Chapter 47: Chapter 46 – Hunting

Before Yuki could go hunting, he had to finish his day at school. He went to his normal routine of classes. Homeroom where he learned nothing of interest. General Magic which was a class that Mabel herself told him he didn’t need to focus in. Combat Training where Deral was still teaching the students basics. And lastly Support Magic which might be the only class where Yuki was learning anything. Today Mabel had him test haste spells on her.

 

During lunch, Yuna had come by to eat with Yuki under his usual spot under the tree. She seemed to have been trying to initiate some sort of conversation but the topic was not of Yuki’s interest so he ignored her for the most part.

 

Then school ended for the day. Yuki immediately left the campus of the Academy and headed to the subway in the city. He didn’t have any money on him but he had discovered the Academy students had free transportation to anywhere in Libra as long as they showed their smartwatches to the payment machine.

 

[When can I come out?] Akira asked him as he walked.

 

‘Once we can get some place private,’ Yuki replied. ‘We want to keep you a secret, remember?’

 

Akira gave Yuki her understanding then fell quiet. Yuki soon arrived at the subway station and walked right into a subway. He rose his right arm and the payment machine scanned it before letting him in with a beep. With that, he took a seat on one of the red velvet seats and waited. The stop that he needed to get off on wasn’t too far away and was only a two minute ride. The subway train began to move.

 

Exactly two minutes later, the bus stopped. Yuki had inputted the stop he wanted to get off on into a panel near the door of the train. He stepped out and looked around him. The subway had became a train and in front of him was a massive forest.

 

The moment he stepped out, the subway departed and soon left him by himself in the middle of nowhere. Yuki glanced around to see if there was anyone around.

 

‘You can come out now, Akira,’ Yuki said once he confirmed that he was alone.

 

[Great!] she replied automatically.

 

Yuki felt the mark on his arm warm then he raised his arm. Mana blasted out and in a few seconds formed a beautiful girl wearing track pants and a t-shirt. Akira could now form within a few seconds. They had practiced doing this during the two weeks Yuki had been training.

 

“Hello, Yuki,” Akira greeted him brightly.

 

“We said hi this morning,” Yuki answered. Then he started to walk toward a building near the border of the forest.

 

Akira followed behind him, humming quietly to herself. In a few minutes they reached the building. According to Yuki’s watch, this was the hunter’s outpost for the Libra Forest. Without another thought, he marched right into the building.

 

When he entered, the gazes of everyone in the room latched onto Yuki. About a dozen people from what Yuki could see. He ignored them and went to the receptionist’s desk that was in front of him.

 

“I would like to hunt in the forest,” Yuki stated.

 

“Oh, really? I thought you wanted to sell cookies,” the receptionist asked dryly. The receptionist was a rather buff and tall man. “Can I see your ID?”

 

Yuki wordlessly took out a card from his pocket and showed it to the man whose name he did not know. The man squinted at the card for a few seconds before straightening.

 

“Seems real. I see that you’re a student,” he said, his deep voice shaking the air. Then he waved at Akira whose ears were twitching as she seemed to be trying to listen to the conversations of the other hunters in the room. “And who is this beautiful lady?”

 

“My partner,” Yuki answered. “She’ll be helping me when I hunt.”

 

“Is she a hunter?”

 

“No.”

 

“Alright then. You have until 21:00 to hunt,” the man said. “That gives you about five hours. Don’t die.”

 

Yuki turned around and walked out of the hunter’s outpost, Akira following him closely. Then he entered the forest and walked a bit before stopping.

 

“I need to make weapons,” Yuki explained before Akira could ask.

 

“I see,” she replied.

 

He knelt down and with his mana shaped the earth to create a single bladed sword and a pair of daggers. He sharpened them using mana then hardened them until they were as durable as wood. The weapons were crude and simple but they were weapons none the less.

 

“Here,” Yuki said, tossing the sword to Akira who caught the hilt with ease.

 

“So how much hunting are we doing today?” Akira asked swinging the sword while looking at it with a critical eye.

 

“Enough,” Yuki answered. “We only need an hour with our skills. We have to get only a few.”

 

Akira nodded and Yuki closed his eyes. Then he connected himself to the earth and spread out his senses. As he breathed slowly, he tried to pinpoint the location of the creatures that lived in the forest. Then he felt the faint presence of something small and light. His eyes snapped open.

 

‘Let’s go,’ he thought to Akira, transmitting the location as he did.

 

They ran quickly and with surprisingly quiet steps. Soon, they reached the area where Yuki felt the creature.

 

In a small clearing in front of them, there was a goblin. It’s back was to them as it rummaged through the bushes. What it was looking for, Yuki neither knew or cared. He put his hand flat on the ground and with a little mana trapped the ankle of the goblin. It squealed in surprise but was much too weak to break free.

 

Yuki leaped forward and closed the gap between him and the monster in a few quick steps. With a quick slash, he cut the next of the goblin. The cut wasn’t as clean as Yuki would have like but since he wasn’t using a real blade it was the best that he could expect. With another stab, he pierced the stomach, dark red blood spewing out. The goblin died shortly after.

 

‘One down,’ Yuki thought calmly as he wiped the daggers on the bushes the goblin was looking through.

 

With a trickle of mana, he sharpened his knives and left the goblin on the ground. Goblins gave no materials that the hunter’s outpost would trade for. Yuki had killed it so that he could test his makeshift knives.

 

“Can I get the next one?” Akira asked him.

 

“Why not,” Yuki replied.

---

 

One hour later, they were dragging with them the carcasses of monsters. The majority of the kills were what this world called wolves but were twice as big as the ones Yuki was familiar with and had red eyes. Their fur was used in a lot of clothing as well as some types of leather armour.

 

‘All in all, a nice haul for the day,’ Yuki thought.

 

Yuki was pondering on whether or not to stop or to keep on hunting. He still had a few more hours before he had to go back to the outpost. He also wasn’t very tired from the hunting he had done even with himself pulling along the body of a wolf that weighed at least a hundred pounds. He wasn't worried about the skin being ruined; the fur was very durable and so some scrapping would do nothing to it. Akira, too, didn’t seem tired and was humming to herself as she waited for Yuki to decide.

 

The main problem was that they had their hands full and at most could only carry one more body.

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As Yuki deliberated, something drew his attention. His senses were still linked to the ground and through them he felt the presence of something new.

 

“One more hunt,” Yuki announced in a low voice. “Then we’ll trade in our kills at the outpost.”

 

Akira nodded to show her understanding and then they began to slip their way through the forest to the location of the unknown creature. When they arrived there Yuki saw that the monster was quite different from the other ones he had seen. It was as large as the wolves but its body was flat and close to the ground. It had black scales along its back and walked on three pairs of legs.

 

‘An armoured beetle,’ Yuki identified. ‘Those are quite rare. Their ranks range from high D to mid C.’

 

[Do you think we can kill it?] Akira asked him mentally.

 

‘I’m trying to see how we can do it,’ Yuki replied. ‘Their scales are very hard and might be impossible for us to break through with our makeshift weapons. But they are also very valuable and would go for a lot if sold.’

 

Yuki quieted and stared at the ambling beetle with thoughtful eyes. He knew that they could not break the scales. This was both because their weapons were poor and that breaking the scales would considerably lower the value of the kill. That left one option for Yuki. Using pure strength.

 

‘Let’s try,’ Yuki transmitted to Akira. ‘I’ll buff both of us with magic.’

 

[Then?]

 

‘We beat the crap out of it,’ Yuki answered. ‘Are you ready?’

 

[Sure.]

 

With his right hand, Yuki formed a spell circle using mana and casted a strength enhancing buff onto Akira and himself. Next, he placed a haste buff which would increase their speed. Finally he applied a defense buff.

 

‘They’ll last three minutes,’ Yuki told Akira. ‘That’s the limit I can do for now. Let’s go.’

 

They launched themselves at the unsuspecting beetle at inhuman speeds and began to throw punches and kicks. As they did this, Yuki transmitted the locations at which Akira should attack while he himself targeted other areas. The places he hit were the locations of the major organs of the beetle. Each of his blows never broke through the scales but the impact could be felt by the monster. It began to scream and swing its sharp legs at Yuki and Akira. They dodged these attacks nimbly and continued with their beatdown of the beetle.

 

Before the enhancements on themselves wore out, the beetle fell. Its body was still intact but the insides had suffered major damage. Satisfied, Yuki grabbed on of the legs and began to drag it back to the hunter’s outpost. It was heavier than the wolves and by the time they reached the building, Yuki’s right arm was sore with strain.

 

With Akira next to him, he walked into the outpost and was met with the stares of a dozen hunters. They seemed to be staring at Yuki and the armoured beetle that he dragged the most.

 

“I would like to sell these,” Yuki announced to the receptionist as he walked up to the desk.

 

“Ah, right,” the man replied, shaking his head a little.

 

He walked away from the desk and then a door opened to Yuki’s left. The receptionist beckoned to Yuki to come in and he complied, hauling his kills with him. Akira followed.

 

“Please wait here as we calculate the price of the kills you got,” the receptionist said, his voice filled with respect that wasn’t there earlier. Then he left.

 

Yuki nodded and placed the dead bodies of the monsters on the floor. Akira did the same and then sat down on a couch that was resting next to the door that they had came in from. A few minutes later, the man returned with a paper in hand.

 

“This is your estimated total,” he said as he handed it to Yuki. “Please look over it and if you agree with the total tell us the payment option you would like.”

 

Yuki looked at the sheet and saw the estimated price of three direwolves and one armoured beetle. It totaled to about twenty pieces of gold, the beetle making up most of the money.

 

“I would like it in credits,” Yuki replied, handing the paper back to the man.

 

“Will do,” the man said. “Raise your smartwatch.”

 

Yuki did as he was told and the man then placed a card on top it. A beep sounded and the transaction was complete. Yuki was now twenty gold richer than he was before.

 

“Would that be all for today?” the man asked him.

 

“Yes,” Yuki answered.

 

“Then please come again,” the man said pleasantly.

 

Yuki didn’t reply and walked out the door. Akira stood up from her seat on the couch and followed him outside. Yuki then headed toward the train station to return to Junction.

 

“How much exactly is twenty gold?” Akira asked Yuki as they walked.

 

“It’s equivalent to about twenty thousand bronze coins,” Yuki replied. “If we were to convert that to something like dollars, I have about fifty thousand now.”

 

Akira started coughing as she seemed to choke on her spit.

 

“Fifty thousand?!” she exclaimed.

 

“Yes,” Yuki said. “I did tell you that the beetle was valuable. It made up about seventy percent of that sum.”

 

“We should hunt more beetles,” Akira said.

 

“I agree. But first, there are somethings we need to buy.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Clothing for you firstly,” Yuki answered as they got to the platform of the station. “Then some items I wanted that I couldn’t get. Oh, we also need to pay back Yuna about two silvers.”

 

The sound of the train could be heard and Akira disappeared in a flash of light. The train soon arrived to the station and Yuki boarded.

 

[I like beetles,] Akira remarked.

---

 

So, about hunting. It's not normal for one to kill that many monsters. They killed a total four monsters in their hunt. The average kill is around one per hunt as hunting isn't the easiest thing to do. Hunters had to first track the monsters then kill them. This would normally mean that it would take a hunter a few hours to kill one wolf as the wolves would be able to sense their presence before the hunter could reach them. But how Yuki could track them, this wouldn't matter that much. That's why the total amount Yuki and Akira received for their hunt was so much.

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