Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure

by Harmon Cooper

  “I would totally beat you in a fight.”

  “I don’t know…”

  She laughed. “I’m talking about the Monster Hunt Brawls. In a nutshell, now that you have a fighting party, you can take part in real life fights happening around the city.”

  “That sounds crazy.”

  “Imagine going up against other Alphas and their Hunters. You pick a spot, meet up, and as a bonus, you’re allowed to bring one or two of your mythcrea. This and tournaments are the only ways to individually level your mythcrea. Now your Huntresses, they level with tokens, but leveling your mythcrea is trickier. I was going to say something about this back when you were looking at the exchange.”

  “Yeah? Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I wanted to go over it with you in person. So here’s the deal: you have two thousand Proxima dollars, right?”

  “Exactly, and a hundred real dollars to my name.”

  “Nothing in your bank account?”

  I swallowed hard. “I, uh, haven’t got my universal basic income check, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Okay, then I’ll fund the other half of the app cost.”

  “Iris, what are you talking about?”

  “Look, we started this because we need new gear, right?”

  I smirked at her. “Actually, you gave me the code and I installed it, and now look what has happened!”

  This wasn’t the time for a flashback, but I did recall just a few days ago that I had gone from a guy broke as a joke, to a guy broke as a joke surrounded by sword-wielding females, catching mythcrea, and growing…

  I glanced at Iris. I was sure I’d stay here tonight, two nights in a row, and we were definitely growing closer.

  “To get more funds, we need better captures and stronger Huntresses. To do that, we need to take part in Monster Hunt Brawls. There are random item drops through these brawls, and it’s a serious way to level up.”

  “I’m all for taking part in brawls, Iris.”

  “And to take part in brawls, we need the Brawl add-on, which costs ...” She bit her lip as she scanned through some information. “Six hundred dollars.”

  My heart sank. “I only have a hundred.”

  “You said you have two thousand Proxima dollars, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “If you cash out two thousand PD it’ll be roughly a hundred-sixty USD.”

  “That brings us to two-sixty,” I said. “We still need more to buy the add-on.”

  “Like I said, I’ll throw in the three-twenty we need.”

  I glanced down at her hardwood floor. I hated talking about money with people, and this was the reason why. I usually came up short, and Iris had floated our band funds before that never got paid back.

  “I can’t take money from you,” I said firmly.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m giving it to you, and you’ll give it right back to me. Look, tonight you made nearly eight thousand Proxima dollars. That’s like six hundred fifty cash if you had decided to trade it on the exchange.”

  I instantly regretted decking out my Dojo, and Iris could tell this by the look on my face.

  “Don’t worry about spending it on your Dojo. That will make your mythcrea happier, and it will likely result in new skills and better morale, which can lead to better teamwork.”

  “How do you know so much about this stuff?” I asked her. I'd been meaning to ask it for some time now, but we've been so worked up with all this that the words have never left my lips.

  “Look, I kind of just get into these types of things. I heard about Monster Hunt through some classmates; they were just talking about it, and I started looking into it. I don't know, I just became sort of fascinated by it.”

  “Then how did you get the codes? You never actually told me that.”

  “I thought I told you.”

  “If you did, I don’t remember.”

  She shrugged. “I heard about this contest that was a tied to watching a bunch of TwitchTubeRed videos by this famous streamer named FeeTwix. The prize was two Monster Hunt codes. I honestly didn't think I would win, but here we are.”

  I laughed. “We are definitely here. Okay, back to the Brawl talks. There are more tournaments coming up, right?” I asked.

  If I could win eight thousand in what was basically two fights, I should be able to pay Iris back quickly, I thought as she started speaking.

  “Of course there are. There is one I already read about in two days. In the meantime, you can focus on getting your Fighting Party and your Huntresses leveled up using the Brawl add-on. There’s another thing about this add-on that you may find helpful, but install it first. You’ll see what I mean.”

  “And you’re sure.”

  “Do it, Chase, now. I’m serious,” she said earnestly.

  My bank account flashed, letting me know money had been transferred. Seconds after, a prompt appeared on my pane of vision, sent from Iris. I mentally clicked the link which led to the Brawl add-on. My bank account flashed on the left-hand side of my vision pane.

  $635 dollars to my name, I thought as I hesitated to purchase the app.

  “Here goes…”

  I clicked the ‘buy’ button and an icon flashed, letting me know the Brawl add-on was downloading.

  Chapter Fourteen: Central Park Fight Club

  The Brawl add-on was definitely going to come in handy. I didn’t play with it much before dozing off, but a quick test run showed me that it was fairly simple to use.

  For Brawls, I would simply toggle a switch that said “available.” Once I was available, I would see other anonymous Monster Hunters who were also available. I would see only their general location and their level, and I was able to then send them what was known as a Brawl Request.

  The Brawl Request also had a prompt for the number of mythcrea that would join the battle, one or two, and another prompt in which Proxima dollars could be wagered.

  As I briefly tested the app, it appeared there were a good many brawls available in New York, many around Central Park, and I even received a few requests in the ten minutes or so I had the app open. Of course, some of these requests weren’t in my favor, such as the Level Ten Monster Hunter who wanted to Brawl and wager fifteen thousand PDs.

  Iris had hinted that the Brawl add-on had an additional feature I’d like, and she wasn’t wrong. “Monster Locator” produced a grid of my current location and large, shaded circles indicating where mythcrea might be located.

  I could see that just a few blocks away, there was a mythcrea behind the bodega we’d eaten tamales at. There were others in the vicinity, and pulling up a map of other parts of the city also showed these potential catches.

  Of course, there were other upgrades available, upgrades which allowed the Monster Locator to search for mythcrea based on class and scarcity, and like the Brawl add-on, the upgrades weren’t cheap.

  The basic Monster Locator upgrade, which added a red tracking reticle to pinpoint the mythcrea’s exact location, rather than just a vicinity location, cost a thousand dollars.

  The one I really wanted, the ability to search for mythcrea based on class and level, was a staggering five thousand dollars.

  Even so, the sonar-like Monster Locator which came with the Brawl add-on would work for now. It’d at least give me something to work with, which was better than simply winging it.

  I liked that part about this add on, even if it cost me more and more to drill down and improve my tech.

  Something about it reminded me of getting musical gear, starting with something basic and then slowly improving your rig. Yeah, you might have started with a turquoise Fender Squire, but then you got that Electro Harmonix Metal Muff, and you had that double coil pickup installed, and you got a serious 15W Orange stack, and then you were cooking with fire.

  Of course, you only started there.

  Once you got the stack, you eventually got more pedals, and you got rid of that Squire for something a little more shred-ready
, and you eventually got another stack, or another guitar, or one of those expensive Ibanez iNet add-ons that allowed you to see and play guitar chords in real time.

  I liked the upgrade part.

  And I liked sleep as well.

  It didn’t take me long to fall asleep, again sharing the futon with Iris. Dreams came to me, warped dreams from the tournaments, highlights from another dimension. I saw Fujin zipping across the sky, Aya throwing her full force into a fight, Magnus with purple energy surrounding him, spit flying out of Rose’s maw as she roared, Altsoba changing into…

  Thad.

  “Attack!” I shouted as soon as I saw him, and the rest of my fighters turned to him and took his ass down.

  I awoke with Iris’s hand on my chest.

  We were closer together now than we were when we first got into bed, and I was fine with that. A bit of light peeked in through the single window of her efficiency apartment, and in that moment, a determination to make this endeavor a success swelled in my chest.

  I activated my Monster Hunt app, and Aya and Lady C. appeared.

  “Looks like someone has a new friend,” was Aya’s first comment when she saw Iris sleeping so close to me. Lady C. simply looked away.

  “No,” I said with a grin, “we’ve been friends for a while now. And I’m sorry you two had to sleep at the Dojo last night.”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  Iris went to class, and as I left her place, I immediately set myself to “available” on the Brawl add-on app. Even as she said goodbye, I already saw Monster Location information populating on my pane of vision.

  There was some activity not far from here, in the alley behind the bodega.

  Definitely the same activity I saw last night, I thought as I turned to the location.

  Lady C. was on my right, walking while reading. A woman clad in killer armor with two long swords on her hips walking through the streets of Brooklyn while skimming through a book called Lume Glacio?

  It was undeniably cute in a fanboy kind of way.

  Aya was on my left, commenting on people she thought looked funny or who were shaped in a weird way, including an Asian guy who was short and round and a thin black man with dreads down to his lower back.

  My only hope at the time was that the mythcrea we were stalking wasn’t a high enough level that it would prove difficult for Aya and Lady Cassandra. We needed a win, especially after last night’s tournament.

  As we walked, I explained to them that we would be taking part in a Brawl in about an hour and a half at Central Park.

  It was a Brawl offered to me last night, when I was briefly available. Since the other Hunter was only at Level Three, I figured we had a shot, especially if we added two of our Fighting Party members to the mix.

  Magnus and Ophelia, I thought as we reached the bodega.

  I mainly wanted to see what Ophelia had to offer on her level up, and if it was something that could truly help us. Magnus’ ability to heal and steal life from our soon-to-be opponents would also prove handy.

  But for now, the focus was on this first catch that the Monster Locator had discovered.

  “It’s somewhere around here,” I told the Huntresses.

  Aya unsheathed her blade.

  There wasn’t a lot of room in the alley we entered, so to keep her blade drawn, she was forced to walk a bit ahead of us. I naturally took the place between the two, feeling like I was surrounded by bodyguards, which in a way, I was.

  We continued down the alley, which stunk of rotten food, and once we reached an intersection, I focused on the Monster Locator app and saw that we were now on the outer edge of the circle.

  We need to head deeper, I thought, as I signaled Aya and Lady C. to turn left.

  We took a left, moved into an area defined by its fire escapes and some clothes hanging outside to dry. Another right and we finally reached a dead end.

  I heard an animal rummaging through garbage.

  A large creature stepped out of a small enclosure created where an old building met a newer one and the contractors hadn’t worked to fill the gap.

  “It’s rare,” I whispered to the two Huntresses.

  The creature had the head of a donkey and the body of a camel, with coarse golden fur on its back. Its neck was long, graceful, and it had a very light hue of red to its mane.

  The allocamelus’ ears flipped back when it saw us. It bared its donkey-like teeth.

  If the allocamelus charged, it would surely take us out. Aya, who had her sword drawn, might get in an attack, but I didn’t even know if she had enough room to swing her blade.

  “What do we do, Chase?” the Thulean asked me over her shoulder.

  An idea came and I decided to go with it. It had worked before, and there weren’t many other options for us.

  I cleared my throat; the allocamelus lowered its head and snapped its teeth.

  “Aya, Lady C., get behind me and try to make a wall of blades.”

  “Wall of blades?”

  “Hold your blades out at varying angles so if the creatures gets over me, we still cause damage. It’s worth four tokens; we definitely want this one.”

  Aya slipped past me, causing the allocamelus to tap its foot against the ground, as if it were gearing up to charge.

  I had no idea how to serenade a camel with the head of a donkey, but I figured I’d start with something a little jazzy.

  “Allocamelus, you have an ass for a face, an ass for a face, and a camel for an ass…”

  The allocamelus raised its head. Its nostrils flared as it sniffed the air.

  I started up the song again, this time as softly as possible. Even while the thought this cannot be happening fired at the back of my mind, I kept singing the strange song I had concocted on the spot.

  The allocamelus approached me, snorted, and let me place my hand on its snout.

  Its eyes were beautiful, the color of fall in New England, and as it gazed at me, its form began to pixelate. Seconds later and the allocamelus was gone, my easiest catch ever.

  “I can’t believe that worked,” Aya said after the creature was gone. She laughed. “And that song! Terribly stupid!”

  “I can’t either,” I said, “but now we have a new mythcrea and we’re closer to our next level.”

  “Where to now?” Lady Cassandra asked. She was her normal bubbly self, and just seeing her smile at me warmed my heart.

  “To Central Park for this Brawl. Do you two want to ride the subway, or would you rather go to the Dojo and have me call you back once I get there?”

  They exchanged glances.

  “Dojo,” they said at the same time.

  “Actually,” Lady C. said to Aya. “You go to the Dojo, I want to give the subway another shot.”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  Luckily for me, the train wasn’t very crowded and I was able to find a seat.

  Not wanting to stand, Lady C. asked if she could sit on my lap, and I obliged. The augmented reality portion of the app and the way it made things feel real was beyond me. It only reminded me how much power our visuals had over what we experienced.

  Even then, as I technically sat alone on a subway train, I could actually feel Lady C.’s body against mine, her weight, her warmth. I swore I could even smell a light melon scent coming from her hair.

  I’d be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t attracted to her.

  As she sat on my lap, the back of her skirt-like armor digging into my hip bones, she read from a book called Ignis Ignite, which looked to be mostly about casting fire spells.

  Even though I tried not to respond – so as not to draw attention to myself – Lady C. occasionally would turn to me, smile, and show me a particular passage about some spell. The books were written in a language I couldn’t understand. I could, however, understand the pictures.

  And some looked pretty awesome.

  The drawings reminded of the medieval stuff one might find in a museum. Colorful, but no depth to them. Yet the point they
were trying to make was abundantly clear: fire was a hell of a way to take down an enemy.

  The A train came to a stop at Columbus Circle Station and we quickly filed out just as another Brawl invitation popped up, one set for the same location and about thirty minutes after the start of my first Brawl.

  I accepted it.

  Hellbent on paying Iris back, and determined to really do well at the next tournament, we needed all the brawls and captures we could get.

  The crowd of New Yorkers swelled around us as we took the exit towards Central Park. A man sitting with his back against the wall and a display of books laid out before him beckoned me over.

  “I’ve got to run,” I told him, not sure if he was serious or not.

  “You and your lady friend might like some of these books,” he said, his yellow teeth emerging from his mouth as he smiled.

  “My lady friend?”

  The guy looked homeless in his layer upon layer of clothing and his dirty, oversized boots. Lady C. glanced to me, back to him, and quickly approached the man.

  She crouched before him, her swords lifting off her lower back as she crab-walked a hair to the right. “Can we buy some?” she asked me.

  “We’re kind of broke at the moment,” I told her.

  I had figured by this point that the man was a rare book dealer, that he wasn’t real, and that I was probably the only person seeing him.

  “These books are from EverLife,” he told her, a twinkle behind his eyes.

  I was unaware that these types of occurrences were possible, but it totally made sense. Too bad I’d cashed out all my PD for the Brawl add-on.

  “How long will you be here?” I asked the seller.

  “Who knows?” was his reply.

  “If he’s still here when we return to the station,” I told Lady C., “and we’ve somehow come across some cash, then we’ll get something.”

  She stood, a sad look on her face. “But those books are really rare.”

  “Sorry,” I told her as I turned to the exit.

  Hopefully we’d run into the guy, or someone like him, again. I had a feeling an influx of cash was coming on, but to make that happen, we needed to get some wins under our belt.