《Sonny Samhain》6: My New Job
Advertisement
Old Corny might have been an extreme extrovert, but I’m not the kind that’s good with strangers. A bunch of ‘overly friendly’ out-of-towners came sprinting in my direction.
They looked positively happy to see me, their emaciated faces, pulled taut into a rictus smile. Their tattered clothes because they were moving so fast.
The chubby bloke in the middle lost his shirt revealing a torn torso, with some of the insides spilling out, looking a little bit like dried sausage links. Their hands were all outstretched, like they all want to either give me the biggest hug or the best high five.
Unfortunately touching and physical contact isn’t much my thing, so I side-stepped them.
These guys were quite the persistent lot though. All the denizens of the Outside or Outer-world were. The skinny woman in the torn leather armor lurched after me. Her fat friend with his innards leaking, tried to tackle me. The third one with no arms was a bit slow on the pick-up but that was fine.
I’d found that in this new life avoidance wasn’t always the best policy, sometimes you just have to deal with things head on. Thus I swung my cricket bat and knocked off the heads of the friendly miss and the armless one.
As for the fat one, him I just pushed with my free hand. His rotund form suddenly accelerating at my touch. Hurtling through brick and plaster till it finally found itself airborne. Flying from a newly made hole that had been blown through the side of the building by his girth.
My new friends were gone, but the noise I’d made, running around with those out-of-towners and getting rid of that last guy, brought others, who were just as eager to meet me.
*****
So, I’m a hunter now. It was surprisingly easy. Almost scarily so. All it took was me going up to one of the city’s Hunter Adminstration Offices, saying I wanted to be a hunter, and then filling out some paperwork.
Advertisement
I mean, there wasn’t even a test. I know, I know, I might have made a big deal about how much harder it was for people to be killed or die. I think I might have over-exaggerated there.
People could definitely die permanently, they died every day in fact, just like in the world I came from. It was just that it took slightly more, and that there was a fair chance that they, or something that at least looked like them, would come back.
And even then there was a limit, to how much they could rely on that before they could be expected to simply fall to the earth and become dust and nothingness, their spirits becoming part of the mists that covered everything in the Outside.
Honestly the most apt description would be to imagine this as the kind of world where everyone had lovely green bars that tracked how much damage they could take before they died. And a little icon with their faces on it, that tracked how many times they could die, before it was game over.
It wasn’t really like that. At least ‘I’ hadn’t noticed anything that convenient hanging around the corners of ‘my’ eyes, but that was more or less how the world worked.
*****
After having met and parted with, a crowd of ten to twenty, severed ‘friends’. I made my way to the hole that the fat one had fallen through. I stepped out into the empty air and let gravity pull me down to the street.
The sidewalk shook a little, and the concrete beneath my feet crumbled in a way that might have gotten me in trouble if I was inside one of the Inner-territories but all in all, it was a pretty good landing. At least an eight out of ten. Not outstanding by any means but still very solid.
Advertisement
I started walking as soon as my legs stopped tingling from the long fall. Heading deeper into the misty wastes of the Outside.
*****
Did I already mention that I only just recently joined the hunters? I think I did. It turns out that being a newbie in the hunters was like being a newbie in any other organization.
Basically you kind of had to start from the bottom and make your way up the ranks. Going from G to A with the top rank being S(for star).
*****
I found myself in a clearing where there were either no buildings nearby or they’d all been knocked down like a child’s abandoned toys. A man stepped out from one of those overturned buildings.
He was large, about ten feet or so in height and built like an SUV. Bulky, and meant to take punishment.
He was dressed in a mixture of the typical out-of-towner rags and bits off metal scrap and he was armed with a bent stop sign, that he must have wrenched out from the ground somewhere. With a fair amount of concrete still attached to the end of it.
I think I might be more good looking then I previously thought, because he saw me and his eyes began to glow and drool began flow from his mouth, as sticky spittle.
I was appreciative of the attentions and very flatter, but as I already had a wife at home, I was forced to rebuff his advances.
Lightly pushing him away with my palm, though he might have taken it a bit badly and went flying back in his dwelling. Dramatically crashing through the outer walls of what seemed to have been some kind of military fort or bank.
Dust and rubble issuing from the hole that he’d made in his home with his high speed entrance.
*****
As always, these awkward little tete-a-tete were made all the more awkward because hunters were required to take three things from their quarry.
The first was a photo, taken with one’s cellphone. The second was the magic core. The essence stone. All the creatures of the outside had them. Actually all creatures on the inside had them too.
The only thing was that essence cores of human revenants didn’t calcify and magic stones until they became severed undead.
As for the third thing, that was quite simple, the third that one needed to take was anything else. Anything else that might be of use, or worth selling that was one the creature or in its dwelling.
Be it skins, bones or fur, or the loot and goods of any unfortunates that happened to be present. Any that was worth money was to be collected. It wasn’t so much a rule but it was expected.
Especially since at least half of your average hunter’s income was based on the worth of whatever they’d managed to find while travelling the Outer-wastes.
There were also the dog tags of other,’less fortunate’ hunters, which was expected to pick up as courtesy to the families of the deceased. The Guild paid for them of course but it was just a little change, given as incentive for those might not do it otherwise.
Not that I’m complaining, after all I only took this job because I have a family to support.
Advertisement
- In Serial71 Chapters
Dead Tired
A young man stumbles into a deep, lost cavern, he seeks power and prestige, the ability to become someone, anyone, worthy of praise. When he finds an ancient crypt festooned in jewels and precious things he thinks himself the luckiest man alive. And then the lich in that crypt wakes up and kills him. That’s me. I’m the lich. Honestly, I just want to go back to sleep, and there’s no one, no ‘god emperor,’ sect, or uptight martial artist that’s going to stop me. Join the Official Discord to participate in discussions and view the next chapter being written live!
8 687 - In Serial151 Chapters
Emperor of Blue Flower Mountain
**NOT ON HIATUS! Updates are just slow right now!** Once upon a time, there lived two great and mighty spirits on the mountain. One loved humans, the other hated them. When their differences could not be reconciled, they came to blows, and the human loving spirit was chased out.Now there is only one spirit on the mountain. He sits on the peaks, looking down on those below him. Disaster and death is his reputation, and it is well earned. He is the Fairy Emperor, the King, and no one dares disobeys him. But he is empty on the inside.For he is alone.When anger and jealousy take everything, only love can create something new. This is a story of hope, redemption, and second chances.---- Discord for early releases and FREE STUFF: https://discord.gg/Q2tQhQH ---- Book 1: Empress of Blue Flower Mountain - Complete Book 2:Emperor of Blue Flower Mountain - In Progress Book 3:Princes of Blue Flower Mountain - N/A Cover done by me, the Author.
8 495 - In Serial43 Chapters
Voices at Sunset
Sartore is a young boy in a village, quiet and shy. He seems left out, both by the village's celebrations and whatever friends he thinks he has. Amidst one of those traditions, something snags Sartore's eyes and ears: an inaudible whisper in the back of his head. He follows where it seems to lead him, to a lake behind his house, to watch the sunset. Behind him, all the villagers freeze halt their revelry upon the approach of an army.
8 144 - In Serial14 Chapters
ARRANGED MARRIAGE [ JJK ]
❝ Jungkook has always been afraid of falling in love. But what happens when he is forced to marry a girl who's already heartbroken? ❞©JEONLUVV
8 161 - In Serial20 Chapters
Just go with it | Falice fanfiction
Inspired by the movie starring Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston. His heart recently broken, Plastic Surgeon FP Jones, pretends to be married so he can enjoy future dates with no strings attached. His web of lies works, but when he meets Gladys -- the gal of his dreams -- she resists involvement. Instead of coming clean, FP enlists Alice, his assistant, to pose as his soon-to-be-ex-wife. Instead of solving FP's problems, the lies create more trouble.
8 117 - In Serial52 Chapters
sincerely yours, | heejake
"Promises are meant to be broken, right?"- completed
8 163