Chp. 3 Not your normal part-time college job

The first thing I noticed about the hunter’s guild was that it was a normal-looking building. It didn’t look hobbled together like the rest of the shops and houses in low town. It was a nice but plain looking 3 story building with an actual yard. There were lots of people around the building going in and out. In the yard which took up most of the city, the block was what looked like scarecrows with a few arrows sticking out of them. There were elves, dwarfs, tibulls, and humans shooting arrows at these scarecrows which I realized were targets. There were also several different hunters I assumed fighting each other. One was as I watched a tibull with a huge axe fighting against an elf from what I could tell. The tibull seemed to have the upper hand but as he brought down his axe for what would be the final blow, the elf dodged and parried the attack and hit the tibull with the flat of his sword behind his knees. This dropped the tibull to his knees, the elf then had another small blade that seemed to appear out of nowhere at the tibulls neck.

“I yield” I heard the tibull growl.

“You’re going to have to get faster with that axe if you want to beat me, Tiberius,” said the elf.

Ava noticed me watching and started talking.

So, this is the Hunter’s Guild House. Those are hunter’s training to become stronger, you never know what you will come off against on a hunting job.

“Is it always this busy?” I asked.

This is a slow day, like I said hunting is our main way to get crystals, so it’s a very common job. Hunters will come to the guild home and take jobs; these jobs are assigned a level based on difficulty.

“Oh, that’s something I wanted to ask you” I interrupted. She stopped.

“Last night I asked you if you had seen a pop of box and you acted like you didn’t know what I was talking about”. She looked at me funny You see, I continued “when I look around, I see everything but at the corner of my vision I have a status bar that tells me basic stuff about myself, does everyone have something like that here?”

Last night, she said I didn’t see anything, I just figured you saw a sign or something as we were running, and you were exhausted from getting away from those slavers.

What you’re describing do you see it right now?

“Yes” I replied.

“I’ve never heard of anything like that. But all hunters tend to develop their own unique skill set so maybe we can ask around?” she said.

After thinking about it for a minute I asked her “can we just keep it to ourselves, for the time being, I don’t want anyone to know I’m not from this world. Who knows the trouble that could cause”?

“That might be a good idea,” she said.

So back to my HUD, that’s what I call it I told her.

I can see my current level; how do you know what your level is if you do not have it displayed?

“Oh, that’s easy”, she said “When you first sign up to be a hunter, the Guild master’s will use a spirit crystal on you the spirit crystal will tell them your current level. The guild will then assign you a badge with that level on it.”

She reached in her pocket and pulled out a folded leather wallet when she opened it, it had a small round silver plate with her name at the top, an image of an elf with a bow in the middle, and level 3 at the bottom.

“That level tells them what level of jobs you are allowed to take.”

“So how do you know when you level up,” I asked I knew I had a progression bar but since she didn’t see any of that, I didn’t know how she would know when she leveled up.

“It’s just kind of a feeling you get,” she said “when I level up, I feel refreshed and find that I’m instantly a little stronger than I was before, not a lot but it’s noticeable. I also find that when I level up, I seem to gain knowledge to be able to do something I’ve never been able to before, almost like it was always there but I just never noticed it before.”

“When will you reach level 4,” I asked.

“You’re just full of questions aren’t you,” she said with a smirk, “this will all make more sense when you start hunting. Let’s just say that you never know it just happens after defeating several creatures, but it seems with each level it takes longer and longer to build up to the next one.”

“Should we go get you registered?” she asked.

“Can I try one thing first?” I asked. She shook her head with a yes with a look that seemed kind of suspicious.

I mentally opened my skill list and tried to open the Party skill, when I did a box appeared.

image [https://i.imgur.com/EtAKJjx.png]

I guess I was kind of lucky I didn’t know how to add a contact, but Ava was there. Maybe as you got to know someone to a certain degree, they would join your contact list. I noticed that the tibull I met earlier Enzo was not on the list.

I focused on her name.

“What, what is that” Ava said, a little louder than I would have expected.

“Do you see that box?” She asked.

I shook my head “No, what does it say.”

She read out loud, “Jensen has asked that you join his Party do you accept? Y/N”

“Will you accept?” I asked her.

Ava paused for only a second then smiled and mentally thought of the word yes.

I instantly saw a new pop box.

image [https://i.imgur.com/RbS5onw.png]

I mentally went back to my HUD and noticed a new label appeared in the top right corner of my HUD. It was Party and under it, Ava’s name was listed beside that it showed her level, HP, MP, and status.

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image [https://i.imgur.com/u1lYpgx.png]

I thought back to the description for my Party Skill, it said something about mental communication. I focused on Ava and thought “hey what do you think.”

She was startled, “what did you say,” she asked.

I said “what do you think” focusing again to do it through the party skill.

“How did you do that, I heard your thoughts in my head, not through my ears and your mouth never moved,” She asked out loud.

“Focus on what you want to say to me in your mind,” I said through the Party chat.

“Ok like this,” she said this time through the party chat.

We continued for several minutes probably looking like idiots talking about this party skill through our party chat. Just basically looking at each other not saying a word out loud. I explained that I could now see some basic information about her along with her progress to level 4. She on the other hand could now see both my basic information and her basic information. After I while I focused on the word party in the right-hand corner there were a couple of new options. At the top, there was a question to disband party Y/N. Then next to Ava’s name was an option to remove from Party Y/N. I disband the party and then tried to use the party link to communicate with her.

She looked at me for a minute and asked, “why did you disband the party?”

“I wanted to see what it did” I replied, “do you still see your basic status?”

“No,” she said with a small sigh “it all went away as soon as you disbanded the party.”

“That would be a great skill when hunting,” she said.

I agreed that it would and wondered how far away it would work.

“I’ve never heard of a skill like that, most of the time hunting parties use spirit crystals to communicate, but not everyone can do it and spirit crystals are not as common as some of the others.” she thought out loud.

“Should we go ahead and go in and get me registered?” I asked.

I won’t lie all of this was kind of exciting back home I was a 20-year-old college student still not sure what I wanted to do with my life. I was stressing about School and my part-time job and just felt like there had to be something more to life. The most exciting part of my day was when some of my buddies would come over and we would play some X-Box or run through a Dungeon in D&D. This was a whole new world, but it was more like one of those D&D games there were monsters to hunt and lots of stuff to explore. I still wasn’t sure if this was some sort of dream that I was going to wake up from, and I knew if it wasn’t then I was going to have to get home eventually, I mean I do have family and friends who might miss me. Well, all of them except my sister, she never really liked me anyway. But while I’m here I might as well play the part and have some fun with it, I mean it’s not every day you get to go out hunting monsters, I might even get to do it with a hott half-human, half-elf girl.

We walked into the hunter’s guild and there were posters all over the walls.

“These are the outstanding jobs” she explained, as I looked around. “We need to go down that hallway right there” she pointed.

We walked up to a door that said registration, as we walked in, I saw a large desk but that wasn’t the shocking part behind that desk was a large humanoid that looked like a cross between a human and a lizard. The lizard lady was dressed in a pink floral dress and had a neckless that looked like pearls. Her face had long lashes, rosy, red cheeks, and some of the brightest red lipstick I had ever seen. On her dress there was a name tag it said “Hello my name is Barb”

“What is that”, Jensen whispered to Ava.

“shoosh, she’s a Saurian”, Ava said under her breath, don’t make a fuss about it.

We stood there waiting for a minute for the lizard lady Barb to look up.

“May I help you?” Barb asked in a voice that was a cross between an older woman and a snake hiss.

“Hi Barb,” I said, “I would like to register to be a hunter.”

She handed me a form “fill this out over there” she pointed to several chairs “and bring it back when you’re done.”

I filled out the form, Ava let me use her address since I didn’t have one at the moment.

When I finished, I walked back up to the desk and had to wait for the lady again to look up to help me. I noticed she was reading what looked like a book. I wondered for a minute what the odds were that this world used English as its common language as well. She flipped the book over to keep her place and I noticed two Saurians one dressed more like a male and the other dressed in a dress similar to Barbs, holding each other. The title of the book was “Our Cold-Blooded Love.”

Barb looked over the papers and then took out a stamp and marked it as approved. She then pulled out two boxes from a desk drawer.

“Hand” she hissed.

I cautiously stuck out my hand.

As she took my hand she said, “repeat after me, I swear to follow the hunter’s code, I will not kill but to protect, I will not harm another without just cause, and I will make sure to meet the quota set up to me for my hunter level.”

I repeated all of this back to her, after I finished, she opened one of the boxes and pulled out a light pink crystal, I recognized it as a spirit crystal from going through my storage back and reading the descriptions last night. She touched the crystal to the back of my hand, and after a moment it turned from a light pink to a darker hot pink. She then opened the other box and pulled out a leather wallet. When she opened it, there was a silver disk like the one Ava had shown me but this one was completely blank. Barb then touched the pink crystal to the silver disk instantly writing started appearing on the disk. At the top, it had my name Jensen in the middle it had an image of a man with a sword, and at the bottom, it said level 1.

After all the lettering had finished Barb put the boxes back in the desk. Then she handed me the leather wallet.

“Congratulations you are now a level one hunter, don’t die on the first day. Now you may leave” she hissed.

Before I could even say thank you and turn to leave, she had already picked back up her book and started reading.

As we walked back out to the main room Ava explained how being a hunter and the jobs worked.

She explained that hunters must meet a certain monthly quota to stay with the guild. That quota changes as you increase in level at level 1 I would be required to do at least 10 jobs during the month. If I did not meet that quota for 2 months straight, I would be put on probation after that if I failed to finish 10 jobs the next month my hunter license would be revoked, and I would have to wait 120 days to reapply. She then pointed to the jobs on the walls and explained that each job had a level assigned to it, I would be allowed to take level 1 jobs by myself, and if I had someone of the same level or higher with me, I could take a job from one level higher than my current level... The jobs were assigned by taking the poster from the wall to a job registration desk. Where a person at the desk would use a spirit crystal to attach the job to your hunter’s license. While the license looked like an ordinary silver disk with writing engraved on it, it was much more than that. The license would keep track of your current jobs, when you completed one it would keep track of that as well. After finishing a job, I could return here to collect the reward for the job, the job register would use a spirit crystal to read your license and see what jobs have been completed. The reward would vary depending on the job, any crystals or other items could be kept, sold to the guild, or sold to other vendors. There were also other guild outposts in the surrounding villages that would have other jobs you could pick up, as well as the ability to reward you for completed jobs.

Ava suggested starting with something easy, she walked over and grabbed two identical posters, and brought them back to me. I read the poster.

“Kill 10 thrafsi kounelis, Level 1 reward 10 copper coins.”

I asked Ava why there were two of the same posters on the wall. She said that snappers as she called them were everywhere and it’s a very common job. Even if they both kill 10 there would still be more to be killed. I didn’t understand how a kouneli could be a dangerous creature that had to be hunted they looked kind of like a rabbit with a turtle shell on its back.

We took the posters over to the job register and got them assigned to our license.

As we left the hunter’s guild, I felt a little letdown, that was it, that was all I had to do to become a hunter and kill some pure little kounelis.

“What do we do now?” I asked Ava.

“Well, we probably need to get you a weapon first, do you know what type you can use? Also, do you have any money beginner weapons are not very expensive so if not, I can loan you a little to get you started” she said?

I then remembered the sword in my storage, I quickly accessed my inventory and pulled out the traveler’s sword.

“Where did that come from” Ava exclaimed.

I had it in my storage back I replied.

“Your bag I don’t see a bag on you, and that would have to be a pretty big bag to hold that,” she said questioning.

I then explained to her another function of my HUD and how I could store items and how this item was there when I first opened my inventory.

“Well, you are full of surprises, I’ve never heard of an ability as that” Ava asked.

I looked at her and just kind of shrugged in response.

“Well, let's go to the sparing yard and see if you can do anything with it” the look of excitement on her face as she said those words instantly filled me with regret.