Monster Hunting 101: A LitRPG Fantasy Adventure (Titan Termination)

by Freaks, LitRPG

  “Hence why I neglected to tell you,” Rashar said, scowling at me. I could see a mixture of shame and embarrassment on his face. “It was not my intention to wrap you up in all of this, but I had no other choice.”

  “Why not?” I snapped, growing heated from all of the facts he was telling me. I knew he had an agenda of some kind, but this was over the top.

  “Because no one else can see me!” Rashar exclaimed. “In my infinite short-sightedness, I had not realized that only those who have been blessed with the Hunter’s Sight could interact with my spirit. And since the Dread Beast killed everyone who had Bloodpoints within them…I was stuck. Stuck waiting for someone to get the courage to kill a scavenger or something. No one ever did.”

  “Then I drew blood,” I whispered. “Enough to gain the Hunter’s Sight.”

  “Enough for me to interact with you as a physical entity,” Rashar said. “Enough for me to train you without pressuring you with what was to come.”

  “I can’t believe it,” I said, shaking my head, ignoring the pain shooting through my neck. “You lied to me about all of this. Why not just come out and say it at the beginning? Why go through all the trouble to deceive me?”

  “You were an amateur scavenger, out in the real world for the first time,” Rashar said. “How was I to know if you could handle it? I had one shot and I didn’t want to overwhelm you. So I made a few exaggerations and was more aloof to ensure that you didn’t panic. And to your credit, you took your transformation quite well. I’m pleased with your progress. I’ve only had to bail you out three times, which is impressive for a beginner. Although, regrettably, this may be the last time I was able to help you.”

  “Why?” I said, my anger dissipating for a moment.

  “It takes power to interact with the physical world even a little. And even more power to use magic for healing. I’m not immortal. I will pass on to the afterlife eventually. But not before I do my duty as a Venator and ensure this world is safe.”

  “I’m not pleased with you,” I grumbled. “But…you did save me. Twice. And I’m grateful for that.”

  “Three times,” Rashar said. “That potion I gave you right before Dette’s allies showed up?”

  “I wasn’t in danger there,” I replied, crossing my arms. “I could have won that fight sitting down.”

  “I’m counting it as three,” he chuckled. There was a slight pause and he looked down for a moment. “I’m not proud of lying to you. But I had to make a judgment call and I just couldn’t risk scaring you off.”

  “So what? You think I’m going to bring back the Venators?”

  “My visions of the future seem to indicate a return is on the horizon,” Rashar explained. “And since you are the first Venator to walk the land in a long time, it would be natural to assume that you’re the one to bring them back.”

  I chewed my lip for a moment, pondering that idea. Rashar had taught me a lot of principles that Venators were required to follow, all the while knowing that there were no other Venators out there. He had been prepping me to lead others in the old way. A whole new generation of Venators, fighting together to cleanse the surface and allow the hidden to return to their homes. Quite a lofty ambition. But I liked the idea. Rashar had seen such a thing, right? So perhaps I was the one meant to spark a new movement, either by fate or simply by Rashar’s meddling. Either way, my goals were beginning to shift a little.

  “This Dread Beast,” I said, after a few moments of pondering, “it wouldn’t allow the Venators to return. I’m assuming that it already has my scent and is heading for me. If we’re going to restart the old ways, I’ll have to find some way to kill it.” I grimaced for a moment, thinking of all the highly skilled Venators who had died to the creature all the same. “Assuming I even stand a chance.”

  “Killing the creature is not impossible,” Rashar said. “There was a reason I chose to extend my life for so long. The beast feeds on Bloodpoints, yes, but it also burns them like fuel. Once the fuel runs low, the beast weakens considerably.”

  “And you think it’s out of fuel by now?” I asked.

  “It’s been a hundred years since the last Venator walked the land,” Rashar said. “And he was a fledgling who was eaten quickly by some Kinru within the day. The Dread Beast will be vulnerable but, like any of these fiends, it will still be driven to hunt. To kill.”

  I touched the wound on my stomach and winced, recoiling from the intense pain of merely brushing a finger against it. “Well, I’m a sitting duck right now. Any chance you can tell me how far it is?”

  Rashar shook his head. “You do not smell enough for it to notice you.”

  “My assistant would say otherwise,” I said, laughing and wincing as more pain shot through my body. How in the hell was I supposed to recover from an injury this bad? Rashar had barely stitched me together with his power. Maybe Dr. Jace could fix it.

  Your Bloodpoints are low, compared to say an average hunter,” Rashar explained, interrupting my thoughts. “The beast only smells a meal worth eating. Moving, hunting, fighting, they all cost Bloodpoints for the creature. It must receive a return on its expenditure in order to sustain itself.”

  “So…theoretically, I could get the drop on this thing, couldn’t I?”

  Rashar solemnly nodded. “Yes. And I could tell you where it hibernates.”

  “When were you planning on telling me about all of this?” I asked.

  “When you killed the Ur-Beast,” Rashar said. “For that was another glimpse I had in the future. It was the glimpse that convinced me that you will be the one to return the Venators to their former glory.”

  Chapter 29

  A rolling metal tray was the only thing keeping me upright as I pushed it slowly along the ground, leaning over the top of it for support. I was far, far from stable, but Rashar had expended the last of his immense power to heal my wounds, bringing me back from the brink of death. He could no longer have an effect upon the environment and, in truth, would now have to rest for a time. Before he faded from my sight, no longer hiding the fact that he was a spirit, he had given me the location of the Dread Beast.

  Lurking deep beneath Rashar’s hut was a burrow that the Dread Beast had dug out. It was resting below, conserving its energy in order to stave off dying. It would awaken when I reached around 10,000 Bloodpoints, Rashar had explained. That would be enough to justify killing me. If the beast weren’t so mindless, it would know to wait longer and longer, so I could gain more points, but it was simply a killing machine. It had no ability to delay its own gratification. It would sense me and then hunt me as quickly as it could, feasting on my power and then returning back to its slumber.

  The time to kill this creature was now. Well not right now , as I had first to get adequate medical care. But once I was recovered, I would need to prepare to kill the creature in its hibernation. Hitting it while my power was lower than 10k would mean the beast wouldn’t be expecting me. This was my only opening. According to Rashar, the beast was in a weakened state while lying dormant. Once it was fully awake, all of its defenses would be powered by its Bloodpoint supply, making it extremely deadly, even after all these years.

  Gritting my teeth, I continued to stagger away from the apartments, towards the town. No guards were present, for everyone had feared that my sneaking around would anger the beast and bring it out to hunt. If that were the case, the townsfolk should remain hidden away. I just hoped that I could make it to the mouth of the village to call for help.

  Thankfully, I was able to get down to the village square, where a few curious guards were waiting, weapons in hand. Seeing me in my abysmal state, they were quick to escort me to their healer who began to treat my wounds. I was lucid, thanks to Rashar’s magic, and able to fill in the mayor about what happened as the healer smeared largely ineffective salves against my stitched wounds. I’d need a potion if I were to recover from what had just happened.

  Once I finished telling the story to the mayor, he merely sho
ok his head in disbelief at me. “You seriously think it’s dead?” he asked. “I can’t believe you.”

  “Believe this,” I grunted, pulling a long, broken piece of bone out of my side bag. I held it up and it shimmered with unbridled power. I felt anger radiating from the piece, as if it were unhappy to be in this state. I had better turn this into a charm before it started to grow a skeletal structure. If that were possible, of course.

  The mayor’s withered face lit up at the sight of such a strange object. He tilted his head as he inspected it, eyes sweeping up and down the long, broken femur. “Quite the prize. It’s like I can feel a heat pushing out of it.”

  “Yup,” I said, closing my eyes, feeling the burning sensation of aloe across the scrapes and cuts on my face as the healer silently rubbed ointment into my wounds. The old woman was silent, listening to my tales eagerly, no doubt with a plan to retell them to everyone within earshot as soon as her work on me was done. “The beast regenerates itself. That’s why it was so powerful. I killed it and destroyed its entire body.”

  My eyes opened wide at that realization. “Damn it!” I swore, clenching my fists. Without a corpse, I couldn’t harvest any alchemical ingredients from the beast.

  “Hold still,” the old crone said, forcing my head back as she continued to put her useless salve on me. I was completely out of Firnin and Estoan. Without anything to harvest from the dead creature, I couldn’t make a proper healing potion.

  “Are you alright, Miss Avery?” Mayor Trent asked, rising from his seat. “Do I need to leave you alone?”

  “I’m fine,” I groaned. “I just realized that the monster didn’t leave a corpse behind. I needed those ingredients to craft a healing potion.”

  Trent nodded sympathetically, glancing at my wounds and then back to me. “Are you going to make it? I don’t know how your wounds are sealed like that.”

  “Magic,” I explained, closing my eyes again. “I should survive. But it’ll be a while before I get on my feet. In the meantime, I held up my end of the bargain. The Ur-beast is dead. Those food stores are open for your scavengers to take as much as they like.”

  “Yes, of course,” Trent said. There was silence for a moment, followed by him coughing a little. “I uh…we spoke about the fate of that other monster coming.”

  “Relax, I’m on top of it,” I said, eyes still shut. From an outside perspective, a half-dead woman laid up in bed didn’t seem to be on top of things, but I knew secrets that Trent simply did not. I wasn’t worried about the creature coming. I wouldn’t be gaining any Bloodpoints during my stay in the village.

  “Good, good,” Trent said, his voice trembling. “And the beast truly is dead?”

  “I was impaled by one of your finely made spears,” I replied. “The beast lifted them in the air with its mind and fired them at me like they were arrows. Do you really think I could walk away from that without killing the thing?”

  “Impaled?” the old woman said, placing a hand on my stomach. “I thought you were just scratched up. Give me a moment, I’ve got something for that.”

  “You have something for impalements?” I asked, leaning up and opening my eyes. The old lady was digging around in a few chests to the side of the bed, looking for something.

  “That is ghastly,” Trent said. “A gruesome injury for certain…I suppose what you say is true. You could not have survived if the beast was still alive. Yes, yes, I will send scouts out at once.”

  With that, Trent scuttled out of the room, leaving me alone with the old woman who was still digging through the chest. No doubt he was eager to confirm that my words were true.

  “Here we go,” the old woman said, standing to her feet and holding a bottle up high. The bottle was shaped like an hourglass, with shimmering orange liquid within. Immediately, I could tell that this was a potion. But how did this woman get her hands on such a concoction?

  “What is it?” I asked as she brought it over to me.

  “We had a surplus of potions from the old days, when the Venators did as they pleased,” she said, handing the small bottle to me. I took it in my hands, feeling the warmth emanating from the bottle. “For serious wounds and injuries. At first, the healers before me were reticent to even use them, stashing them away in case the Venators ever returned. So much time passed and then a brave soul decided to crack open the case and use them to help the people.”

  “How many did you have?” I asked, still examining the potion. I could not recognize it, not with my current alchemy level, and I wondered if it would be dangerous to drink. Did potions even expire?

  “A few hundred,” the woman continued as she went back to cleaning my wounds. “We used them in only the worst of situations. The few that remain are for specialty cases. Poisoning, foreign disease, bone loss.”

  “Did you say bone loss?” I asked, glancing up from the potion.

  “Venators had the strangest of concoctions. Anyway, this one is for severe internal injuries,” the old woman continued. “We haven’t had such worries in this village. The biggest danger is from a tunnel collapse and if you get hit by the rocks, well, you aren’t coming back anyway. So help yourself. Just be warned, the potions do have side effects. I don’t know what this one does. That was another reason we were slow to use them at first.”

  I looked at the glistening orange liquid and squinted. This would heal my serious injuries, sure, but what would the side effects be? Perhaps I could increase my alchemy skills before drinking, to ensure I at least knew what I was getting myself into. I didn’t need some mystery adverse effect kicking in when fighting the Dread Beast, after all.

  With 3,000 Bloodpoints to spend, I didn’t feel bad about taking two more alchemy skills, Physiological Examination and Enhanced Mixtures, for 300 points total. This increased my alchemy level to 4 and, at once, I was able to identify this potion.

  Potion of Hidden Damages:

  Cost: 600 Firnin, 600 Estoan

  Duration: Instant

  Effects: Consuming this potion repairs all internal injury, regenerating the organs as if they were that of a healthy young adult. Consumes muscle mass and stored energy to make the repairs.

  Side Effects: Lose 1 point of strength and dexterity permanently.

  “Yeesh,” I muttered as I discovered the side effects of this potion. Burning my own strength and dexterity in order to heal up? No wonder this potion was left in storage for so long. I had enough dexterity, but strength? I’d be back down to a measly one. I wouldn’t have been strong enough to dislodge the spear from my body with a strength of one. Should I just tough this out and wait to recover? What if I never fully recovered?

  In the palm of my hand was the power to walk right out of the building, with a spring in my step. Albeit, that spring wouldn’t be nearly as coordinated as before. Was it worth the cost? Perhaps Jace would have a better insight into this. The only question was: how was I going to get to him?

  Chapter 30

  A solid week passed while I rested, tended to by Jennifer Sands, Olmstead’s only healer. Just as I had promised, the apartments were now safe and a great deal of food was brought to the village square. For the first time, everyone could eat to their fill, including myself. It had been so long since I had eaten until I was no longer hungry, I couldn’t possibly imagine the feeling until after I had eaten an entire jar of pickled mushrooms by myself. It was good to be nourished.

  My body began to heal faster, once I was eating regularly, and within the week, I was able to get up and walk around. Sudden movements would still hurt and I couldn’t stay on my feet for too long before I grew winded, but things were looking up.

  Yet the potion sat on my bed stand, as if waiting for me to finally break and drink it down. Returning to full strength instantly was tempting, but if I was already feeling better after having had a few decent meals, perhaps Rashar’s magic had repaired enough of me to naturally heal.

  I had tried to call Rashar to my side, so I could ask about the nature of the heali
ng spell he used, but such efforts failed. Either he couldn’t hear me or wasn’t interested in responding. Either way, I was still without answers. All I could do was wait for the tunnel to be finished.

  With enough food to provide for both villages, Mayor Trent was more than willing to dig out tunnels that connected to Hunter’s Hope. This would allow me to move the old workshop to Olmstead, as well as Cranston’s forge. This village had no shortage of blacksmiths and they would happily aid my own people in whatever they needed. Cranston would become my full-time, private blacksmith. This was good, because I’d need plenty of gear built, now that Trent was more than willing to give us all the metal ore we required.

  Two weeks passed while I idly spent my time choosing my next skill upgrades. Taking the Spellbow subclass had granted me the Magician Skill list. The price for Tier 1 Magician Skills were double that of the rest, meaning I’d be spending 300 points for just one new ability. Still, I was starting to run low on the rest of my Tier 1 skills, having now unlocked Tier 2 in Alchemy and Tier 3 for Acrobatics. I scanned my options and pondered what I should take next.

  Trapper Tier One:

  -

  Snare Trap Blueprint: Allows for the creation of rope snares

  -

  Trapsetter I: Increases speed of crafting and trapping by 50%.

  Archer Tier One:

  - Swift Hands I: Load arrows faster

  Archer Tier Two:

  -

  Focus Breaker: A shot to a weak spot will now interrupt charges and special attacks

  -

  Sniper’s Aim: Increase range by 30 feet.

  Tracker Tier One:

  -

  Recognizable Scent: Improves sense of smell

  -