“Forty-nine,” Tom Ventura said with a smirk.

“Twenty-seven,” Kaito Ren replied less enthusiastically.

“This isn’t a competition,” Christopher Wolf reminded them, then dodged an attack and cut down the attacking monster. Both men glanced at him expectantly. Wolf shook his head in disbelief. Only after the other two unpeeled their gazes, Wolf murmured. “Thirty-three.”

Since they’d left Geneva, they started encountering monsters at large and groups of vigilantes hunting them. The further east they travelled the more monsters and vigilante groups they met. The world was becoming a wild place. Almost every town and city they passed had been walled and secured. The constant influx of the monsters changed everything. But things didn’t stop there. The White Masks turned people on the government and the wealthy. And this was shifting the world more profoundly than the conflict between the World Government and the resistance.

Tom Ventura couldn’t say he didn’t like the change. He liked killing monsters. It was primitive but felt right. As if it was the natural order of things.

“What are you doing?” Wolf asked when

“Harvesting the monster’s parts,” Ventura replied.

***

They made a longer stop in a coastal town with a nice view of the Caspian Sea. Only the most expensive rooms remained as hundreds of people travelled north-east. Some of them called themselves adventures or monster hunters. What surprised Tom were their weapons. Very few carried firearms, many had swords and staffs.

Two days into their stay in the town, he asked one of the so-called adventurers about it. Tom was in a pub while Christopher Wolf and Kaito Ren went to buy a passage through the Caspian Sea. It was hard to get a spot on a ship with so many people wanting to go the same way, so the other two figured out they’d throw the weight of their Levels around and hope for the best. Tom had a feeling that they’d be disappointed with the result. With the steady influx of monsters from the Baikal rifts cluster, some people got as far as Level 3. Their Levels might not be as impressive as they were almost a year ago.

“So why has everyone stopped using guns?”

The so-called adventurer man glanced at Tom as if Tom was a halfwit. He was Level 2, had a mean face and wore furs that came from Level 1 monsters. That was all Tom was able to sense.

“Ordinary guns are crap and Level 1 and 2 stuff go to the rich.” The guy spat to the side. “Try buying one and you’ll understand.”

Tom ordered two beers for them and was pleasantly surprised to receive a Level 1 beer. Actually, everything in the pub’s menu was at least Level 1. It made sense to Tom as all the materials he’d harvested were bought from him immediately.

As his conversation with the furred guy continued in accompaniment of more beers, Tom Ventura learned that some monsters' materials were very expensive because the monsters were dangerous to hunt or simply were rare.

Later that day, Tom reunited with Kaito Ren and Christopher Wolf in their hotel.

“How did it go?”

“It would go better if you were with us,” Kaito Ren remarked unhappily.

“I had to do my own reconnaissance.”

“What for?” Kaito Ren asked.

“You cannot ignore what is happening around you much longer. Everything’s shifting before our eyes. We must adjust.”

It wasn’t only what the guy said in the pub. There were many instances where Tom Ventura saw the society which was technologically very advanced take a step back and return to medieval methodologies: guns replaced with swords and bows, electricity replaced with mana, machinery replaced by formations and runes. It didn’t mean the technology went away. No. Technology was still here and in a few cases, technology and magic merged together.

What the guy from the pub referred to as Level 1 or 2 guns was just a tip of an iceberg. Rifles made from rift materials were expensive but not prohibitively expensive. But the merging of technology and magic which normally was a domain of the World Government and the wealthiest now spread everywhere like a wildfire.

They had formations that purified water from the ground; runes that created light, heat, or chilled air. Monster parts were used in everything from medicine to clothes, and the whole industry was just starting to take shape. On top of that, the old professions and crafts were suddenly resurrected.

“What does it matter?” Kaito Ren asked, a little roughly. It seemed that they’d failed in their mission to buy spots on a boat. “Our mission is to save Daiyu Fen and Tulli, not hunt rift monsters.”

“Indeed,” Christopher added. “Once the war is over, life will return to where it was.”

Tom Ventura shook his head. They didn’t understand the deeper change that occurred all over the globe. It wasn’t only technology but people themselves changed and from this change there was no way back.

“I get it,” he said. “We’ll save your friends but don’t expect anyone to accept your money on the other side of the Caspian Sea.”

“What?” Christopher Wolf asked. “How do you know that?”

“As I said, reconnaissance. I talked to a guy. It looks like these adventures know more than we thought and they have means of exchanging information but he didn’t share details on that.”

“We cannot trust…”

Tom Ventura raised his hand.

“You weren’t the only one working for the Hidden Hand. I too learned my fair share of tricks there, Kaito, and I can tell when someone is lying,” Tom said a little harshly. Kaito Ren’s personal stake in this was clouding his judgement. They were underprepared for what lay on the other side of the sea. “The guy in the pub didn’t lie, though he didn’t say everything he knew, which is fine.”

“So, what should we do?” Christopher Wolf asked when Kaito Ren fell silent.

“How far away are you from the next Level?”

“I’m sitting on thirty percent,” Christopher Wolf replied.

Tom nodded to Kaito Ren who was still quiet.

“Eighty-five.”

“Okay, and I am twenty. I understand you all lost your old progress when you absorbed the rift essence.”

“Yes,” Christopher admitted, his face concerned. “You don’t propose we level up, do you?”

“No. There’s no need for that.” He made a pause. “But we must be conscious of our Levels going forward.” He didn’t elaborate on that and instead changed the topic. “I gather you failed to buy the spot?”

Their grim faces were enough to answer his question.

“As I said, I wasn’t idle and I’ve learned about a few monsters out there which are quite valued here. We go out there, kill them, harvest every single inch of the bastards then we return and sell them. Some of these monster parts will buy us spots on a ferry to the other side.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Kaito Ren said.

This time Christopher didn’t agree with Kaito Ren which was good enough for Tom. The Level 5 was finally understanding his point of view.

“Getting around will take us over a week if not longer.”

The red-haired man eventually conceded.

“Fine.”

***

They left the town the first thing in the morning and travelled straight north where most of the monsters had come from. The specimen they were hunting though was a flying monster, resembling an oversized red parrot with a too long tail. The most valuable part of the monster was its feathers which weren’t even used by the locals. They stuffed pillows with them and sold them to rich customers on the online auctions.

“What’s so special about the feathers to be this expensive?”

“They increase mana regeneration by 100% during sleep.” That was all it did. If they managed to kill a single monster. According to the locals, a single monster should cover the cost of their journey to China.

“The mana containers,” Christopher Wolfpointed out.

“Yeah, and I guess so too. Everyone wants to sell their mana now, so having a pillow that boosts your regeneration by 100% is a good investment.”

The change in attitude toward mana was another thing they’d noticed. Some places didn’t want dollars, they asked for mana as payment. Tom Ventura wasn’t a stranger to using mana because of his Talent but Christopher Wolf’s Talent was passive and to him, the concept of mana was rather alien. Unfortunately for them, the coastal town didn’t accept mana as no one in the town possessed the mana containers. While the containers were wildly popular worldwide, they were very scarce. In the town they’d previously stayed in, they watched a special report about the emergence of the mana containers and their impact on the economy and technology. Behind the massive demand for the mana containers stood runes. Their versatility was insane. Even in the places without mana containers runes were being introduced, decreasing the cost of electricity and fuels, and opening many unusual opportunities.

“Do you think mana containers have the future?” Christopher asked in his conversational tone, drawing Tom’s attention from his thoughts. “A hundred mana isn’t much.”

“It’s just the beginning,” Tom replied. “I can see them crafting better containers in a few months.”

After that, the conversation died down as neither man had enough expertise to really talk about the mana containers or crafting in depth. It didn’t help that Kaito Ren was gloomy since their departure this morning.

They travelled in silence, passing scattered, destroyed houses and farms. This far away from the safety of the town’s walls, life was dangerous. The monsters at large weren’t a joke and the trio saw a dark side of the two outbreaks. It reminded them that the rifts and rift monsters weren’t only wealth but death and destruction too.

Tom, Ren and Christopher weren’t the only ones on the road but it was rare to see groups of less than ten armed people. Some engaged them in short conversations, asking if they needed an escort or help, though most only eyed them suspiciously.

As they reached the mountain where they meant to find the red-feathered rift monsters, Kaito Ren asked.

“Why are we the only ones hunting these birds if they are worth so much?” It was a good question but there was a solid reason for this. Tom checked because his first suspicion had been an ambush as the dissolution of the order and law was accelerated because of the uprising that came after the onset of the war between the World Government and the resistance. Even though there was an informal truce between warring sides at the Baikal lake, the rest of the world was like a cauldron that was about to boil over. Tension was high.

“The locals say that every monster hunter goes north as there are more monsters and… well, these birds aren’t easy to hunt here.”

“What do you mean?” Christopher asked.

“Well, they don’t land.”

“...”

***

The climb took them an hour mostly because of Kaito Ren who was weaker than the two Level 5s. From near the top, they noticed their prey and grimaced. It was flying over two hundred metres above them.

“That’s genius of you,” Kaito Ren said, then added. “Like in Scotland.”

Tom took the comment without an outward reaction. He knew he’d made the right call. The scientist was a threat to the world and needed to be eliminated. The killing wasn’t something Tom revelled in but he never shied from doing what had to be done, killing included.

It was one of the few useful lessons learned from his dead parents. He missed them despite their numerous flaws.

“What’s the plan?” Christopher asked politely. “Will they attack us if we get closer?”

Okay. Tom might have not thought this through. Yeah. The locals skipped over a few important details it seemed.

“Kaito will be our bait.”

“What? Why me? It was your idea. You’re going to be bait.”

“You’re the weakest, Kaito. They sense weakness. Chris and I have none.”

Kaito Ren narrowed his eyes sensing crap coming out of Tom’s mouth.

“So we don’t have a plan,” Christopher muttered but didn’t push it.

“Okay, we can figure out something. We haven’t walked all this way for nothing.”

Kaito Ren shook his head, looking angry, a very rare sight.

“This was a mistake. We’ll find another way across that oversized lake.” Kaito Ren opened a portal that led to the bottom of the mountain…

It clicked in Tom’s mind.

“Wait a minute!” Tom said excitedly, stopping Kaito Ren from stepping through the portal.

“I have an idea. You will have to open the portal in front of the flying monster and Christopher and I will take care of it here on the ground.”

“You’re … insane,” Kaito Ren said but didn’t walk into the portal. “But it may work. Only we have to wait … six hours.”