The flimsy plastic of her Provisional License was the most valuable thing Soumya had ever owned. It didn't magically solve her problems, however. The predatory loan from Mana-Rise Financial still loomed, the first payment due in two weeks. She was officially a Hunter, but she was still an E-Rank with a combat score of nine.
No reputable Guild would even grant her an interview. Their recruitment algorithms likely filtered her out before a human ever saw her name. She had a license to hunt, but no one to hunt with.
This led her to the public Hunter bulletin board, a chaotic digital space hosted on the IHGA's public network. It was the gig economy for the desperate, a place where bottom-tier Hunters and shady clients posted jobs that the major Guilds wouldn't touch. The listings were a grim collection of short-term bodyguard work, hazardous material disposal, and low-paying Gate contracts.
After days of searching, she found a job she qualified for. It was the worst kind of work, but it was all she could get.
Job Title: Post-Clearance Harvesting Crew
Rank Requirement: E or D
Description: Major Guild "Vajra" has successfully cleared Yellow Gate YB-443 ("The Serpent's Mire"). A crew is required for immediate entry to perform secondary-phase harvesting of common monster materials (venom glands, hides, claws).
Pay: Standard IHGA rates per item harvested.
Warning: Zone is certified 99% clear. Acknowledge and accept the 1% risk of remnant hostiles.
It was janitor's work. Going into a dangerous, alien world after the real heroes had left, to butcher corpses and clean up the mess. The pay was terrible, a pittance for each item harvested, but it was work. It was a start. She accepted the job.
Two days later, she stood before a shimmering yellow tear in reality, located in a cordoned-off industrial park. The air around the Gate was humid and smelled of stagnant water and decay. She was part of a motley crew of ten other Hunters, all with the same look in their eyes—a mixture of desperation and grim resignation. Their gear was a collection of mismatched, dented armor.
The crew leader was a grizzled D-Rank Warden named Vikram, a man with a thick beard and a scar that ran from his temple to his jaw. He looked over the assembled Hunters with a cynical eye.
"Alright, listen up, pups," he growled. "Vajra's A-team went through here like a storm. They killed the Naga Queen and took the big prize. Our job is to pick the bones clean. Nagas, Mire-Crawlers, Spore-Bats. We're after venom glands, chitin plates, and mana crystals from the fodder. You get paid for what you bag. Stay in groups of three, keep your comms on, and if you see something move that ain't one of us, you scream. Got it?"
A chorus of weary "yeps" and nods answered him.
Soumya stepped through the Gate. The world lurched, and she found herself in a foul-smelling swamp dimension. A perpetual twilight hung in the alien sky, filtering through the canopy of grotesque, pulsating fungi that grew like trees. The ground was a quagmire of mud and murky water, and the air was thick with buzzing, insect-like creatures.
The work was brutal and disgusting. Using her standard-issue knife, Soumya knelt in the mud beside the corpse of a Blighted Naga, a serpentine creature the size of a python. Following the instructions on her data slate, she carefully made an incision behind its fanged jaw and extracted the venom gland, a pulsating, green sac. It was slimy and warm. She dropped it into a bio-hazard collection bag at her hip and moved on to the next.
For hours, this was her life. The glorious world of a Hunter was reduced to the back-breaking, stomach-turning work of a butcher in an alien abattoir.
She was working with two other E-Ranks, harvesting a cluster of Naga corpses near a stagnant pool, when one of them, a lanky kid named Raj, let out a sharp gasp.
"Vikram! Get over here!"
The crew leader trudged through the mud, his heavy boots making sucking sounds. "What is it, kid? You cut yourself?"
"No… look," Raj said, pointing with a trembling, gore-stained finger. He had been butchering a particularly large Naga, one that must have been close to the boss. He had sliced its chest cavity open, and inside, nestled amongst the alien organs, was something that wasn't a normal mana core.
Standard mana cores were crystalline, translucent, and emitted a soft light. This was different. It was a small, fist-sized orb, as black as obsidian, and it seemed to absorb the dim light of the swamp. It gave off a palpable aura of cold, concentrated power. It looked… wrong.
Vikram's eyes widened. He reached in and carefully lifted the object out. He wiped the gore away on his glove, his cynical demeanor completely gone, replaced by a raw, naked avarice.
"A Blighted Heart Core…" he whispered, his voice filled with a reverence that bordered on fear. "I've only seen these in black market catalogues. They're… they're worth a fortune."
Soumya and the other nearby Hunters stared at the black orb, mesmerized. A single item like that could be worth more than all of them could make in a year of this grueling work.
Vikram's head snapped up, his eyes darting around the swamp, checking for the other harvesting groups. They were alone.
"The Guild's manifest," he said, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial hush, "said nothing about a 'Blighted Heart Core'. Per IHGA rules, this is an unclassified, high-value artifact. It belongs to them."
He looked from the Heart Core in his hand to the faces of the small group of low-rank Hunters surrounding him. He looked at their worn-out gear, their tired faces, their desperate eyes.
"But we're the only ones here," he continued, his voice barely a whisper. "A find like this… could set us all up for life. Or," his expression hardened, "it could get us all killed if Vajra finds out."
A tense silence fell over the group, thick and heavy as the swamp air. This was no longer about harvesting monster parts. This was a choice.
Then, with a soft shing, Vikram drew the heavy, battle-scarred axe from his back. His eyes, however, weren't looking at the dark, alien swamp around them.
They were looking directly at his own team.
"So," he said, his knuckles white around the handle of his axe. "We have a decision to make."