A Worthy Hunt (3)

Jason grunted as he finally got up off the forest floor. His eyes trailed back to the Holo on his wrist, finding it blinking once again. He took a moment, looked around at the trees around him, and when he found nothing to distract himself, he reluctantly tapped the screen.

Above the screen of the device appeared a hologram of a woman's upper body and face. Her face was similar to his; smooth, fair skin from days in the shade -though, his was due to the fact that he couldn't get sunburned anymore- that framed sunken blue eyes ringed in deep black circles. She looked tired and clearly worried. Her long, dark brown hair, the same color as his own, was frazzled compared to her normal straight and well-maintained visage.

As the teen froze at the clear frown on her face, he studied his mom's clothes and felt distinctly guilty. Draped over her shoulders was a blanket Jason had seen before. Their home was positioned pretty high up on their City Pillar, so it was always what his mom wore when she stayed up late, swaddling up on their small couch to keep warm.

"Hey… mom." Jason said, finding the silence unbearable.

"Are you okay?"

Jason felt his heart jump a bit, guilt filling his chest. If she berated him for not going home or tried to push something on him, he could have mustered up some form of resistance.

"I'm fine. I just… stayed out a bit late."

His mom hummed neutrally. "When will you get back to the Pillar? Are you lost?"

"I'm not lost, mom." Jason groaned, relaxing as he went into a more comfortable conversation. "I don't need dad to get me."

His mom's features turned stony in the hologram. "Jason Argo, don't think you are out of trouble just because I am being nice. If you won't accept your father's advice, I'll send him to the hunting grounds after you."

Jason swallowed audibly, nodding his head quickly. He might be stronger, faster, and more durable than any normal man, but the fear of his mom's punishment is something ingrained in him.

He had naturally forgotten just how good his mom was with dealing with Delvers. She might not be awakened or anything too special, but she certainly knew how to handle Delvers from her job in representing them in their established courts. It should have been obvious if he thought about her job for a bit; she was too calm in the conversation, stating her intentions only as he relaxed.

Though, he felt a little weird at the fact that she used those techniques on him.

"Good." She said with finality.

His mom's hologram disappeared naturally, blinking out in a buzz of static. It took a couple seconds for the next call to connect, and opposite of his mom, his dad whistled loudly with a grin on his face.

Where people said he got his looks from his mom, everyone would agree that his dad's personality rubbed off on him. It wasn't anything grandiose, but just the way the man held himself; a sort of confidence that spoke of years of experience.

Of course, they only felt the two didn't look alike because his dad had been infected by the Abyss.

Nothing horrible or life-threatening, really. Jason had heard it was something dangerous like a hundred years ago or so, but now, it was just something merely cosmetic. A side effect that came with a supposedly talented Delver or someone who failed to become a Delver. The specifics weren't too clear, really.

His dad, sadly, was the latter. The long streaks of white that ran through his short hair were always something that wouldn't go away no matter how much he tried to hide them. It only made it more apparent when others saw the half inch-long claws that came out of his fingertips.

"You look like shit." His dad said, smiling enough to expose his sharp canines.

"Gee thanks. I take after you." Jason groused with a smile of his own.

"At least you're not dying. Your mother would kill me if you actually died out there. Though…" The man looked him over, rubbing his chin with his palm. "What's the haul? Didn't ruin it too much on your little Delver joyride, huh?"

Jason beamed back. In the background he heard his mom's voice echo out in reprimand. "Would you believe me if I said it was a Lyonire?"

"A Lyonire, huh… nasty beast. Not something they let rookies even near." His dad mused with a smile as wide as his own. "I remember I hunted a couple with some idiots. Made a stupid mistake like trying to fight it in its rudimentary mana domain… you did that, didn't you?"

The teen felt his tongue catch in the back of his throat. He glanced over at the brutalized skull of the Lyonire beside him, and while he couldn't see the extent of his own injuries, he still felt the itchy and tiny cuts sting all across his torso and limbs from shrapnel and the simple chaos of the fight. He felt them more so now that he wasn't hopped up on adrenaline. Not to mention the healing gash on his shoulder where its claws glanced him.

"No, nope. I stayed true to your hunting methods. Always strike when I have absolute certainty."

His dad waved his hand in the hologram, clearly amused. "Sure, sure. Anyways, I doubt it was a big one. You should see the hauls your old man brought in from one of the higher-tiered hunting grounds. Everything there uses mana, and only the most dangerous and coolest sur–"

Jason heard a loud crash as his dad's hologram wavered for a moment. Curses littered his speakers as his dad's face came back into screen. Both of them chose not to comment on the hand that lay on the older man's shoulder.

"As I was saying, go and bring your hunt back to the processors in the front. Say my name and they'll put you on the fastrack. And I have a rough idea on where you might be. Sending the directions back your way. Get home safe, son."

Jason held back from rolling his eyes as he cut the connection. "Bye dad."

With an explosive sigh, the teen let his eyes readjust to the darkness of the forest around him. He reached behind to his back pockets, and cursed as he found them ripped and their contents lost or ruined. He spared the Lyonire's corpse one look before he draped its back legs over his chest and slung it onto his back.

Its brutalized head sloshed nauseatingly as he dragged it along the ground. The weight of its body slowed his steps, but it was hardly a challenge for his current physique. All the problems stemmed from the smell that clung close to its corpse, forcing him to breathe sparingly through his mouth.

After a moment of walking in silence, Jason's Holo dinged with his dad's supposed directions. They were… annoyingly accurate. The man didn't account for the Lyonire to run off with him on its back, but they accurately pointed out that the older hunter knew exactly where the beast's nest had been. Why he had known that and didn't spare his son the details, Jason didn't really care.

With the directions, the teen easily found the dead beast's nest, finding the slag of what were his knives nearby. He paused as he took them back, knowing just how lucky he had been as he ran straight through the area saturated with mana.

"What'd dad call it?" Jason mused aloud, fiddling with his ruined knife. "Rudimentary mana domain, huh? Delver knowledge certainly is something necessary for more dangerous hunts."

Jason thought back to how many times he could have eaten the dirt back there. If it wasn't for his strong body and fast reaction speed, there was a fair chance he might not have been able to pick up his mom's call.

His lips spread into a thin line at the morose thought. However, as quickly as it appeared, it was gone the next moment. He didn't want to dwell on the what-ifs; he had been the one who walked away in the end.

Quickly, Jason pilfered the surroundings of whatever valuables he could find. Lyonire's were known to lace their nests with highly conductive materials, and those would certainly fatten up his account. At least enough to buy better knives.

After a short search and longer –and rather boring– trek back to the entrance of the hunting grounds, Jason breathed deeply. Unlike the forests, outside tended to have a slight metallic taste in the air. He supposed it had something to do with the towering, metallic walls thick enough to stop a riot of every single beast in the entire enclosure.

The teen's gaze wandered up the massive walls, finding outcroppings where hunters and minor Delvers overlooked the hunting grounds from above. From their height, Jason could barely make out their figures with just his enhanced eyesight, but he could tell that there were several eyes on him. He doubted that they hadn't noticed the light show he dealt with during his fight.

Even further above those, where the top of the walls seemed to almost reach the World Cage, a bright wire mesh of interlocking blue lines appeared for a moment. Jason caught the figure of someone leaping out from the wall to catch the bird that had unknowingly ran straight into the ceiling of the hunting grounds.

The small bit of excitement didn't really bother anyone. The closer someone got to the walls, the safer they would be. Except, there seemed to be quite a few hunters and small-time Delvers who called it quits at this time, forming a long line that stretched out from the tiny entrance to the wall.

Jason quickly gathered quite a bit of attention with the Lyonire corpse on his back. The teen narrowed his eyes at a few people who leered at his hunt, and he paid more attention to the stenciled letters on a group of three. On their upper right arms were an inverted "Y"; the unspoken sign of a Delver union who operated on his planet. They normally didn't do much other than mess with people, but there had been rumors about some people who went missing when they dealt with them.

"Agro, Jason!" A loud voice echoed out from the front of the line. Jason turned reflexively, taking his eyes off the Delvers to find himself locking gazes with someone he was familiar with.

A massive man who towered a couple inches over seven foot. Jason heard it was a side effect of his Delver talents, but that didn't stop the man from being so intimidating. The teen wasn't a slouch and could confidently say he was muscular by trade, but Adam Tarik was built like a tank. Jason had witnessed how his hands were large enough to wrap around a man's head and lift them clear off the ground.

However, it wasn't like Jason knew the man personally. In fact, Jason barely interacted with him beyond the necessary amount. Adam was the one who monitored the security of the hunting grounds, so everyone either sucked up to him or got out of his way.

Safe to say, Adam was the last person Jason expected his dad to notify.

"You get a pass." Adam walked through the line, not even paying attention to the people who naturally made way for him. The larger man wrapped a hand around one of the massive legs of the Lyonire, the same legs several times my own, and slung the whole corpse over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Come on. Your old man promised to take me out on a dangerous hunt if I get you through fast."

"Ah, uh, yeah…" Jason hurriedly followed after the man after he turned and left. On the way, Jason paid attention to the Delvers who had been watching him, noting how they refused to meet his eyes.

"Don't mind them. They'll only bother you if they realize they can get away with it." Adam's voice rumbled from above Jason's head. "Its why you don't hear anything other than rumors; they're smart enough to back off of who they can't touch."

Jason frowned at his feet. "That seems…"

"Fucked up?"

"Not like that, but yeah. About that much."

Adam grunted, shoulders rocking back and forth like a mountain quaking. It took a moment for Jason to realize that it was a laugh. "Get used to it, kid. Most governing bodies were destroyed after the Transcendental Wars happened. The only ones who kept everything from falling to the shitters were the Delver Unions and the companies behind them."

Jason scrunched up his nose at the information. The Transcendental Wars were something he heard about as they happened only a few hundred years after the Origin World, Earth, fell into the Abyss. However, he also knew it was the Delver Unions who started the conflict, too.

"Doesn't that make them rather… hypocritical?"

"Yeah, it does, doesn't it?" Adam said, shaking his head without an explanation.

Jason felt that the mountain of a man would continue to talk, but when they reached the wall, Adam had grown silent. He tossed the carcass of the Lyonire to two men in thick, leather aprons with yellow boots and gloves. They stumbled as they caught the body, grunting as they struggled to hoist it into the passageway out of the hunting grounds.

To say it was an exit was pretty apt. All that the passageway amounted to was a long hole that went through the wall. Several lights lit up on the ceiling and floor, and colored lines flashed every now and then to direct hunters and Delvers to certain rooms connected to the sides of the massive passage.

The whole place was a heart of motion; hundreds of people passed through it to go to and out from the hunting grounds constantly. Jason caught sections of the floor and ceiling where he could see seams for barricades to pop out from anytime, noting that there were more installed than last time he checked. In addition, there were several more people in guard uniforms that surveyed the hunters who came out. A couple spared him a glance only to look away as they saw Adam.

"Uh, what's going on?" Jason asked, curious.

Adam craned his massive neck to look back at the teen. "Oh? You actually can tell?"

"Yeah, there's more checks than last time."

"Don't worry about it, kid. Nothing for a Delver of your experience, at least. If we needed kids to look over our shit, then I might as well net even have a job."

"But… Yeah." Jason wanted to argue, but eventually decided against it. No matter how curious he was, there was a limit to how much Adam could and could tell him. To everyone, he was just a kid who awakened as a Delver for not even a year.

"No need to be a Squick, kid." Adam said, reaching over to pat his shoulder hard enough that he felt it in his bones. "Come on, I saved you enough time getting here. Follow me."

Jason's eyebrows folded together as the man led him through the tunnel to a room he hadn't seen anyone go into. His unasked question was answered as Adam motioned him inside to see the large, metal desk with a small, little blue hologram with the name "Adam Tarik" that floated inside it. Several little trophies from big and small beasts were displayed on the selves within a glass case. On the glass different pictures of Adam next to massive corpses flashed, denoting which trophy was for which beast.

The teen took a bit of pride as he saw one picture of Adam next to a dead Lyonire. Of course, compared to the one he hunted, Adam's was massive, dwarfing even the trees that stood next to it.

"Ah that. I remember that hunt." Adam mused with a ghost of a smile as he caught the teen's gaze. "Took fifty of us to bring that thing down. A very nice specimen."

Jason blinked, unsure what to think. He knew that his dad hunted in groups, but that was only because he was someone without access to mana. The idea that someone who dwarfed regular Devlers had to team up with fifty others was something Jason hadn't expected.

Adam grinned as if he could see what Jason had thought. "Curious are you, kid?"

"Well, a bit…"

"Don't sweat it. That Lyonire had something special about it, but I am not in the luxury to give out that much Delver know-how without enough compensation."

Jason frowned at the clear refusal, but understood it enough. No Delver would give up information without at least taking an arm and leg from the other person. It was why they had such a horrible relationship with Squicks, or paparazzi and interviewers.

"And take a seat if you want. I'll have you out quick." the man said as he relaxed in his large chair behind his desk. Jason found a comfortable chair across from it, sinking into the rare, leather furniture with relish. Briefly, he wondered if he could buy something like this for his mom.

"So…" Jason started as he looked around the room.

Adam chuckled, reaching into his desk and pulling out a paper. On it was a cartoonish silhouette of a triangle with a crown on top of it. Jason's eyes widened as he noticed it and promptly looked up at the large man with disbelief.

"This is?" Jason shakily took the paper that the man handed him. In the first place, paper wasn't used much anymore as trees weren't prevalent in every world, and their Holos were tied to pretty much every system within the worlds. The only world that still used paper for more mundane things was the Origin World.

And the paper was clearly a recruitment flier for one of the four most prestigious universities in the Origin World. A holy place for all aspiring Delvers.

"Do you know how many new Delvers can hunt a beast that can use mana?" Adam started.

"Uh, the news says around… fifty percent, right?" Jason said, remembering the odd segments of special news his mom started to watch when he awakened.

"It's actually much lower since they don't account for the idiots who get eaten or bodies that go missing. The number then drops to four digits when we start talking about beasts on the same scale as the Lyonire you brought in casually." Adam supplied darkly, chuckling as Jason's face paled a bit. "Don't go numb on me, kid. I think you can get into one of the academies. Have you put in any thought about where you want to go as Delver?"

"Well," Jason fidgeted in his seat. He really didn't want to say he had basically been having fun showing off to his friends everywhere back at home and in his small, solo hunts for the thrill. "My dad's a hunter, so I was thinking of doing the sa–"

"I'm going to cut you off right there." Adam held up a large, meaty hand. "Have you gotten a Stone? How many Innate talents do you have?"

Jason pursed his lips, unsure. After a moment of silence, he sighed hard. "We don't have the free money to check."

Adam clicked his tongue. "Fuckin' Cogs."

He then leveled Jason a stare. "Okay fine, I'll set you up for an Abyss Stone appointment in your Pillar. You seem like you have a bit of talent, and I hate to see someone like you who can bring in a Lyonire solo to simply waste away." he pointed at the poster in Jason's hands. "And take that when you go. They'll try to recruit you on the spot if you're good enough."

"O- oh! Thank you!"

Adam hummed with a smile, tapping the Holo on his wrist. The next moment, Jason got a notification about an Abyss Stone appointment. The teen hadn't made any plans for the future yet, but he certainly wasn't going to say no to an opportunity like this. He had basically been handed a way to become a Delver who was known in more than the hunting grounds around his Pillar City. Any other Delver would kill for something like this; more probably did kill to get accepted now that he thought about it.

"Right, that's all. Send your father my regards about the next hunt." Adam said, waving him to the door to the room that slid open with a rush of pressurized air.

Jason thanked the man again, turning to leave. However, at the door he realized something. He hadn't been paid for the Lyonire.

"Ah right, where do I get the money for the corpse?"

"What do you think got you that appointment?" Adam asked rhetorically. "The two aren't even remotely the same, so I lost in this deal, too."

"But I thought–"

"Delvers don't work for free, kid. Don't get scammed." he said, and this time, Jason felt his body was picked up by some wind before being carried out of the room.

The teen grunted as his back hit the ground, leaving him the view of Adam waving at him as the door to his office shut closed. Around him, hunters and Delvers pathed around him without much worry as the teen lay there. Perhaps it took him longer than expected to realize he might have been scammed.