Craig knelt in a garden he had made by pulling up the pieces of sidewalk along the road in front of the butcher shop. His hands were patting down a small mound that finished off a row of planted seeds. In this mana-dense world, they would be nearly blooming by the next morning. Shifting his weight, Craig glanced over at the drying rack he had crafted for the Manabloom he had gathered. He wanted to make sure that he had everything prepared for when Domison returned. The plan was for a communal lesson in potion making as soon as they could all gather together.
For a moment, Craig paused and his small smile slipped, it had already been four days since their leader had left on his hunt. The large Urketh shifted uncomfortably, annoyed at his anxieties. Domison had said he would come back, and that he was confident in his chances of winning. Pabu had even gone with him, and that monstrously large Dire wolf would surely help ensure a smooth victory over the Area boss.
‘After all,’ Craig thought to himself, ‘this is still this world's tutorial. An Area Boss should definitely be manageable for somebody at our leader's strength.’ But still, he could not help but wring his large calloused hands in worry.
“Craaaaaaaaaig!”
Wide-set, dusty green shoulders fell as Craig let out a sigh of exasperation. But still, he smiled slightly, coming to enjoy the nickname he had been given. He could hear Mel running up behind him, her shoes slapping against the road as she crossed the road from her claimed apartment. Bracing his right arm on the ground, he rose to his feet and turned to address the young woman, “Yes, Miss Melody?”
Her straight black hair was in a wild halo around her head and her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes were sharp and confident, “I’m going to look for him.” Her voice was filled with a steely resolve and her grip on the combat knife, that Domison had given her a week before, tightened.
Another sigh escaped from between Craig’s lips and he turned to gaze into the distance, the direction that Domison should be in. He was looking towards the fortified car wall they had built, rays of early morning sun shining on the scratched paint. The large fangs sticking out from his lips from his lower jaw gleamed for a moment as he held his mouth open, searching for a proper response. It only took a few seconds for one to come to him, “Now that we have this place fortified, we should keep somebody here to stand guard over our territory.”
Mel opened her mouth to protest, but Craig held up a hand amicably, “But either myself or Mike should accompany you. I agree with your anxieties, it has been too long. While that beast was powerful, at Mister Wolfe’s current capabilities it should not have taken this long to seize victory.”
A bright smile spread across Mel’s face, she was so happy that she was practically bouncing, “Hurry up, let’s go!” Craig barely had time to gather supplies and inform Mike what was going on before Mel rushed him out of their secret entrance.
Domison trodded through empty streets, occasionally being poked in the back and urged forward by the barrel of a revolving plasma caster. The man hadn’t noticed the hand cannon until he had first been persuaded out of the building by the cold steel pressed against his temple. Domison had dropped the balled-up wrapper of one of the protein bars that Craig was so fond of when they first emerged from the Kwik Mart they had been in the first day.
Feigning a stumble into the open door, he had pulled the balled-up wrapper from his pocket and stumbled into the door frame, then he jammed the bottom of the door open with the rubbish. He had wanted to leave some kind of trail that he could follow back, but the chances would be few and far between, so he tried to focus on landmarks as much as possible. Knox hadn’t taken kindly to the sudden movement however and the burly man expressed his discontent by smashing Domison in the back of the head with his sidearm. Every time the cool barrel touched his flesh now was like fuel to the cold fire of rage building within him.
After his first attempt at cultivation had left Domison vomiting, he decided to be more cautious in his future attempts and had been ever so slightly pulling mana within himself as they walked. Nausea still plagued his every step, but this time it was manageable and if anything, it added to his weak and sick act. In fact, Domison had realized the previous night when they stopped for the first time to make camp in an apartment above a mechanic’s garage that he would be able to break through the suppression collar. Every drop of mana he was able to squeeze into his channels passed the suppression factor the collar weakened its authority over him.
Domison needed to see something for himself though. While he had disrupted many of Twilight Market's operations, the man had never found the Market himself and Sam had been more interested in ProtoElectrica. ‘Cut off the problem at its root,’ the grizzled man would intone every time Domison came to their headquarters with bloodied knuckles and rage etched across his face, ‘the market is terrible, don’t get me wrong kid, but vigilantism and torturing street level thugs isn’t going to help you take them down. We get P.E.? And they all fall like dominoes.’ But now? Now he had not only a chance to find them but the power to erase them all.
Although he had been able to bring in mana at a steady rate, it was not enough to fully heal his wounds and replenish his core. Most of the mana he was able to pull in was dedicated directly towards the incubation of the soul core he had gained from the Area Boss. Since the flow of mana he could cultivate had to be a trickle compared to what he was used to, to ensure the integrity of the suppression collar at his throat, the regeneration of his left arm was taking even longer. He had an instinctual feeling that the collar would break in a spectacular fashion if he was to forcibly widen the flow of mana, however, so he continued drawing in a small stream.
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He could tell that they were getting closer to Aurora, as the buildings surrounding them gradually changed. They transitioned from old apartment buildings and makeshift shops, to storefronts with still flickering neon lights and facades that reached high into the sky. He could barely keep his heartbeat under control as every step brought him closer to vindication. Bloodlust flared within Domison as he stole a glance at his “captors” and a single thought raged through his mind, these scum were leading the wolf straight to the henhouse.
Though factories were no longer pumping out plumes of smog from smokestacks, the haze in the air was still heavy enough to cast the sky in a deep purple now that the sun was starting to set. Mel dashed through the dirty streets that were only just starting to be taken over by the alien plant life of the forest surrounding the city-state. She and Craig had decided to split up when the sun began to set and they stumbled upon the ruined loading bay area of a warehouse. The ground was cracked in some areas and charred in others, but the pools of blood surrounding the building were all dry. Craig decided to search nearby buildings in case Domison had taken shelter due to a severe wound, while Mel shot down the street in search of another possibility. While she had grown up in the heart of Aurora, that had not suppressed the rumors about the criminal empire known as the Twilight Market and she had a gut feeling that they might be contributing to the ghost town that Old Town was becoming.
Between the blessing that Craig had cast upon her and her own ability, the speed at which she moved was impressive. After only ten minutes of running she had passed five miles worth of abandoned buildings, and it took another five minutes for her to notice the first oddity. A Kwik Mart at the corner of the street she was on caught her attention. At first, she wasn’t sure why, but after scrutinizing the building's facade for a moment, she realized. The door was standing ajar. When she jogged over to the store’s front and inspected the doorway, she discovered what was holding the door open. It was a balled-up wrapper, and when she dislodged it from the door. The automatic door slid closed silently as she uncrinkled the packaging and saw that it was the wrapper of a protein bar. One of the exact protein bars that Craig had insisted Domison take with him if he was to go on this hunt.
Rising to her feet again, she noticed for the first time the splash of blood against the wall by the now-closed door. Running her fingers over the blood, she realized that it was still wet, though it had started to coagulate. Without a second thought, she was off again, sprinting down the abandoned street as anxiety began to fester in the pit of her stomach. Five minutes later she felt one of her abilities begin to resonate, causing a subtle pull in the pit of her stomach. It was pointing her forward and she realized that she must be getting close… and Domison must be heart. The ability that flared within her was Comrade in Need, the first ability she had unlocked while Domison fought with the Myacept high priest. It increased her movement speed and would guide you toward injured party members when within a certain range.
Ducking her head she doubled her speed and before she knew it, she was starting to leave Old Town behind. The transition between Old Town and the metropolis of Aurora was impossible to miss. Where there once stood decrepit buildings that appeared like relics of civilizations past, the structures she wove through now were indicative of their society's balance between extravagance and dystopia.
Rounding the corner of an imposing Bankfront, she finally laid eyes upon her leader and an involuntary gasp escaped her lips. Domison appeared to be in a wretched state, his left arm was burned to a crisp and trembling slightly at his side and the damage continued up to his face. She couldn’t see the extent of damage there, as his head hung low while he trudged down the empty street, but at the sound of her gasp, Domison’s head snapped to her location. At first, the look in his eyes made her take a step back in fear, but then it changed to worry and that was when she realized that Domison was not alone. Two men were standing slightly behind him, both looking her way. One was a brute of a man, standing a whole head above Domison and at least twice as wide, one arm was a hulking cybernetic prosthetic and in the opposite hand, he held a huge gun that looked like a revolver. The other was much shorter than either Domison or the brute, he was thin and looked like he would rather be anywhere than where he currently was.
Before Mel had the chance to formulate any sort of plan, be it for rescue or her own escape, the burly man raised the sidearm at his side and pointed it directly at Mel. Her breath caught in her throat, and she took a hesitant step backward. Her fingers were trembling and all she could focus on was the barrel pointed directly at her chest, the knife in her hand may as well not have been there. No matter how many monsters she had faced and slain alongside Domison in the previous weeks, it couldn’t get rid of this primal fear. Time seemed to slow down for Mel and she was sure she wouldn’t make it the two more steps to get behind the corner she had just rounded a few seconds before. It all sank in then, she didn’t have time, and she would rather not see it coming. She could see the muscles on the burly man's forearm twitch as he began to squeeze his finger and she closed her eyes.
"Actually... We should bring her too." A rough voice broke the tense silence filling the street and Mel opened her eyes. The big man had lowered his gun and there was a dark gleam in his eye as he raked his gaze across her body, scrutinizing every inch of her form. The younger man had started to grin, stepping out from the sidewalk and onto the street separating them. Both men suddenly had a very hungry air about them and Mel's stomach dropped.
The rough voice of the burly man spoke up again as the younger smiling man continued towards Mel, "Don't soil the merchandise, just bring her over here and we will-"
There was a large snapping sound and Mel's attention quickly returned to Domison, worry for him overcoming her own sense of self-preservation. When her eyes landed on the man she couldn't help but think of as her savior in this new, fucked up world, she was overcome with supreme confusion. He no longer carried an unassuming, wretched air. Now the man stood tall, his raven hair billowing as an aura of darkness spread from him, in his right hand he was holding a crumbling metal collar and hatred was radiating from every aspect of his being. But to Mel's surprise, the hatred wasn't directed towards her at all.