Kaian woke up from his nap, looking around himself and sighing. How the hell was he supposed to bring proof that he killed the monster when he completely demolished it?

He walked around for a while, seeking any part of the monster that didn’t look like it fell into a mixer. He managed to find the upper part of the beak which was cracked in some places.

“Well…. There’s nothing better here. They better accept this as proof. After all, the state of the monster doesn’t matter as long as it’s dead.” Kaian wisely proclaimed, ignoring that this was all his fault.

Giving the scene one last look, he turned around and headed out back to the city. The road would prove to be long and tedious so he'd start thinking about his plans.

"Okay, I need to think about what my goals are. First off, I need to survive. Second, I need to get stronger which means learning magic. And finally, I want to learn more about this world."

The moment he finished the last sentence, his thoughts halted. He was in a different world and he hadn't even considered getting back until now.

Kaian felt like he had to think about it, that he had to go back. But did he really want to?

His previous life consisted of compromises and suffering. Sure, he didn't have it as difficult as other people, but you hardly think about someone else in situations like that.

"Haah." Kaian let out a sigh, running his hand through his hair.

One of the only reasons for going back was his best friend - Nell. Even he would be fine without Kaian, though. In fact, Nell would be better off without him. People could go without spending money on an atheist promoting faith to random people.

On the other hand, Kaian was something here! He had vexastone! He was bound to become powerful! Yes. There was no reason to go back, none whatsoever.

A loud roar resounded across the plains, as if determined to prove Kaian wrong. He stiffened from the sheer fear he felt and stopped moving. Thankfully, this wasn’t the first time it happened and he had grown more powerful since that time.

Nonetheless, it was still difficult. Sweat poured from Kaian’s skin and his body was fighting against his will. He felt like his upper body had gotten too fat for his legs to support and that they would break soon.

[AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!]

Kaian produced an inhuman shriek in his mind and the imaginary shackles got shattered. He stumbled, managing to catch himself before falling down and looked up at the source of the pressure.

It was a huge monster with four heads that resembled a UFO due to its lack of wings. Its skin was black and smooth, looking like it was carved from obsidian. The heads were triangle-shaped, yet soft with no eyes.

This beast flew in the clouds and one of the heads parted to give a screech that made Kaian stiffen again. It wasn’t as strong this time and he freed himself no problem.

The problem was the monster itself. It could freeze him with just a roar and flying was a disgusting cherry on top. He had no chance - transforming was the only option.

[Vexi, Sn- Huh?]

His change got interrupted by a swooshing sound. The origin of said sound was a person flying at the beast. The person had a dark blue robe with something golden on the chest. It was really far away but Kaian thought that it looked like a vertical eye.

The mage moved his hands around and many weird shapes sprung up around him. They started spinning and shaping themselves into spears. The demonic UFO looked at the mage with all its 4 heads and screeched again.

Kaian froze, but the mage didn’t seem to notice that anything had happened. The spears left his vicinity and flew at the beast, growing larger with time.

It tried to move away and failed miserably. Three of the spears embedded themselves into its body, vaporizing two heads and making the monster start to lose altitude. Recovering fast, it moved back up and one of the two remaining heads got longer, swiping at the mage.

Unfortunately for the monster, the mage wasn’t alone. Another mage appeared out of nowhere and with a wave of his arm, the head got removed from its neck.

After this, the beast couldn’t do anything and got destroyed without any blood dropping to the ground. The mages looked around, noticing Kaian. They ignored him and disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared, leaving him with his mouth open.

He continued to stand there for a while, speechless.

“So this is how weak I am in the grand scheme of things….”

Kaian shook his head and ignored the feeling of his second persona’s confidence cracking. He returned back on the road, walking to the city.

…

Once he submitted the proof of his kill, which thankfully got accepted, and got his money. He asked around for directions and entered an inn, intending to make some money by playing Azir. Naturally, he had stored his crown away and dyed his hair with some brown plant that he had found in the wild.

It smelled nasty, but that was a small price in order to not be called the blue-haired demon. Despite doing that, Kaian doubted that anyone had heard of him all the way back here. No matter. It was better to be cautious in this regard, he’d make more money like this. Probably.

Turns out that he wouldn’t. No matter how good he was and how much he cheated, the people here simply wouldn’t place bets big enough. Even if he won everything, he would get maybe a single hunt worth of money and a guarantee that nobody would play with him ever again.

Disappointing was the only word that could be used for this situation. He tried to force himself into a group of hunters playing, but they nicely told him to fuck off. Normal people didn’t have enough money and players with more prestige would hardly play with a random person.

Since he couldn’t do anything, Kaian sat down and decided to order a drink. His current status was far from optimal. Getting enough money for anything would be difficult like this. Speaking of which, how did other people get by?

Kaian was extremely powerful for a hunter and the chance of him dying was close to nonexistent. Even then, he could barely get by! He had to be missing something.

Amidst his thoughts, he glanced at the inn’s door, unfocused. It was being opened and when it was fully revealed who stood behind it, Kaian’s pupils shrank.

The person had a dark robe, shielding their body from prying eyes and a stone mask on their face. Normally, that would be nothing to be surprised about, but this was different. The mask was life-like, so much that Kaian would’ve thought it’s just a normal face if it weren’t for the gray color and unmoving expression.

Yet, that wasn’t all. The biggest difference between a normal person and this weirdo was that usually humans didn’t glow orange. Well, not literally. It was because of the orange blood he had drunk that he could see this.

It meant that they were a danger to Kaian, even without paying attention to him. Highly unnerved, Kaian wanted to stand up and leave before hearing the conversations around him rapidly change.

“Tsk, not the golems again.”

“These fucking cultists ruin everything they can.”

“I don’t understand why the ascenders haven’t kicked them off this continent yet.”

“..Should we try and kill it? Everybody would thank us for it!”

“Shhh! Are you serious? What if it heard you?! You know that we don’t stand a chance”

The conversation highly intrigued Kaian so he decided to stay for a bit and talk to other customers. He avoided the normal people and walked to a group of three hunters. Hunters were pretty easy to spot due to the vials and the weird feeling of attraction they gave off. It was way weaker than that of a mage and also different, yet similar.

“Hey, mind telling me what’s up with that guy?” Kaian asked while pointing at the cultist.

Two of the hunters glared at Kaian and refused to answer. The third one proved to be more willing to talk and answered politely.

“It’s a golem. Not literally, of course, they’re just called that due to them having nearly no emotions and wearing stone all the time. However, some do say that they’re not human at all.” The hunter ended his answer with a shrug, as if telling Kaian to believe what he wants.

Kaian looked at the guy and instantly got a good feeling from him. He had blonde hair and seemed to be the same age as Kaian. His clothes were also shabbier than his other hunter friends, but they didn’t seem to think less of him due to that.

Grabbing the chair rudely and sitting down, Kaian forced himself into the group. Silenced, the two hunters watched him, flabbergasted. They wanted to shoo him away, but he interrupted them by asking a question at the golden-haired one.

“I see. Do you know what’s the reason behind the masks?”

The friendly hunter grinned, amused at what Kaian did and responded: “I know that the masks are said to be the faces of their enemies turned into stone. They wear them to show their kills and shame the opponents.”

“Hm?”

“Though, personally, I don’t believe in that at all. Higher ranked members don’t wear masks but are stone themselves, even other parts of their body are apparently from rock. I doubt they’d cut off someone’s arm, turn it into stone and then graft it onto themselves.” he added jokingly.

Creak.

The sound of chairs being roughly pulled away hit Kaian in the ear and he looked at the cause of it. It was the two hunters who decided they had quite enough of Kaian and left, glaring at him. Did they get jealous or something? What the hell is this childish attitude?

Kaian shook his head, smiling to himself.

“I apologize, they don’t like new hunters. It makes them feel like you’re stealing their jobs.” the remaining hunter said, standing up.

“Anyway, I have to go after them. Wait, I didn’t even mention my name, it’s Zarin.” He added and reached out with his hand to Kaian.

Surprised, Kaian looked at it and after a second of thinking, he shook it.

“Well then, I’ll see you around!” With this final sentence and a wave, Zarin ran off to pursue his friends.

Kaian sat there for a while, before standing up and also leaving. The golem was completely out of his mind.

“Did I just make a friend?” Kaian asked himself quietly. However, only the wind outside answered. Nonetheless, Kaian smiled and went to the hunter’s guild. It was time for a hunt.

…

And so, Kaian’s life fell into a cycle again. He would go for a hunt, claim his reward, meet up with Zarin and his friends in the inn and repeat. Slowly, he learned a bit more about the world, but that wasn’t the reason why he spoke to other people. The truth was that he felt lonely. After all this time of being alone, he finally got someone to talk to.

At the time, Kaian had no idea how this would end up. No idea at all.

…

Kaian was once again looking through the flyers that had their amount severely reduced. He had hunted so much that he’d have to travel for longer than some hours to get to the monster. Was that really useful anymore? Could he do something with the money he had already?

Sitting down at one of the tables, he rubbed his forehead and sighed. Asking his new friends was also useless. When he asked them if they knew a way to make money faster, they laughed at him. Saying that they wouldn’t be doing this if there was something like that.

It made sense, risking your life for a speck of money wasn’t the best profession. One could only wonder how commoners lived.

And yet, this wasn’t Kaian’s fate. To do this until the end of his life. To stay a hunter. No, there were much grander, larger things. And he would take another large step today, not out of his own volition, but still.

“Ah, Hello Kaian. We’ve noticed that you’ve been hunting quite successfully, more than anyone else in fact.”

Kaian turned around and a man with a hood on greeted him. The man was smiling and grasping Kaian’s shoulder.

“What do you think about extending your targets from mindless animals to, for example, humans?”