Rick turned to the storeowner, who now sounded completely different from the previous dangerous woman. When he noticed the blue magic beast resting on the counter, his heart skipped a beat. How could a hunter miss the presence of a beast, even if it was a familiar? He had just experienced a humiliating situation and now he had failed again.
Seeing the boy’s disheartened expression, Anne could only urge him to accept the tea. After such a display of curiosity, behaving like this was a dump on her expectations. Still, it pointed to some private problems, and what were problems if not an opportunity? At this point, she had no idea of what was troubling the man, so she could only encourage him to talk.
“I just move here and today is my first day of official business. I’m not acquainted with anyone, so I don’t know much about this place. My name is Anne, by the way. How may I call you, Mr.?” She said calmly while sipping the tea. The information of not knowing anyone was dropped on purpose, she had a hunch that the boy might be at odds with the town.
Rick forced a smile and sat by the counter. Discretely, he smelled the tea for poison and took a sip before saying his name. He noticed that the other side seemed curious about the game over his shoulder, so he felt compelled to explain.
“I’m a hunter. I just came back from the forbidden forest, but…” He paused, his embarrassment was obvious. “I hunted for almost a month, but I only caught enough to feed myself, and this little fox… but hey, I’m not that bad. It’s just that this side of the mountains doesn’t have many beasts, and the other side is too dangerous. It’s truly unfortunate, that’s why we don’t get many adventurers. If only our town was like Riverend Town…” Rick said in regret.
Strangely, he ended up pouring his problems at the stranger. Either way, it felt good speaking it out loud, so he continued:
“You should be wondering why don’t I just go there, right? Actually, I did… I fought with my friends and family and left town. I even said some mean things… Riverend got everything that we didn’t, a lot of beasts and high-quality materials. However, they attracted too much greed, the town became a slaughterhouse for the weak. They charged fees for everything, to enter the forest, to hunt in the best spots. Unless you have a backing or are a genius, there’s no chance of rising…” He vented, but in the end, had to admit his lack of ability.
The bookmancer listened to the story earnestly, and successfully suppressed her elation. The customer was opening up and following the script perfectly. It seems the tea was worth the investment.
“Can you talk about your job?” She asked. Though she already knew about it, this was the standard to extract the specifics.
“Hum… The job is difficult but simple, I just have to kill or capture magic beasts.” He summarized to avoid boring her.
Anne nodded but continued looking expectantly to signal that she wanted details. So, he proceeded.
“It’s not popular like warrior because it doesn’t focus on fighting. We do have to train physical skills, but knowing the beasts and being prepared come first.” Rick’s mood had taken a turn for the better, so he continue:
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“Every magic beast has its abilities, habits, weaknesses. So, understanding their behavior will help in preparing traps, ambushing, and even choosing the right weapon when there’s a need to fight. Unfortunately, hunters aren’t part of the mainstream occupations, like warriors, mages, and healers. So, we usually work solo and can’t venture into places that are too dangerous.” He started excited but became depressed again.
“You know what? I understand you completely. People tend to despise those who seek a power that doesn’t come from strength and magic. They underestimate knowledge, but you don’t need them.” She said in a wise tone that didn’t match her age.
The boy was grateful for her words, but could only force a smile facing her encouragement. He knew his limitations better than anyone.
“You just lack the right knowledge.” She finished threading her net with a perfect knot. He might be experienced in trapping beasts, but her craft would do it to people.
Rick watched curiously while she left for the room behind the counter and started fishing books from the poorly made shelves. Strangely, he felt an unexplainable hope in those few words.
“What languages can you read?” She shouted before disappearing into the book collections.
The hunter felt like the question had cut down his last straw of pride. Still, he could only reply embarrassedly.
“Eh… I can recognize my name, numbers, and a few words in the common tongue, but…” He said it out loud as he didn’t want to risk having to repeat it.
“I see.” She answered.
Even being a professional, Anne couldn’t avoid sounding disappointed. The current educational state of their society was sorrowful, to say at least. A hundred years ago, most would be able to read in one or two languages, but with the magitech advance, the need for doing so dropped drastically. Now, people would limit themselves to one strictly need dialect, and only the magic researchers were still holding the candle.
“Well, I don’t have a lot of options that fit your needs, at least not for now.” She explained while walking back to the counter.
Rick felt his newly-acquired hope being crushed by her words. He cursed his lack of foresight in not trying to learn more. However, the bookmancer didn’t look defeated. She placed two books over the counter and said:
“So, let me start by going over the situation to see if I understood your problem correctly. Your challenge, which is in a way also the problem of this town, is the lack of low to medium magic areas. Because the mountains block the flow of energy, the gradual increase of magic density, which creates introducing areas, didn’t appear here. So, you either explore the scarce magic area on this side of the mountain or work hard to cross it and face a stronger area on the other side.” She said calmly.
He wasn’t amazed by her description. After all, these facts were well-known across the nation. Although the absence of low-level areas wasn’t a problem for high-tier adventurers, it made it impossible for the usual support line of exploration to appear. Only a healthy complete adventuring ecosystem could maintain long-time high-level exploration. It worked like a pyramid, with more numbers at the lower level to push the top higher.
“However, I don’t agree with this evaluation.” She got his attention again. “Have you heard of the tale of three dwarven kingdoms? A wise dwarf emperor let his three brethren start each a kingdom on newly conquered lands to see who would become the best successor. Amongst three mountains, the oldest chose the one in which the ore was easiest to extract, so his kingdom grew faster. The second chose the biggest ore deposit and sold the extraction rights to many peers, thus becoming prosperous too. The youngest was left with the best ore deposit, but also the most difficult to extract. In the first years, her kingdom was the poorest, investing every spare coin in research. Surprisingly, in a century the youngest dwarf built the strongest kingdom.”
The hunter was thoroughly enthralled in the story, he had sympathized with the youngest dwarf who seemed to be in a similar situation. By the end of the story, he even felt some taste of victory due to the turn of events. How wonderful could it be if Mountainend's story turned up for the better too?