The gate was open for the farmers coming in this early in the morning. The north part of the city was the industrial district. Farmers, blacksmiths, carpenters and leather workers plied their trade here and then sent it to the many markets across the city. He didn’t like visiting this part of the city, it was filled with dung from the animals that roamed and the leatherworking stink that permeated the whole air.
The only reprieve from the smell and atmosphere were the indoors, yet his journey demanded him to walk through the streets. The guards on the gate and on the wall were vigilant, a rarity. Those nobles must be serious about their worries, hopefully it isn’t a prelude to a war, getting conscripted would be disastrous.
Alex didn’t think there would be a war, just a feeling in his gut but he trusted it.
He gave the gate an appreciative glance, the enchantments on its steel braces looked utterly fascinating. The walls had far larger enchantments that spanned the whole city. How one powered such an enchantment still confused him greatly. Maybe they were deactivated? Even then, once activated, they had to get mana from somewhere or someone.
Man how he would have loved to get a book in his hands for this kind of stuff.
Shaking his head, Alex looked down the road that went beyond the horizon and led through several acres of fields. If he walked for half of Genesis duration, he would run into the last homestead connected to the city, farther than that were small towns and farming communities, and farther than even that were the wildlands. The Wildlands were just a mess from all he had gathered; apparently Awakened animals fought unending wars with the Skorn monster.
That’s all he knew though, rarely does everyone even travel there, mostly because of the lack of logistics and supply lines. His dad and mom went there once, apparently that's where they found enough money to buy the twin swords and also where they almost lost their lives.
He wasn't going down this road anyway, the hunting place he had scoped out was somewhere his father had visited regularly. It was closer to the east gate than to the north gate. So Alex, after walking far away enough from the walls to not be notified by the guards stationed on them, took a turn east through the farm fields.
The farmers and their children were working their backs off, it looked like fulfilling work though. To have a constant purpose and job in life. Alex had no choice, he was either going to become a monster hunter or perish.
No amount of farming will get him enough money.
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Money, money and money. He hated it so much, the source of stress for his whole life.
He stayed silent on his trek east, observing and cataloguing the sights. It was until Genesis' final set that he had finally stumbled upon the border of the hunting ground.
It was a field of black grass, oddly still and sharp looking grass, that spanned far into the plains and into some parts of the forest nearby. A dungeon had landed here and changed the environment, and even after its vanquishing it's effects were permanent and the monsters inside it kept reproducing.
Alex gulped nervously as a pack of little monsters roamed just some hundred steps away from him. These were Gremlins, four armed two legged small ugly charcoal black monsters. They had a vague humanoid form but that's about it for likenesses to humans.
They wielded rocks as throwing weapons and...ah. Did that clerk say bones spear or wooden spears? Alex stood up on his tiptoes, catching the sight of white bone on the backs of the Gremlin pack in the distance.
He should be careful with the rocks, what good smack in the face and his clones would need to retreat and be cancelled. The bone spears were less of a concern, his rapiers were enough to render any attempt at blocking with them a failure. They didn't even look good enough to inflict more than a minor injury, which he can easily get rid of by just cancelling the injured one and making a new one.
They are other monsters deeper inside the black grass field, though they were none of his concern considering he only planned to scour the outskirts searching for herbs and animals of prey.
Searching around, he found a nice little spot surrounded by a circle of trees and set down his bags. Getting everything out, Alex quickly set out all the clothes his clones needed.
In a moment, two clones had coalesced in front of him, perfect replicas of himself. They quickly got on the clothes and equipped the twin swords. They silently headed towards the black fields while Alex further prepared the campsite.
The two clones hesitated for a second over the demarcation line between the green grass and the black grass. They took a step in, and when they didn't immediately wither and die, they got the courage to continue further in. The first thing they noticed was the abrupt cessation of the background noise of nature, together with the darkening of the atmosphere, which gave the two clones shivers.
"Ok, let's not make a lot of noise like last time." B said, his eyes distracted between staying vigilant and inspecting the weird grass.
"Hand signals, we will be able to understand each other since we are the same person, right?" C aborted a chuckle, silence was prime.
"Right." B whispered back.
B and C stayed crouched while walking, each footstep of their producing weird barely audible crunching sounds from the grass. It wouldn't have been a problem in a normal environment where the ambient noise would have silenced it, but here, anyone within a hundred steps would hear them if they strained their ears.
Alex had already made a plan for two people, one clone would stay on guard, looking out for any gremlins looking for a fight and the other would lay his eyes on the ground to spot any good herbs to collect.
What made the gatherer clone's job easier was that a lot of herbs he was searching for were colours different from black, making it easy to pick out in this particular landscape.
The two went on for a quarter of Prime's reign in peace, collecting the odd herb and unfortunately not spotting any animals of prey. They had encountered Gremlins, yet they were heading in different directions.
Their luck ran out though when five gremlins climbed up from a hole in the ground they hadn't noticed not even fifty feet away. One of the gremlins stretched its four arms and yawned, seeming sleepy.
That sleepiness immediately disappeared when it noticed them, warning the other ones and grabbing the nearest light sharp rock around.
And then B and C, charged.