The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

Why are we still on Day 12 (in-game)

Karukorm Town, The Southwestern Lowlands

Status: getting ready for the now regular Saturday lunch-visit with Aunt Amila

*

Krow was about to log out, but paused.

Giving [Amela's Hopegiver] to the town merast brought to mind the other things Krow had taken from the Bloodcrow camp.

Sitting on the bed in the room the town had granted him for the night, he took them out. Six money pouches, a broken stone tablet, and a jewelry box.

The money pouches, he just poured into his Inventory. The haul totaled 52 drax, 174 serpens, and six uncommon rubies mixed in with the coins.

That was a massive reward for a player under Lvl 20.

With him buying stuff in bulk all over the place though, it was a pittance.

He looked over the stone tablet, flipping it this way and that. The symbols were faint, the writing indecipherable.

What reason did the bandit captain keep it in with his treasures?

Or maybe it was just something he'd tossed into a junk drawer. Krow returned it to his Inventory, shaking his head.

The jewelry box was more interesting.

Krow opened it.

Brought it closer, tilting it to look suspiciously at the black lumpy stone inside.

It didn't even shine like a gem.

That bandit captain, did he have a weird definition of the word 'treasure'?

Curious, he picked it up.

[You've activated a bloodstone of Kandradka! Do you want to continue?]

His brows shot up, intrigued.

Bloodstone?

Sounded vaguely familiar. Where had he heard it though?

He tilted his head, looking for the memory.

Nothing.

He studied the lump of red-tinged coal in his hand. It didn't give him vibes that he needed to avoid it though.

The bloodstone felt rough under his fingers, slightly crumbly.

It was old.

If there was one thing he knew about old things in Zushkenar, it was 'caveat emptor'.

He tapped his free fingers on a knee.

On the other hand though, this was still a gameworld. What would he win, if he did not dare?

There was only one answer to the question.

"Yes."

The bloodstone crumbled into a cloud of dust, the particles sucked into his hand before he could react.

Krow fell off the bed, pain coursing through him.

The suddenness of the attack choked him, not even giving him the leeway to scream.

Minor Poison, flashed in his peripheral. Not a fraction of a second later changing, to Major Poison.

He scrambled for his inventory, pushing himself through the pain.

Fatal Poison.

Shkav!

He downed the first Fool's Antidote.

25% sheered off his HP in the blink of an eye, in addition to the 50% the poison already took.

The amount of HP taken from the patient was greater, the more fatal the poison, a distant part of his mind that was not scrambled in pain noted.

He grabbed for a crate of Low Revitalit, propped himself up against the wall.

Vials from both potions fell to the floor like rain as he desperately tried to prevent his HP from dropping to zero.

He had known many pains, he reminded himself. And this was not the worst.

It was not even the top ten.

3% HP left. 2%, then slowly, it started ticking up. 5%, then 4% again.

He didn't know how long the percentages rose and fell before the notification sounded.

25% HP.

[You have successfully proven the strength of your ancestry, gaining the bloodline of the Skaldevin of Kandradka!]

Krow ignored it, muscles trembling, as he took out a cask of water and started scooping up cupfuls.

He leaned his head back against the wall. That was a bit more intense than expected, considering the diminished pain sensation of the virtual system.

He breathed deeply.

It definitely wasn't something he wanted to experience in real life.

His eyes opened.

Bloodvial.

That was what sounded familiar.

The Attendant at the character creation area had offered him bloodvials of racial traits, to make a hybrid character.

He frowned.

What traits did that bloodstone give him, if it was like a bloodvial?

What kind of bloodline?

He glared at the unhelpful notification.

What was a skaldevin? A kandradka?

The races of Zushkenar had languages of their own, and those were integrated into the transmigrators' abilities depending on the chosen avatar race, along with the common trade language.

Gojo, for all that him-as-Scare learned plenty about the highlands from the draculkar, had rarely spoken his native language.

He'd definitely never taught it.

Krow stood slowly, the after-effects of activating the bloodstone fading fairly fast.

He frowned at his right hand, the hand the bloodstone had dispersed into. He opened and closed his fist.

Nothing was different.

He didn't feel any different either.

Virtual world, he reminded himself, with a slightly embarrassed huff.

Physical checks wouldn't tell him anything.

Krow paused, hearing a sound outside his room.

He opened the door, startling a bleary-eyed clerk seemingly on his way to bed. The workers of the administrative tower were allotted living space within it.

"If I said 'skaldevin'," Krow stated briskly, "you would say?"

The clerk stared at him, owl-eyed, before blinking. "Ah…we're a free town and have nothing much to do with disputes of the nobility?"

Hah.

"And kandradka is?"

The clerk opened his mouth, shut it, squinted as if searching his brain, then finally shook his head.

"Thank you." Krow closed the door, stood there staring at the wood pattern.

Well.

That was easy.

It was a noble bloodline of some sort. A noble bloodline of whatever Kandradka was – a place, a creed, a vegetable?

All that, and it was just a noble bloodline?!

Krow turned away calmly from the door, lifted his clenched fist to the ceiling, bared his fangs.

Norge!!!

His technique of 'silent roar promising vengeance' done, he walked to the bed and toppled into the pillows.

The beds in the real world, he noted idly while laying there with his face flat on the bed, were better than the beds in the game.

He thumped his fist on the mattress under him.

Thump again.

Thump!

Tsk.

There was something about the texture and bounce that was just a bit off.

Well, both were better than the beds of Zushkenar. At least there was little chance of lice or bedbugs on Earth or in Redlands.

He flopped over onto his back.

Noble bloodline. It would be useful later on, as nobles had broader land ownership limits than anyone non-noble. But he also remembered that every player was given a chance to gain a noble bloodline during the hometown registration.

It definitely, absolutely, didn't need the experience of a bloodstone!!

Krow calmed himself down.

This was good, he told himself – a definite bloodline instead of just a chance for one was good.

People did say that a fish on the line was worth more than one in the river.

Was it worth the pain?

It was one more solid step toward safeguarding his future, that's certain. He could plan some of his formerly vague ideas more specifically now.

He nodded, lay back on the bed, and logged out.

*

12:45 p.m. Saturday

12 November, 2095

Eli's visit with his aunt had been relaxing, quiet and slow. They'd sat on the patio talking about nothing very important, then took a walk around the gardens of the subdivision.

"It's good you have a job again," she hummed as she inspected a large beetle on a leaf. "Some way to support yourself."

Oh no.

"Perhaps even more than yourself?"

He knew it.

"I don't see anyone I like that way, aunt."

"Tsh! That's because you coop yourself up in your house and don't meet the good ones!" She shook her head. "No matter. You know it's fine if you don't get married or have children, don't you?"

Eli blinked. That wasn't something she'd said before. "Aunt?"

She waved his confusion away irritably. "I had a talk with someone. He said I shouldn't force archaic notions on young people."

But she looked away.

Eli took his aunt's hand. "And the changing world shouldn't force their avant garde notions on the elder generation who only want to live their lives in peace." He frowned. "Maybe you shouldn't listen too much to that someone."

She turned toward him, patted his cheek fondly but with an amused smile. "Do you think we old people have never shook the world in our own time? Don't make me sound like a dusty pillar best left to some museum. And is a young sapling like you telling this leathery old bird not to listen to bad influences? Hah!"

He smiled, but he knew where her heart lay. He looked into her eyes. "Aunt, I promise you. I won't be the last person with the name Crewan. And I'll be happy, I promise."

She teared up, looked away again.

"Alright," she said, then smiled at him, content. "Alright then."

It's not like he didn't know why she was telling him this.

He swallowed the ache in his heart and tried to lighten the rest of the visit with his impressions of Redlands as a game and asking more about the new people she was meeting in the VR tourist world.

She gleefully started telling him that she and her friends spent yesterday drinking coffee and racing dromonds through the warm sun-filled beaches of Ancient Greece with a few other tourist families.

He listened carefully.

She really was happy.

He was relieved. In his last life, she was surely this happy during the same time, right?

He hoped.