Beast Hunters: A LitRPG Harem Adventure Part Six

by Tom Harem

  One of the security guards handed us the two bottles, the labels stating that it was water from a fountain of a nearby mountain.

  We said goodbye to him and one of the security guards accompanied us until we got back to the jeep. He didn't thank us, and he also didn't wave when Maggie did it as we drove away. The sea became nothing but a blue thread fading away.

  "Coincidences..." Victoria started, "Who knew we'd find out about that?"

  "I don't believe in coincidences, only in fate. It was meant to be, it had to be." Maggie said, "Can I ask you something?"

  "Just ask us,” Elisa told her.

  "If you had the chance to go back in time and kill him before he grew up, would you do it?" Maggie asked, and through the rearview mirror, I noticed that she was looking around, waiting for one of us to answer.

  "Good question." Victoria said, "I don't think so. Beasts are one thing, but killing someone is another, you know? I didn't sign up with the Hunters to become a killer."

  "Being able to end it all with just one bullet? I wouldn't even hesitate." Elisa replied, "Isn't there a phrase about the need for many to be more important than the needs of a few?"

  "Yes, but he'd be a child, at most a teenager. Could you still kill him? Look him in the eyes?"

  "I didn't say it would be easy, but it was what was necessary," Elisa answered. She leaned against the bench and let her body slide until the sun rays didn't strike her head and slam on her eyes, "Damn. I can't see anything. Having bright eyes has its drawbacks." She added.

  "True." Maggie said and paused, "You're running away from the talk."

  "Me? Running away? Who do you think I am? You're the one who hasn't answered yet." Elisa answered her, climbing back on the seat and looking back at Maggie.

  We had already made it past the prairie and the animals. The air was getting heavier as we moved closer to the city. The sun shone even brighter, the clear sky seemed endless and the mountains were left behind.

  "Honestly, I don't know. I guess I wouldn't know until the moment. It's hard to think about it without being there."

  "Then why did you ask us?" Elisa counterattacked.

  "I wanted to know what you thought, can't I?" Maggie said, "What about you, James?"

  "Good question. I understand both sides, but I think I'm going to take Victoria's side on this one. My training was to save people and destroy beasts. Not to kill people. Then we'd be just like them. That's not the kind of person I want to be." I replied.

  She smiled, unlike Elisa who huffed, bit her lower lip and tilted her face to the window. The hills gave way to the small hillsides of the empty highway. It was 2:23 pm. The radio was off, and we could hear only the car wheels, the light breeze that entered through my semi-open window and a band of seagulls that traversed the sky in the opposite direction. No one spoke again. The rest of the way was done in silence. They observed the landscape as I drove. My body softened with the sun and the placid lunch - my feet seemed to be taped to the pedal and my arms were stretched and static. The skin on my forehead was dry and when I frowned on it some grains of sand landed on my clothes. The same thing happened when I glided my hand through the hair that now looked like unwashed straw. Truth be told, at that moment, I just wanted to lie on a bed and spend the afternoon there. And yet, it was impossible for me. I couldn't do it. There was more at stake than just my desire to rest.

  Chapter V

  From afar, the tallest buildings rose as we drew closer. First, three buildings in the center of the city, then a dozen of them scattered throughout the city and, finally, practically all of them except for the smaller houses that lurked among the taller ones. There were already people on the street wearing only T-shirts and others with their coats tied around their hips. The sun's rays evaded amidst the open spaces between the largest buildings, sometimes reflecting on the windows as well, sometimes cruising through the streets and bumping into the green leaves turning them green-yellow colored.

  "Shouldn't we do the digestion?" Maggie asked.

  "I think the time it took us to get back was enough. Plus, the time we stayed there enjoying the view. Are you in a bad mood?" I asked her.

  "Not really, but I don't want to be either." She said while I was looking for a spot in the driveway of the main building...

  The protest had departed but they had left the posters and the rotten fruit on the staircase. The two Hunters who were coming down simply swerved away instead of picking it up and throwing it away. They didn't seem to care. As if that was someone else's job and they couldn't waste 5 minutes of their time doing it. It was that superior attitude that had always pissed me off in them. Our goal has always been to help the world survive the Reapers, it was one of the purposes we were created, but that doesn't mean that we have to ignore everything else.

  "We better clean these stairs." I told them, "It won't take long."

  "Us? Why would we clean up other people' shit?" Elisa answered me.

  I parked, waited for the engine to stop roaring, and turned back, "Why wouldn't we? There are four of us. We'll take care of everything in two minutes at the most." I answered her.

  I was the first one to get out of the car. They followed me to the stairwell. I picked up one of the banana peelings and a sign and threw them in one of the three rubbish bins a few meters from the building. Maggie and Victoria did the same. Elisa, on the other hand, grabbed only one sign, with only two fingers, and distanced herself from it as if they couldn't touch each other. I was about to say something to her, but knowing her as I already knew her, I didn't think I could get more out of her than that. I decided to settle for how fast we were, and for the fact that the three of them helped me. I kissed each one's cheek and opened the building door for them to get in first.

  "A gentleman, as always," Victoria said it and smiled.

  The first floor was still the same. One group or another scattered around the room, the girl from before was now on her desk leafing through some papers and, next to her, the lady who had registered me. The elevator was going up with three girls in it. Someone, on his back and wearing a black cloak, similar to mine but with a finer fabric, almost textureless, was waiting for the coffee machine to fill the small plastic cup. We were leaving a trail of sand everywhere we walked. The other groups were looking at us. It seemed to me that everyone knew who we were. I wouldn't be surprised if most of them had seen the highway video several times or if they had passed it on a giant screen for everyone to memorize our faces.

  "They're back!" The girl received us. As opposed to the melancholic morning, she was now smiling, her cheeks pink and her fingers polished, "I feel much better now. You don't even know what happened. Shortly after you left, we got an announcement that we could relax. According to a poll taken yesterday, half the population still trusts the Hunters. Apparently, those who hate only make themselves heard the most." She told us.

  "What about the video?" I asked her.

  "Apparently people don't care as much as we thought? Look, I don't know. I know I won't have to wear this professional outfit anymore. I've had enough." She said and unbuttoned the top two buttons.

  "Look who it is... Already in C rank? In a little over a month? You were right after all. Most of them take a year or two. Either because they get hurt and need to stop or because they accept a mission from time to time and spend the rest of their time among other jobs. Some are consultants, some are security guards. Some only sleep, but I like to see that you're not one of them." The woman who helped me pick out a gun said. She was wearing a yellow dress and knee-length socks of the same color. She had hips that stretched from one end of the table to the other and black bra straps underneath the dress.

  "I warned you. The A rank is waiting for me. I'll get there." I answered her.

  Elisa cleared her throat before she spoke, "Shouldn't we get going?"

  "She's right. We can still beat two more beasts today." Victoria supported her.

  "Let's get going then. Thank you for your support!
" I told both the girl and the lady. They smiled at us and wished us good luck. The lady even asked if we were not interested in buying a new batch of all kinds of weapons that had arrived days ago, but I told her only that we would later stop by.

  We used the elevator again and went back to our living room. It was empty and someone had already removed the mouse from the vent.

  "Fortunately. I think if I came in here now and smelled that rotten smell, I'd throw up." Victoria said as she headed for the interactive board...

  "Check if there's anything level 8 in there," Elisa said.

  "Level 8? Isn't that a little too much for us?" Maggie asked her, "Now I'm not the one being impulsive."

  "Don't you want to climb up the rank? We have to fight the bigger fish. There are four of us, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. We just need to know how to use them. And what better way than in combat?"

  "Maybe because we're not just risking our lives, are we? A city is not a training camp." Victoria said, "There's a level seven here, what do you think?"

  "Push that one. Show us." I told her.

  She touched the screen with her finger and the images began to load. First the buildings, then the people gaining shape, and finally the beast in a corner. I had never seen such a monster so big before. It was even greater than the one that was a wasp and spider mix. The body was a metal shell covered by light green grass, two lasers, one on each shoulder, that cut everything they touched in half, and, as if that were not enough, the beast still had a malleable metal tail with a steel triangle-shaped tip.

  "I recognize those buildings. Wait, isn't this in Laterna?" I asked her, an itch rising up my leg.

  "Yeah, it says here. Help was requested three minutes ago." Victoria answered me.

  "Accept it. Now. We have to go fast." I told them, "Come on, hurry up."

  "What about it?" Elisa asked.

  "It's my town. My mother still lives there, and I know most of the people there. If I can't protect the people I care about, what's the point of being a Hunter?"

  "You should have started with that." Elisa said, "What are we waiting for? Let's go."

  "This isn't going to be easy." Maggie said, "We better plan something on the way there."

  "You're right," I said to her, "We'll think of something."

  We ran to the elevator. They were calm but I wasn't. I was impatient; I was tapping my shoe sole on the floor and scratching my legs with my hands inside my pockets so they wouldn't see. Except for a call or a message, I hadn't seen my mom in nearly two months. She'd told me to go visit her, but with everything going on, it became impossible for me. I couldn't let anything happen to her.

  We went down to the first floor and I said goodbye to the girl as I ran to the door. She was sitting at her desk, chatting with a group of five rank A Hunters, all of whom had shields and weapons that I could only dream of buying in a few months.

  "I know you!" One of them screamed when he saw Elisa.

  "Shit. Quick, quick. Before he catches up with us."

  "Where do you think you're going? Hey, come here. You're..."

  I couldn't hear the end of the sentence. We walked right past the door, down the stairs and into the car. Elisa kept telling me to get her out of there. I had never seen her like that before. She wasn't nervous, nor had she seen an old friend who couldn't catch sight of her. She was scared. Her eyes were wide open, a slight blue vein on her neck, about to burst and, for the first time since I had known her, her teeth were gnashing, and her breathing had been panting. I was cranking the engine when the man appeared in the hallway. The sun shone on him and covered his face. His shadow covered all the stairs: the bright red robe turned orange, the metal straps on his shoulders reflected themselves in the green handrails of the staircase. Even the black suit he had underneath now seemed crystal clear as did the black pants and the metals attached to his belt.

  "Don't think you're going to run away!" He screamed and started coming down the stairs.

  I managed to get us out of there seconds before he stretched out his hand to bang on Maggie's window glass. I drove away as fast as I could. The road seemed to get even narrower. I think I ended up knocking over a mailbox or maybe it was a road sign, I didn't even see it.

  Chapter VI

  "Who was that guy?" I asked her.

  "Shit. I never thought he'd be a Hunter again." She said, still gasping. She leaned against the bench and looked back once, as if she needed to confirm that he was not following us, "there is a lot that you do not know about me. What I did... Those years between me not being Hunter and now... I've done things that have changed me, things I'm not proud of. One of them was a mission to murder someone. That boy was one of the Hunters who was protecting that same man. Either I'm wrong or he's the only one who survived. I didn't think my past would haunt me. I thought he'd walked away from all of this."

  It took me a few seconds to process what she was telling me. I knew that she had had a difficult life, that she had done things that I did not agree with, but killing someone? It was not that I was surprised but having to deal with it wasn't on my agenda.

  "Was the person you killed... evil?" Maggie asked.

  "They all were. Whoever sent me to kill him only wanted him dead to get his share of the illegal arms market. You get to a point where no one's good. Some are worse than others, that's the only difference."

  "How did you kill them all but can't defeat a beast alone?" Victoria asked her, "Just one ice hand can't be enough for several Hunters, can it?"

  "Don't push it. But you're actually right. If it were a normal fight, I wouldn't be enough. I planted explosives on the way and used a normal weapon. Their ears were still ringing, and their vision was blurred when I stepped in. They didn't stand a chance. Not everything has to be a one-on-one fight or a fair fight. We do what we can." She answered.

  "Now what?" Maggie asked her.

  "I don't know. If he's there, we can't go back. What if he tells everyone? What if they're waiting for me? I'm still wanted." She said, "Damn it. I hate this. I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm sorry I screwed up."

  "Easy, Elisa. We're going to figure this out." Victoria told her, "He's a rank A. We just need to keep an eye on the lobby. And he only saw you sideways, I doubt he'd tell anyone without being sure." She added.

  "Victoria's right. I know this isn't the best time to say it, but we better focus on the beast. We are minutes away from my town."

  "Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm ready." Elisa said and closed her hand with the glove, "Let's do this."

  "Any plans?" Maggie asked, "I can burn all the grass all the way to the metal."

  "That's a good idea, but we need more. It's a level 7 beast, we can't even relax around it." I answered him.

  "What if we use the same technique as last time? That jump you made... The one that impressed the kid. Do you think it could work?" Maggie asked me.

  "I only have one bullet. It's acix, but if it fails, we won't have another chance." I answered her.

  "Well, you better not fail then," Victoria said and winked at me.

  Elisa was listening to us but didn't say a word. She was too quiet for someone who liked to always have the last word.

  My cell phone had started ringing. I asked Elisa, who was next to me, to take it out of my pocket. At first, she didn't hear me, and I had to repeat it.

  "Yeah, I'm sorry. Your cell phones?" She said and stretched her hand into my pocket, "It's your mother."

  "Put it on speaker," I told her, hitting the pedal. I was already going 80 miles an hour and kept increasing.

  My mother's voice burst through my cell phone. She was sobbing, her voice weak and low, and she was pulling her snot up. It took a few seconds before she could articulate a phrase that we could understand.

  "We need help, son. The beast has already knocked down Mr. Kintas' grocery store. It's close to our house and the preschool. The police bullets are... They're all bouncing off his body."

  "We're abo
ut five minutes away. Hide until we get there." I told her, "Tell me you didn't call Keno."

  "He's coming too..." She answered me and I could hear the hesitation in her shaky voice, "I didn't know what to do."

  "It's okay. Stay on the phone until we get there." I told her, "We have to overthrow the beast before my brother gets here. He'll want to help. Even if I ask him to be quiet, he'll ignore me. Damn it."

  "I don't think it's going to be that easy." Victoria said, "Let's do our best." She answered me after I crossed the sign that indicated the entrance to the city.

  Remnants of the debris were flying and falling on the jeep, the ground, and even other buildings. The beast tore down everything he could without stopping. My mother begged me to hurry. My heart rate was running high.

  "We're already in town. Are you home?" I asked her.

  "Yes, I can see the beast from afar. Why did you and your brother have to follow your father's work? Why was that? I don't want anything to happen to you."

  "Stay right there, Mom. Don't worry, it's going to be okay. I have a good team with me. I'm hanging up now. I'm on my way." I told her.

  She said she loved me, asked me to be careful and waited for me to hang up. The loud breathing and the grinding teeth vanished like a long whisper that distanced itself until it was no longer heard.

  I turned to the right. I immediately saw the rusty green gate of the daycare center. There were pebbles on top of the metal fence bars which protected the place from unwanted people. However, to the beast that defense would be like plastic that he could knead easily.

  "Maggie, go into the daycare and check if the kids are still there. If so, help them out. Saving them is our priority right now. I and them are going to buy you time." I told them.

  I stopped the car outside the building. Someone was peeking through the fogged glass. The beast's lasers split and sliced the buildings in half and the metal tail wrecked them. He had two black eyes on his hexagonal face with a curved bottom end. He had a toad face but a tortoise-body. There were still people exiting the buildings that persisted nearby; some with only a backpack on their backs, others with nothing and there were those who looked like they were going on a trip. And yet they all had something in common. Fear was stamped on their faces. Some were tripping, scraping their hands on the sidewalk or on the road, others were rubbing their eyes and dripping nose, but all of them were trying to get out of there as soon as possible. They ran over each other without regard for anyone, the instinct of survival prioritizing them over all the others.