Velik didn’t know the man’s name, but that wasn’t unusual. He looked vaguely familiar – tall, lean, and muscled, with dusty tan skin and thick black hair. He stank of horses and beer, which meant he was probably part of the group standing near a produce cart with a ragged old mare hooked up to it. That was the only horse on the street aside from the wagon parked right in front of the general store, and that horse smelled better than this man.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face here,” the man snarled as he stomped down the street. “This town’s full of good, honest people, just trying to survive. They don’t need your trouble coming down on their heads.”

“I was just leaving,” Velik said woodenly. And this is exactly why I don’t like coming to the towns on the north end.

“You do that, but drop the bag. I don’t know what you stole from poor Fergus, but you’re not walking off with it.”

“I paid for this.”

The man snorted. “Not enough, considering what you owe all of us for what you did. Drop the bag and get out of here before I make you.”

[Predator’s Visage] worked on intuition more than raw numbers, so Velik didn’t know exactly what level or class this guy was, but he knew he was in no danger. The guy was strong for a local farmer, but combat classes had a different feel to them, and he didn’t have one. Velik wasn’t in any sort of danger, and there was nothing stopping him from walking away.

I don’t have the time or the patience for this.

The people who hated him wouldn’t change their minds no matter what he did, so the only real risk was alienating the people who didn’t think he was an evil monster-summoning scourge. He doubted any of them would blame him for not sticking around. So, Velik did the only sensible thing he could.

He turned around and walked away.

Either the man would sputter and bluster, or he’d try to do something. As long as he kept his hands to himself, Velik would be happy to leave him be. He’d long since learned to ignore the insults, and that beating on some random local accomplished nothing and caused more problems later. His reputation in Deshir was all the proof that he needed.

“Hey! I told you to leave the bag.”

Velik ignored the man and kept walking, but he wasn’t surprised to hear feet pounding against the ground behind him. A hand reached out to grab his shoulder, but the man’s physical was either pathetically low or it all went toward increasing brute strength, because it was trivially easy to dodge his grab. Velik slipped to the side and angled his trailing foot to catch on his attacker’s ankle, causing the man to cry out in surprise and a little pain as he went sprawling across the street.

Velik didn’t stop to check on him or see what he’d do next. He just adjusted the sack of food over his shoulder and kept walking. His attacker scrambled to his feet, but before he could lunge at Velik again, Fender interfered. The wagoner caught his arm and said, “What is wrong with you? You can’t just attack someone in the streets just because you don’t like them.”

“That’s not some random person!” the man hissed back. “That’s that Darshu damned monster magnet. We’re never going to have a night’s peace as long as he’s lurking around here.”

“You’re lucky he didn’t beat you to within an inch of your life,” Fender told him. He stopped and sniffed. “Are… Are you drunk?”

“I’m not drunk! I had a drink.”

Velik ignored the two of them and left town. [Predator’s Visage] included his old [Sharp Hearing] skill, which wasn’t something he could turn off, so he was forced to listen to the conversation, but it wasn’t anything he hadn’t heard many times before. They don’t matter. All that matters is finding the source and fixing it. This time will be different. It has to be.

He didn’t know how many more times he could keep trying before he gave up completely.

* * *

Torwin wasn’t sure what annoyed him more, the fact that he’d slept until damn near noon, or that he’d still beaten Jensen out of bed. He’d pushed himself harder last night than any time he could remember in the last decade, which only made it all the more galling that he’d failed to catch up to that strange hunter. He hadn’t been able to get an [Identify] off, but he knew the boy couldn’t be anywhere near his own level.

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He'd snoozed through breakfast, but Induar was a saint disguised as an innkeeper. He’d somehow predicted how things would play out when the old [Hunter] had walked in just before dawn and had a meal hot and waiting for him when he’d shuffled down the stairs five hours later.

“Rough night, huh?” Induar asked, sliding a plate of the usual across the bar.

“Praise Morgus,” Torwin replied as he licked his lips. “You are a miracle worker. And yeah, spent all night chasing after some teenager out in the woods. Somehow the little devil gave me the slip.”

“You must have had a chance encounter with the Black Fang.”

“I just said he was a teenager,” Torwin told him. He snatched up his fork and knife and eagerly started cutting into the slab of ham.

“Yep, that’s the Black Fang.”

How the ever-loving fuck does that work? I thought the guy had been active for years and years, Torwin thought to himself while he chewed. Can’t these people even get their stories about their local heroes straight with each other?

“He can’t be the Black Fang,” he said. “The Black Fang has been active for years. That kid can’t have gone through maturation and unlocked his class more than a year or two ago.”

Induar nodded along. “True, if he’d gone through maturation.”

Torwin’s fork froze half way to his mouth. “No. A class orb? Seriously? How old was he?”

“I couldn’t rightfully tell you. It happened up near Deshir. I guess he got it from some old dungeon ruins when he was a kid. The monsters started showing up in force the next day.”

“You’re telling me this guy’s been running around since he was, what… eight years old? Ten, maybe? Just killing monsters out in the woods. I don’t believe it.”

The innkeeper shrugged. “I wasn’t there. When I moved to Celarut back in ’77, there were already stories about him. He’s been active at least for the last six years.”

“Huh.” Torwin went quiet as he shoveled in his meal and washed it down with a mug of beer. The odds of a little kid surviving a class orb are low enough already, but for him to then go off into the woods to live by himself and kill monsters on a daily basis… Must have gotten one hell of a class.

“Why is he living out in the woods though?” Torwin asked. He knew that the Black Fang got a mixed reception wherever he went, but the kid was keeping the frontier towns safe, or safer, at least. Usually townsfolk appreciated someone killing off monsters.

“It’s never been quite clear to me what actually caused all the monsters to start showing up, you know? But those folks up in Deshir have their mind made up. Far as they’re concerned, the Black Fang is just trying, and failing, to clean up his own mess.”

“That’s ridiculous. A class orb has nothing to do with monsters. But then again… if he really did get it in an old dungeon…”

“Then he might have woken something else up when he was there,” Induar finished for him. “Right, that’s the thinking.”

“Seems easy enough to check. Just go to the dungeon and see.”

“And a bunch of folks did, or so I heard. They didn’t find anything, but that didn’t make the monsters disappear. I heard the Black Fang himself confirmed there was something else in there when he was just a boy, but I couldn’t tell you what.”

“No one knows?” Torwin asked.

The innkeeper shook his head. “Nah. Too many people thinking they know is the problem. Seems like every time I hear this story, it’s something new. I expect he probably did see something when he was a boy, and that got the rumors started. But then people started dying, and anyone who knew the truth back then isn’t around now.”

“Maybe I should go take a look at this old dungeon myself,” Torwin said. “If it is active again, that’d certainly explain the monsters. The job said they just started showing up in numbers about two months ago, so maybe something changed.”

“I heard a group went there to check a week before they decided to post the job, and that they didn’t find a thing,” Induar told him. “But then, they’re not gold-ranked monster hunters, so might be you could find a few clues they missed.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a voice from the back room. “Hey boss, I got the kegs from Fergus. You want me to leave any up here or put them all down in the cellar?”

“Excuse me,” Induar said. “I’ve got to go supervise this or it’ll be a giant mess to work around.”

The innkeeper disappeared into the back room, leaving Torwin to eat the rest of his meal. Definitely going to have to investigate this dungeon. There might not be anything there, and a trail that’s been cold for years won’t be easy to follow, but it’s a possible lead. I’ll need to get some supplies together, enough for two people for a week, at least. A map wouldn’t hurt, if I can find one around—

“You’ll never guess who I saw at Fergus’s place,” Fender said. “Dang old Black Fang himself. Some drunk was trying to hassle him, but I stepped in there. Probably saved the idiot’s life, attacking Black Fang like that.”

Torwin practically shot out of his chair. Wait, what? Where was this at?