Hunter

Knock, knock.

"Hello? Is somebody there?" Kaian spoke loudly, hoping for an answer. The second time he was intending to enter someone's house today. Was he being too careless? Should he escape?

He didn't get the time to think about it before the door opened. A man with leather armor and many glass vials full of swirling, colorful liquids on his body, entered Kaian's vision. He had a circle beard and bushy eyebrows, his eyes both angry and friendly. A typical mysterious character. Surprisingly, they were of similar height.

Kaian got a good feeling from the guy and only looked for a way to escape once. It was the trusty window. He would jump through it and change forms in the chaos, effectively disappearing.

The man didn't speak, instead changing his expression into one of curiosity and a slight amount of hostility. Kaian didn't waste time and popped the question.

"Will you marry me?- Fuck, I mean, will you teach me how to survive in the wilderness?"

Kaian had never seen a man change expressions so fast. In fact, it was faster than when Kaian changed forms, turning from an edgelord to a "I cannot believe what this mf just said to me". Kaian knew he had messed up so he whipped out his trump card.

"I'll give you money."

The trump card being the coin he couldn't guess the value of, his blue-ish gold savior.

"Uh, just to be clear, you want to buy lessons about survival with this orb, not, for example, sexual acts?"

And this time, Kaian was on the receiving end, his face crumpling into disgust.

"Yes, of course I want to learn survival, the thing earlier, I simply misspoke."

"Suure, go inside then, we can talk in private- wait, that sounds weird, come inside… dammit." he sighed. "You know what, just follow me."

Kaian came inside, behind the man, suspicious and considering whether this was a good idea.

He led him to a table and ordered Kaian to sit down. Kaian didn't like the treatment, but he was there to ask for something and they didn't start off on the best note so it was excusable.

The hunter stared at Kaian and grabbed at an orange vial, inserting it into a circular mechanism on his arm in one, cleanly practiced, move. The liquid drained and vanished into his arm. He squinted his eyes, looking at Kaian and seemingly satisfied with what he saw, he sat down.

Kaian noticed that the hunter's eyes gained an orange hue and it creeped the hell out of him. Nonetheless, he put down the coin he had in his hand the whole time on the table. He wouldn't change his decision!

As for whether he would come to regret it in the future, nobody knows.

"What's your name?" The hunter asked, glancing at the coin.

"Kaian"

"Just that?"

".. Yeah, why?"

"Hmm, it's that you strike me as some noble, they usually have two names."

"Well, I can assure you I'm not a noble."

"..Alright. My name is Wynfir. As you already know, I'm a hunter. Originally not from this village, but I settled here."

Kaian was astonished at the idea of someone here having a normal name. Wait, argh, he's gotta stop thinking about stupid shit and focus.

"So… Are you willing to teach me?"

The hunter hesitated, thinking it through.

"Sure, but you will have to give me a cut after each day of learning. Once I teach you for a week of course, the orb only covers that and the price of… getting to know each other. Hum, It's getting late, we'll begin tomorrow morning. And don't worry, today doesn't count. "

With these words he chased Kaian off and he was left at the door, thinking whether he got scammed or not.

Even if he didn't, this was going to be extremely expensive. Good thing that it was evening - the time of Azir.

…

Kaian stepped into the inn, rubbing his hands like a sleazy merchant, his pupils looking like orbs. They immediately spotted the men playing Azir and Kaian joined them in a smooth move.

He looked at the betting pool, it was full of mons with a few cuts and some white ones. Kaian watched other people play to get the hang of how the betting worked.

It was quite simple. Everyone playing would put money in a pool, starting with the ball handler who would control how large it was. If he put a lot of money, the people who guess at how many balls he has at the end of his shaking are forced to put a lot as well. After all the money is collected, the BH starts shaking and the players guess, either writing down the final answers or leaving them to be memorized by someone trustworthy. If a single person got the number correctly, they get all the money. If multiple people guess it, they split it between themselves. Finally, if the BH fools everyone, he gets everything.

Naturally, the people here played for fun and given that they decided on the number of rounds at the start, everyone got to be the BH. This resulted in everyone keeping largely the same amount of money as they started with. That was unless there was a really good player. And Kaian really felt like cheating today.

He had to check something before that, however.

[Amount]

The stone responded with its emotionless voice.

"12."

[My bad, I think I misheard. Amount]

"... 12."

Kaian couldn't believe it, his mouth dropped to the floor and he tasted the wood.

[T-this is impossible. How? I get vexapoints by winning, but I haven't won anything this many times. Could it be dependent on the quality? Is it perhaps from the v-village?]

At the mere thought of the village he got sick to his stomach. The people playing noticed and snapped him out of it.

"Hey kid, don't lose your mind over this, it's your round and you're making us wait."

It was strangely comforting. Kaian muttered an apology and grew determined to thank them by stealing all their money.

Kaian bet a cut, a pretty large starting amount. It didn't make the people very happy, but the chance of him winning completely were slim, so they only complained a little.

Once all the money was placed, Kaian grabbed the balls and started shaking them. He tried to store one - it failed and he got asked to pay a vexapoint.

This stupid stone stored the items not the space, how dumb was that?

Despite his inward grumbling, he paid it, not feeling the loss. Would a VP millionaire (without the 5 zeroes) cry over one VP? Well, no, but he got close to it.

Finally, he stored it, continuing the shaking, doing nothing with the other balls.

"I'm done." He proclaimed, growing pale after saying it, the memories hit him hard.

"Guys, he's doing the trick. Haha, newbie, we all know this city bluff already. Get ready to lose everything."

The men looked at Kaian and misunderstood his pale visage as being afraid.

"Ahaha, kid, you made a big mistake betting this much."

"It feels pretty bad to steal everything from a kid."

All proceeded to guess that he had all his balls left, thinking that it was a psychological trick. Kaian felt great at having all his balls intact, but that wasn't the case for Azir. A ball was missing there!

He unfurled his hand and everyone looked at his balls, shocked. He fooled all of them!

Kaian grabbed the loot pool, growing richer. Vexastone promised way more than that.

…

After properly scamming all of the players and giving them severe mental scars, he left the Azir table and went into his room. This was a very productive day. Kaian got 3 VP and he even managed to learn the last coin's name. It was white and the name was tooth. This meant that he understood money now. The one with the most value was the blue-ish gold orb, after that was the golden cut, a silver mon following. Last coin being a white tooth.

Even though he knew the names, he didn't really know the exact value, which was a problem. He knew one thing, however. And that was him being rich! He counted his money and came up with 11 cuts, 43 mons and 39 teeth.

Unfortunately, he damaged the villagers so bad that he doubted anyone from here would play with him anymore. Well, there was one last benefit, he got to know what the balls were called - bits. Finally, he could stop sounding weird by calling them balls all the time.

But now, time for sleep. Kaian changed into a snail and climbed on the ceiling. A mimir.

…

Kaian woke up after a healthy x hours of sleep, he didn't know what time it was, but it had to be healthy because he felt good. Surprisingly, he didn't get robbed or had an attempted murder happen to him. Feeling quite optimistic, Kaian changed back into a human and stepped outside, aiming for the hunter.

He checked some forms he could acquire on the way. With his 10+ VP, surely he could afford something good.

Not intending on getting another water creature, he purchased a long one that was above, yet close, to his all-powerful snail. The time to test it out, would come soon. His [Amount] was on 4, left for some emergency. Though, he doubted that it would be useful if such a thing happened.

Soon, he arrived at Wynfir's house. Kaian knocked on the door and the hunter tapped on his shoulder. He scared the shit out of him and Kaian nearly transformed on the spot, his hand in his pocket.

"I wonder, why did your hand go towards your pocket instead of going into a defensive position?"

Kaian winced and replied with a question: "Do I have to answer?"

"Of course not, now follow me, we're going into the forest."

The man headed out, not paying attention to Kaian at all. Kaian sighed and followed warily, his hand in his pocket, trying to both look cool and be safe. Unfortunately, he wasn't sure that it worked on the hunter.

Kaian really wasn't in a position to do anything now, so weak that he had to rely on a snail to defend him against a random person from some backwater village. He very much disliked that.

…

Eventually, they entered the forest, roaming around. Kaian wondered what was the man teaching him, perhaps to be quiet and go around randomly like a madman? However, he didn't want to put the money to waste and observed the hunter, copying his movements and very very slowly becoming better.

"Stop." The hunter whispered after more than an hour of walking, putting his hand in front of Kaian.

"This is perfect to teach you the first rule of this world." he added, pointing at a peaceful pond.

It was beautiful, mysterious green plants growing around it, the water sparkling and light reflecting off of it. An oasis. Kaian wanted nothing more but to jump in. This made him wary, but he didn't notice anything influencing his emotions. He could very easily decide not to go in. Clearly, it was safe.

The hunter saw what went through Kaian's eyes and he grinned, taking out the same orange vial and inserting it into the mechanism again. The liquid disappeared into his arm and he took out a yellow one, also inserting it into his arm.

It made his muscles bulge and the hunter grabbed an iron spear that was on his back. He laughed and jumped at the lake with inhuman speed and force. Kaian could only follow him with his eyes in shock.

The man, now in the air on top of the pool, put his hand with the spear back and launched it at the peaceful water.

The spear became a blur, leaving the arm extremely fast. It tore the wind apart and Kaian could've sworn that he noticed a tornado forming.

BOOOM

The spear connected to the water and instead of a splash, an explosion of dirt and chunks of blue flesh appeared.

Kaian got hit by quite a few and it left blue streaks on his best clothes. He stared dumbfounded at the hunter who landed and heroically stood, holding his spear inside a monster's dead body.

"The first rule is to always be wary of water."