know about Joseph and his team.

“Yeah. I’m excited,” Ike said, smiling to give them a little push.

“Hmm.” The old man sat up a bit. “You know, I reckon a young’un like you could use a spot of advice, no?” He tapped his tankard on the bar. A hollow sound rang out.

“Shameless,” the old woman admonished him.

The old man waggled his brows. “Shame doesn’t fill my tankard.”

Ike pushed another copper to the bartender. “Another ale for my friend.”

The old man tossed him a toothless grin as the bartender filled his mug. When it was back in his hand, he took a deep swig and let out a sigh of satisfaction before turning to Ike again. “You got hooked fast, huh? That crew’s notorious around here for chewing up newbies.”

“Oh?” Ike asked, accepting his stew from the bartender. It didn’t taste like much, but it filled his stomach.

The old man nodded. “Yeah. They recruit idiots who’ve never been beyond the wall, take ‘em out into the wilds, and that’s it. Poof. Gone. That team’s got as many skeletons in its closet as most teams have monster corpses tallied up. If I were you, I’d get out fast.”

Unperturbed, Ike looked at the man. That’s not a surprise, from the way they handled my part in it. I was clearly an afterthought. They never counted on me as a real team member…and likely, never counted on me making it out alive, either. “The new member never returns?”

“Never,” the old woman said, shaking her head.

The man hesitated, squinting. “Didn’t the crew start out as two people? Joseph and that axe-girl, Sandra? And then the other two added on later. But first Tana…”

“Don’t think so.” The old woman hesitated. “Maybe?”

The old man shook his head. “I can’t remember. Been too damn long.”

Ike cleared his throat. “Do they get their kills?”

“Huh?” the old man asked.

“That party. Do they succeed at their hunt, usually?”

The old man sipped his ale, thinking to himself. After a moment, he nodded. “Yeah. Don’t work out for the newbie, but it usually works out for them.”

That’s all I needed to hear. “Thanks for the tip,” Ike said, standing.

“So?”

Ike turned.

The old man nodded at him. “You gonna try your luck? Hope they ain’t pullin’ that shit again?”

Ike shot him a grin. “I can’t afford to say no.”

“Better poor than dead,” the man rebuked him.

“I never said I intended to die,” Ike replied with a sly grin, walking away. After all, turnabout is fair play.

“Put me in your will!” the man shouted after him, thumping his once-again-empty mug on the bar.

The old lady shushed him. “Can’t you see? That kid’s got a plan.”

“Oh, I can see. I just don’t know if it’s going to work out for him.” He reached into his pocket and set a silver on the table. “Bet he dies. It’s a Salamander. Those beasts will eat you up, even if your teammates aren’t sabotaging you.”

The woman grinned. She took his silver. “Then I’ll root for him.”

The old man clicked his tongue. “You’ve gone soft in your old age.”

“Maybe. Or maybe I saw something you didn’t.” She jiggled her pocket, grinning at him. “Either way, someone’s coming out of this richer.”

“And I’ll toast to that.”

At the door, Ike shook his head. Are the odds against me that bad? He stepped out into the night, taking a deep breath of cool night air. Resolve firmed in his chest, as solid as steel. Ike’s eyes narrowed. Then I’ll just have to fight that much harder.

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