Chapter 261: Begin the Hunt (Patreon)

The predator peeked out from the darkness.

The giants were finally gone.

In the middle of the day, it had holed up in a nook that was dry and warm. A perfect place to spend the day before heading back out in its nightly battle to secure prey.

Alarmingly, the entire cave it had been hiding in began moving, shaking and rumbling with a voice that shook it to its very being.

The Predator didn’t have a name, or the concept of gods, it only followed its instinct to curl up tightly and hold on as its whole world shifted drastically.

There was a brief flash of yellow-orange, and the air was suddenly warm and…wrong. The calming proto-curses that suffused the air that the predator liked to weave into its nets were absent, replaced with a cloying sweetness, absent any kind of flavor.

Wrong. It was all wrong.

The predator left the nook overnight and tried to make another net to catch food, but without the tasty miasmatic proto-curses floating through the air…it just wasn’t the same.

Defeated, the predator retreated back to the nook, already forgetting the scare it had gotten the day before.

Yesterday was a long time ago.

Again, the earth shook and wind blasted the cavern, and the predator hung on for dear life, curled as small and tight as it could without letting go of the strange bark it was clinging to.

After a time, things settled down again, and the predator retreated from the unreliable nook. The harsh light of sun prompted it to find another hiding place. Instinct told it that the world wanted to consume it and only darkness provided a refuge.

In the darkness between two pieces of rough bark, the predator found a beetle. It caught the tasty food and drained its essence, but even after that meal it was a bit parched.

For a third time, the world shook, but the hiding place itself didn’t move this time. The predator peered out to survey this new world it had found itself in.

There was a steady roar of water falling endlessly, and tiny droplets of water floated through the air, making an environment as humid as the home it had just come from, albeit warmer and lacking those tasty proto-curses that the predator liked to weave with.

One drop of water landed on the predator’s head, and it gratefully scooped the water up and moved the droplet to its mouth.

Tasty.

There was something in the water that felt right.

**William Oh**

“Here’s the hunting spot Mother wanted me to show you,” Mirabelle said, gesturing to the riot of nature in front of them.

They were perched on the edge of a cliff that overlooked a river bustling with life. pig-unicorns swarmed the edges of the murky water, drinking from the massive river by the hundreds. Snakes and birds flew overhead, predating on each other while the land-bound creatures watched on enviously.

Why are the snakes flying? Will thought, spotting a glimmer of miasma around them and resolving to study one.

In the distance, Will saw a mouth shoot out of the water and drag a massive unicorn-pig thrashing into the water. It didn’t come back up.

Hmm. Yep. Looks like a good place to level.

“Before you go, can you leave Aguilion with us?” Will asked.

Aguilion’s eyes widened, and the green dragon pointed a single claw at himself.

“You’re not going to hunt him are you?” Maribelle asked, eyes narrowed.

“I want to ask him for a favor that might be a little uncouth to speak of around his sister,” Will said. “I promise that I’ll keep him safe as long as he’s with us.”

Maribelle gave Will a side-glance, but shrugged.

“Very well. Mother wishes you to leave the Floor before we get caught up in your story. Don’t linger, William Oh.”

Will nodded in agreement, and Maribelle leapt into the air, miasma forming under her wings, allowing her enormous body to catch enough air to fly from a standstill.

They were still assaulted by a blast of wind, and when the dust cleared, Maribelle, was already shrinking into the distance.

“What did you want me for?” Aguilion asked.

“Do dragons have their own written language?” Will asked, looking up at the green dragon. “And can you read it?”

“Of course.”

“Would you teach me?”

The dragon scratched his chin. “What would I get out of it?”

“You know that dragons can grow as big as they want to, provided they have enough food?” Will asked.

“Of course I know that. Why do you think I’m so small? I hunt for shit, and even if I catch something, it usually gets stolen by Mirabelle or some other bastard.”

“Do you know what a resource node is?” Will asked.

“A node…with resources?” Aguilion asked.

“A Lord can select everything nonliving in a certain radius and for a large sum of Influence, convert that area into a ‘resource node’, causing it to grow back if any piece of it is removed. The salt miners on the 2nd Floor and Lord Zodiac use this to mass produce valuable minerals. Do you see what I’m getting at?”

Aguilion’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll use this Ability on a suitably large corpse and trade the node to me for teaching you how to read draconic. Infinite food.”

“That’s the gist of it.” Will replied.

“Is this possible?” Aguilion asked.

“I’m gonna be honest. I don’t know. It’s a very expensive procedure, and the difficulty of acquiring a mountain of preserved meat to make it worth the Influence cost could be enough of a barrier to prevent people from trying it themselves.

“I doubt nobody’s ever thought of it. It’s just really hard to do.” Will mused. “So it’s possible that everyone simply looked at the cost and balked, rather than it being impossible.

“What makes you think you can do it, then?”

“Cuz I’m William Oh.” Will said, thumbing his chest.

“…Who?” Aguilion asked.

“Nevermind. We can draft up a contract that involves giving you a minimum amount of food in exchange for…a dictionary. Even if we don’t make a resource node, we should be able to compensate you.”

“A dictionary?” Loth perked up from where she’d been setting up her hunting blind. “What’s this about a dictionary.”

“I’m going to hire Aguilion to make one.” Will said.

“…Why so interested in learning draconic?” Loth asked.

“Mother let me see her observations on Miasma.” Will said. “It got me curious about what else I might stumble across out there. I’d be interested in being actually able to read it if there’s ever a next time.” Will gave a half-truth. Better than a straight-out lie.

“Hmm…memorized it somehow, did you?” Loth said.

“Who knows? So how about it?” Will asked, glancing up at Aguilion.

“You seem to think you can barter and trade with me like some pathetic mortal, but I-“

“YOU are inches away from being exiled to the swamp.” Will interrupted, jabbing the dragon’s inflexible scales with his finger.  “You have to face the fact that you will never catch up with your peers by competing with them in the areas that they are strong. You’re small, clumsy and weak. You will either learn to use your wits or you will die. If you make this arrangement with me, you will move down to the 10th Floor, where there will be no competition for food for at least a thousand years. Gain your advantage there. Claim a domain and make it unassailable by any wandering meathead. Mother plans to move down to the ninth Floor. In three thousand years, you’ll be the one living above them all.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Brianna asked. “You’ll basically be doubling the food needed at the Stronghold.

“How far out are the new Vassals?” Will asked.

“Only a couple weeks until they arrive.” Brianna said, nodding in understanding. “Ghoul is hosting them on the 8th Floor as we speak, as per your agreement with him.”

In addition to his land-clearing Ranger, Will had commissioned dozens of support roles. The kind of Classes that could farm anything anywhere and in vast quantities. One of the reasons both people and dragons didn’t want to settle on the 10th Floor was the food.

Will aimed to change that.

“So, what do you say?” Will asked. “A dictionary in exchange for all the meat you can eat, with no one trying to steal it from you.”

“…I’ll give it some thought.” Aguilion said, leaping into the air and vanishing in a matter of seconds.

Once the dragon was gone, they went about their business preparing to hunt the 14th Floor.

Loth and Brianna were chatting as they barbecued up some steak bugs over an illusionary fire.

But the heat is real? Will thought.

He stood at the edge of the cliff and overlooked the distant monsters, pulling out his tomahawk and running his finger alogn the length of the blade.

“Trying to look cool?” Travis asked, flopping back into a comfy lawn chair beside him. it was an illusion of course. Travis conserved Charge by wearing small illusions on his body and changing their form into something completely different as necessary.

In this case, one of his gaudy arm-bands became a lawn chair.

“Just thinking about my choice of weapons.” Will said.

He held his hand along the length of the blade.

“Those things are huge, and I’ve only got about five inches to work with here,” Will mused, comparing it to the enormous creatures in the distance. Their sheer size meant a five-inch blade couldn’t really do much damage. It would barely penetrate the skin.

A tomahawk was simply a bad weapon to fight kaiju with.

And a cannonball might not do much damage either, given their size and the protective miasma flowing through them. It might break a bone, but there was a good chance it might just piss them off.

“Five inches, huh? That’s only a bit below average, don’t stress about it,” Travis replied. “I’m sure you can still vanquish monsters with technique. Just because your blade doesn’t hit the sweet spot doesn’t mean you can’t take ‘em out. Eventually. Of course, if it gets to be too much, you could hire a warrior with an eight-foot sword who could vanquish them with a single strike while you sit and watch from the sidelines with your blade in your hand.”

Will glanced down at Travis.

“You seem to know a lot about the subject, Travis.”

“Just trying to make you feel better, buddy.” Travis said, arms behind his head.

“…Travis, you’ve got a little dick,” Will said, skipping the pretenses.

“You’re the one who said you were swinging five inches.” Travis replied.

“Girls really don’t care about that.” Brianna called from the barbeque.

Will and Travis stared at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter.

“WE care about that!” Will called back.

Loth looked up from the BBQ and slowly shook her head, causing the two of them to lose it even further.

“I think they’ve gotten dumber since I last saw them,” Loth said mournfully.

“It’s just delayed boyhood from stress. They finally feel relaxed enough to be stupid.” Brianna said.

“Oh, is that how human men work?” Loth asked, leaning her chin on her hand as she flipped a steak bug over. “I do remember a fair amount of nudity on the 6th Floor. You saw everyone naked. You could settle the debate between them about whose penis is bigger.”

Wil tensed. Brianna did actually know. I totally forgot about that.

“That’s not even the point.” Brianna waved it off. “They’re shedding their nerves by picking a meaningless fight. It doesn’t even matter.”

Which is pretty insightful, all things considered, Will thought.

“Fascinating. So even being stupid can serve a purpose.” Loth mused, scanning Will and Travis appraisingly.

“Food’s done!” Brianna said, motioning them over.

While they sat around the fire, they went over their strategy.

They hadn’t fought anything on the 14th Floor yet, so they didn’t know how bad it would be.

The density of the monsters down below was such that simply jumping in without a plan would be foolish, at the very least.

They decided to nibble at the edges of the watering hole, taking on a few monsters at a time until they knew how dangerous they were.

Loth would provide an escape route, Brianna and Travis would harry the enemy on the ground, and Will would fly above, attacking with his cannonballs.

In the worst case scenario, Will would use his Sickle of Malignant Silence or the mirror to give them an opportunity to escape.

He didn’t want to over-rely on it, though. If Will became dependent and it eventually came up against a hard-counter, that would get him killed.

Will would advance his other options first.

The conversation with Travis did have him thinking, though. Will was a specialist in fighting Climbers, not monsters. Perhaps adding a Warrior Archetype with a huge weapon to the party might be a good idea.

Even if Travis had worded it in quite possibly the most insulting way possible.

Travis could make and handle huge weapons, but they were fake. Brianna was strong enough, but she didn’t have any active Abilities like a warrior would.

Will and Loth could use their abilities to compensate somewhat, but they weren’t pure warriors.

Something to think about.

They established a base camp, and Loth trapped the perimeter along with a narrow strip of land that led down from the cliffside to the east side of the watering hole, where they could try their hand at picking off some of the unicorn-pigs, to get a feel for their difficulty.

Brianna split off three Ria, who manifested phantom halberds, flanking Travis while Will followed overhead.

Because Will was overhead, he didn’t spot the creature hidden by the canopy until it started moving.