Chapter 26

The weary group of hunters made their way back to the guild, Zack drove Jack's car while Jack flopped bonelessly on the back seat, almost laying across Stacey and Rachael's laps.

After a short drive they dragged Jack into the guild HQ and the hunters plaza. Everyone split up to sell the gathered loot to different vendors, they decided to leave Jack sat at the fountain in the centre of the plaza. He garnered a few curious glances and a few hunters did a double take when they saw the blue glowing container in his hands.

A few minutes later everyone was gathered back up and accompanied Jack to a drop off point that specialised in pharmaceutical items. At first he’d been fine with splitting the money for selling the Cerulean Vitae five ways equally but the others vehemently objected to that, stating that he’d done all the work. In the end he argued them up to a five percent take which was the minimum amount allowed for sharing money from selling loot. He’d felt like they should get a cut since he wouldn’t even have been allowed in the dungeon without them.

Jack, Stacey, Zack, Rachael and Nate all walked into the drop off vendor triumphantly, their swagger caused other hunters and guild personnel in the room and just outside to take notice. People’s eyes were inevitably drawn to the strong blue glow in the glass container Jack clutched.

Jack approached the front counter and carefully placed his prize in front of the clerk.

“Greetings my good shopkeep,” Jack said with a grin as he leaned casually against the counter. “What's the going price for….Cerulean Vitae these days?” he asked smugly, maintaining his grin.

“Erm…lemme check,” the clerk, a young man in a green linen apron, responded. Far from being shocked or impressed or falling over himself to give them the royal treatment, the young man seemed rather apprehensive. Jack frowned, this wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for. After a quick nervous glance at the group of hunters, the clerk typed away at a nearby computer for a few seconds before looking up at them.

“Umm….er…..I - I can take it for….fi - five hundred p - pounds,” he said nervously, stuttering.

“.........What?” Five hundred!? This was not going how Jack had planned.

“Erm…six hundred? But that's as far as I’m allowed to go….” the clerk amended, sweat had started to form on his brow and upper lip as he watched a suddenly very still hunter staring at him from across the counter, unblinkingly.

“Excuse me,” Stacey spoke up. “There must be some mistake, this is a Cerulean Vitae flower, last I heard this stuff was worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, even a single petal is worth a massive amount. Are you sure you typed in the right thing?” she asked kindly.

“Er ah erm….le - lemme get my manager.” The clerk retreated through a door behind the counter.

“Another manager!” Jack angrily spat out, becoming animated once more. “What the fuck is going on! Why can I never make any money off this stuff!”

“Calm down Jack, let's see what the manager has to say.” Stacey patted him on the shoulder.

“Hmph, calm down, I nearly lost a testacle down there in that water,” he mumbled.

Eventually a middle aged blond woman came out wearing the same green apron.

“Hey guys,” she greeted them with a sort of apologetic tone. “So you’ve got a Cerulean Vitae to sell right?” she asked. Everyone nodded. “Well, sorry to have to tell you all this but the flower has lost a lot of its market value in recent days,” she said apologetically. Jack clenched his fists.

“Really? How come?” Zack asked.

“Well, did you hear about the American pharmaceutical company that was developing that wonder drug? The elixir they called it,” the woman told them.

“Oh yeah! I remember that, said to be able to heal any wound almost instantly,” Stacey said. “Hmm, there was a load of stuff about its development a while back but then suddenly nothing. Wasn’t it supposed to be available by now?”

“The elixir, yes,” the manager sounded a little bitter. “The so-called wonder drug. Well, that flower you have there was one of the prime ingredients that went into its make up. Anyway the reason you haven’t heard about the elixir in a while is because it's a colossal failure and the company that made it is in full damage control.”

“What!?”

“Yes, have you ever heard of the expression ‘cancer in a bottle’? The company that made it was so excited about it that I think all they saw were dollar signs. They rushed the testing phases and bribed loads of inspectors and government types in the U.S. When it hit the market they made over a billion dollars on the first day. So many different groups bought it both in the U.S and abroad. They completely botched the release too, they barely explained what the stuff was supposed to do, probably because they didn’t even know themselves, the people who bought it were just told it could heal anything. I think just about every last rule regarding the development, testing and sale of pharmaceuticals was broken by that company.” The manager shook her head sadly. “Fortunately it was a little too expensive for average citizens to buy.”

“So what happened? And if everythings gone so wrong with this thing then why isn’t it on the news?” Rachael asked.

“Reports of things going wrong only started a few days ago and the American newscasters haven’t quite connected the dots yet, they think it's just some new diseases or magical phenomena. But when they do it's gonna be a massive shitshow. I think a fair number of American politicians are implicated and other bigwigs too. Anyway I don’t really know what the execs of big pharma are doing about it, but they certainly made sure to tell us straight away to stop buying those flowers for such massive prices.”

Jack groaned in disappointment, he crouched down and rested his forehead against the counter.

“Is he okay?” the manager asked in concern.

“He’s fine,” Stacey reassured her. “So, what's so bad about this stuff anyway? What do you mean by ‘cancer in a bottle’?”

“Well, the way the elixir works is to force the cells in the body to rapidly divide and replicate into greater numbers. If the elixir is poured on a cut or a wound then the damaged tissue will visibly regenerate because the cells in that area are dividing really really fast and repairing all the damage, it can even regrow lost limbs practically overnight. But the trouble is, it’ll have the same effect on other cells in the body. Not all cells, but particular cells that are at certain stages in the cycle,” she explained, the group nodded, just about following along.

The manager continued. “So there are cells in the body that sometimes have to self-destruct because somethings gone wrong with them, it's completely normal and it happens in every human body. But if for some reason these cells don’t self-destruct, then they keep dividing non-stop, forming a tumour, that's the simplest way I can explain cancer,” she said and the group let out a collective ‘ohhhh’, finally understanding.

“Anyway, the elixir that got released on the market, as well as targeting damaged tissue for repair, also has a nasty habit of finding any potential cancerous cells in the body and forcing them to divide exponentially. There were people over in America waking up one morning with tumours the size of basketballs attached to multiple parts of their bodies, they were the lucky ones, many people didn’t wake up at all.” The team winced at that.

“And that's not even the worst of it,” she continued.

“It gets worse!?” Stacey said incredulously.

“Oh yeah, there were people who’d been drinking it,” she said grimly.

“Drinking it? So like…they got stomach cancer then? Is that the worst one?” Nate asked in confusion.

“Not stomach cancer or even bowel cancer, you know the gut? The small and large intestines? They’re full of bacteria.”

“Oh no,” Stacey brought a hand up to her mouth, shaking her head in horror.

“Oh yes, there’s trillions of bacterial cells in the gut at any given time, most of it beneficial bacteria to help with digestion and stuff. Problems only ever occur with the bacteria when there's an imbalance, and if you drink this stuff there will be a massive imbalance. Gut bacteria love this stuff, can’t get enough of it. When people drank it, all their gut bacteria reproduced and their bowels swelled up massively. Like, a lot.”

“Oh god!” Rachael looked very pale.

“Yeah, and I mean they really swelled up. People er…people burst,” the woman said simply.

“Urgh….urk….” Rachael started to make gagging noises.

“They didn’t always burst though, sometimes the intestines took the path of least resistance and escaped out the body through the er….” She wasn’t allowed to finish however as Rachael rushed out of the room to find the nearest toilet. If he was honest Jack was also not feeling amazingly well at hearing all this either.

“Erm, you can have my cut of the sale Jack,” Stacey quietly told him, Nate and Zack said the same thing.

He stood up. “Right, well thanks for your time,” he told the manager, turning around to head out.

“You don’t want to sell then?”

“Er no we’re good, thanks anyway.” He left the vendor with the rest of the team sans Rachael following him. He went back to the fountain and sat down tiredly, it had been a long day.

“So what are you gonna do with the flower then?” Stacey as she sat down next to him.

“Hm…think I’ll just keep it as a lamp, a really expensive lamp,” he told her as he held up the glass container and looked at the flower within, it was kind of nice to look at.

Stacey nodded in agreement. Just then a pale Rachael walked out of the bathroom on wobbly legs.

“Urgh, I need a drink.” She flopped down next to Stacey. “You’ve still got the flower that makes people poop out their own guts?” she asked in disgust, glaring at the flower as if it had offended her.

“I’m gonna keep it as a lamp,” Jack told her cheerfully. She made a disgusted face before tiredly resting her head against Stacey’s shoulder.

“Drinks then?” Nate said. Without any further encouragement needed, everyone staggered out of the plaza and headed over to the guild hall, making a beeline for the bar.

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A few days later.

Jack was gearing up in his apartment whilst simultaneously watching the news. Apparently the massive ship that was supposed to reopen trade across the Atlantic had disappeared somewhere in the middle of its voyage during its return journey from Boston. From what Jack could surmise, no one should have expected anything different since someone actually had the foolishness to name the ship the ‘Titanic II’.

As he was pulling his boots on his pager buzzed and let out an unpleasant chime.

PRIORITY HUNT ALERT. ALL OTHER HUNTS SUSPENDED. VOLUNTEERS E RANK AND ABOVE ONLY, REPORT TO PARK ESTATE NORTH OF YORK CITY.

Well, this should be interesting. The guild only issued priority hunts in case of a potential disaster or when an entire area was under attack. He finished getting ready before getting in his car and driving over to Park Estate.

As he got closer he saw more and more police and ambulance vans speeding to and from the area, he also saw a steady stream of cars and pedestrians travelling south towards the city.

He had to stop once at a police cordon before flashing his licence and being allowed to head through.

Park Estate was a large residential area surrounded by farm fields and woodland a short drive north from the city of York, it was mainly houses with a few small businesses and supermarkets. It wasn’t really cut off and isolated from the city so it was well protected by the guild and police, many of its residents commuted into York due to the relatively short distance.

After another few minutes of driving north, where the steady stream of pedestrians became a flood and he had to drive slowly so he didn’t plough through the crowd, he reached the hunter rallying point.

It was a small collection of farm buildings that stood isolated on the main road. He pulled into a small area used for parking and parked amongst a collection of police vehicles and normal cars.

An armed officer pointed him towards a warehouse and he walked in.

Inside it was a hive of activity, dozens of people were hurrying to and fro. Groups of hunters were gathered here and there, speaking to each other, looking at maps or checking their gear. Police were looking at CCTV monitors along the walls or carrying various pieces of equipment here and there.

Jack stood amongst it all for a moment, feeling a little lost amongst the sea of people who all seemed to know what they were doing. However he eventually spotted a familiar face in the centre of the room, leaning over a large table along with several other hunters and police.

It was Cheryl, he cautiously made his way over, not knowing if he was supposed to be approaching what looked to be a meeting between high ranking personnel. It was then that he caught Cheryl’s eye and she motioned for him to come over with a crook of her finger. She seemed to be dressed fairly casually considering the situation, she was wearing blue skinny jeans, white trainers, and black skin tight tee shirt underneath what looked to be a borrowed police kevlar vest. She’d also dyed her hair from purple to silvery white.

He walked around the large table which had a map of the area spread over it and stood next to her.

“Jack,” she greeted him. “I thought we might be seeing you here.”

“Uh hey Cheryl, so what's happening then? The guild doesn’t really put out priority hunts unless things have really gone to shit.”

“Things going to shit is probably an accurate summation. Orcs have begun running amok in Park Estate,” she told him, her eyes turned back to study the large map spread out before her. The other people around the table continued to speak to one another.

“Orcs? I’ve never fought or hunted them before,” he remarked. “What rank are they?”

In response she brought up her pager and after typing on it for a few seconds she showed it to him. The pager held an image of a large squat humanoid that looked about the shape and size of a gorilla, with a massive muscle bound upper body and arms, its knuckles were actually resting on the ground similar to a gorilla. It had greyish skin mixed in with patches of thick brown fur. What was slightly disconcerting was the clearly improvised but rather large weapon the creature held in one of its large furry hands, a large club, or more of a tree branch really, the end of which appeared to be wrapped with chains and razor wire.

Its legs appeared slightly stunted in comparison to its upper body but still thick with muscle. Its head was completely bald and its face held two beady eyes and a large mouth filled with long thin pointed teeth crowded together. Overall it resembled a large, muscle bound, mutated primate straight from a horror movie.

“An orc by itself is rank D, but they normally work in groups, we call them raiding parties. At that point it's rank C, but the situation here has evolved well beyond even that so it's all hands on deck right now. We’ve got orcs all over the estate and they’re somewhat organised under a leader, they appear to be trying to consolidate their base of operations, such as it is, in a supermarket in the middle of the estate,” she explained and Jack nodded, following along. “We’re sending hunter teams to different points on the map and they are then to hunt down and exterminate any orc they come across in their territory. Also, you need to be careful because some orcs are known to actually use elements in combat. Questions?” she asked him.

“Erm, I don’t have a team?” He tried to phrase it as a question. He tried to also ask her about the rather alarming fact that these things used the elements but she spoke before he could ask anything.

“That's fine. I anticipated this and I’ve already got a couple of spare hunters in mind to put you with.” She turned and looked into one of the corners of the warehouse. “Hey you two! He’s arrived! Get your asses over here!” she called over.

At her command, two hunters quickly marched over. The first was a woman about Jack’s height wearing a mixture of kevlar, plate and monster bone mail. She had brown hair and dusky skin and smiled cheerfully at Jack, he had to do a double take when he noticed a large thick metallic bow slung over shoulders along with a quiver of blue fletch arrows. The second hunter was a man, a little taller than Jack, he had pale skin and blond hair, he wore a strange poncho that covered his torso and upper legs, the poncho seemed to shift in colour to match whatever he was standing near. His weapon likewise appeared to be an unconventional choice for a monster hunter, he carried a large heavy machine gun resting on his shoulder.

“This is Katie and Laurence, you’ll be joining them. Guys, this is Jack,” she introduced them.

“Oh wow, the famous ‘Hungry Jack’ in the flesh,” the man, Lawrence joked.

“Uh huh, nice to meet ya, what was your name again?” Jack politely asked him to which the woman, Katie, snorted in laughter. Laurence smiled too in self deprecation, he held out his hand and Jack shook it before shaking hands with Katie.

“Great, we’re all friends. Now I want you three to head here.” She pointed down to the map at a point a little south east of the centre. “We’re designating that area sector D, you three are responsible for hunting down and killing everything that isn’t human in that area,” Cheryl told them.

“What are the police doing?” Katie asked.

“They’re responsible for evacuating civilians, protect any you find in your sector. Also, take these.” She grabbed three clear plastic ear pieces attached to wires from a small pile in front of her. She went up to Jack and grabbed his pager from his pocket without another word and inserted the cable into the pager audio port, she then put the earpiece in Jack's ear, hooking securely behind it. “Log into the walkie talkie app and switch to channel four,” she told them and Jack noticed the other two hurrying to copy what Cheryl had done with Jack. He swiped through his pager and did as she said before putting his pager back in his pocket, the wire ran from his pager to the earpiece attached to his ear.

“This will allow us at base to talk to you and you to us. Once all hunter teams have reported their sectors as clear of the enemy, we’ll be able to converge on the supermarket in the centre of the estate.”

Jack swallowed nervously, this was getting to be quite a bit more than he’d bargained for. He was pretty sure when he first started out as a hunter all he’d wanted to do was take a few quiet hunts or harvesting jobs and just steadily build up money and power. Now he appeared to be about to take part in yet another major official operation and the earpiece thing made it feel even more official, and worse.

Once Cheryl was assured they knew what they were doing she kicked them out of the warehouse and told them to get going.

The three hunters elected to walk, at Laurence's insistence, it was a short walk and he didn’t want to risk driving a car into a combat zone only for it to get wrecked.

The farm buildings were a few minutes down the road before they got to the estate, Jack used that time to try and get to know his new temporary teammates.

“So erm..Katie, is that a bow on your back? You use a bow and arrow in combat?” he asked her in curiosity. He’d seen plenty of hunters with guns but never one with a bow.

“Yep, take a look, she’s a beauty isn’t she?” Katie said with a smile, unslinging her bow from her back and showing it to him. As far as bows go, and Jack was no expert, it was an absolute beast, or a beauty, whichever. With the bow strung it still had a length of five feet and with a silvery sheen it was obvious the bow was at least partly or entirely made of some sort of flexible metal.

“It certainly is, but…I was just a little surprised to see a hunter with one. I think you’re the first actually. Usually I just see hunters use guns,” Jack was trying to tactfully ask why in the hell would she think bringing a bow and arrow to hunt monsters was a good idea.

At that she looked smug before offering up the bow to him. “Here, take it, try and draw it.”

After a second of hesitation he took it from her hands, it was heavy, even heavier than it looked, at least twenty kilograms. When he tried to draw it, the string gave him far more resistance than he’d expected. With some strain he slowly managed to pull the string back halfway, but only barely. After a few seconds he gave up, letting out a deep breath rubbing his sore fingers.

He ruefully gave back the bow to Katie who let out a giggle, Laurence also let out a deep chuckle.

“Ok,” Jack admitted. “That thing must have some punch.”

“Yep, its draw weight is over two hundred kilograms, that's more than any other bow ever produced in the UK. You should see what it does to monsters,” she told him happily as she took the bow and drew it easily.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, impressed at the ease she showed.

“Mm, no none cultivator can draw a bow back that has this much draw weight on it.”

“Well, as long as you can actually hit your target…..”

“Oh you don’t have to worry about that,” Laurence interjected with some amusement. “Katie never misses, she cheats.” He let out a laugh to which Katie looked indignant.

“I told you Lorry, I do not cheat.” She shoved him slightly.

“How does she cheat?” Jack asked with a smile.

Before Laurence or ‘Lorry’ could answer, Katie spoke instead. “It's not cheating,” she sighed. “I use my element, wind. Whenever I connect myself to my core, I can sort of sense the air around me. I then sort of use a slight current of air to connect me to my target, not enough to move anything, but it just sort of lets me focus on my target, it's like a weak slipstream. Anyway, after that I simply aim and fire, the arrow just kind of travels down the slipstream and hits whatever I want it too. I never miss,” she smugly explained.

“Oh ok, I spoke to another wind element recently who said the wind element lets her sense the air around her, so that makes sense. If you can do that, I bet you could win a load of archery competitions,” he told her.

At that Katie let out a tut of annoyance. Laurence answered for her with a tone of amusement. “She already tried, she was actually with the national archery team set to take part in this year's Olympics, but then all of a sudden they dropped her.”

“They dropped her? Why?”

“Oh, something to do with not allowing cultivation amongst the competing athletes. Apparently some guy called Harrison Charles was going to take part in the sprint and some other events but then other countries found out that all he did was cultivate and not actually train. He was expected to sweep the tournament but then the other countries raised a fuss, so the Olympic committee banned him and extended that ban to every other cultivator. A little unfair if you ask me,” Laurence shrugged before sending over a look of sympathy to Katie. She simply stared forward with intensity, her grip on her bow tightened.

“Ah, er..sorry Katie,” he said to her.

She shrugged with a small smile. “It's fine, what can ya do? I’ve still got this to keep me busy anyway.”

“Mm, so Katie’s a wind element. What about you Laurence?” he asked.

“Me? I’m an earth element,” Luarence said.

“Earth? Not a lot of those in the guild, I think I’ve only met a couple of others.”

“Yeah, most earthers tend to go into other jobs. But it's still a useful element for combat.”

“Oh trust me I know that, have you met Russel?” Jack asked.

“Russel Everton? The A ranker? You know him?” Laurence asked incredulously.

“Yeah, he’s my assessor. Saw him fight a few times. He’s like a walking fortress.”

“Wow, lucky. The rest of us just get whoever is available for our rank ups,” he said, hefting his machine gun.

Jack glanced at it. “So, the both of you look like you might prefer long range engagements. You ok if I close with any orcs we find and you two support me?” Jack asked, wanting to hash out some order of combat.

“Sounds good to me,” Laurence said with a shrug. “Normally the way we do it is Katie takes down the big targets or any monster at extreme range, then I mow down the rest of the smaller critters.”

“That sounds fine to me,” Jack agreed.

They continued conversing about other potential combat tactics and a few minutes later they reached the beginning of Park Estate. They passed by numerous terraced houses on either side of the road which was free of traffic, the area almost completely quiet and devoid of people. However they could hear the faint sounds of combat in the distance, explosions, people and other things crying out and roaring, gunfire and more, but it all sounded very muted and faraway.

A familiar feeling of nervousness bubbled up in his stomach before Jack clamped down on it. He unhooked his large axe and put his head on a swivel, vigilant for any orcs nearby.

They continued walking through the little town, heading north west towards their designated sector.

Suddenly Katie tensed up.

“Can you sense anything Katie?” Laurence asked. Jack frowned in confusion and looked at her.

“There are two orcs behind the next bend,” she said, readying her bow and smoothly nocking an arrow.

“How do you know? You can sense it?” Jack asked her.

“I told you, wind elements can connect to the air around them. If you get good enough you can sense different objects and things in the air, sort of like echo location, kind of,” she explained.

“Oh, that does sound useful. Fine then, so how about you take out one orc and I take out the other?” he suggested, for now he wanted their little group to remain quiet and didn’t think Laurence’s machine gun firing up would allow that.

“Sounds good to me, I’ll fire off an arrow first then you can move in,” she confirmed before moving forward with Jack and Laurence following.

They moved forward down the road before getting to a corner shop, Katie stopped them there and peeked around the corner. She looked back at them and held up two fingers, nodding. Jack and Laurence nodded back at her, Jack steeled his nerves.

Katie swung around the corner, pulled back her bow in one smooth motion and released her arrow. The arrow zipped forward faster than Jack could follow, when he also leapt around the corner he saw her target had already fallen with an arrow to the chest.

With Katie’s job done it was up to him to finish off the other orc, it was squatting about twenty metres away, looking at its downed companion in perplexment. It was a big one, looking similar to a muscle bound gorilla but with grey skin and brown fur. It also held a large metal pipe that looked like it might once have been part of a traffic sign from somewhere.

It looked up at Jack as he approached, it grunted as it hefted the thick metal pipe to lean over its shoulder. It stood up fully and growled at him through a mouth of razor sharp teeth. Now that it was no longer squatting it stood at a little over six feet tall of thick muscle with a worryingly large upper body, almost like an upside down triangle.

Never one for a standoff with a monster Jack decided to close in quickly, he shot off as many quick bolts as he could while he ran, wearing down his target before attacking with his lightning infused axe. The orc took the lightning bolts like a champ and attacked with a roar.

Jack’s first axe swing met with the metal pipe and sheared right through it, before he could celebrate however the orc simply cast the pipe away and immediately enveloped him in a bear hug.

Right away he felt himself being crushed, the orc had some sort of industrial level strength. It felt like his ribs were breaking and he could barely breathe. Trying not to instinctively panic like he always did in these situations, he grasped the orc’s face with hands that were fortunately free, he sent a strong current of lightning into his hands, so strong that blue arcs of electricity were actually visible, and he put his thumbs into the orc’s eyes.

The orc squealed in pain and immediately tried to push him away and dislodge him, however Jack held fast, grasping the orc’s skull with a vise-like grip and wrapping his legs around its neck. The orc snarled, trying to bite into his stomach but couldn’t get through his armour.

Jack’s thumbs dug deeper, the lightning popped its eyeballs with a sizzling squishing noise and he felt like his thumbs were sinking through jelly. After a brief moment of resistance something in its head gave way and the orc shuddered before toppling over backwards taking Jack with it.

With an explosive release of breath Jack got up, wiping his hands on his jacket he turned around to look at his companions. They regarded him with a mixture of confusion and apprehension.

“Do you always kill monsters like that? ‘Cus I mean….that was kinda painful to watch,” Laurence commented with a wince.

Jack felt defensive. “Hey! That was my first orc, I’ve never even seen these things before now,” he said indignantly. “I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, if you’ve got suggestions I’m all ears.”

Katie walked over to the orc she’d killed, putting a foot on its chest she ripped out the arrow. It came out with a great gush of pinkish blood, much more than he would’ve expected. The arrow head itself looked evil, it was a very broad triangular shape, almost the size of his hand. Katie gave it a shake and all the blood seemed to wash off revealing the colour of the arrow head to be a shimmering purple black that subtly changed hues as she stowed it away in the quiver on her back.

“Hey, is that arrow head infused with a water crystal?” he asked.

“Hm? Oh you noticed? Yep, sure is, this guy over on the high street had some water crystals and he made them for me, diamond tipped too. Cost me an arm and a leg but it was worth it. I notice you’ve got a little something special there as well.” She nodded her head at the axe he clutched in one hand.

“Oh, yeah. I think we got our weapons from the same place actually. There aren’t any lightning crystals around so water is the next best thing for me because it conducts electricity. But why do you need water element arrow heads, what does that do?” he asked her.

“Did you see all the blood when I pulled out the arrowhead? And how it was so light? That's because of all the water, whenever I hit something with one of these arrows, about a litre of water gets pumped into their bodies. It gets into their bloodstream diluting it, bones, brain and other organs, it really messes them up, ya know?”

“That actually sounds pretty useful,” he admitted.

“Right? Anyway, as far as fighting orcs goes….I dunno, me and Lorry have only ever done it a few times before and we always do it at range.” She sent a questioning look to Laurence who simply shrugged.

“Well……ok then, maybe I’ll stick to range for now too. I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve, I’ll only move up close if I’ve got no choice,” Jack said as he reached behind to the small of his back where a pouch was hanging from his belt, he took out a handful of small steel marbles.

With that they set off again. They encountered another trio of orcs on the way but Katie took care of two with her bow and Jack managed to pull off a lucky headshot with his electromagnetic rail gun ability which he was inordinately pleased with.

The further into the town they got, the more evidence of a large monster attack they saw. Wrecked vehicles, damaged property and bodies.

Human bodies lay here and there, Jack was no stranger now to death, he’d even seen dead people before, but this was pushing the limits of what he’d experienced before now. Many of the human bodies weren’t just dead, they hadn’t been eaten, but they looked savaged, missing heads and limbs, many were crushed and burnt. It seemed to Jack that sentient monsters could display just as much savagery and brutality to their enemies and prey as a lion might to a gazelle, not because they were hungry, but simply just because it could. Although as a human he probably had no right to judge.

Eventually they reached their destination, the area of homes and shops designated as sector D.

It was quiet at first, they could still hear the sounds of combat in the distance, but in sector D it was calm, Katie told them she couldn’t sense anything nearby.

However as always the calm and quiet was short lived. Katie sensed it first and warned them to get into cover, indicating a group of something was coming near, she couldn’t determine what it was.

They found cover behind a wrecked upturned car by the side of the road. After a few moments they saw a group of a dozen or so frightened people, civilians, running and stumbling along the road, escorted by two armed and armoured policemen. The police both looked to have been in a fight as one had blood running down the side of his face and the other was clutching his right side in pain, limping along.

When the trio of hunters saw it wasn’t the enemy, they stood up from their cover and approached the ragged looking group. When the people saw three hunters approaching them, there was a mixture of relief and sobbing gasps. One of the police pulled up and spoke to them, breathing heavily.

“Be careful….a group of those things are…right behind us..” he gasped.

“Right, we’ll stay here and hold them off. Just keep going south, the way should be clear,” Laurence told them.

“Thank you, okay everyone! Let's keep going, we’re nearly there! Just a bit further to go!” The policeman with the head wound marshalled them and led the group of survivors away.

Just as they rounded a bend and were out of sight, a group of orcs came loping down the other end of the road. They saw the hunters and let out a collective guttural roar before charging down the road towards them. They had a strange loping gait where they would use their squat legs to run but every few strides use their massive muscular arms to pull themselves forward faster.

Jack stepped forward and got ready to throw up an extra strong magnetic field, he palmed ten or so steel marbles.

“Mind if I take the first shot?” he asked the other two who were both getting ready.

“Sure,” Katie added, aiming her bow in readiness.

Without any further ado, he flung the fistful of steel marbles at the mob of orcs charging them. His ammunition ripped forwards with an audible crack and displacement of air, thin blue arcs of lightning trailed the path of the throw.

He’d aimed for the centre of the mob and the marbles ripped into them. A massive red spray of blood and tumbling body parts emerged from the group of orcs who paused and shied away from the sudden carnage in their midst. After that Katie and Laurence opened fire as well, targeting the survivors on the flanks.

Katie expertly and smoothly took down two, whereas Laurence unleashed a torrent of armour piercing ammunition, gunning down five with the booming chattering of a machine gun which by all rights looked like it should’ve taken at least two people to lift and fire.

The whole engagement took less than a minute and resulted in a satisfying spread of dead orcs.

Just before they allowed themselves to let down their guards however, they heard the sounds of even more approaching orcs. Deep angry guttural voices barked out in an unfamiliar language, the pounding of heavy feet just around the corner preceded a much larger mob of the creatures.

As they came into view, right away Jack and co realised they might be in trouble. Unlike the previous much smaller group, there were several dozen orcs in this mob, many holding improvised weaponry such as metal poles, rebar with chunks of concrete attached and jagged pieces of unidentifiable metal. They caught sight of the hunters and one of the orcs yelled out something and the orcs spread out before charging.

Laurence immediately opened fire but he only killed one or two, he hit several other orcs but they were so tough that if it wasn’t a kill shot then it seemed they could just walk it off. Katie had more success and downed three but then the approaching mob got too near for her to use her bow. Jack also tried to kill some orcs at range but only managed to hit one with a non lethal strike, it simply grunted angrily and carried on loping along.

In no time at all the orcs had almost reached their position and it looked like Laurence and Katie didn’t know what to do. Their eyes widened in fear and they allowed their weapons to lower. They began backing off nervously, clearly they weren’t used to things escalating this far.

Jack took up his axe again and stepped forward, as always he knew the best thing to do when outnumbered with no place to run was to attack, attack, attack. He might be in for the fight of his life here so he didn’t hold back, he dived into his lightning core and he dredged up as much power as he could. He allowed the lightning to course through his body and into his axe and encouraged it to enter his brain, right away the world slowed down and Jack had time to watch the orcs charging at them in slow motion. Their beady eyes were wide with the prospect of violence, their mouths were open and salivating, they let out a high pitched grunting screech as they loped rapidly towards them.

Jack allowed himself a wide smile at the thrill of impending violence surging up within him, all other concerns evaporated, the middle of a fight was where he was best. No need to think or worry, no need to talk to people and please them or avoid insulting them. It was just him, his axe and the thing that needed killing, simple, intoxicating.

He made sure the current of electricity running through his axe was strong enough to be emitting thick visible blue arcs of lightning before charging forward. The first orc he came too barely had enough time to be surprised at the grinning human suddenly appearing in front of it before an axe split its skull, Jack moved onto his next before its body hit the ground. His vision narrowed down completely to his next victim.

He was amongst the mob now. As far as Danny, his trainer was concerned, there were two effective ways to use the heavy melee weapons many hunters favoured. The first was to plant your feet in a wide static stance in order to avoid overbalancing when swinging a giant weapon that weighed nearly forty kilograms. The second method was to manoeuvre yourself around the weapon and allow one attack and swing to lead into the next, never stopping or standing still.

Jack favoured the second way, he never allowed his feet to stay still, he danced around his axe as it carved its way through the orcs that surrounded him. They tried to fight back but he was too fast and the orcs only managed to hit each other with their improvised weapons. Sometimes they did manage to get a hit or two in but Gary’s armour proved its worth.

With every swing of his axe Jack made sure to release a spray of lightning infused water outwards in arcing shockwaves. Every time he attacked or killed an orc, several orcs behind and around it would receive a torrent of lightning ripping through them.

He didn’t know how long he’d been fighting, he always seemed to lose track of time in these types of situations, but eventually the orcs had lost enough of their own that the survivors thought it better to retreat. With panicked bellows, the survivors fearfully scrambled away from him, back the way they came, Jack watched them go with a small amount of disappointment. One orc still moved slightly, feebly crawling across the ground away from him, so he took out the last vestiges of violence he had within him and hacked away into the orc’s back a few times in great overhead blows, sprays of red orc blood jetted out around him.

Once he was done he planted his axe upside down on the ground, his right hand resting on the pommel, a small puddle of red water leaked from the axe head where blue arcs of lightning played across it. He breathed in and out heavily, trying to get his breath back and clear his mind. The violence and blissful aggression slowly bled away from him, leaving slight weariness and a building headache.

“Er….J - Jack? Are you…okay?” a nervous voice came from behind him.

He turned around in confusion, having forgotten he wasn’t alone. The fog that had settled over his mind slowly lifted

“Hm? Yeah? Yeah, I’m okay. Are you two okay? Did any get past me?” he asked them. They both looked at him with no small amount of fear, concern and trace of awe in their faces.

“Um, we - we’re fine. You kinda took care of them all. I’ve….never seen anything like that in my life. You were moving so fast,” Katie said, sounding shocked.

“Really? I’ve got a friend, Nate Roshton, he fights like that all the time,” Jack pointed out.

“Yeah we know Nate, that guy’s a maniac, a berserker,” Laurence said but immediately put up his hands in fearful surrender before saying quickly, “Not that that’s a bad thing! He’s a great fighter, should’ve ranked up ages ago if you ask me!” he babbled, sounding a little panicked.

Jack simply shrugged before turning back to the gory display that surrounded him, already multicoloured light and vapour was emanating lightly from the orc dead. It almost resembled faint morning mist resting on wet grass.

While they had a moment he went through the fallen orcs and cultivated from several of them, however he made sure not to overindulge, he had a strong feeling this wasn’t the last scrap he’d be getting into today.

Once he felt like he should stop, he got up and turned around to look at a nervous Katie and Laurence who were trying to make it look like they weren’t watching him, but he could tell they were giving him sidelong looks.

“So er…I don’t think we should do that again,” he began. He could feel a big headache coming on from his use of his time perception ability. He fumbled around in a pouch on his belt and dug out several painkiller pills before swallowing them with a swig from his water bottle. At Katie and Laurence’s questioning glances he continued after gulping down the water. “Lets not wait to get attacked by a large mob of orcs again, I don’t think I can manage all…..this, another time.” He gestured towards the strewn corpses and severed orc body parts. “And I’m guessing you guys don’t want it to progress that far again either?” he asked them.

They both frantically shook their heads. “Hell no! That was crazy! This is way beyond what we’ve been in before,” Laurence said, shaking his head in frustration. “Before now Katie and me were fine just doing low key D ranks and down, it wasn’t glamorous but it paid well and the risk isn’t terrible if you know what you're doing. But this….an entire town of orcs…this is outta hand! And we haven’t even seen any orc elemental users either yet!”

“Yeah, I’m glad you said that actually, I sort of felt the same when we were speaking with Cheryl. Um, how about this? Lets use Katie’s ability to sense stuff through the air, we track down threats in our sector and ambush them. The key, I think, is to not get caught out in the middle of the road again and swarmed by a large group of monsters, how about that?” Jack suggested, trying to portray calm, hoping it would rub off on the other two who seemed a little rattled.

“Er yeah, that sounds good to me. Lorry and me are good at ambushes and traps. As long as it involves skulking around then we’re good I think,” Katie nodded in determination.

“Absolutely, the more skulking the better. I thought it went without saying really.” He smiled at them and they seemed reassured and more confident.

With that decided they let Katie lead the way to a nearby house with its door open, she assured them the house was empty of occupants, monstrous or otherwise. They entered the house, Jack and Laurence stood guard at the windows and front door while Katie sat in the middle of the living room, her eyes closed in concentration.

Jack was standing at the living room window, watching the empty street. He felt a slight breeze ruffle the exposed skin of his face while he had his helmet visor up. He looked back to Katie and noticed her brown hair was swaying with a current of air coming from somewhere. He frowned in confusion before remembering her element. He let her do her thing.

Eventually she opened her eyes.

“There’s a small group of orcs down the road behind this house, about fifty metres that way.” She pointed east.

“Ok, let's go, that's a seriously useful ability you know, especially for a hunter. Have you ever thought of passing that along?” Jack asked as they stepped out the front door and began jogging down the road.

“Mmm, not really. I think everyone’s just developing their own styles and techniques. I think it's only teams of hunters that like….collaborate or whatever,” Katie replied.

“That's a shame, I know another wind element who’d be interested in the stuff you’ve got, maybe she’d be willing to trade techniques with you?” he suggested as they continued to run.

“Maybe….depends what techniques she’s got I guess.”

“Er….I once saw her blow out the ear drums of an ogre and made it lose its sense of balance,” he told her as they came to a halt.

“Really? That does sound interesting, hmm…..I’ll give you my number later and you can tell this other wind cultivator to give me a call,” she told him and Jack nodded happily.

They joined Laurence who was crouched down by the end of a wooden fence, peeking around the corner, he looked back at them and held up four fingers.

Jack leaned over him and peeked around too, there were indeed four orcs, gathered together just down the road. They were huddled together, looking down at something Jack couldn’t see. He turned back to the other two.

“You two want to do the honours? I’ll be ready if they manage to get close,” he told them to which they nodded.

Katie and Laurence carefully and quietly crept out from behind the wooden fence and took aim. It seemed they were experienced with this sort of thing because at some unknown signal Katie fired first and killed her target with a shot to the throat, Laurence gunned down another two with surprisingly accurate and precise bursts from his large machine gun giving Katie time for another one shot one kill with her oversized bow.

Jack gave them a nod and an impressed look to which Laurence smirked.

“Hey, some hunters rush in and swing around a massive sword or axe, and some other hunters prefer to live a little longer. No offence,” he added on hurriedly. Ever since Laurence had seen Jack single handedly slaughter that large mob of orcs he’d been somewhat wary of Jack.

“Er, none taken.” Jack shrugged. “To be honest you’re probably going about it the right way, charging straight into a group of orcs and other monsters over and over again doesn’t seem like a viable long term plan does it? Oh well…”

After that, the three hunters patrolled their assigned sector from the alleyways between houses, from small gardens shielded from view by fences and hedges which they hopped over and from small ransacked shops.

They managed to successfully ambush and kill half a dozen groups of orcs, most of the kills were performed by Katie and Laurence, Jack simply used the situation to get some practice in with his railgun ability. However, during the last ambush, one of the orcs managed to flee and almost made it, but then a strange man appeared seemingly out of nowhere and slit the orc’s throat with a combat knife after grabbing it from behind before melting into the shadows of a nearby dark alleyway, he gave them a nod as he did so.

The three hunters were shocked for a moment.

“Er, who was that?” Jack asked.

“That….might’ve been a surveyor?” Katie said, still sounding confused. “You run into them sometimes out in the field, those guys are always out and about, always up to something.”

“Maybe he’s scouting out the orcs? Cheryl said we were going to attack the supermarket in the middle of town once everywhere else was clear, he might be checking up on our….progress,” Laurence said as he ripped out an arrow from an orc corpse and passed it to Katie.

As if by prophecy, their earpieces crackled briefly before a familiar voice came through.

“Calling the hunter team for sector D, calling the hunter team for sector D. New coordinates are being sent to you, head there immediately and await further orders. That is all.”

It was Cheryl, they looked down at their pagers and saw a map of the area with a new point telling them where to go. It led straight towards the supermarket in the middle of town, right where the orcs had their base.