Ethan huffed heavily as he ran deeper into the forest, the last rays of light slowly vanishing behind the thick cover of the trees above and around him. He hoped the turtle chasing him would be too slow and lazy to continue its pursuit as the trees would surely obscure its path. Whom am I kidding? He would just waltz over them as if they were nothing, Ethan thought as he picked up his pace.
As Ethan ran, the sounds around him started to muffle and grew increasingly eerie, and the forest seemed to calm to a halt. Finally, after a few minutes of sprinting, Ethan arrived at a large meadow, the moon casting a soft, ethereal glow over the entire scene. The place smelled of freshly sprouted trees, yet Ethan could not see a single one.
At a closer glance, Ethan noticed that the clearing was a vast space with countless trees cut at the root as if by a scalpel. The ground was covered in stumps, all equal in height, making Ethan wonder what the hell had happened there. Finally, in the middle of the clearing, Ethan noticed a monster, dead and unmoving.
What the hell is this? he froze up and observed the creature's remnants, not seeing or hearing a soul around him.
Did that giant turtle do this? No, it cannot be. The way it attacked, it used ice, he reasoned, seeing no marks of the said ice around him.
This looks surgical, almost as if the space stopped exiting around the monster, Ethan concluded, crouching down and looking at the stumps. Then, his curiosity getting the better of him, Ethan stood up and slowly moved across the clearing toward the dead monster, unsure of the dangers lurking around him.
That is a free potential loot just sitting there. Not like anyone will miss it, Ethan reasoned as he slowly approached the corpse.
Once a few meters away, he observed it. The thing looked like a thousand broken mirrors shoved on the skin of a serpent, the pieces reflecting the moonlight from above. He realized that the monster was not made up of broken mirrors but instead of a substance resembling reflective glass. The monster's form was elongated and serpentine, with dozens of spiky protrusions jutting from its body.
Ethan tentatively reached out to touch the creature and recoiled in surprise as his hand went straight through it. He quickly realized that the monster was not made of glass but rather some strange, intangible substance. He then identified the corpse.
[Tainted Silver World Serpent] (deceased, grandmaster rank)
A massive serpent with silver scales tainted by dark magic, capable of swallowing entire cities and spreading corruption with its venom.
Ethan gasped quietly, noting his breath frost before him as he stepped back, followed by another step until he was at least ten meters away from the coiled-up snake. A message popped up next.
The corpse of [Tainted Silver World serpent] is unclaimed. Would you like to loot it?
Yes/No
Ethan eyed the monster's corpse and looked around the clearing, afraid to breathe in the massive beast's presence. If the carcass is unclaimed, no one will look for it, right? he thought, still looking around the clearing and not hearing a sound.
Damn, it is even grandmaster rank, the highest I have seen. They have to be rare and give some extraordinary items, he thought as he turned back to look at the deceased monster.
He hesitated for another second, mulling over the idea of looting the creature and ruining away like some common criminal. Mentally shrugging, he then accepted the prompt and quickly made his way toward the tree line, back toward the river, before the monster dissolved into an ungodly amount of black bile and stunk up the whole forest.
He did not dare to check the windows that tried to pop up in his vision while vacating the area as quickly and quietly as possible.
- - -
As Ethan left the clearing behind him, he did not notice a figure floating cross-legged, with one eye peered open, observing the ongoings next to the slain serpent. The figure opened both eyes and sighed, “Well, well, a boy with a looting ability. Now, that is rare these days.”
The man stood up in the air and stretched his limbs, floating toward the earth below. He yawned, adjusted his simple brown training garb, and scratched his long, gray beard, flexing his bushy eyebrows, which observed the snake monster slowly dissolve into the earth.
He smacked his lips and casually approached the dark puddle, splitting it up as he stepped on the clear ground, not soiling his feet. He scrunched his nose at the smell and said, “The stench is still the same as I remember it. How long has it been since the spawns dissolved just like that? No ritual, no array. Lucky, that boy.”
He walked up to the remnants of the snake and touched it with his finger, observing, “Not even a trace of magic left in this thing. Means no seed for me from this critter. You old fool, that is what you get for sitting around and napping while your prize is right there, next to you.”
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He turned around and walked back, away from the small lake of black liquid around him, soiling the fertile forest ground, slowly dissolving. “It felt like the boy got recognition from the old Gods. A title, huh?” Deep in thought, he scratched his beard again, looking into the forest where Ethan had left.
“Looks like I have spent too much time away. Events we are not ready for are being set into motion. Well, no matter, the serpent is dealt with, and the drunks in Veer can continue to indulge themselves for another month or a year,” he waved his concerns away, sitting back down in the air and crossing his legs again to think.
A wooden pipe appeared out of nowhere in the man’s hand as he lit it up with a thought and put it in his mouth, taking a puff. “What a fool you are, Aqor. An upstart boy taking what is yours right before your eyes. But fair is fair; no need to admonish oneself,” Aqor reasoned, puffing his pipe and looking in the distance.
“Some guild master you are,” he smacked his lips again as if tasting the air. Aqor closed his eyes and felt the faint soul imprint the boy had left behind him, which he had not noticed before.
“Ah,” he said, smiling. “And here I thought you were some simple boy, lost in the woods, looking for an adventure. Legion’s mark? What is one of his doing in this part of the world?”
Aqor knew from experience what it meant that those bearing the mark of the Celestials appeared in the middle of nowhere, that the North was. The last time this happened, the sect of the Serpent was born. Just one man raising a force to be reckoned with across all of Hersis in a matter of months.
As a result, foul creatures started to appear next to simple towns, such as Veer, threatening the lives of thousands of innocents if not for the Guilders and their efforts.
Not all places had it as bad as Veer, though, Aqor had to recognize. As the kingdom was large, it could not equally well finance and organize even the most basic of its operations - eradicating monsters born of saturated magic.
That was even without considering what the newborn sect tried to do to the said monsters. It was just vile, corrupting the mana around them. But what could the Guilders do besides ask for help from the nobility? The king, however, had to rely on his regional and local agents to handle the problems. It was an utter mess, as everything involved politics.
In Veer, this issue managed to grow over the decades, as the local nobles managed to run the region into the ground, the king not believing the guilders of what had been taking place, despite their reports and pleas. That is why the Guilders and their grandmaster spent considerable efforts to keep the monster infestation to an acceptable level.
Aqor did not worry about the city; he trusted his guild branch to hunt the monsters that threatened the town. No, his worries lay with the sect that rose to prominence quickly and effectively, poisoning cities from the inside. He did not want Veer to become another example of human greed and short-sightedness, leading to human sacrifices to grow personal power.
He had come to understand that the Celestials, as forgotten and lost to time, few believing in their existence anymore, were up to something. He knew from the moment the sect with its leader appeared, bearing a mark similar to the one the boy had, although different.
Now there was another [Reborn], heading to Veer by the looks of it. “Still apprentice rank, unspoiled and fresh. Curious,” he continued to muse, consuming his pipe of herbs as he heard shouts from the far side of the clearing, noting that the monster had finished dissolving without a trace.
“Elsa, wait!” an annoyed voice called out after a woman dressed in a white healer’s garb entered the clearing, which Aqor had thought as a place he could relax. Instead, the woman turned around and shouted, “God dammit, Clay! I said to hurry up. Did you not mention that the mark was about to expire, and we were close?”
Aqor noticed a rogue-looking man run up to her, trying to explain calmly, “Elsa, you know you should not run away from the team like that. Lilly will not be happy about this. The whole expedition is a test, and you know that.”
Oh, the newest addition to our guilders, he observed quietly, seeing as the pair were joined by a team of three near-master rank guilders. Aqor, of course, knew the newcomers, even as uninteresting as the guild matters were to him.
How could he miss the arrival of the royal princess, Elsa Ainsworth, alone and in hiding, applying to the city's only decent job? He had to spend considerable effort to accommodate her appearance of anonymity, not understanding her motives. A rebellion? Perhaps revenge or something more interesting? Aqor did not understand the girl or care much in the end.
He also knew of the scandalous Finlay Webster, a noble from the capital that had made a name for himself all around the kingdom, though not for the best reasons. But, no, their team was best known for their second in command, Lilly Odom, who had solidified their reputation in the Hunters guild as a solid team of problem solvers, capable of taking on even the five-star missions.
His thoughts were interrupted as Lilly caught up to them and called out, “Well? Did you find him?”
Elsa shook her head and waved her hands at the clearing around them, “Clay said the mark was about to expire, and it did. We were so close! And now it looks like he ran away again, not leaving a single track behind.”
Fin chuckled and said, “Elsa, we were chasing after him the whole night. So please give it a rest. He is moving south anyway. And you know what is south, right?”
She nodded and said, “Veer, I know. Do we go for the city then or the smaller village not far from here?”
Lilly confirmed for them all, “The village. C'mon, you showed some solid skills and improvement to the teamwork over the night, but it is time to get back and out of the forest until we run into something we cannot handle anymore.”
The team of five guilders rounded up and walked out of the clearing at an even pace leaving the partially hidden guild master sitting cross-legged and puffing his pipe.
“Curios,” Aqor observed his follow guilders, chasing after the young man who took his prize as he got up and decided to follow them.