Life Hunter

"The card keeps the record of missions achieved and it is the proof that a mission has been accomplished when there is a client, you give the card to the client when the task is finished to mark the end of the task" Maria explained

"It"s a really useful thing this card" Arima was surprised played with the card in his hand

"Of course, you are now an official member of the guild, you can go upstairs to look for a mission and accept it, but to confirm the end of it and receive the rewards, it"s in this hall and the S quests are on the third floor where the guild branch master is, for now, you can"t go there without an invitation. You have to be S rank to go there as you want or be in an S rank group. And finally, to increase your rank, you first have to fill up your mission points and then go through a test. The points you gained are marked in the mission once you have 200 points you can try to become an S rank"

"I see, thanks for the explanation" Arima stored his card in his storage, he turned around and headed towards the stairs on the side of the hall.

"Don"t mind" Maria said cheerfully

He used the stairs and opened a door that was at the end of it. Behind was a big saloon, there were tables and bars with a lot of mercs of different builds, on the left side, he spotted a few receptions and five boards on the wall with placards on it.

"Must be the tasks" Arima thought. He approached the boards and soon realized that there was one board for each cla.s.s. But there were missions with qualifications needed and others no. For example, if someone was rank C and would want to choose a rank A mission, he could, but he had to pick a task that didn"t stipulate conditions. And in most cases, it was the client that absolutely wanted an A rank mercenary, to be sure of his competence, and the ones who could order this kind of conditions were the n.o.bles. So, in the end, the other tasks are just missions that are qualified as dangerous and hard so, A rank. If a rank below wants to try an A rank difficulty mission, then he must be confident in his ability or he is a fool. And even if it was not said earlier, mercenaries could form groups to do a single mission, but it was quite uncommon because most of the mercs work alone for benefits and to avoid the risks of bad companions. But there are some exceptions like, very good friends, lovers or even family, who obviously acted together.

Arima didn"t think much, there were five cla.s.ses E, D, C, B and A, he was already rank A, so he just began to look at the rank A tasks. As Maria said, there weren"t any S rank missions.

Arima picked the request of the guild to exterminate an Orc"s nest. Giving three points apparently.

"(I know the Orcs from the name, but I don"t know how it is in this world, I"ll have to cultivate myself about this world. I"ll find a library after that)"

Arima decided and took the request to one of the receptions. He wished to try a mission to see what kind of monsters there was in this world and wanted to determinate how strong they were. Because strangely he didn"t meet any foes on his way to Ridia.

"I"ll take this" Arima said to the receptionist

"Yes, your card please" The girl took the card, apparently registered the mission on it and gave it back "It"s done. You have five days to finish this request, it seems that you are new to keep in mind that after five days someone else can accept this task if you haven"t accomplished it yet. And if you do the mission and don"t report it, then the next person who ²take the request take the rewards. Now then, the nest is situated 8 miles to the south of the city. Don"t forget the subjugation proof. Good luck" She explained the rules of the guild and gave the information about the Orc"s nest localization.

"Thanks" Arima retrieved his card and turned around to leave. When Arima left he looked for a weapon"s shop. He soon found one and entered. He walked to the counter and spoke to the old man behind.

"h.e.l.lo, I"d want some throwing knives, good quality if possible"

"Welcome, sure, we have what you want, wait a moment" The man left to the back shop and returned a moment later with a wooden box.

"Here" He said. He put the box on the counter and opened it. Inside were twenty silver throwing knives, they were small with a hole in the handle and the blades were spear-shaped.

Arima took one and made it spin through the hole with his middle finger until grabbing the blade with two fingers. "Well balanced" He said

"Yes, these are quite well made" The old man responded

"How much?" Arima asked

"Five gold"

Arima nodded, took the coins and gave it to the shopkeeper.

"Thanks, you can take the box too of course" He received the coins and thanked Arima.

"No need" Arima said. He took each knife and placed them in multiple inner pockets of his coat. After all, a coat that he used in his old days must have something like that.

"Oh, good coat" The old man pointed

"Can you tell me if there is a library in this town" Arima asked

"Mm, there is one, it is a few minutes of walk from here, more at the center of the town, to the north. You can"t miss it" The old man said

"Okay, thanks then" Arima left the shop and headed towards the south gate of the city. He will pa.s.s at the library after having destroyed the nest.

After Arima left the city he rushed to the area where the nest by using "Wild spark". When he judged that he traveled 8 miles, he stopped.

"Mm, I"m not sensing anything" He looked around "Well" Arima crouched on one knee and placed a palm on the ground "[Vitae Index] (Life Index)" He chanted and closed his eyes. From his hand, a lot of white lines spread around in all directions. Each line represented an organism. Arima could see the figure of the organism that corresponded to each line. This was life magic, pertaining to the same category as healing magic.

"16 matches, 300 meters at 5 five o"clock" He found what looked like the Orcs. Arima stood up and immediately vanished in black sparks. He arrived where he detected the Orcs in only six seconds.

"… They"re sleeping" Arima murmured. In front of him, a dozen Orcs laid down on the floor, sleeping, at the entrance of a cave. Arima smiled, he raised his hand with his thumb and middle finger touching each other "[Canetis Extollendam] (Sound Amplification)" And he snapped his fingers. The magic that Arima activated caused the sound to resonate strongly in a hundred meters around.

The Orcs obviously awoke and began to stand up and take wooden clubs as weapons, which were more trunks than anything else though. Arima observed those Orcs, they were dark green in skin color and were at least 3 meters tall each, they were fat but possessed an absurd amount of muscles, and their faces were not like pigs and looked a bit humanoid. One of them locked his stare on Arima and charged at him when he was two meters close to Arima, he raised his log, but before he could land a hit, his head was suddenly sent flying. And Arima was holding the unsheathed Karma in his right hand. Arima was himself surprised at this moment, he just wanted to cut the carotids of the Orc, but he underestimated his own sword.

The others Orcs all exclaimed at the death of their brethren. And the first one who made a move was Arima. He charged to the closest Orc and appeared right in front of him, Arima swung his sword and a second head was sent flying. At that moment, six Orcs started rushing at Arima, he took out the same number of throwing knives and disposed them in a fan "[Fulgur] (Lightning)" These knives started to generate electricity on their own and Arima smiled before throwing them, each paralyzing and piercing the head of the six Orcs.

When Arima threw the knives, a big Orc took the occasion and swung his log, Arima jumped lightly to avoid the hit and while he was still in mid-air, another Orc did the same move as his comrade

"[Propero]" Arima spun in the air like a wheel and kicked the incoming log with the momentum, the latter crashed on the ground, creating a small depression. Arima landed on the log and instantly beheaded the two who attacked him. The thing that scared people was the smile that didn"t disappear from his face.

The last group of Orcs which didn"t attack was frightened and hesitated to attack. Arima didn"t care about this, he returned his blade in the scabbard and took an Iai stance. Suddenly, Arima began to gather magic in his sword, black strands of electricity appeared around it. The Orcs were 10 meters away, they felt the pressure and tried to follow their instincts to flee. But before they could turn their back to run, Arima unleashed his technique "[Aeterna] (Eternal Night)" Arima swung one more time his sword and a black wave was launched to the Orcs. This crescent-shaped attack cut in half all the six Orcs remaining, but not a drop of blood was spilled, the attack burned the flesh. It didn"t disappear after cutting through the Orcs but ascended and exploded in the air like a firework. Arima breathed out and returned Karma in his soul.

He looked around at the corpses "[Umbra, Manducare]" Arima"s shadow grew darker and bigger to finally recover all the fight zone. Soon after, the dead Orcs were absorbed by the shadow like they were absorbed by a swamp.

"Well, I suppose I have to report this now, [Scintillam feram]" Arima vanished one more time with a black spark left behind. When he left, the place was as empty as if nothing happened there, not even a stain of blood remained.

************************************************

Back at the guild.

"What? You already finished?! An Orc"s nest?!" Maria exclaimed "It hasn"t even been an hour!"

"Well, yes, I went and returned, what"s the problem?" Arima plainly said

"There"s a lot of problems…" She murmured and sighed "Then, can you show me the subjugation proof?"

"Of course, is there a sort of storage place in the guild? I need s.p.a.ce" Arima said

"Yeah, we have a storage, but why?" She inquired

"Just lead me there, you"ll understand soon enough" He answered. Maria brought Arima in the underground where materials were stored. Arima placed himself at the center of the place "[Umbra, Exspue] (Shadow, spit out)" Once again, his shadow recovered the floor, and bodies of the Orcs emerged.

"s.p.a.ce magic…" Maria was dumbfounded. She knew that s.p.a.ce magic was hard to use and even more difficult to master. But Arima used it so easily and also stored the bodies of the Orcs that were 3 meters tall.

"That"s all of it, you can check" Arima called Maria

"Oh, yes" She recovered and began to count and check the bodies. It seems that she was surprised when she saw the six Orcs that were cut in half "There"s 16 of them, and all were in the upper level of cla.s.s 4 monsters"

("Upper cla.s.s of level 4?") Arima reacted at these words, it seemed that there was a ranking for the monsters ("I"ll check at the library") Arima decided. Maria finished her work and they returned to the reception.

"The reward is 50 silvers for each Orc slain and since you have brought the bodies it will be 10 additional silvers for each, so your reward is 9 golds and 60 silvers" Maria calculated and gave a pouch to Arima who stored it in his storage.

("Not bad, that would sum up to almost a thousand dollars.") Arima thought. He said goodbye to Maria and left the guild. After that, he headed straight to the library the owner of the weapons shop told him about.