I breathed out a sigh as soon as Dad was gone, but the hole in my stomach didn’t feel any better. I jumped to my feet and shut my bedroom door. A minute later, I wiggled into my dark sage under armor. It covered me from heel to wrists to chin. Then I strapped on my brown leather boots, shin and thigh guards, breastplate, shoulder pads, gloves and arm bracers. Then I tied my tawny hair back and put on my protective headgear. It all lightly sparkled in my vision from magic that Uncle infused in the leather and green magic stone accents. Everything fit perfectly. After all, it was made especially for me.

Ding! [Leather Armor has been equipped to the System.] A System screen flashed in front of me.

I hummed in response, but I really didn’t know what that meant. I’d never heard of a Guide equipping anything before. Curious, I opened my Guide menu.

Ria Moore

E Rank

Level 1

EXP to Next LV 5

HP 12/12

MP 20/20

Strength 8 (+2)

Magic 12

Constitution 8 (+2)

Agility 12

Perception 10

Intelligence 11

“What?” I muttered. The stats changed. No, they were boosted. Is that what equipping gear does? “Cool.” This will make things easier. All set, I walked to my bedroom door — and paused.

I had half a mind to jump out my bedroom window, but taking out and replacing the window screen felt like too much work. Instead, I felt like a thief sneaking in the night as I hurried to the front door. I didn’t want to see Dad. I thought I got away scotch free. I was wrong.

“Ria!” Dad called.

I froze, my hand on the front door handle. Resigned to another fight, I turned around.

Dad was stone faced as he walked up to me. Then he held out his hand and opened his fingers to reveal a small red pouch. “Take this. Since all of your gear is missing from yesterday, I want you to take this with you. It’s like the shield stone Uncle Maveric gave you yesterday, but it doesn't have a homing signal. The instructions are inside. The shield lasts for ten hours. It’s also a one time deal, so use it wisely. In case, you know, you … don’t make it back before…” His tense words died out as his brows pinched together. “Your uncle’s Guide contact information is on the instruction paper, too. Sync it with yours and keep us posted when you’re … out there.” He finished with trouble.

“Thank you,” I said softly and took the pouch.

Then Dad shoved a grocery sandwich lunch box into my hands. “And dinner. But I want you home in time to eat with us.”

A bittersweet smile pulled at my lips. He could do everything to oppose me and make being a Hunter miserable. Instead, he tried his best to protect and feed me. I stored the things in my Items Bag and gave Dad a short, hard hug. “Love you. See you tonight.”

With that, I ran back to Shiva. She milled around the lot, nibbling daintily on the foliage, her silver nose wiggling with every bite. Her ears perked up when I came into view and she trotted over to the wooden fence. She could have easily jumped over or broken the fence, but she didn’t even try.

I hopped into the field with her and took out an ice cube from the stash I nicked from the shop’s kitchen earlier.

Shiva’s eyes lit up like Christmas and she ate the ice cube, her cool soft lips brushing against my palm.

I patted her neck while she crunched the ice. “Okay, let’s get a plan.” I opened the System main menu and clicked on the map. I’d seen pictures of the Guide map in school, but it was another thing seeing in real life. In a word, it was cool. Really cool.

Thousands of green lines criss-crossed and bent with the highs and lows of the rolling mountain terrain, until it wove together a 3D holographic map of Mist Haven and the surrounding ten miles. Oh, I was wrong — it didn’t show all the surrounding area. I leaned closer, peering at the space east of Mist Haven. While the rest of the map was crystal clear, the features on the east part of the map was distorted – like a smudge on a mirror. I could see the general geographic features of the area, but no details.

“Weird,” I muttered. I thought that being this close to a major Hunter hub, all the surrounding terrain would be thoroughly investigated already. But that wasn’t my concern. Not now, not ever. I needed to find some E ranked monsters.

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On the side of the holographic map were a couple tab boxes. I clicked the one labeled ‘Monsters.’ Immediately hundreds of colored dots appeared on the map. Each dot indicated a known monster lair. They were color coded based on the monster’s rank: blue for E, green for D, yellow for C, orange for B, and red for A.

With that in mind, I searched for the closest blue dots. The closest one was the Fire Martin lair. Since it was still on the map, I guess another richness of Fire Martins moved in after I left yesterday. Only the thought of going back to that place left an unpleasant feeling in my stomach. As long as I didn’t think about how close I was to dying yesterday, I was fine. But the revisiting there was a major no for now.

I clicked on the next blue bot. An image of a familiar spindly looking monkey with thin limbs and sharp fangs appeared. Its short coat was tannish-gray with a black tips on its ears and tail. It was two feet of fierce terror, and its favorite method of attack was goring Hunters with the ten inch long golden horn on its head. Which led to its appropriate name – the horned monkey.

The horned monkey’s lair was five miles away, which was fine. That should give me enough time to get there, sneak in, kill a couple monkeys and get out. Horned monkey’s weren’t the most dignified marks to snag, but they did have some monetary value. Their horns were a great medium for making magic bullets. Because magic bullets weren’t used often, there wasn’t a high demand for the monster, but two good quality horns should net me a hundred dollars.

That was a start.

I carefully mapped out a route on the map, being sure to stay clear of the stronger monster’s lairs on my way to the horned monkey’s. Thankfully, the GPS on the map should notify me if I accidentally wandered too far off my selected trail. Once done, I hit the ‘Go’ button. The map disappeared. A small arrow appeared in the corner of my vision, next to my HP and MP bar, indicating what direction I needed to travel to stay on my chosen path.

Shiva had long finished her ice and she stared at me, patiently waiting. I grabbed her reins and jumped onto her saddle. “Let’s go, girl.”

*****

Shiva’s hooves silently ghosted over the soft forest floor as we weaved around tall pine trees and white aspens, their bright green leaves dancing in the warm summer breeze. Yellow and gray lichen spread across the reddish-brown waist high rocky mounds that pushed up around the green bushes. Hot summer sun beat down in the spots where the forest canopy was thin, giving tiny glimpses of the two moons in the blue sky overhead.

The scenery was gorgeous. If only I could relax enough to enjoy it. My heart was pounding painfully in my chest. The sensation of being buried in mud hammered away at my mental state. No matter how big I acted in front of my family, the trauma of yesterday’s events, compounded with the PTSD from my mother’s death, was nearly crippling.

Even so, no matter how scared I was, I didn’t turn Shiva back. I would never find out the truth of Mom’s death if I did.

There were no trails in the forest. In fact, most Hunters avoided beaten trails. It never took too long for a clever monster to figure where Hunters frequented. Most trails were made by monsters, but it was impossible to tell how strong that monster was until meeting face to face. A gamble like that was never worth the risk.

A GPS screen popped up just to the right of my chest, perfectly positioned so that it didn’t affect my steering. It displayed a map with my location on it. Ding! [One half mile to the targeted location.]

I pulled Shiva to a gradual stop. It was time to get off and walk the rest of the way. As much as I wanted Shiva’s protection, I learned yesterday that it wasn’t a good idea. Since Shiva was a C ranked monster, all the E monsters would run as soon as they sensed her. Or, she could go all out protective again and kill the monster I was supposed to take down. I loved her a lot, but I needed space.

Leaving her behind, I started hiking through the forest. I tried to be as silent as I could, but I didn’t have the experience yet. Every time I accidentally stepped wrong on a branch or rock and made it creak on the ground, I winced. Note to self: practice silently walking for now on. Hunters that didn’t develop this skill quickly rarely lived long enough to brag about it. Or they were strong enough that everything fled before them, anyway.

A dark building took form just on the other side of the trees.

A GPS screen popped up. Ding! [You have arrived.]

I was here, now where were the horned monkeys? Hopefully, they weren’t already taken by other Hunters.

My bow appeared in my hand as I crept closer, along with another item I blew my money on this morning. A Hunter’s arrow. Unlike the practice arrows I grew up shooting, this one was tipped with a vicious point that could pierce most armors. Nineteen more matching arrows were stored in my Items Bag. I also grabbed my practice arrows just to make up numbers in case of an emergency. If I ever needed to use them, it meant I was screwed.

Slowly, a row of large buildings came into view. Well, they were buildings decades ago. They were ruins now. Most of the wall support beams were still up, but the sections of the red walls between them were mostly torn down. The metal ceiling was on the ground, and mostly buried in the tall weeds that took over the floor. The sign in front that was so rusted, I couldn’t really read it. The first word was gone, but the second … did it say ‘mill’ or ‘mine?’ It wasn’t until I was closer that I realized that it was actually all one long building, built down the curve of the mountain.

Ruined rusty cars and litter, like broken shovels and personal effects, scattered across the slope, poking out of the weeds like gravestones. A rusted railroad track was barely visible. I wouldn’t have noticed it if the partings of the tall grass was so unnatural.

Hunters could sense where living things were with their auras, kinda like sonar. It was instinctive and instant. Unfortunately, that innate ability was relative to how strong the Hunter was. In other words, I was SOL. My area of awareness was about five feet around me. Not near close enough to sense what was going on inside the ruins. Which meant that I had to rely on the age old method of finding my marks – with my eyes and ears.

Horned monkeys were normally loud creatures. They liked to whoop and chatter, making it easy to hear them from a mile away. The fact that all I could hear was breeze rustling the forest leaves and bugs humming was a little disheartening.

Did another Hunter already clear them all out? When the interdimensional Gates were around, they refilled the monster population every night. Now that the Gates were closed, humanity wasn’t swamped with monsters. Even so, in the wild, when a herd of monsters was wiped out, it only took a couple days for a new herd of that animal type to move in. After all, the wilds were full of monsters and territory wars between monsters were common.

I took a deep breath and slowly advanced to the ruins, cutting along the railroad trail so I didn’t disturb the foliage too much. I half expected an alarmed whoop to go off any time. I was lucky for once and made it all the way to the first wall without notifying the monsters. My heart was pounding loudly in my ears, making it hard to hear what was going on around me. I pressed against the rusty metal plated wall.

Something rustled on the other side and a board creaked as something moved across it.

*****