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

by Freaks, LitRPG

Such power gained in so little time. I had essentially cleaned up the entire surrounding area, save for one immensely powerful, world-shattering Titan. Mulrand was out there, although I had only encountered him one time, when he had ironically saved my life by simply reaching down and grabbing a Kinru for a meal. But even then, I had been so injured that I hadn’t quite seen the creature. I knew the legends, however, of Mulrand’s might and power. His ability to destroy anything mankind had to throw at him. I would not be able to fight him alone. This much, I knew.

  I felt a nervousness well up in my stomach as I stared at the ceiling, mapping out the future in my head. So much was murky, but there was a singular vision, crystal clear that formed in my mind. There were eight men and women who had volunteered, this much I knew. And it was on me to recruit them, to rebuild the Venators’ Lodge like in the old days. I just hoped that Olmstead and Hunter’s Hope wouldn’t oppose my plan. If we were going to win this war and return to the surface, I needed other Venators by my side. There was simply no other way.

  Chapter 37

  Two villages and two elders. I’d need to convince each elder to allow me to begin recruiting if I were going to be able to ever defeat Mulrand. Having increased my charisma with the Fylk charm, I made my way to the easier of the two: Mayor Trent.

  Finding him wasn’t too difficult, for he was always working directly upstairs of my workshop, studying charts, planning mining activities and building ration schedules. I had to admire his discipline, for after everyone had eaten so well, he was quick to order a return to a rationing system, in order to make all the food last much, much longer than it was intended. Many people were unhappy with this, but the old man had not cared how much they grumbled. His job was to ensure that survival was a long-term affair, not a short but comfortable stint. This led me to believe that he would be willing to allow me to recruit in his village.

  “How’s the heart, old man?” I asked, sitting down on the chair across from his desk.

  “Somehow it would seem to be getting better,” Trent said, not looking up from his work. “Your doctor has forced me to consume pills and has me on a very specific exercise regimen. I don’t much care for it.”

  “Jace knows his stuff,” I replied. “Well, at least, he knows how to take care of people with bum hearts.”

  “Indeed,” Trent murmured, his eyes scanning some map of a gold mine. “We may need to begin issuing out currency so our villages can conduct trade. Profit motive may improve our workers morale…”

  I wasn’t sure whether he was talking to me or himself, but I ignored his talk of money. Instead, I knocked on the desk to get his attention. The old man looked up at me, annoyed by my presence. “Can I help you, ma’am?”

  “The Dread Beast is gone,” I said. “I killed it.”

  Trent nodded at that. “I have no doubt. If you could kill the beast in the apartments, you could just about kill anything.”

  “Not quite,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I…I need people.”

  “You’ve been assigned a staff, and you have Dette,” Trent said. “I can’t spare any more hands on your projects.”

  “Not staff,” I said, centering myself. “Trent, I need hunters .”

  The old man ceased his idly reflection on the papers and looked back at me, locking onto my eyes with his. He narrowed his brows and frowned, but I could see that he wasn’t quite taken aback as I had expected. “You want to take some villagers and train them?”

  “Yes. Training is a bit of a complicated word, because there is a process to becoming like me, and it’s not easy,” I said. “I’ll spare you the details, but I need volunteers and I need them for life.”

  “For life,” Trent muttered. “And how long would that be for the boys and girls who raise their hands, wowed by the cool lady with the bow? Ten days? A month? Twenty minutes on the surface? I should think not.”

  “No, no teenagers, no children,” I said. “Adults, like me. Capable of reason and able to understand that they might not come back.”

  “So instead of youths, you want workers, laborers and farmers,” he grumbled. “We just found a great deal of seeds in one of the apartments. A farm is underway as we speak. Go to your own village and find a few people who have given up the will to live. There is no one for you here.”

  “Do you really believe that?” I quietly asked. The old man frowned at me and tilted his head.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you really believe that you can’t spare anyone?” I clarified. “That farming is more important than returning to the surface?”

  “Return to the surface?” Trent repeated. “What are you on about?”

  “The Zinoss Jungle is clear,” I said, tapping my fingers on one of his maps of the area. “The entire area is completely cleaned out of Kinru, or Clickies as you call them, Fitzons are gone, the Ur-beast is long dead and I can sense whenever something new arrives to eradicate it. Did you know a farm can do much, much better if the sun is above it?”

  “Don’t take that patronizing tone with me, Avery,” Mayor Trent growled. He looked down at the map and his expression softened. “But it’s really clear?”

  “All but one monster.”

  “Our good friend Mulrand,” Trent sighed. “I understand the predicament.”

  “You’re the one who’s willing to make the hard decisions,” I said, sitting up. “Now, Trent, I need you to make the hardest of choices. I need you to let me recruit.”

  Trent furrowed his brow and rubbed his chin for a moment. “Have you spoken to your elder yet? About all of this?”

  “I picked you first because you’re more likely to see reason than her,” I replied, swallowing.

  “You’re just like Higgins,” Trent chuckled. “Asking Dad instead of Mom because you know he’s more lenient. But it’s not going to work that way. I can sign off on this, but only if Verna will. She and I have had a few dinners together. We’ve been discussing the idea of merging villages. Verna’s much younger than me and seems to have the right kind of guff for this work, after all she’s kept your sorry lot alive with far less than we have. My son’s a good boy, but I think it’s time for my lineage to let go of the reins, so to speak.”

  Merging villages? This was a surprise. But then again, I was so busy with my own little world that I had not paid any attention to the twin villages’ reaction to each other’s existence. “You don’t think Higgins is cut out for leadership?”

  Trent shrugged. “Who do you think your first volunteer will be?”

  “You’d let your son do this?”

  “It’s better than choosing who starves and who gets to eat when times get tough,” Trent replied. “Our lineage was full of men and women willing to do the hard thing, to make sacrifices. I can’t ask him to be any different than the rest of us. And besides, my boy becomes a Venator? I couldn’t think of anything more prestigious.”

  I stood from my chair and bowed to the mayor. “I thank you for your time,” I said. “I’ll return once I’ve spoken to Verna.”

  “You can challenge her,” Trent said as I turned around to walk off. I stopped and looked back at him. The old man was grinning mischievously.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Verna will not cooperate, you can challenge her position as elder,” Trent said. He pointed to a stack of books. “It’s all in your village bylaws. Any individual who fears that their elder is not adequately providing for the village has the rights to challenge eldership and call for an election.”

  “You think she won’t cooperate?” I asked.

  Trent shrugged. “I don’t know. But the fact is, Olmstead can’t afford to lose more than two or three people at the most. And I don’t expect that three lousy Venators could kill a Titan. The bulk of your people will have to come from Hunter’s Hope.”

  “I didn’t know we had such a law,” I said, picking up a thick tome that read Democratic Village Model Bylaws . This book was not handbound, but rather had gone through a printin
g press, like the books of old. A chill ran down my spine as I flipped through the rules and realized how intricate the village’s rules were.

  “Well, lawyers tend to be the first to go during an apocalypse,” Trent replied. “Most people don’t care for arguing about rules when there’s monsters on the loose. But Verna provided me with this book and she certainly follows the rules in place. So, if you can’t get her to agree one way, take her position for your own. Merge the village, hand administrative control to me and then do what you will.”

  “I don’t want to steal the village from her!” I exclaimed, putting my hands up as if that somehow absolved me of the grievous sin Trent was speaking about.

  “Avery, if you want to kill that Titan, you have to be willing to do whatever it takes,” Trent replied. “This should be a last resort, of course. You want cooperation from Verna. But…if you want to change the world, you’ve got to make the hard choices.”

  Chapter 38

  If body language could kill, I’d have died the moment I finished my speech to Verna. Despite my enhanced Charisma, I could see that my words did not move her one iota. The woman had her arms crossed and she was scowling at me deeply. We were sitting in her office, and I was thankful there was a desk between us, because she looked as if she were about ready to strangle me.

  “So…” I said sheepishly, all of my confidence draining under the burning gaze of my elder, “what do you think?”

  Verna closed her eyes and put her fingers on her temples, sighing in exasperation. “You’ve got to be kidding me, Avery.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I know we had a deal—”

  “Yes, we had a deal!” Verna almost shouted. She realized her voice was growing too loud and she quieted down a little, as to not attract attention to the outside. “We agreed that no one in this village would know of your abilities.”

  “You were afraid of losing people to a foolish fantasy,” I argued. “And you were right, at the time. But I’m strong now. Stronger than ever before. I can protect volunteers until they have what it takes to fight along my side.”

  “We destroyed the sign to this village, long ago,” Verna said, quivering with anger. Her eyes were alight with the fury of a woman who held tightly to history above all else. “We buried our own name and forgot it. I’ve been to Olmstead twice, now. Twice. And do you know what I see? I see what would have happened to our own village, had we not lost all of our young to idiotic dreams of becoming a Venator. I see a village that is thriving.”

  I laughed at that. I didn’t mean to show such a sign of disrespect for my elder, but at the same time, her views on Olmstead were greatly skewed.

  “What’s so funny?” Verna asked.

  I glanced around for a moment, just out of sheer caution, then leaned in close to the desk. “You think Olmstead was in good shape when I found it? You have no idea how desperate they were. How hungry and afraid they were. Mayor Trent? He was so desperate he was considering invading you.”

  “What?” Verna gasped, leaning back. All the redness in her cheeks faded and I could see her face turn as white as a bone. “What do you mean?”

  “They knew you have some food, the Kinru meat I had brought back from a run. They were so hungry and desperate to survive, they considered digging that tunnel not for peace, as they now claim, but for war. Armed with iron spears, tough miners would have arrived to take what we had by force. And you know the worst part? It wasn’t out of malice or hatred, just true desperation.”

  “Trent never told me as such,” Verna whispered.

  “I almost died for that village, just to provide them with food,” I continued, pressing my advantage. My words had rattled Verna enough to create an opening for me to make my case. “You think I was risking my life so a bunch of strangers could eat? No, I was risking my life so that you wouldn’t have to deal with an army kicking down the storehouse and taking what they needed. You look at them like they were some kind of successful experiment, like your own village got the short end of the stick, but let’s face it, we’re all screwed. There’s not a village out there that won’t face destruction at some point.”

  Verna said nothing. A pained expression came across her face. I continued, pushing harder. “We are on a clock. You know it, I know it and Trent knows it. Mankind was never meant to live like this. The only way for us to survive, truly, is to return to the surface. And I can’t kill that Titan alone. I can’t save humanity alone.”

  “No one’s asking you save humanity,” Verna whispered.

  “But who will if we don’t?” I replied, standing and putting my hands on the desk. I looked Verna right in her eyes. “Give me volunteers. No one under 21, so if things go south, we will still have people to work. I just need people.”

  “Take Trent’s people. I don’t understand why he thinks mining is so important. His mandate wasn’t even for mining, it was for architecture.”

  “Mandate?” I asked.

  Verna waved a hand dismissively. “Every village was strategically placed, with a mandate to perform some kind of work. The pipe dream was that we would retreat underground but only temporarily. Just long enough for us to develop a strategy to kill the monsters and Titans above the surface. But that was so long ago.”

  “What was our village’s mandate?” I asked. “Our purpose?”

  Verna said nothing at first. I could see the hesitation on her face, as if she knew what my response would be once she told me. A moment passed of her calculating something and then, finally, she spoke. “You’re going to laugh. We were supposed to be the Venator training ground.”

  “Don’t you see?” I said. “This is our destiny. Verna, you can’t fight what is in our village’s blood.”

  “I can when it will be the end of our village,” she said. “We threw our mandate away and decided to make do with what we have.”

  “And how did that work out for you?” I asked.

  “You can’t condemn me for the state of our village!” she shouted, slamming her hands on the table. This burst of anger and the sound took me by surprise and I was quick to hop back. Adrenaline surged through my body and every muscle became ready for combat.

  “What are you doing?” Verna gasped, sliding back in her chair, putting her hands up.

  “What?” I said. I glanced down to see that, in response to the shout, I had drawn my bow and loaded an arrow at the same time. My heart was jackhammering and I realized that the surprise had put me into a combat state. Slowly, I put the arrow back in my quiver and slung the bow over my shoulder. With trembling hands, I sat down.

  “Sorry, you uh, you startled me with that shout and the noise,” I meekly said, all of my bravado fading. What had just happened?

  Verna, sensing that something deeper was at play here, cooled down and returned to her seat. “Let’s take things down a little,” she quietly said. I nodded at that and caught my breath, forcing myself to calm down. My heart was still pounding, but the adrenaline was beginning to fade.

  “You’ve got the Hunter’s Stare,” Verna whispered. “Fighting too much can make a Venator a little jumpy.”

  “No kidding,” I said, looking at my still trembling hands. They refused to cease quaking. This was a vulnerable moment for me, in a way, to have suddenly lost control like that. “Verna, I can’t do this alone. I need more support than people willing to make gear for me while I hunt. You must give me your blessing.”

  Verna swallowed hard. “You will condemn them to die.”

  “But in doing so, we will give the remaining humans in this world a chance to live. To live up on the surface,” I pleaded. “You’ve seen the toll this takes on me. I can’t bear this burden alone. I can’t defeat Mulrand by myself. I don’t hold you responsible for the current state of our village. You’re doing the best you can with the worst possible hand. But know this, I will hold you responsible for the state of our village going forward. Will you raise us up to the surface? Or condemn everyone, the potential volunteers included, to di
e in a world without the sun?”

  “Will…” Verna said, stammering. “Will I learn to cast spells?”

  “What?” I asked, a little confused by her question.

  “If you’re going to recruit, then I’ll be the first to join,” Verna replied. “I can’t ask anyone to do something I’m not willing to do myself.”

  “But you have a village to run.”

  “Not if you build the lodge here. There were stories of monsters who sought out the blood of Venators. They must be kept separate from the people,” Verna said. “I’ve been in talks about merging villages. Let Trent take care of the citizenry, those apartments are far bigger than both villages put together.”

  “You’d give up leadership, just like that?”

  Verna nodded. “I’m not a leader because I think it’ll be a fun thing to do. I’m not here because I have an ego. My job is, and has always been, to serve the people. If you really, truly think we have a chance of killing Mulrand, then I want to be a part of that. Assuming I can pass the physical requirements.”

  “Well,” I said, scrutinizing the woman. She wasn’t particularly athletic, nor was she out of shape. More or less, she was in the same basic condition I had been before my own transformation. “The good news is that you don’t really need a particular fitness level to join.”

  “Good,” Verna said. “In my time of studying, there was talk about Venators who used spells instead of swords. I like that idea.”

  “So…we have a deal then? You’ll let me recruit?”

  “I’ll handle the recruitment,” Verna said. “You might be the one with the combat expertise, but I know how to manage organizations.” She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “I’ll draft up the paperwork to dismantle the village and transfer authority to Trent.”

  “Will the people take it well?”

  “They might be uncomfortable with the new changes, but they’ll forget the stress of this transition when they see the sun for the very first time.”

  Epilogue