A youth was running home in the late afternoon through the bustling capital city of Kingsted. Curiously she meet no resistance, even though the streets were packed to the brim. Reaching her destination, a small house in the residential district, the youth slowed down and stopped to catch her breath and put on a smile before knocking on the door to a middle sized house."Dad, mom I"m home~!"
Shouting loudly she took off her shoes and walked into the allroom.
"I got off early~ Eh, what"s wrong?"
"We need to talk, please sit down."
Meeting her parents like she expected, the youth was surprised to see her parents sitting at the dinner table, with the air around them overly serious.
"What"s wrong?"
Sitting down in a with a worried look on her face, the youth nervously waited for her parents to tell her what was wrong.
"First of all we"re really glad you suddenly returned to town.. And then you told us you got a new and higher paying job, but…"
"What"s wrong dad?"
"..."
Falling quiet with a difficult face the youth"s dad looked like he had swallowed a bug as he found it hard to say.
"... Why do you suddenly have all that money?"
"I told you I got a new job-"
"Helping out a foreign diplomat yeah.. But-"
"Alice are you selling your body!?"
"EEEEEEHHHHHHHH!?"
Blooming completely crimson, Alice was understandably confused by her mothers outratus attucation.
"Then did you join some sort of criminal organiz-"
"I DID NOT!"
"We"re just worried dear."
Looking wordlessy at her parents for a bit Alice breathed a deep sigh.
"Then do you want to meet my boss?"
---
"That"s how it is, would you please meet my parents?"
"Ah, yeah sure, I"ll throw something together in the kitchen and we can have a talk.. But this hardly seems the time to bring it up."
[TARGETS CLOSING RANGE, ENGAGEMENT IN 15 SECONDS.]
"Okay game on. Intercept all targets, don"t let a single one escape."
Dax, together with Alice were currently hunting a very particular type of monster by the request of the hunters guild, with Terra currently house sitting as she had annoyed Dax sufficiently for the day. As they hid beside a road a horse drawn covered wagon pa.s.sed them as if rus.h.i.+ng out of h.e.l.l itself.
"And there goes the bait."
"Indeed, you might want to get that strengthening magic ready."
"On it.."
With the "live bait" pa.s.sing by them, Alice circulated mana into her body, getting it ready the second their targets pa.s.sed the two hidden hunters.
"I need the smartest looking one alive!"
"Roger!"
Das.h.i.+ng out of the brush, one propelled by by a mix of strengthening magic and muscles, the other by sheer muscle, Alice and Dax quickly caught up on their first pray.
"What th-"
Before the first bandit could utter a complete sentence his head was separated from his body by a well placed kick. With a snap his neck cracked and he fell from his galloping horse and crashed to the ground with a bang, alerting the other bandits.
"s.h.i.+T!"
"Ambus.h.!.+"
"Keep going, we"ll outrun them!"
[LEADING ELLEMENT LOCATED. PRIMARY TARGET a.s.sIGNED PRELIMINARY ID "GREENCAP". SECURE HVT FOR INTELLIGENCE EXTRACTION.]
"Spring the trap! I only need Greencap with a intact skull!"
With the commanding element revealing himself, an especially rugged bandit second to the front of the collum, Dax decided to spring his trap.
All of a sudden the covered wagon the bandits originally hunted shed its cover as Reaper drones jumped from it. Without the use of any weapons the drones lept and landed on the bandis in pursuit, tackling them off their horses and outright killing most of the some 20 bandits, trapping "Greencap" between the drones and the Dax Alice pair.
"What the h.e.l.l do you guys want from me!?"
"A high ranked hunter from from the guild recently joined your group, where is he?"
"What hunter?- Ah that guy, he"s at the base. If I guide you guys there will you let me g-"
"No need."
[CONNECTION ESTABLISHED. NOW EXTRACTING RAW CEREBRAL DATA… COMPLETE. HIGH VALUE TARGET LOCATED.]
dropping the still convulsing bandit like a sack of potatoes Dax filtered through the information with the help of ICI.
"A cave 2.8 kilometers from here.. Too bad we need to recover the tags, otherwise I would"ve just collapsed the cave and let the bandis themself sort it all out….."
"That is really f.u.c.king disturbing Dax.."
"What is really f.u.c.king disturbing is the months of memories I just sifted through to pinpoint the cave."
"What are you tal-"
"That guy there likes to kill children, that one there too, and this f.u.c.king b.a.s.t.a.r.d used the cop-"
"Stop! I understand!"
"Do you?"
"I get the general picture yeah! Lets go and wipe them out already…"
Realizing the downside to Dax"s seemingly perfect method of gathering information Alice s.h.i.+vered as she went over to the carriage.
Normally the hunters guild would never bother with bandits or highwaymen, and they never did. What the hunters guild do take issue with is when hunters become bandits, so kill or capture orders are issued to contracted hunters, enforcers of the guild. Dax being a contracted hunter since employment the day would eventually come when some idiot hunter realized he could make more coin becoming a bandit, and so the day came. a week after purging Kingsted of criminal elements one of Dax"s drones doing a weekly drop off of monster cores had received a note.
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It has been confirmed that a platinum ranked hunter named Mark have joined with a local groups of bandits operating on the roads 20 kilometers north of Kingsted. Capture him alive or kill him and bring back his tag within a week or the your status of a contracted hunter will be revoked.
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Locating and killing a hunter of the same rank in only a week would normally be an insane endeavor. But after 20 minutes of uplink with Dax"s comsat-1 satellite costing through the cold and empty s.p.a.ce above the upper atmosphere ICI located a curious group of travellers, revealing themselves to be bandits. Haven taken most of the day traveling to and locating the first group of bandits, night were now falling on the forested area north of Kingsted. Deep within a peculiar forrest columns of smoke rose to the night sky, revealing a settlement. The settlement was located mostly within a large open cave. With a shappy outer fence made of sc.r.a.ps of wood and a pile of corpses outside it, the inhabitants clearly weren"t that civilised, and a large part of them were currently dancing around a central bonfire while getting wasted on goods they had stolen the day before.
[HVT NOT FOUND.]
"He"s most likely deeper inside the cave.. Alice I leave you 5 drones, hold the perimeter."
"Yes sir~ What are you gonna do?"
"What I"ve been waiting to do this whole evening. From up on me, a.s.sault formation."
[ICI CONFIRMES, TASKING ALL DRONES TO a.s.sAULT FORMATION. 76 TARGETS ACQUIRED, REQUESTING DIRECTIVES.]
"Area purge, weapons free. Lock base accuracy margin to 95% and shoot to kill."
[AREA PURGE CONFIRMED, SWITCHING ALL DRONES IN AREA OF OPERATIONS TO BEHAVIOR PATTERN BLACK. WEAPONS HOT, READY TO EXECUTE.]
"Rip them apart!"
In the end the bandits never saw it coming. After no more than 5 seconds no one outside the cave remained alive as they were culled by precise rifle fire that ripped through armor, flesh, fence and cover alike.
[76 TARGETS EXTERMINATED.]
"E-effective…"
Alice had seen the destructiveness of gauss rifles before, but not against human targets. Flesh, bone and sinew covered the copes all about, as metal slugs had easily penetrated through their intended targets, ripping out large chunks of blood along with an amazing amount of blood.
"WHAT THE f.u.c.k IS-"
Hearing all of the commotion some of the bandis that had been inside the cave at the time of the first attack ran out shouting, and promptly had their heads removed by precise rifle fire orchestrated by ICI.
[14 ADDITIONAL TARGETS PURGED.]
"Yeah I see that. The rest must be hiding inside the cave… I should have lured them outside first.. ICI protect Alice, I"ll be right back."
Handing over his rifle to a drone, Dax leisurely marched towards the cave, barehanded.
"Be careful!"
Responding to Alice"s warning, Dax waved without looking back before cracking his knuckles. Reaching the cave he grabbed a torch from the wall and headed inside.
"Anyone home!? I"m from pest control, here to exterminate some vermin!"
Walking for about a minute Dax reached a large room inside the cave. 5 minutes later Dax emerged from the cave holding a dripping bag and a pair of b.l.o.o.d.y and mangled metal tags.
"Mission accomplished."
"What"s in the bag?"
"You don"t want to know."
"Okay.. What now?"
"We"re heading home, I want to take a bath."
"Roger~"
---
Getting back to Kingsted late at night Dax told Alice to invite her parents over the following evening and disappeared into the kitchen along with a few drones. Collapsing on her bed Alice slept like a baby until morning when she was woken up by a wonderful fragrance that appeared to come from downstairs. Lezley getting herself half dressed, Alice went downstairs to the kitchen and ordered breakfast in her usually relaxed style.
"ICI breakfast please~"
"Goodmorning Alice~"
Alice had expected the kitchen to be empty, like it always were, but today it was filled with ingredients and Dax were currently using the table she usually ate breakfast at to disa.s.semble a whole sheep.
"Look at this lovely sheep I found at the market when it opened at sunrise a few hours ago. I have a great feeling that this will be the best course meal I"ve made since arriving on this planet, look forward to it~"
Dax"s hands never stopped working while he greeted Alice as he skillfully used a butchers knife to separate different cuts of meat with a smile on his face.
"By the way shouldn"t you wear more than that?"
"Eh? EEEHHHHHH! EXCUSE ME!"
Alice had been completely dumbstruck at the unexpected appearance of Dax in the kitchen that she had just stared at him, until he pointed out her state of drees, a half b.u.t.toned s.h.i.+rt and underwear. After a few minutes Alice returned to the kitchen, completely dressed with face in full bloom.
"G-goodmorning.."
"Good morning once more Alice~ Here"s your breakfast, you can eat it outside, I"ve had the drones set up a table and chair there."
A drone pa.s.sed Alice a plate with a freshly made french style omelet with some homemade sheep sausages.
"Where is Terra?"
"At the church taking care of the unrecovered demonkin for the day. There"s no work today, so just take it easy."
"Okay.."
After eating her meal, Alice had a slow day as she went around town after visiting her parents to invite them over for dinner.
"Welcome mr Allen and ms Ruth. Thank you for accepting my invite for dinner on such short notice, for tonight I"ve prepared a 4 course meal. Alice we"re eating in the unused room to the right of the kitchen, please wait there while I put the finis.h.i.+ng touch on the first plates."
"O-okay… Mom, dad it"s this way."
In the time Alice had went to get her parents Dax had shaved and changed into a white s.h.i.+rt and ap.r.o.n with black silk pants combination with a overall groomed look, and for once he wore long sleeves and pants.
"He"s certainly.. Large.."
"That was my first impression as well mom."
"And a demonkin too."
"He"s a qiton dad, but I think Dax want to explain that himself."
"I"ve never heard of that race before, but at least he"s well mannered."
"And his cooking is out of this world…"
"Alice you"re drooling dear."
"I take that as a compliment, for the first plate we"re having tea cured herring on a light green salad with a smoked cheese cream, and white wine to drink."
Arriving in the middle of the family"s chat Dax flawlessly carried four plates on one arm while bowing lightly before setting down the plates and poured some wine, before sitting down next to Alice oppersid of her parents.
"Please dig in, I"m especially proud of how it turned out this time."
"Is that it?"
Understandably Allen was skeptically looking at the small and elaborately dressed plate.
"Ah, I take it it"s the first time you two are eating a course meal? This is the starter, there"ll be 3 more meals after this one so just think of this a light snack to eat while talking."
"O-okay.."
"Dear this is delicious!"
"It is indeed!"
With the first plate to break to ice, Dax turned his cham to eleven as he entertained Alice and her parents as the time pa.s.sed quickly.
"Second plate for tonight is a smoked bacon quiche with a salad made of charred pak choi and fresh berries. The drink is a light pear cider that compliments the meal greatly."
…
"Time for the main attraction, lamb entrecote with fries confit and a herb vinaigrette. On the side is red wine and freshly baked bread."
…
"Thanks for accompanying me on this culinary journey, last stop is a fruit sorbet and poached pear a with whipped cream. For the drink I found this lovely white fortified wine."
…
..
.
After finis.h.i.+ng the last plate and talking a bit more Alice followed her parents home, as she was saying goodbye her mom suddenly hugged her out of nowhere.
"Mom!?"
"I"m so glad you found a new job!~"
"Yeah I feel so as well…"
"Also consider marrying him, you have our permission…. No is an order! Definitely marry him for the food!~"
"MOM!?"