Tatatatata! Bang!

After this burst of intense gunfire, the last assailant fell dead to the ground. Inside a spacious hall, the dimly lit granite floor and ornamented walls were densely ridden with bullets and claw marks. The air reeked of iron from the fresh blood of numerous corpses strewn all over the underground temple. Amongst the dead were black-hooded pale men, women with ghastly tattoos on their face, a mutated two-headed 'Shadow Wolf', and even a few silver-furred werewolves.

The group responsible for this one-sided massacre sat leisurely on an elevated platform, cleaning their equipment. One of them, a bright young man in a military uniform imprinted with the logo of the explorer foundation, expressed his amusement.

“Seems like the ‘Ascendancy Order’ finally takes us seriously. This time they even have sent their rabid hunting dogs after us.”

A cold but clear voice rang out, hiding a certain undertone. “I have told you how dangerous it would be to follow me. This has only been the beginning. After all, in the eyes of the ‘Ascendancy Order,’ we just have risen from the threat level of an insignificant fly to an annoying little kitten. The cult still hasn’t shown us their most vicious cards. If you want to live a safe life, then now is the time to bail out. ……Though, I am glad that you are all here with me.” The voice of the socially awkward Asian swordsman fell at the end while he looked downwards, masking an imperceptible smile.

Another tall young man, resembling someone who was originally fat but found for himself the perfect bodybuilding exercises and was now a beefy cuddly bear, grinned and wrapped an arm around the swordsman. “Why so cold, Lee? Didn't we swear to protect one another no matter what? Aren’t we pals now? Hah, let them come, if they want to harm you, then they must go through big bro Barry first!”

The man in a military uniform playfully rebutted. “Peh, you big oaf cannot even protect your own pants from being stolen, let alone protect Lee, who is the strongest in our group. If Lee’s System hasn’t warned us of the cult member's arrival beforehand, then we wouldn’t have the time or mind to set up such an elaborate and successful ambush. Lee could have eventually dealt with this situation even without our help. By the way, Lee, what is the final rating of your system for this mission?”

“‘A’ rank. Tsk, this is because we let the leader escape. Who would have thought that that bastard had a getaway-type soul artifact? Marco, we need to get a corresponding type of soul artifact so that this kind of incident doesn’t happen again.”

The young man in a military uniform called Marco nodded affirmatively. “So, where are we going now? What is our next goal?”

Lee concentrated for a while and then answered with a heavy mood. “The next clue is in Techma. It is a world of steampunk and monster hunting. My system gives the mission a danger level of four stars, half a star more than the previous mission. We ought to prepare well.”

Barry turned to the fourth and last member of the group who stayed silent until now, a scrawny red-headed girl around 18-years of age. “Rosie, are you coming with us, or will you continue to work here as an underground guide? Accompanying us will undoubtfully be dangerous, but I believe it is still better than remaining in a barren world like UW11. Also, I will definitely do my best to protect you.” Barry thumped confidently against his muscular chest.

Unimpressed, Rosie scoffed. “You still haven’t paid me for my services.”

Barry winked bashfully. “Hahaha, I will transfer the credits to your account, the moment we get back and some more.”

“Markus, Markus, MARKUS!”

Someone shook and yelled at me.

“Stop daydreaming! We are still in a precarious environment. There is no end to this darn forest. Moreover, I am getting hungry and thirsty, my foot hurts from traversing the wilderness in slippers for hours, and it will get dark soon. What do we do now? I don’t want to sleep in this monster forest, even with the Observer Status on.”

Sigh, I reluctantly withdrew my thoughts of Marco’s adventure and focused on the matter at hand.

“Calm down, Stefan. Look, are there not berries in the bush? I believe they are 'diarberries'. People in Techma often supplement their food rations with these nutritious berries. They are so juicy they will even quell your thirst. Just remember to not eat them together with ‘rheaberries’, or your bowels will experience a great exodus.”

I harvested some attractive 'diarberries' and gulped them down. Not very sweet, but still tasty. Their form reminisced me of raspberries, however, in orange color.

Stefan was first skeptical but then followed my lead and swallowed some berries too. Judging from his expression he liked them very much.

We decided to eat our fill here. Unfortunately, there weren't enough berries to store them for the journey. A good ten minutes later Stefan suddenly beckoned to me.

“Hey, Markus, is that some kind of sign?” Stefan pointed with his finger at a thick and gnarled tree.

I was confused by my best friend’s question until I looked closer. The symbol of an unknown horned animal or monster was engraved by knife on the tree bark along with three vertical lines above it. It felt oddly familiar. Weird, where have I seen that before?

Then it hit me all at once. The pullock, the diarberries, the airship, “The third Hunting Ground!”

Probably shocked by my sudden outcry, Stefan shrank back.

“Sorry, but I have discovered something major. How have I not noticed it until now? ‘The third Hunting Ground’ was the title of chapter 64 in my novel. In that chapter, I described a forest where explorer teams can hunt monsters for their various valuable body parts, including a pullock. The borders of the ‘hunting ground’ were marked by a symbol of an ‘elkrich’, an animal similar to an elk but bigger, and three vertical lines signify the number 3. Now we come to the important part. The third hunting ground is only a few hours away from T-E24MH. Isn’t that great news!!!”

…

I waited for Stefan to leap in delight, but there was no reaction at all.

“Ehhh, T-24 something, something, is that some kind of Terminator, or what?”

“What? Terminator? What have you…. Oh! Right, you have told me before that you only read my novel up to chapter 6. This was explained in chapter 7. Well, in short, T-E24MH is the name of a city, or more precisely, a terminal city.

A portal to another dimension can only be opened at a fixed position, this has something to do with leylines and stuff, I don’t want to bore you, and it will always lead to the same place in the target dimension with at most a kilometer variance. Though, that variance has been eliminated thanks to the newest technology of the explorer foundation. Anyway, these locations, where one can transfer to and from other dimensions are called terminals. There is only one of them in each dimension, and there will always be cities built around them. The main terminal city gets the designation T- before its name. The other numbers and letters are there to describe it. For example, E24 stands for when the city was founded, and MH stands for monster hunting, the dimension's main purpose. There are also other abbreviations like RE for resort or FM for farming.

What I want to say is, we are very close to a city now!”

Finally, there was some expression on Stefan’s face, but it was a rather doubtful mien, not the happy celebration face I expected.

“You have said the terminal city is a few hours away. By foot or by vehicle? Do you know in which direction? When we were fleeing, I have lost track of our original direction. Can we still reach the city before nightfall?”

…

“It doesn’t matter. I never had any expectations, to begin with.”

Ouch. This statement hurt me more than the thorny bush from before.

It was on me to change Stefan’s mind. “Trust me, my sense of direction is unrivaled. I wandered around town once and found one of the best burger places I have ever visited. The next day it only took me half an hour to locate the store again.”

“Was that the same burger joint, not even ten minutes from your home, that you have once taken me to?”

…

He knew too much. “Well, you can at least trust my luck for sure that is my forte. My win-loss ratio in coin tosses is unsurpassed.”

Stefan facepalmed. “Ugh, stop it, just pick a direction.”

Great, music in my ears. That elkrich-symbol on the tree bark was slightly looking to the left, so that must be the right way. I had a good feeling. “Let’s go!”

Whooshh!

Something small ran past us so fast that we could only see a blur. Before I could comprehend what happened, a big shadow flew over us at an even more mind-blowing speed chasing the smaller shadow.

Booom!

Around 20 meters away from us, the significantly larger shadow landed heavily on top of the smaller one and pinned it down.

Wait, that humanoid shape, could it be? I jogged closer to get a better look, fully trusting in my camouflaging skill. Standing at over 2m, the creature had bulging muscles all over its body, arthropod-like mandibles, and long, hair-like appendages on its head which are set into its skulls. It looked physically very similar to the predators from the movie of the same name, only lacking the indication of high intelligence. Instead of the diverse arsenal of hunting weapons and body armor, this creature had a red insect-like carapace and long, sharp, metallic claws. I gave them the name ‘primal predator’ in my novel.

The primal predator picked up its struggling prey, some sort of badger but with a straight obsidian-colored horn on its forehead, with his right hand and did something to it that I couldn’t see clearly. Then it clammed the now limp prey, together with similar creatures, under his left arm.

It seemed like it is done with hunting today because it walked away at a leisurely pace.

“Hey, Stefan, we should follow it.”

Stefan looked at me as if I was a lunatic. “Are you out of your mind?! Why would you follow a monster that gives the impression of being able to rip you in half with no apparent effort? Where is the logic in this?

“No, no, we have great luck in meeting this primal predator. Trust me, a fortune is waiting for us. Now quick, it is getting out of sight. Even if it is just walking, it is still very fast because of its superior physical traits.”

I swiftly ran after the creature. I traversed a hidden path, jumped over a creek, stomped over muddy earth, pushed underbrush aside, and 20 minutes later, we arrived at the primal predator’s lair. Maybe the creature’s presence drove them away, but I hadn’t detected any other monsters on our way.

Stefan wiped the sweat from his face. “So, where is the legendary artifact?”

???

“What legendary artifact? Look, do you see the little creatures under the primal predators' arm? They are ‘treasurehorns', a type of badger with a beautiful black unicorn horn on their forehead. Primal predators love their flavor and hunt them all day. They are also one of the rare hunter races in this forest who are fast enough to make them their central food source. The thing is, the primal predators only eat the meat and throws the horns away. For this reason, there are a ton of nice horns near their lair ripe for our picking.”

“Please, tell me this is a joke. We have done all that just for some horns!?”

“They are not just ‘some horns’. These are treasurehorns horns. Merchants and blacksmiths in Techma are willing to pay a fortune for them. The horns are closer to metal than organic and are excellent material for many types of equipment. Nearly all cores of exoskeleton suits have them as their fundamental material. If we sell them in a city, we will become rich.”

“Sigh, we don’t even know where those cities are! Priority, Markus, PRIORITY!”

“Okay, okay, you don’t need to shout. We will just take some of the horns and then be on our way again, alright?”

Stefan gave me a sloppy go-sign, and we searched for the discarded horns. Luckily, we found them very soon near a pile of bones outside the cave. The ends of the hand-sized horns were broken off with massive force, and the blood on them had long since dried up. We took as many as possible and stuffed them inside whatever pocket was available. Soon we were walking through the forest again, having no further business with the primal predator.

A while later, we came across a wide forest road.

“See, Stefan, my intuition never fails me.”

…

For some reason, Stefan was ignoring me since the story with the horns.

“Now, we just need to follow the road. Before you can even say monster, we'll be in the city.”

“Wraaauuggghh!”

…

“Hey, Stefan, do you think it is the same pullock from before?” I tried to remove Stefan’s hand from his face.

Zisshhhh! Bang! Boom! “Wraaauuggghh!”

Together with the furious cry of the pullock came the sound of battle, and it was approaching fast. Suddenly the pullock broke through the foliage in front of us. Green blood flowed from its heavily wounded body. We swiftly stepped back.

“Waaaah!”

A man in a Bioshock-like platinum power armor with the stature and bearing of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson pursued the pullock. That man held a gigantic platinum ax with blue electrical arcs visibly flowing across its blade. A right swing. An overhead cleave. A sneaking tentacle parried. With overwhelming momentum, he battled the pullock head-on.

The pullock was reeling and decided to pull an all-out attack. It threw itself at the man in the power armor, hoping to crush him under its body weight, and completely abandoned any defense. With its absurd vitality, it would surely come out ahead.

Bang!

That’s when a gunshot rang out again, and a hole opened from the monster's forehead all through its entire head. Right afterward, a Latin woman with olive-colored skin jumped to the side of the pullock and opened fire with her twin pistols. A rocket launcher was strapped on her back, and the only word that came to my mind when I saw her was ‘ripped’.

As if the unfair assault wasn’t enough, a middle-aged man with strong facial features, wearing a trench coat and fingerless gloves, entered the scene too. His attire and casual gait reminded me of Ardyn Izunia from Final Fantasy. With just some fleeting steps, the silver-haired man reached the pullock, touched its back with his gloved palm, and walked away, all the while looking like he was having a tea party.

Booom!

An explosion rang out from where the middle-aged man touched the pullock. Even with its high regeneration abilities, that round of assault coupled with its existing wounds proved to be too much for the monster. The pullock finally perished while letting out a dying wail.

Afterward, a young woman with an orange sniper rifle walked out of her hiding place. My eyes were immediately thrown to her mesmerizing pupils. They were either artificial eyes, or she was wearing special contact lenses. Nobody could naturally have such cool eyes.

The powerful hunting group tied the pullock with ropes, and the man in the power armor dragged it along the road. Without a word, we followed them. Not even 100 meters away parked some kind of steampunk truck painted in camouflage color. While they were loading the dead pullock onto the car, I heard the middle-aged man’s unfazed remark.

“We are being watched.”

Well, yeah, Stefan and I were standing less than ten meters away from them. I was surprised, though, that he could feel our presence despite the Observer Status.

The other members of the hunting group subtly raised their vigilance by holding their weapons tighter and quickened their working pace. Soon they finished and stepped into the truck.

Stefan asked me a question, finally breaking his silence.

“Should we ask them for a ride?”

I shook my head.

“If you suddenly see two guys in strange attires appear out of nowhere in a monster-ridden forest, can you trust them? I believe they will shoot us first and ask questions later.

… But nothing speaks against quietly hitching a ride.”

And that’s how we tacitly accepted the hunting team's hospitality and rode on top of the truck. Shortly we left the third Hunting Ground. The roads quality got better and joined into a bigger one, we met other vehicles and people in clothes reminding us of the industrial revolution. By the time evening arrived, we could make out a humongous city in the distance.