A beast shouldn't be that hard to train, should it?
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- "So that has been my day-to-day life for hundreds of years, traveling through an infinity of different worlds. Hoping one day to finish, which never happened."
It was the second day of our arrival in this world. Hunter and I were still on our way north together, searching for life besides us.
- "Hey, Your leg tastes good, by the way; the chefs at the palace could prepare it as a gourmet dish."
- "You've had about three of those already; I see the witch was right about your species."
- "Oh? You know each other?"
"Face and name only. I was talking about what happened in the elections. You said you remembered it clearly, but I see you don't."
- "Hmph... I'm burning here, imbecile. What did you expect? This damned beast fur doesn't help."
- "Transform to human form and problem solved; I saw you doing it at the elections."
Hunter responded by directing his gaze toward me.
- "Ah yes, of course, I would, but SOMEONE destroyed a CERTAIN talisman that just happened to do that."
- "You mean this thing? - I pull the talisman out of my right pocket and show it to Hunter."
- "!!!!!"-In an erratic movement, Hunter plucked my hand with the talisman in it.
I stood watching my blood drain for a few seconds from my wrist until my hand began to regenerate.
- "You just would have asked for it, you beast."
- "TO HELL WITH THAT!" Hunter told me as he put the talisman around his neck.
The earth shook, and several souls emerged from the talisman, imbibing Hunter. Much energy was released until suddenly, the talisman spontaneously burst into flames, instantly igniting Hunter's fur.
- "AAAAAAAAAAAA FUCKING HELL EXTINGUISH IT!"-
Using my elemental creation ability, I created a massive drop of water on Hunter, which, when I dropped it, extinguished Hunter's body flames.
- "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?" - Hunter claimed to me.
To which I replied, smiling a little.
- Why did you rip my hand off in the first place?
- "Very funny... Now tell me, smarty-pants, why the fuck didn't my talisman work!!!!!!!!!!!?"
- "I know many things, but I could only make several hypotheses about this; the talisman had souls in it, didn't it? The energy to travel between worlds is the same; you must be soaked in that energy after the trip?"
- "AND WHEN DOES THE EFFECT RUN OUT?!"
- "I don't know, you'll have to wait; that's what you wanted at Lydenfrost, didn't you?"
- "LYDENFROST IS LYDENFROST, DON'T COMPARE IT TO HERE."
- "Do you know so little of your own world?"
- "Huh? What do you-" - Hunter's sentence was interrupted by having seen the horizon and spotted a change in the landscape in the distance, a place with abundant vegetation. But that did not connect with another place ... it could be.
- AN OASIS?! - Hunter exclaimed, getting up on all fours and heading towards the oasis.
-It will be dark in a couple of hours; I'll let him enjoy himself alone and be there in a few minutes.
Thirty minutes after Hunter went ahead of me, I arrived at the oasis. It was full of vegetation and even some fruit trees that I had seen before in other worlds. It was not so difficult for me to find Hunter. He was taking a dip to relieve his heat in front of me, right in the water reservoir.
- "We'll spend the night here; I'll prepare a shelter and light a fire."
- "Finally, you arrive, four-eyes!"- Hunter replied to me, floating belly-up on the surface of the water.
- "It's going to get dark soon; you'd better get out of there if you don't want to freeze."
- "Pff whatever, I'll stay here. You better have the campfire ready when I get there."
- "I will take your suggestion under advisement."
- "Suggestion? IT'S AN ORDER!"
Night fell, and I managed to get a shelter ready for the two of us made from whatever materials I had on hand, nothing that some vines, old wood, and some big leaves wouldn't fix. I made sure that the shelter was strong enough to physically and psychologically support the capricious beast. Speaking of the devil, he decided to show up just now, soaking wet and shivering from the cold.
- "You decided to finally show up, sit down, I have stew ready."
Hunter didn't say a word, the crackling sound of the campfire. He just sat down and helped himself to some stew, and when we finished eating, Hunter finally decided to mumble something.
- "You were right. I would have listened to you."
- "There's no such thing as 'would have,' Hunter. It's doing or not doing that makes the difference."
- "What did you mean...before?"
- "Mh?"
- "What did you mean I don't know anything about Lydenfrost? I've lived there my whole life; you have no idea what you're talking about -
- "Well, you didn't know that Lydenfrost had a desert in the first place or that behind the border there is a fiery inferno."
- "Bullshit! And how do you know that with such certainty!!!? NOBODY has crossed the border!"
- "Information from the "Ones from Above," they send it to me whenever I come to a new world. What, now you're acting like you want to know?"
Hunter nodded slightly, genuinely intrigued if we didn't count the layers of grief on his face from what had happened.
- "Okay...if you wish...just imagine..."
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A planet so close to its star that its surface would vaporize anyone in an instant until one day, the "Ones from Above" sent a meteor to hit the planet's surface. It possessed a kind of crystal that with the impact was distributed in the crater, creating a dome where life could take place. Thousands of years passed, and the terrain was divided into rings, one higher than the other until it reached the border of the icy mountains. Each one has a unique biome and its respective creatures.
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Hunter, surprised, I say to myself.
- "W-wow...amazing..."
- "I visited most of the kingdoms, from one end of your world to the other."
- "Stop bragging and tell me more about before the cataclysm. Anyway, if you fade away at night, I'll never know what happened, so TELL ME NOW!"
- "If you insist..."
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I went back to my little base in the middle of the forest to finally finish my work for the day and send the king's soul to my bosses.
I inserted the soul into the tube in my right hand, and the screen of my bracelet showed an interface where I could see the data of the soul I was sending. After reviewing the soul data, I pressed the "Send" button and immediately extended my right arm upwards. From it came a concentrated ray of the soul in question, transcending dimensions and illuminating the skies with that phosphorescent green color characteristic of souls.
A couple of hours later, I received my next mission; I would show it to you now, but my bracelet doesn't work. It said something like, "Excellent work today, Mr. Spacetime. Your "harvest" will be useful in improving the future of this and other worlds. We have again credited your "Moebius Bracelet" with 24 more hours of life so that you will continue to enjoy your Conditional Immortality." This is a text they always send; I have read it thousands of times.
After that was what really mattered, my next target. In this case they decided that I would harvest a mole beast from the Central Beast Kingdom named Leqkyu, a renowned engineer who had been working lately with the Reptilians, who as I understand it, did not get along very well with those from the Central Kingdom.
The Central Beast Kingdom, known to be the region's most important economic and political power, consists of 3 subregions suspended above the watery ring of Lydenfrost, a floating city built on what was left of that meteor. With three bridges connecting each of the sub-kingdoms to the second ring. A metropolis made by and for mammalian beasts.
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Hunter suddenly interrupted me.
- "I've lived there all my life; Why the hell are you telling me that for?"
- "I don't know to what extent you don't remember."
- "I have a fuzzy memory, not idiotic, but continue."
- "..."
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After a 6-hour carriage ride to the second ring and a walk of another 3 hours, I arrived at the Central Beast Kingdom, where huge walls greeted me just like other kingdoms in this region, along with four burly beast guards guarding the entrance. From what I had read on the road, the Beasts are very territorial, just like their animal counterparts. They only tolerate their own kind, and thus, I had to camouflage myself.
I used my townie clothes to try to pass as one of them. Physically, they are similar to humans, except that they have animal traces such as ears, tails, or a height out of the ordinary, plus more body hair. I tried my best to hide my humanity by covering my entire body, leaving only my face uncovered with small fox ears that I created on top of my head.
I was crossing the drawbridge when one of the guards realized my true identity and raised the alarm to hunt me down.
"HUMAN INTRUDER, HUMAN INTRUDER GUARDS, CATCH HIM!" -shouted the guards as he tried to run away as fast as he could.
I opted to sneak into an alley. The guards followed me, as expected, then I knocked them out with a sneaky blow to the head; I remember stacking them against a wall.
Fortunately, a tavern was nearby, so no one would be suspicious of passed-out guards.
I realized that my beast costume had a flaw. I may have looked like a beast, but I didn't smell like one. It was a good thing I now had four unconscious beasts and their stinky clothes. It wasn't very pleasant, to say the least.
Back to the mission: Due to the ambiguity of the message from the "Superiors," I had to find information on the whereabouts of my next victim by other means, so I decided to enter the tavern to see what I could find.
When I opened the tavern doors, I was greeted by a strong smell of beer and other types of liquor; I remember it was lively with live music, the barman dispensing drinks, and the rest of the people enjoying the atmosphere.
Being in there, I went to the bar, ordered a couple of drinks, and sat at an empty table in a corner, where I began to observe the beasts surrounding me.
I saw all kinds of beasts in there, young, old, beautiful, ugly, hairy, white, black, female, male, tall and short.
Then, I noticed a group sitting at one of the tables in the center of the tavern, consisting of a bear beast, a fox beast, and an owl beast. I remember that they were dressed in extravagant clothing, so much so that they stood out from the rest of the villagers. They were guffawing and looked like they had known each other for a long time.
They were probably adventurers; I decided to watch them a bit more until I saw something that really interested me: the bear beast pulled out a scroll; they seemed to be on a mission to something.
I finally decided to approach them.
"Nice place for the prices it has, don't you think" -I said charismatically as I approached them.
The beast bear put the scroll away, and the three beasts looked at me.
"Do I know you from somewhere? Do you guys know this guy?" said the bear beast.
"Nope,"- replied to the fox beast.
"Not at all," said the owl beast.
Seriously, the bear beast addressed me.
"Talk fast; what do you want?"
"I am not here to harm you; I am simply looking for someone with whom I have unfinished business, and I thought you adventurers might know him."
"And who told you that we are adventurers" - said the fox beast.
"You can see it from miles away; you don't try to disguise it; you stand out among all this bestiary, now what I was coming to."
From my pocket, I took out a piece of paper illustrated with Leqkyu's face and placed it on the table in one fell swoop. The adventurers took the paper, and each looked at it in detail.
"You see, I'm a bounty hunter, and I've been tasked to deal with this guy, and I wanted to know if you've seen him around. They say he's working with the reptilians. If you help me, I'll give you a good share of the bounty."
When he saw that I was serious, the bear beast looked at me and addressed me again.
"We don't know him, but if he is so related to the reptilians, we will surely meet him in the future; come sit down."- The bear beast told me - "First of all, tell us who you are."
"My name is Spacetime, from the fifth ring of Lydenfrost. As I said before, I am a traveling bounty hunter looking to take down the one I showed you earlier and the reptilian swill that so plagues your realm. Nice to meet you."
The other three looked at each other and nodded slightly before telling me.
"Mine is Shizar, of the third ring of Lydenfrost, legendary adventurer and leader of this group." -said the bear beast
"My name is Lumi, archmage of the seventh ring of Lydenfrost, adventurer for the past year, in charge of the group's tactics and magical power." -said the owl beast
"They call me Saaden, of the sixth ring of Lydenfrost, a born thief and adventurer thanks to these two who rescued me." -said the fox beast
Then, Shizar pulled me close to the center of the table and whispered to me.
"And we, like you, have been hired by the nobility for only one thing."
"Exterminate that reptilian plague once and for all."