Chapter 9

The next day, late in the morning Jack woke up in his small flat feeling tired and sore. He shifted around and tried to get out of bed but felt like he’d spent the entire previous day in the gym. He had originally planned to take on another hunt today since it was Sunday but thought better of it given how sore and stiff he felt. He winced as he finally pulled himself from bed and stood up slowly, he hissed in pain as he stretched.

He didn’t really know the cause of the pain he felt, but thought it could be a combination of the activity from yesterday since he wasn’t usually the most active of individuals and from the lightning cultivation up to his limits. He hoped with time his limits would increase so wouldn’t have to feel so terrible every morning after a hunt.

He slowly went about his morning routine of breakfast, television and shower. He felt slightly better and decided he could at least accept a search and find job at the hunter headquarters. As he got on his shoes and coat he heard a slightly bemused news reporter on the television say that the North Yorkshire hunters branch had published the name of the newly discovered monster species Jack had killed, they decided to go with the name ‘Jaw Gnasher’, Jack rolled his eyes before exiting his flat.

He rode his bike to headquarters and entered the building, he made his way straight to the jobs room, it seemed fairly quiet with few people around. As he got into the jobs room he saw only two or three other people staring at the notice board and a different person than Cheryl at the help desk.

Jack made his way over to a terminal and logged in, he brought up the G rank requests and perused through the list. He looked through and saw what he thought might be a relatively simple one, ‘collecting Violet Rock Clingers’, these were a new type of plant that actually emitted ultraviolet light and for some reason grew best in dark rocky areas. The request noted some of the best locations to search in York and detailed the drop off point that was actually in hunter’s plaza. He tapped on that request and hit accept, his pager buzzed in confirmation and he set off. He decided to head over to one of the abandoned building projects at the edge of town, most of those buildings were husks of steel and concrete and people tended to avoid them due to monsters often spawning there.

Thirty minutes later he arrived at a largish squat four story skeleton of a building and leant his bike against a pile of cement blocks. The entire thing was grey cement and stone without any windows and looked untouched with a chain link fence encircling the entire place. Jack made sure his bag and machete were secure on his back before climbing over. He dropped down on the other side and winced as his body was still feeling sore. He walked over to the wide open main entrance and started looking around the ground floor. He found nothing but large empty cold rooms with the occasional abandoned tool, he walked upstairs and began his search again.

This time he had more luck, he found a small collection of what looked like small glowing Ferns growing in a dark corner. The job had specified at least twenty needed to be gathered and that they needed to be intact, roots and all. Jack hadn’t thought to bring any tools with him, so he looked around for a small tool he could use to dig them out and spotted a claw hammer nearby. He grabbed it and proceeded to use the claw to scrape away at the loosened concrete around the plants. It was laborious work but eventually he managed to extract several plants along with their roots. He put them in his bag and moved on to look for more.

He eventually gathered the last of what he needed when he spotted something strange in a corner as he was on his way out. At first it looked like a puddle of liquid, but it was too dark to be water and seemed to be rippling and Jack thought he could see the edges moving slightly. He moved towards it slowly, he got within a metre of it when suddenly some of the dark liquid lunged up at him, he scrambled back quickly and the liquid settled down back into a puddle and stopped moving.

“What the fuck?” Jack said under his breath, he drew his machete and stood watching it for a few seconds, preparing for it to attack again, but it didn’t move. He shifted forward a little and the puddle rippled slightly but otherwise didn’t shift. He took a step forward again and the puddle started to vibrate, he moved to within a metre of it again and it lunged but this time Jack was ready. He darted to the side and slashed at it with his machete, that didn’t seem to do anything, it was like attacking water, his blade made a small splash but no visible wound. The thing ignored it and lunged at Jack again, he tried dodging and attacking several times but it didn’t make a difference.

“Shit!” Jack backed off and the thing settled back down again. He crouched down and kept a wary eye on it, trying to think of a way to beat it. In the end he came up with nothing, he didn’t even know what it was but had a strong suspicion he didn’t want to touch whatever that ooze was made of. Better to retreat for now and take a look through the hunter’s bestiary files and find a method of defeating it, discretion is the better part of valour as the saying goes.

He grabbed his bag and left the building site and cycled back to the hunters headquarters. He approached the help desk in the jobs room.

“Hi there I was wondering if you could help, i’m trying to find info on a monster or something I found on a job. I couldn’t beat it, didn’t even know what it was to be honest and I was about to try looking through the bestiary but I don’t know how. Is there like a search engine thingy in the bestiary?” Jack explained to the young man around Jack’s age currently manning the help desk.

“Hi, yeah, if you go to one of the terminals the bestiary option is at the bottom, when you're in that there’s a text box for you to type in any identifying features, then just hit enter and look through the results. Also if you managed to get a picture with your pager you can upload that into the bestiary and the pager will do the search for you,” he helpfully answered.

“Ah damn, I forgot to take a picture.” He felt like he’d missed an opportunity.

“What sort of creature was it anyway? I can probably help.” He looked curious.

“Well at first I thought it was a puddle of water or some sort of dark liquid but when I got close it attacked, and I couldn’t hurt it either. I slashed it half a dozen times with a blade but it didn’t give a shit, just kept lunging at me,” Jack said feeling frustrated.

“What colour was it?”

“I dunno, it was just dark, not really any colour to it.” Jack shrugged.

“That sounds like a low level slime, they’re relatively common and not too dangerous if you stay away. But they do get stronger the more they eat.”

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“Let me guess, they eat people right?”

The man shrugged. “If they can, they eat all sorts of stuff, it depends on the slime in question really. Eventually they grow and get stronger and faster, well fast for a slime anyway. Some even start developing elements.”

“Do they have any valuable harvesting materials? When I looked it just seemed like one single viscous syrupy mess to me,” Jack asked.

“Sure, the whole thing, a few places pay by the bucket, but you’ll want to wear special gloves or your hands will dissolve. And you’ll need to be fast when attuning, for some reason a dead slime fades or dissolves really fast, way faster than any other monster. In fact there are some researchers that think that slimes may not be monsters at all but simply small magical phenomena, just small manifestations of random magic, it’s sort of similar to those things people think are zombies,” he said with interest, he seemed to find this topic fascinating.

“Uh huh ok, but how do I murder it?”

“Er well, did you try any of your elemental abilities? Usually a quick burst of fire or something is enough to damage it if not kill it outright. They’re pretty weak, you know, G rank.” He looked at Jack curiously, tilting his head.

“Errrrr I knew that, ha ha, I just didn’t think of it at the time, yeah, heat of the battle ya know, plus i’m still a newb. Erm well thanks for your time, you’ve been a great help. Bye!” Jack turned around quickly and hurried over to the med vendor and then into hunter’s plaza.

He walked into the med vendor and sighed, he really needed to look into developing some abilities now he knew he could cultivate, as well as getting some more hunts under his belt. He continued through the med vendor into the hunter’s plaza, looking around he spotted the store he was supposed to drop off the plants. When he arrived he realised it wasn’t really a store or shop but a simple drop off point owned by some new agricultural company, as he walked through it to the counter he saw the walls were lined with various posters and advertisements detailing the company’s methods and goals. He reached the counter and placed his haul on the desk.

“Hi, you asked for twenty violet rock clingers right? This is them,” Jack told the man at the counter and showed his licence.

“Ah, that's great thanks, we received notification you accepted the job, the G rank one right? I’ll just confirm delivery and we’re all good. Thanks again!” And that was that, job done, Jack exited the drop off point and decided to look around the plaza. He headed over to the nearest weapons store.

He entered it and looked around, it certainly looked fancier than the weapons and armour store he’d been to earlier where he’d got his machete. There were more pieces of equipment that had monster components in here, one giant sword looked like it had once been the jaw bone of a gigantic predator, teeth and all. One display piece at first looked like a giant egg until he realised it was supposed to be a cuirass. There was a helmet that looked very impressive and intimidating but had long thick strands of hair that hung down five or six feet. A lot of it didn’t look very practical to Jack and he knew if he ever saw someone wearing that egg breastplate thing he’d die from laughter but other pieces on display certainly looked like they’d get the job done, he certainly wouldn’t mind a fire and acid resistant vest of wyvern leather, and that katana in the front window looked like just the thing.

He’d heard that hunters could actually purchase weapons and armour or other necessary equipment on credit since they had such high paying work the various shops and companies just accepted it as long as the hunters guild backed them. All you needed was your licence. With that in mind Jack approached the shop counter.

“Hi there, I'm looking to purchase a few pieces of gear,” Jack told the shop attendant cheerfully.

“Alright and what can I get for you today?” It was a young woman, perhaps in her late teens.

“Er yeah, I’d like a vest of wyvern leather and that katana you’ve got in the front window too please,” he said feeling a little excited to finally get his hands on some real hunting equipment.

“Ok no problem, if I can just see your licence i’ll get those for you.” She smiled politely and accepted Jack's licence from him. She looked at it for a second or two and seemed to be about to give it back to Jack before doing a double take. She seemed nervous and hesitant before looking up at Jack.

“Erm, I’m just going to get my manager, just a sec, wait there.” She quickly left with Jack’s licence through a door behind the counter. He could hear low voices for a minute but couldn’t discern what was being said, he waited nervously before a portly middle aged man came out.

“Hello sir, i’m sorry for the trouble, but are you sure you need these items?” he asked in a slightly condescending tone.

Jack frowned. “Well yeah, I'm pretty sure I need em, I’m a hunter, I hunt things, to do that I need weapons and armour, what's the issue here?”

“Well, it’s just that, it states here on your licence that you're a lightning element, yes? Well….are you certain you’re really going to get the best use out of these items. I could recommend several shops here in the plaza that all have excellent harvesting tools that might be in your….price range,” he said with a grimace.

“So you won’t sell me this gear? What if I said I could pay up front?” Jack started to feel irritated, looked down on again!

“Ah well, if you're insistent we still have some excellent items over by the main entrance.” He pointed over to a container that held a jumble of older looking weapons along with a clothes hanger stand of a random assortment of light armour.

“The bargain bin? Why that and not the stuff I picked?” Something the guy from his first weapons store came up in his mind. “Is this cause I’m a lightning element, you won’t sell because I'm bad publicity or something?” Jack's hands gripped the counter hard, he was struggling to keep calm.

“If sir would just lower his voice I’m certain we can arrange something.” He held his hands up in an attempted conciliatory manner. Several other shoppers were now looking over at the developing scene

“I’m not shouting.”

“Of course not sir.”

“Are you saying you definitely won’t sell me this gear I've picked out?” Jack asked, trying to take a deep breath.

“If you would just take a look through the items I've pointed out by the entrance, I'm certain you'll find something to your liking.”

“Why won’t you sell me these things?” Jack asked, determined to get a straight answer.

The man looked uncomfortable for a second as if trying to formulate an answer. “I’m afraid that you - I mean lightning elements aren't known for their er ....longevity in this business, if you were to die whilst equipped with any of our items, it might look erm…” He trailed off awkwardly.

“Right, right I get it, the bad publicity thing, fine, so you're genuinely refusing service then?”

“Well if you wish you can take it up with our head office, this the card, it has the phone number and email address all there.” Suddenly the man looked much more cheerful as if sensing this interaction were coming to a close. Jack accepted the card and walked away.

The man spoke up again as he left. “Have a nice day!”

Never had Jack struggled so hard to hold in a ‘fuck you’ before in his entire life.

He tried going around to different weapon stores and encountered pretty much the same kind of reception, no one wanted to sell to him. After an hour or two of walking stiffly from one shop to the next he was in a foul mood, just to add a cherry on top he couldn’t even find any cultivation materials that might be useful for a lightning cultivator. He decided to call it a day and go home after he’d purchased a small cheap harvesting kit for monsters and plants.