Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Harmon Cooper

“I told you not to hunt any mythcrea,” Iris said, her eyes going wide behind her thick glasses.

  “It wasn’t my choice! I was coming here, and Lady C. took off after one.”

  “Lady C.?”

  “That’s what Lady Cassandra wants me to call her. She’s the warrior one, a Metican, I believe.”

  Iris’ eyes flashed as she briefly scanned GoogleFace for more information on Meticans. “Okay, a warrior woman from Unigaea, got it. And the Thulean’s name?”

  “Aya. Aya Duchig, I believe.”

  “I wonder what that means in Thulean.”

  “I didn’t ask her. Anyway, like I was saying, they went after it themselves. Well, Lady C. started, then Aya followed.”

  “And did you capture it?” A look of frustration moved across her face. “We haven’t even set up your Dojo yet.”

  We? I let this part slide, happy to have Iris join me for anything, including something as nerdy as setting up a digital Dojo.

  “I didn’t capture it. Like I said, I have no idea what I’m doing, so I just kind of let Aya and Lady C. chase it around. Nothing much I could do, really. Aya almost killed the mother.”

  Iris bit her lip. “The mother?”

  “It started off as a baby bearadillo, then the mother came running.”

  “Okay, stop right there.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and I felt a small spark between us.

  “Yeah?”

  “First of all, you could have looked all this up on GoogleFace. You know that, right?”

  “Yeah, but I figured it would be better to hear it from the source.”

  She smiled softly. “That’s so like you. Anyway, there’s a lot you don’t know about the Monster Hunt app, but the first thing you need to understand is how to capture something. And note that I said capture, not kill. Your Hunters aren’t actually with you to kill any of the mythcrea you come across,” she explained. “They are supposed to make it weaker so that you can capture it more easily.”

  “I see, so that’s why Aya was screaming for me to capture it after she’d stabbed her sword into the mother bearadillo’s back.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Then how do I capture them? I remember looking down at my hands and seeing them charge with some type of magic, but I wasn’t able to use it. The magic was like a webbing between my fingers.” I showed her what I meant by tightening and releasing my hand.

  “Once it is charged, I mean, from what I’ve read online, you simply throw it at the mythcrea and it forms a net in midair. It should feel intuitive.”

  “So I capture these things, and then what?”

  “Everything you capture goes to your Dojo and it increases your stats.”

  “My stats?”

  I remembered seeing Aya and Lady C.’s stats, but not my own.

  Iris nodded. Her cheeks were red from the cold, but she wasn’t shivering or anything. “You level up with the number of creatures you capture. Some people go buck wild and level up like crazy by just capturing any and every creature they come into contact with. This can get expensive regarding your Dojo. Remember, the more mythcrea you have, the higher the upkeep.”

  “Got it.”

  “What you want to do then is to capture mythcrea that have certain properties you’re looking for, that or if you just want them to be part of your Fighting Party. You can also capture with the intent to sell. There’s also Brawling, but I’ll get into that later.”

  “Yep, too much info at once,” I admitted. “What’s this Fighting Party? Let’s start there.”

  “Did you think you were capturing all these creatures just to have a little digital farm?”

  I smirked at Iris. “I thought I was capturing them for money. I mean, that’s what you kind of told me when you gave me the code, right?”

  “I knew I should have explained this more before I gave you access. Okay, in a nutshell: you capture creatures to build your Fighting Party. Once you have a party of several creatures or more, you then can enter tournaments and fight other players’ parties.”

  “And win money?”

  “Bingo. But remember, we're talking about Proxima dollars here, which you can exchange for real-world money. You can also capture mythcrea with the intention of trading or selling them, another way to win money.”

  “Let's do it,” I said as I rubbed my hands together. “You have two access codes, right?”

  The smile on Iris’ face shattered.

  “You did have two, right? You’re going to join me, and we can do this together, aren’t we?” I asked. “That’s what I thought the plan was. At least, that makes sense to me.”

  “I can’t join you,” she finally says.

  “Why not?”

  “I gave away one of the access codes to–” She swallowed hard. “To someone else.”

  “To who?”

  “Thad.”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  “Please don’t hate me,” Iris said, turning away from me.

  “You gave one of the codes to Thad? Why the hell did you do that? He fucked us over today, Iris. You saw …” I punched my fist into my other hand. “You saw what he did to my fucking gear. He fucking stepped on my bass and broke its neck. He kicked my amp over and crushed the tubes. He … he broke your laptop and your keyboard. He punched me in the face!”

  “Relax, Chase.”

  “Why in the hell would you give that asshole a code?” I asked, lowering my voice.

  “It was before he did all that.”

  What happened earlier that day flashed across my mind’s eye. I saw Thad, the cocky front man for our band, having another one of his tantrums. High off designer intoxicants, he sucker punched me, thrashed our gear, kicked a hole in the wall, and stumbled out. I had never in my entire life experienced something like that before, something so vile, so unnecessary.

  “Why, why would you even think about giving him something like that?” I asked Iris. “These codes are worth money, right?”

  She gulped. “Thousands and thousands of dollars, if not more.”

  “We should have just sold the code you gave me and re-bought our gear. That would have been the fucking smart thing to do.”

  “We can make so much more with the app,” she said. “Trust me.”

  “There is no we, there is me. You gave the other app to Thad, remember?”

  Iris’ eyes started to water.

  “Hey, sorry, please don’t get upset,” I said, moving closer to her. “I’m just pissed about my gear. That was my stuff, I worked for two years to buy my Rickenbacker and my stack, it will cost so much to get that fixed up. Your laptop, your Juno 60. You should be pissed too… that thing is a like hundred years old!”

  “I know,” she said, tearing up. “I fucking loved that keyboard. My dad gave it to me.”

  Seeing her cry triggered tears in my eyes as well. To cover my emotion, I took off my glasses and polished them, focusing until the emotion left. “We’ll get our gear fixed, that’s priority number one. But why, why did you give him the access code? At least tell me that.”

  “Because…”

  “Because why?”

  “Because Thad and I were sleeping together.”

  No one likes hearing their dream boy or dream girl confess to sleeping with their archenemy, even if their archenemy was just a thorn in their side a week ago.

  I shook my head at her. “Why did you ever think this would be a good idea?”

  “Are you serious right now?” she asked, her eyes narrowing at me.

  “Yeah, I mean, how am I supposed to do this by myself, Iris? I barely know how to play the game, I’ve got thirty-something dollars to my name, and I have these two warrior ladies who are polar opposites.”

  “I’m going to help you,” she said. “There are ways I can help.”

  “Really? What ways are those?”

  “I can help you in your Dojo. I’m not restricted to things that take place in the Proxima Galaxy. If you give me access, I’ll be able to help yo
u there, and I may be able to help you capture them here.”

  “How?”

  “Just trust me, Chase.”

  I glared down at the cement. “Yeah, I trust you. Look, Iris, I have to go. I need a little time just to think about this and try to figure out how we are going to actually make money doing this.”

  “I can come with you,” she said, “we can talk more about it.”

  I considered this. Iris had been over to my place a dozen times before, but her apartment was much nicer than mine, so if we hung out, we usually met there. Also, she didn’t have a freaking pipe cutting through her bedroom.

  “No, not tonight. Just give me some time to figure this out.”

  Chapter Four: These Monsters Won’t Hunt Themselves

  Alex, my roommate, was asleep on the couch when I finally arrived back at my apartment. Pretty much out of money, and not getting any more fundage until the UBI check came through, I was forced to walk home.

  It wasn’t a bad walk, but I was definitely tired.

  I lightly dropped my keys onto the table and tiptoed past Alex, a bear of a man who was as quiet as he was towering.

  I knew very little about him, even though we had lived together for over a year. He had a sense of humor, and he always paid his rent on time, but other than that, he usually kept to his room, occasionally venturing to sleep on the couch.

  Past Alex, I let myself into my room, ducked under the pipe, and flopped onto my bed. My mattress was on the floor, and other than a dresser and some music equipment, my room was pretty minimal, just the way I liked it.

  Once my shoes were off, I moved over to my bass guitar case, brought it down to the floor, and opened it.

  “Fucking asshole, Thad,” I whispered as I took in the destroyed instrument. The neck was broken, the strings hung loose, and one of the pickups was smashed in.

  Who the hell would do something like this?

  The notion to check in with Aya and Lady C. came to me and I figured it wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  The Monster Hunt app appeared on my pane of vision, spinning as it enlarged. As if they had been there the entire time, Aya rested on the bed, and Lady C. sat on the floor, a large book open in her lap.

  “You are never going to understand that book,” Aya told her counterpart.

  “You don’t know that.” Lady C. turned the page, bit her lip for a moment, and turned back to the first page she’d been reading.

  “So.” Aya shifted her weight to me. She moved her orange hair out of the way so she could rest on one hand. Instead of armor, she now wore a lacy black nightgown at odds with the slight green tint to her skin.

  With her hair moved away from her neck, I noticed a long, vertical tattoo of what I guessed was her native language.

  “So?” I asked.

  Something soft flashed across her slitted orange eyes. “Did you miss us?”

  I laughed. “I don’t know if that’s how I would describe it, but sure.”

  “I know you missed me,” Lady C. said, her eyes still glued to her book. She wore a pair of baggy pajamas, her hair now unbraided.

  “Yeah, that’s right, I missed you. But Aya…” I shrugged playfully. “I don’t know. You were pretty rude to me back in the park.”

  “You had the opportunity to catch something and you didn’t.”

  “That’s because, um, I wanted to make sure it is the type of animal I’d like in my Dojo.”

  “You didn’t check its stats?” she asked.

  “I did, but not carefully enough.”

  Just thinking this caused the bearadillo stats to appear before me.

  “Beary Bite?”

  “A special attack. Could be useful for our Fighting Party. These things are tanks,” Aya explained. “They can go on the front lines and take the brunt of the attacks. Wait, you do know what a Fighting Party is, right?”

  “Iris told me,” I said as I sat on the bed.

  “Who is Iris again?” Lady C. asked. “Isn’t she your girlfriend?”

  “No,” I said quickly, anger swelling in my chest as I relived her confession.

  While Thad may have redefined the term “asshole,” he was handsome, confident, and his mixed heritage made him unique. His confidence made him a good front man: he could get the crowd going despite the fact that he was the least talented of the three of us.

  “Ooo, sounds like someone has some conflicting feelings,” Aya said, rolling onto her back. She yawned. “Did she explain that stuff about the Dojo to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she make you something to eat?” Lady C. asked.

  “No, we bought food. Actually, she bought it. I’m broke.”

  “That’s why she doesn’t like you,” Aya said. “No one likes a broke guy. Don’t worry.” She rolled up to a seating position and slapped my thigh. “We are going to make you lots of money. Of course, this money is for us too. The Dojo, as it stands, is not inviting. How would you describe it, Lady Cassandra?”

  “Lady C., please, and I’d describe it as, um, in need of work!”

  “Is it worse than my shithole apartment?” I asked.

  “There isn’t even a hole to shit in there.” Lady C. laughed and Aya joined her. “There is so much to upgrade, in the Dojo and in your pathetic life.”

  “Um, thanks?”

  A glance down and I could see that her robe had shifted some and I could almost see her breast. She caught me staring and didn’t say anything.

  “Sorry, okay, so back to money. Tomorrow we start getting money. One thing I didn’t ask Iris is about selling mythcrea. We can sell them, right?”

  “Definitely,” Lady C. said as she closed her book. “You’re right, Lady Aya, this book is too hard.”

  “Please, just call me Aya, and I told you that you wouldn’t be able to understand the Book of Time, even if it is the high school textbook version scribed by Lothar Shane of Waringtla. It is an incredibly hard subject.”

  “At least I tried, and I could understand a little.”

  Lady C. got onto the bed next to me. Even though it was a full-sized bed, space was tight.

  “I’m going to go to bed now,” I said.

  “You didn’t brush your teeth,” Lady C. said.

  “Yeah, I’ll do that first. Can I call on you both in the morning?”

  Lady C. shook her head. “We don’t want to go back to the Dojo.”

  Aya nodded in agreement. “It is too cold there. You really need to have a building made so that we can at least have a place to live.”

  “There isn’t already a building?”

  “It is a completely open space, practically a dark void. When you send us away, that’s where you send us.”

  “It’s not too comfy,” Lady C. said. “Maybe one day, when you’re a better Alpha, you’ll get access to EverLife and we’ll be able to go there instead.”

  The way she told me this made me cringe. A better Alpha? Talk about getting called out. I decided to focus on the other part of her statement. “EverLife?”

  “She’ll explain later,” Aya said on the tail end of a yawn. “Go brush your teeth, Chase, and choose where you’d like to sleep.”

  I chuckled as I took my glasses off. “I’d like to sleep on my bed.”

  “Sorry, bed is taken. Although there may be space at the foot of the bed.”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  Morning came faster than I would have liked.

  After being kicked out of the bed twice, once by Lady C. as she stretched her legs forward and the second time by Aya, I ended up sleeping on the floor.

  I got up earlier than them, enjoyed a cup of coffee alone, and woke them up about an hour later, after reading more stuff about the app and its legalities.

  The Monster Hunt app itself had a ton of info for me, from local meetups and upcoming tournaments, to online markets where mythcrea could be sold and traded.

  Good info to know.

  I wondered how they could have meetups, especially with the ill
egality surrounding the game. The thought sparked a quick explanation pieced together from a number of sources.

  Monster Hunt meetups, while technically illegal, are often overlooked by local law enforcement agencies. Similar to early twentieth century law enforcement agencies overlooking festivals and gatherings of marijuana users, many agencies deem the meetups a “controlled environment” for the Proxima Live app to be enjoyed.

  This got me thinking about how it was that the Proxima Company was even able to run an illegal app. The explanation quickly materialized before me.

  The Proxima Company is not allowed to hold their servers for the Monster Hunt application in the contiguous United States. To get around this restriction, the servers and technical support operations are hosted by countries that have less restrictions on iNet based applications which use augmented reality and Proxima Digital Neuronal Autoconstruct Systems, or D-NAS.

  It had taken me a few minutes to dig down and find some GoogleFace groups dedicated to Monster Hunting. From there, I used auto assist to scan through the posts from the last six months to see where the best place to hunt in Brooklyn would be. I didn’t find much info, even the message boards were secretive, but it seemed like parks were the way to go.

  Which was why the three of us now waited on the train platform with the intent of going to Brooklyn Bridge Park.

  “Like I told you two back there,” I said to Aya and Lady Cassandra. “Not a word.”

  Rush hour for those traveling from Brooklyn to Manhattan had come and gone. There were still a healthy amount of people waiting to get on the subway, but I figured it’d be better to go now than to try during lunch hour.

  Aya pretended to zip her mouth shut. Lady Cassandra stood next to her with a book in her hands. She was a few inches shorter than Aya, and seeing her next to the Thulean revealed just how lean the half-dragon woman was.

  While Aya’s armor looked fairly decent, Lady C.’s skimpy fantasy getup didn’t seem practical at all.

  If I pretended we were going to a cosplay convention, it made it easier to see them next to the Brooklynites heading into the Manhattan. Still, it was odd, and it took a lot of self-control to pretend that they weren’t there.

  “Ooo, a train,” Lady C. said as we heard the train approach. She was still buried in a book, something called Oric Rune and the Last Days of Unigaea by Lothar Shane.