Chapter 8: Preparing To Hunt

Eating was weird. I had this thought after living with my family again for over a week now and needing to tell Tyell to not worry about cooking breakfast, and mom about dinner.  

After five years of being stuck on Espoiramissa the amount of food I needed dramatically decreased as time progressed. 

I still needed to eat but the amount was substantially less. The reason for this was twofold. 

Mana. Having a lot of stored within one’s soul and body acted as a substitute for many of the body's energy requirements. Still, it was impossible to completely remove the need to eat unless you received a skill for it. Secondly was the environment. This was no longer a factor while being on Metous and Lestant station, but was relevant on Espoiramissa. Mana-heavy environments–meaning almost always dungeon–also made the need to eat reduced.

This was one of the reasons when Dungeons did appear on moons or asteroids, the assault team could stay within for days without issues.

Sleep requirements were also reduced similarly to eating, but not exactly. Having more mana and being in highly mana-dense environments only made it so one could function with less sleep for a while. On Espoiramissa before I had [Sleepless Nights], I could sleep for three hours every day but after two weeks of doing that, my body crashed. Even though the day before the crash. 

Anyway, today was the day I planned to become active, I was going to become a hunter. 

Hunters simply put were people who hunted monsters for money and it was a difficult occupation. Not due to the physical effort involved but the transport and low income. 

There were already many companies that collected the sought after materials, and the the average independent agent depending on where they lived, couldn't afford to do the work.

People either chose to live near or on dungeon-infested moons to hunt or lived on planets and teleported there. The former was much cheaper but even that required hunters to sink a chunk of money into the setup. The only way for an independent team to make enough money was to hunt an extreme amount of monsters or extremely dangerous ones. 

I didn’t care about making a profit but I would be making one with my skill level.

“Okay, let's go [Star Mapping].” I Activated my skill, pouring twenty percent of Starlight into it. I wanted to save my mana for later.

A wave of pressure entered my mind and a tide of information came in. [Star Mapping] other effect allowed me to see everything within a certain radius depending on how much mana I used. This first time I’d used it in a city so I wasn’t prepared for all the excessive details.

Haaa. Glad I didn’t first use this in a stressful situation.

The actual location of the hunter guilds in the city was difficult to track down. The government didn’t particularly want people to risk their lives fighting. But I knew the general location of them.

One good thing about that lack of support meant that one had more freedom when interacting with it. 

The main guild in the city I couldn’t use because I still didn’t have a proper ID yet, due to it being delayed. But there was another slightly more loose option.

Yep, this is it. Hungry Wolves Hunting Guild. 

Underground in an alley, it was difficult to track down even with [Star Mapping] but I knew of the landmarks that surrounded the entrances.

I entered the building. Dark and cold, they really needed to hire a better interior designer. 

A few tables on both sides of the room, a counter, and a door leading to the teleportation room. The building was extremely small but that was comfortable in its own way. 

As I walked to the counter, “Can I have your ID?” asked the lone receptionist at the counter.

“Don’t have one, either of them” I replied, which returned a strange look from the lady. “Can you provide me a licence?”

“Do you know what you're asking right?”

Was this illegal? Technically no. But it was a heavily grey area and one could easily enter illegal territory by faking your identity too hard. A few really old laws gave hunters a lot of ‘freedom’ when it came to their identity. Funny enough this had more to do with the safety of the citizens. As some people long ago had died when harassing high levelled individuals–usually hunters.

“Yeah?”

I felt pressure being released by the women at the counter. Doesn’t feel like Soul Pressure. Must be a skill.

“Haaaaa…” Giving her a dead-eyed stare, “No funny business, I’m here to do work.”

“Okay,” I heard her mumble a ‘few’. 

“It is going to cost you,” she gestured to the counter.

“I know,” I had already brought some RMC (Ruby Mana Crystal) which I placed on the table. All mana crystals were extremely valuable and damaging them greatly lowered their worth, so they made good untrackable trading. “Keep the change, they are a pain to carry.” I was only slightly over anyway.

“Your loss.” The crystal disappeared off the counter. “Wait five minutes.” The lady walked off into the backroom.

I just stood there waiting, the place was mostly empty. A few individuals were seated at the tables eating. Probably just hanging out as it was an off day.

Soon the lady came back, “Last thing do you have the mana to pay for the portal cost?”

Teleportation science’s great unachieved dream. Out of the skills and mana uses researchers have tried to duplicate with technology the most sort after was teleportation. But even after two thousand years none had succeeded and many gave up.

With the immense mana cost and toll on the body most spacial mages could only cast long-distance teleportation a couple of times a day–requires many mana recovery items to support them. And the maximum length of ‘long-distance’ meant moons near a planet. 

Teleportation was also restricted on planets. Making it harder to teleport anywhere, only a few locations specifically designed would allow teleporting to work. After coming back onto Metous I could feel it was the same pressure that prevented Vocations from being chosen.

“I’m a J3 Soul Rank, mage Vocation.”

“Sure you are. Here’s your card.” She tossed the mostly empty black card into my hand. “You can apply the information yourself. Any mistakes will only affect you.”

“Thanks.”

Honestly didn’t expect the process to be this fast.

I applied my mana into the card. Which allowed me to edit the required fields, this could only be done once which was slightly annoying but it was a semi-fake card anyway.

The only difference between this and a normal card was that a normal one would be connected to my identification and I would be allowed to get it updated for free once a month. 

I should buy a second card later.

The hunter card was a complicated piece of shit, that only reacted to the mana of its first user. So stealing someone else's wasn’t worth it. The cards also had some effect attached to them. I used one of those inbuilt effects, shrinking it into a centimetre square and sticking it near my elbow. 

“The next portal use is four days from now I would recommend you get yourself a team before then.”

“Hmmm… Yeah, I might need a Carrier.”

The whole discussion I had was audible to everyone in the open lounge of the building. 

“Hehehe,” I could hear the person on the far leftist table start to laugh, “It’s my time to shine.”

He stood and walked over and introduce himself. “I’m Lion Songfield. Descendant of Albaz Songfield, whose heroic actions were rewarded with his initials being used to forever mark our new age!”

Who the fuck is this idiot?

In the background of Lion’s declaration, sitting down at the tables. People quietly mumbled away.

“I thought it was just AS–After Shift?”

“Idiot, it is named Arthur Shin. Not his fifth-best teammate.”

The others only cared about arguing about the correct terminology.

“And?”

“We should team up!”

“I’m assuming he is unable to form a team himself?” I turned to the lone receptionist.

“I can hear–”

“Kind of? Jacob works with him… Cause the boss ask him to.” Wow, how pitiable.

“He just accepted my cha–”

“Is Jacob a Carrier?” I asked cause every team needed at least one Carrier, and ‘tiger?’ boy definitely wasn’t one.

“Yes.”

“Can you send a message,” I asked, “I’ll pay him 50% of monster materials after deductions to work with me for this first job?”

“Your joking right?” Wide-eyed she questioned my sanity.

“Nope, I just want to have the least amount of hassle on my first run.”

The lady laughed, “Confident, ain’t yeah.”

“Yes, a beautiful display of confidence which is wh–”

“Kind of,” I replied.

“Okay I’ll do that, but I will be fining you if you don’t show up on the day.” She pulled out her purple phone.

“Fine by me.”

With everything then I left the building ignoring ‘cat?’, whatever the person’s name was and proceed with my next task. Getting a phone. 

I’m glad that was easy. 

 

---

As Ceella left the Hungry Wolves Hunting Guild the receptionist sighed in relief. 

“Thank god, doesn’t seem like she is one to blow her top off.”

“Ketty why didn’t you help me get a teammate!” yelled Lion.

“Cause teammates shouldn't be extremely different in strength, with the only possible exception being Carriers.” She took a sip of her purple drink, “And you're annoying.”

“So what are your thoughts small chief?” An orange-haired old lady yelled out.

“Come tell us!” Followed by a younger man.

Ketty sighed, before angrily biting back, “You idiots could’ve talked to her when I was gone!”

“““Nah!””” The six people in the building–besides Lion– yelled out, two girls, and three boys. Wearing casual clothing but all were carrying either a backpack or suitcase with the hunting gear if an emergency popped up. 

“So how strong was she?”, the youngest member at nineteen asked.

“Stronger than all you idiots.” Ketty took another sip. Her skillset allowed to judge people and she also could squash people into the ground but that was less relevant for her current job.

“What?” The bald girl wearing a grand racing t-shirt yelled out, “Even granny Petly!”

“DON’T CALL ME GRANNY YOU BRAT!!” The orange-haired lady slapped the youngin across the face.

“GROW UP YOU TWO, I DON’T WANT THE POLICE HERE AGAIN!!” She yelled before signing again. 

“Well… Petly should have surpassed her in level no doubt but..” She tapped her fingers on the table, “If I had to choose, I would rather fight Pelty.”

One of them yelled, “You would rather fight Raging Fist Petly?!”

“Well then we are lucky she has a reasonable personality, not many can deal with Lion’s… himness.” Another replied.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Lion yelled but was ignored, everyone found this was the best way to deal with him when he was high on his self-esteem. 

One of the crew who hadn’t spoken–besides the cheers–began mumbling, “So she strong, reasonable personality…” before announcing “Meaning next hunt gone to be great!”

“““Yeah!””” Everyone cheered again.

“Unless one of the many possible events occurs which can endanger everyone on the job,” said Ketty.

“Stop trying to ruin the mood!” Yelled Petly.