The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

Eli learned to speak like a trader in Zushkenar, spouting about the view, complimenting the room décor, the clothes, the jewelry, anything that interested the client about themselves, while subtly steering those interests to benefit his wares.

He never thought the skill would get him a job offer on earth.

He hadn't even been selling anything!

Tour coordinator?

What even.

The only reason he didn't reject the offer outright was the fact that his bank account was down to 190 ecru. He'd just received a drone delivery of his second order of ZombieFluid, a larger package than the first.

He watched through the introductory materials the manager of the Redlands VR tourism unit gave him access to when he said he'd think about it.

He hadn't agreed yet, you know, manager!

Was he allowed to view these materials? The manager did say the Redlands VR tour was still in beta.

What in hell did Rashid say to make the manager so amenable?

He really wanted to know.

Shkav, he didn't have the guy's phonecodes.

He paused the playing video on the crystal divider screen and looked out the window. Rain was coming down heavily, pounding on the outer façade of the building, on the balcony, splattering on the glass of the windows.

Just the first video and Eli was impressed.

The VR tour department went all out with the range of activities – sea cruises, hot springs, sky cruises, festivals, fruit pickings and flower viewings, races in various locations with various mounts, contests, historical re-enactments and plays, music, extreme sports, something for people of all ages, active or passive tourists.

There were even several virtual zoological and botanical preserves for rare Earth animals and plants, extinct Earth animals and plants, Zushkenari monsters – enough for a ten-year-long safari tour.

There was a plan for a series of Resort Instances – farm resorts, spa resorts, swim in an authentic Roman bathing pool resorts, underwater resorts, cloudcity resorts, resorts in any kind of environment and historical era possible.

Shkav, they even had a dinosaur park.

Eli wasn't a techgeek, but even he knew that building that much into a virtual environment took tons upon tons of data. Maintaining it would take hundreds of thousands a year.

The VR tourism department of Redlands was serious as Hades.

And maybe Eli did want to see what all the cruises were about.

But…tour coordinator?

He replayed the video, then turned it off.

Checking the forums, he did see some noise about a VR tourism feature for Redlands – most players were dismissive. He found himself reading a collection of epic vargvir prose poetry with raised brows.

Apparently it was from an in-game book?

He frowned. Gazzy was a scholar. Why would he say there was no Lore if the lore might have been hidden inside Redlands itself?

He would have read those books.

Eli was digressing. He flipped away the epic stories and searched for more on the planned tourism feature.

Nothing important.

Why was he even researching?

Tour coordinator was just a fancy name for tour guide slash babysitter.

He huffed and got off the forums.

He'd think on it more later.

It was 3:15 p.m. The caravan had been out of the Maw for over two in-game hours already and everyone was probably awake.

Eli headed for his room.

*

Krow opened his eyes to the sounds of battle, and a notification.

:|100 Bandits Encounter!|:

[One hundred bandits are attacking your caravan! Will you help defeat the bandits, or join them? 32/100]

Enned, bow in hand and arrow nocked ready, laughed as he stumbled out of his blankets. "You sleep well! I made a wager you would not wake until the bandits stuck their blades in you."

Krow grunted, armed himself. He glanced into the wagon, noted that two of the adults had been left to protect the children. He nodded at them and clambered out.

A small clawed hand grabbed his coat. "Are you going to see uma? Is she coming?"

"If I see her, I'll tell her you asked."

The grip tightened, the small furry ears bent back nearly horizontal.

Krow pulled out a packet of candy. "You're the oldest of the children, aren't you? Do you know the Vargfarinel?"

The boy nodded.

"Go tell the story of Guined Golden-ear to the others. By the time it's done, everything will be over too."

The boy took the sweets, nodded determinedly. Krow ruffled his hair.

That wasn't too bad. At least his trawling in the forums earlier came in handy.

Krow was never a reader. But possibly he should start a library. Who knew what other useful things were in the in-game books.

He made for a rock pillar nearby that had scraggly trees growing out of it for cover. "Equip-one."

The caravan had stopped, the mules blindered.

They had gotten into what protective formation they could, but the caravan was long and large. Most was unprotected as the guards rode into battle.

They'd been ambushed.

Of course, every caravan is prepared for ambush, but still. In practice, in panic, things don't always go as planned.

Krow scaled the tower carefully, looking for enemies, flattened himself on a ledge near the top.

A dark shadow moved in a tree.

Taking quick aim, he fired off half the bullets in his belt cylinder.

[You've eliminated a Lvl 6 bandit and gained two (2) silver serpens!]

The body fell.

Eight regular bullets for a Lvl 6?

His new spirit-bound revolver was really overkill.

He didn't really know how archer and sharpshooter damage was calculated. Only that the quality and enchants of both revolver and bullets, bow and arrows, played a massive part.

His revolver was rated A- Unique.

Which Lvl 5 player had such a weapon?

If he'd still been using the unranked Starfall Revolver, he'd need more than twice those eight bullets to down a Lvl 6.

He narrowed his eyes on the corpse. Rough leather armor, black pauldron with red bird, a black mask reminiscent of feathers.

The Bloodcrow group was the largest bandit gang in Marfall.

They were involved in most of the major criminal activities across the continent. Krow supposed they could be called a crime syndicate, but the bandit group was the most visible of their people.

He'd been at the mastery examinations when word spread that a coalition of transmigrators and natives had caught the leaders of the Bloodcrow group. The gang had splintered afterwards. He'd been there when a guild took down a major cell – some player transmigrators believing they could become criminal kings of the continent.

Krow swapped his regular bullets for a belt-cylinder containing darkspear bullets.

He dropped three more trying to crawl their way to the caravan. Each took a bullet, just one.

[You've eliminated a Lvl 6 bandit and gained two (2) silver serpens!]

[You've eliminated a Lvl 7 bandit and gained two (2) silver serpens!]

[You've eliminated a Lvl 4 bandit and gained one (1) silver serpens!]

They were likely in search of hostages. Or slaves.

A crash to his right and a vargvir flew through a screen of vines, snarling, tumbled to the ground and rolled to her feet just in time to parry an arrow from a Bloodcrow archer supporting another charging at her with an axe.

Krow dropped the archer, then another following that needed two darkspears. He narrowed his eyes. His revolver was a Unique.

[You've eliminated a Lvl 7 bandit and gained two (2) silver serpens!]

[You've eliminated a Lvl 10 bandit captain and gained five (5) silver serpens!]

The vargvir sliced up her opponent with a sweep of her glaive, using the momentum to decapitate one that popped up behind her, out of the brush.

The only ones left, she and Krow breathed through the rush of blood in their veins.

"Anymore close?"

The vargvir glanced toward him, hackles still raised, ears stiff and high, eyed him crouched on the pillar, but then shook her head once.

He dropped down beside her, looked over the dead bandits.

First kill. He stared, swallowing.

Bandits. They were bandits, he reminded himself. He'd learned in Zushkenar, bandits deserved no quarter.

Even that didn't ameliorate the sick feeling in his gut.

He'd killed before. He knew how it felt. Why did this feel…

"First time?" The vargvir must have heard his heart beating, his stomach roiling.

In this world.

He nodded simply, a single jerk of the head.

"They're bandits," she said, unknowingly echoing his thoughts. "More than that, they're Bloodcrow."

"Yes."

He had the feeling that, if he weren't draculkar, she'd have clapped him in the shoulder in sympathy.

Her ear flicked. "This way."

He followed, quiet.

He had no intention of voicing that his agitation came not because he was uneasy about taking a life.

The repugnance was because he felt nothing.

Was it because it was Redlands and not Zushkenar?

No. He still remembered the faces of those he'd killed in the Redlands of before too.

They sped silent through the scrub.

The clash of fighting reached Krow's ears.

This was not the time.