Chapter 162.1: Hunt


    <strong>PART 1/2</strong>


    We checked out of the town rtively easily. The guards even gave us a little ticket for adventurers on jobs saying that, if we came back within a week, we wouldn’t have to check in the normal way—we could use a smaller side-entrance instead to skip any lines that happened to form. Not that I was worried we’d get stuck in line; it was around eight at night by now, so I highly doubted there’d be some boom in tourism suddenly.


    Once we were outside the walls, I closed my eyes and attempted to contact Ainash, but I was having trouble making that connection between her over such a long distance. I effectively had to re-connect what I was used to having already avable.


    “Just told Ainash we came out,” Erani said.


    I opened my eyes to see her looking at me. “Oh, nice. I was just trying to, having some trouble.”


    “Yeah, took me a second to figure it out. Here, let me show you while we walk to where we’ll meet.”


    <em>“Father!”</em> I felt a messageing through to me from Ainash, this one much stronger than the ones I’d received when trying to contact her before. ncing around, I looked for the messenger, who was obviously close, if it was this clear.


    We’d moved out further from the walls while we waited for Ainash to find us, waiting near a road intersection so she could locate us more easily.


    <em>“Do you see us?”</em> I asked.


    <em>“Yes! Yes! You are on the road! Standing next to mother!”</em>


    <em>“Well, yeah, that’s not exactly a unique circumstance,”</em> Iughed. <em>“Where are you?”</em>


    <em>“Am right…”</em>


    I looked around, and suddenly found something tackling me from behind.


    <em>“Here!”</em>


    I stumbled forward, keeping myself up with the help of Expedite, andughed, turning around to see Ainash hugging my back tightly. I shifted so I was fully facing her, then brought my arms around to hug her, too. <em>“Hey, kiddo. How’d you sneak up on me so well?”</em>


    <em>“My skin is grass color, so could look like grass!”</em>


    <em>“Ah, nice. That’s smart.”</em>


    “Did you make any friends while you were out here?” Erani asked, repeating her messages aloud so I could follow along in the conversation—same as we always did.


    <em>“Did not meet any Humans, but saw many animals. They are strange, have never seen these types of animals before.”</em>


    “Yes, we’re pretty far from home. I’m sure we’ll see lots of things we don’t recognize.”


    <em>“It’s good to see you again,”</em> I said.


    <em>“Feels like it has been forever and ever!”</em>


    Iughed. <em>“It’s not even been an hour. But, yeah. I definitely agree. We’re gonna get you into the city as soon as possible.”</em>


    <em>“So we are killing monsters?”</em>


    <em>“Yeah. Hopefully they aren’t the ones you’ve been making friends with.”</em>


    <em>“Oh, it is okay. Can kill friend monsters.”</em>


    <em>“You…can?”</em>


    <em>“Yes! Sometimes friends kill each other. If monster friend was hungry, and I was weak, friend would kill me, too. Humans are very weird because they do not kill friends. That is what family is for. Do not kill family, but can kill friends. It is like…is like all Humans are family. Very weird.”</em>


    <em>“Huh.”</em> I looked over at Erani, and we shared a nce that basically amounted to ‘we can talk about that with herter.’


    “Anyway,” Erani said, “what we’re looking for are these monsters called Gloomspurs. An’s seen them before, so he can tell you what they look like, and then maybe you can lead us to where you might have seen them? We need some money so we can—”


    <em>“What is ‘money?’”</em>


    “Um, I can probably exin that while we’re on the way to the Gloomspurs.”


    <em>“Okay!”</em>


    It got to be dark out as we walked out into the hilly ins of the area surrounding the town. We had to move pretty far out from the town to get away from the farnd, so the sun had some time to disappear behind the horizon as we traveled.


    <em>“Monsters are kind of mean, would not stop hurting me with poison!”</em> Ainash said. <em>“I think they count as mean guys.”</em>


    <em>“Well, as long as they aren’t bad guys,”</em> I chuckled. <em>“I don’t think we need any monster genocides being nned.”</em>


    <em>“You get ‘money’ thing for every monster killed, correct? Could kill them all anyway while you are in Human territory, that way I give you teeth tomorrow and you get lots of money thing.”</em>


    <em>“...Huh.”</em> I looked over at Erani. “That doesn’t sound like too bad a n.”


    “Let’s put a pin in it,” she said. “We’re not sure how everything works, yet, so we should try to familiarize ourselves with this ce before trying to pull anything like that.”


    “If it’s an open bounty, that means there are no overhuntingws, right? I can’t imagine there’d be anything wrong with it.”


    “Still, I don’t want to get into any trouble. Probably a good idea to run by the guild before going on anyrge hunts like this one just to make sure we aren’t stepping on any toes. Giving Ainash an open license to kill as much as she wants without supervision is just asking for trouble. Not to mention…” she nced over at Ainash, then looked back at me. “She can be a bit…overzealous, at times. Again, no supervision means no protection in case there’s trouble.”


    I pursed my lips. “Yeah, I guess that’s fair.”


    <em>“So no killing monsters?”</em>


    <em>“Not while we’re not with you. At least, not for now. Just don’t go out hunting on purpose; it’s fine to fight in self-defense, obviously. But if there’s an asion like that, you should let us know anyway.”</em>


    <em>“Okay!”</em>


    <em>“Anyway, you said you thought you saw some of those monsters we’re looking for around here, right?”</em>


    <em>“Yes. Were wandering around and spreading gunk mist all over.”</em>


    <em>“Gunk mist? You mean that smoke they breathe out?”</em>


    <em>“Yes, they put it everywhere! Kill all grass all around and leave purple gunk behind.”</em>


    I frowned. Left it behind? I didn’t remember seeing the one I’d encountered leave anything behind. It just killed some of the grass. <em>“Do you mind showing me where, exactly, that gunk that they left behind is?”</em>


    <em>“Okay!”</em>


    Ainash led us over off the road and into a field. I was honestly really proud of her sense of direction—I knew her life as a Nymph would naturally lead her to be much morefortable navigating the wilderness, but I’d have gottenpletely lost walking along this featureless road in the featureless ins and lose any memory of exactly where I’d seen a pack of random monsters. Much less would I be able to lead someone to an exact location where I saw them breathe out on the grass.


    As we walked out into the fields, up and down the gradual hills, we soon came to a point where, as Ainash had said, all the grass was dead. A big patch of gray. But…


    <em>“There’s no purple here.” </em>I looked over the field. <em>“You said the gunk was purple?”</em>


    <em>“Um…” </em>Ainash looked around, frowning. <em>“Was here! Definitely was here.”</em>


    “Erani, do you know anything about this?” I asked, stepping forward and examining the grass. There was no hint of any kind of ‘gunk’ or purple coloring.


    “No, no. Never heard of Gloomspurs, either. I know sses, but you probably know more about monsters than I do. I certainly don’t know anything about stuff from the empire.”


    “Well, I guess the gunk just goes away after some time,” I shrugged.


    “Mhm.” Erani bent down and looked at the patch of dead grass. “Looks like they left a trail. Think we could follow it?”


    Sure enough, the trail led us straight to a pack of Gloomspurs, meandering across the fields, breathing their poison gas everywhere and leaving azy trail of destruction behind them.


    I could tell why the town wanted them gone so badly now, at least. With the amount of smoke they were exhaling, even this single pack could deal significant damage to thendscape. And if they wandered into farnd…that could end up as quite a bit of damage to the economy, too. It felt like highway robbery for them to pay us enough for a piece of bread to kill something that could destroy an entire wheat field. But, well, that was what happened when there were so many adventurers to fit the demand.


    Looking out into the pack, I counted three of the things. No, four, counting a baby one I hadn’t seen at first. We needed twenty to be able to afford a night at the inn. And that wasn’t counting expenses for food, clothes, everything we’d need to survive aside from housing.


    I looked over at Erani and Ainash. “Well, let’s get hunting.”