The beam of light shined blood red, destroying the creature from within, and the Nether Creature vanished to dust with its screeching fading away into the humid air of the Wild Zone.
'Boring'.
The process of extinguishing these creatures was so routine for someone like Victoria Evergreen Grace.
Some people are born great. The daughter of the most powerful Grace family, overflowing with mana since birth, surpassing every single one of her teachers and even her parents.
She was the golden child of the hunter world, the awakening of her ancestors being accumulated and passed down to her, a priceless gem, and she knew it better than anybody else.
"Thank you again, Victoria!" She heard those words that bored her to death. She was so sick of it.
"You saved us again!" Even the Central Government seemed to suck up to her like she was some Goddess.
Beauty. Power. Intelligence and above that, wisdom.
Nothing comes close to it…and this is a simple matter of fact. There is nothing that stands in my way.
On the first glance that may look to be arrogance, but she didn't think that in a delightful way. It was not arrogance to her, and it wasn't even a source of pride. On the contrary, her apparent perfection felt like a flaw to her.
In the end, sometimes happiness comes from filling in the blanks in one's life.
Achieving something to gain what you don't have, or getting something that was really desired which was missing.
'But what if you have everything? What if nothing is missing?'
That's when boredom settles in and life becomes repetitive.
It was a continuous cycle of victory, and not a single failure was there to learn from and when it becomes the case that you have nothing to learn, then you stagnate emotionally; at least that was the thought process of Victoria.
"You did it again, haven't you, Miss Grace?" Dorian remarked as she was validating the credit to compensate for the bounty. "I expected nothing less."
Dorian at the counter would always wear that dutiful smile, with a neat and expensive suit that wrapped her hourglass figure, her purplish-red hair tied back in a bun that gave her the neatest look. The golden, rectangular ear rings that reached about half her neck would always sway when she talked.
She was always the same, standing upright by the counter, exchanging credits for the hunters and answering queries in that delightful tone that always for some reason sounded rather fake.
A well manufactured manner.
"It's nothing."
"Always unflinching with that deadpan tone of yours." Dorian smiled, and Victoria frowned.
"Well, I'll be on my way."
"Don't you want to rest here for a bit? This time you went rather far into the Wild Zone, haven't you?"
"I'm fine. I want to get back home."
"Fair enough, Miss Grace. Have a lovely day."
The Exchange Center was not unlike a high end bar, with the smell of alcohol fused with cigarettes floating in the air, the sound of the people mixed with the light jazz ringing like white noise.
Through the tables there were different hunters that sat down either alone or with their group, and by how cheap or expensive their clothing was you could tell what grade they were as hunters.
Hunting of the Nether Creatures weren't exactly an easy job, and people often come back with injuries or straight up face death, so the Exchange Center - referred to as either the 'Hunter's Guild' or just 'Guild' - would be here as a resting point for many of the people.
Acting sometimes as a bar, sometimes as a brothel and even a place to buy drugs; a black market of sorts.
All sorts of illegal trades would happen but there was an unspoken rule - that what happens in the Exchange Center stays in the Exchange Center - a rule which even the central government honoured as they judged that the existence of hunters were more important than whatever 'legality' they may intrude.
After all, in the eyes of the Central Government, when these people risk their lives to fight the Nether Creatures that pose a threat to the country of Tera, what's a few prostitutes and drugs?
Victoria didn't really mingle with these people though. In fact, she looked down on them.
'Weaklings. I see them as weaklings.' She thought.
'Coming in here whining about their life because they struggled to fight a few C-grade creatures and relying on drugs and sex to get by. '
"Hmph." She let out a scoff intentionally so Dorian could hear, and she said nothing back but kept on smiling.
"Why don't you clean up the mess in the guild?"
"I don't quite catch what you're talking about, Miss Grace," Dorian said in a gentle tone, "We clean the Guild every night."
"We both know what I'm talking about."
"I'm a simple receptionist here. I'm afraid what you're implying is beyond my depth."
Victoria sighed and decided to give up.
As Victoria was heading towards the door to walk out, she saw from the corner of her eye a man sitting alone, with a cup of cheap lager in his hand.
He was in rugs, hair messy and a red stripe of dried blood was stuck on his left side of the head, whole body covered in some sort of dirt.
He was shaking, and was sipping his lager only bit by bit, systematically, as if possessed by something.
It didn't look like to Victoria that he was enjoying the drink, in actuality, judging by his frown and the biting of his lips every time he took a sip he seemed to hate it, but he kept on, hands up, sip, hands down and repeating that process like he had a duty to finish something he supposedly hated.
'I see. He's a newbie.'
All the people who become hunters go through what they call the '3 months of hell.' It's where a lot of people end up quitting, shutting down or even worse - commit suicide - due to how much pressure they feel in going up against a Nether Creature.
The man with the Lager seemed to go through just that.
Victoria squinted her eyes and focused mana around it. She wanted, out of sudden curiosity, to see his stats.
—
Name: Mikel ???
Age: 26
Gift(s): Weapon Master
Hunter grade: C
—
"He won't survive very long." Victoria murmured to herself.
In theory the gift of being a weapon master is not bad, but the problem was his grade.
There's a definite statistic that went around the Hunter's Guild stating that C-grade hunters have lower survival rate than B-grade hunters even though they fight in weaker wild zones.
The reason was actually rather simple; C-grade hunters not only lack skill, but also mental fortitude.
The amount of C-grades who die because they straight up freeze before their first Nether Creature is rather big and looking at the state of this man, Victoria thought it was obvious he'd probably die in a similar fashion within his next few subjugation requests.
That being said, still, Victoria was rather curious. For one, why was his second name blurred?
"Was it your first kill?"
Before she knew it, she was standing by his tableside looking down. The bar suddenly went silent, and even Dorian looked surprised. The reason was quite simple. It was the first time someone like Victoria approached someone first, let alone this rugged C-gradie (sometimes more colloquially referred to as a 'Ceebee' as an insult).
The man - with the name Mikel as the status screen said - slowly looked up to her, his black eyes looking like the abyss, with bags under his eyes. It almost seemed like he was already dead and soulless; an empty husk of a man.
"U-uh, yeah. I, um. Yes."
The man was sitting down but Victoria could tell he was slightly shorter in height than she was, and it was clear that he was startled by her sudden presence.
She sat down next to him, crossing her legs, and rested her chin on her hand and sparked a conversation.
"So you're drinking that lager to celebrate, hmm?"
"Umm…celebrate? Ha."
Mikel let out a scoff, as if the word 'celebrate' was funny to him. It almost seemed like he was offended by it.
"Yeah. I'm celebrating with this lager."
"How does it taste?"
"Like shit."
He hissed a little, his eyes momentarily getting life again to look directly at Victoria, before loosening up once more and looking away again. The people at the bar were looking at them two - specifically at him - confused about his attitude towards the S-grade hunter.
"Sorry." Mikel apologised.
"No, it's fine. I get you."
"Um. Do you have something to say? Or…"
Honestly, he made a rather good point. Victoria thought to herself. She didn't really know why she was talking to this person who she deemed a weakling. Maybe it was the boredom that got to her on that day.
On an average day he was the type she'd just pass by without a second thought, but she supposed that everyone has those days, where they're compelled to be a bit different to break the cycle.
"No nothing, you seemed too miserable that's all."
"...Sorry. I appreciate it, but I want to be left alone."
Suddenly, a gasp was heard through the bar, like he said a slur.
Mikel didn't really know who Victoria was, and that was clear from his attitude - as no one who knew who Victoria was would behave in a manner that he did.
It was always the formal praises, the soft voices and an attempt to appease. This man, in his ignorance, went to push the S-grade hunter lady away. Mikel in his current state however, even if he did know who Victoria was, the attitude would have been the same. He was too deep in his self pity to think about social boundaries.
'Ah I see.' Victoria thought, everything clicking inside her head. 'I know exactly what broke him. I've seen this before and I'm seeing it here once more.'
"Did your friend die during the hunt?"
The air immediately froze, and in that moment Mikel's body tensed up, the sound of his teeth grinding in a sudden surge of anger was so transparent that it almost made Victoria laugh at how bad he was at hiding his emotions. He slowly turned his head, which had veins popping up, and with an intense look, he slowly said, attempting to hold back his shout:
"Why.do.you.care?"
Finally, that was when Victoria for the first time that day smirked. Her eyes were widening, her pupils expanding with interest. She felt a sudden burn, something sparking up inside looking at what she thought of this fragile little creature on the verge of future death, without a single ounce of hope left in this world. Like a dog on the street, kicked around by life and its absurdities, this man - to her - was expressing his anger towards a being that he couldn't even lay a single finger on. A pathetic little thing that was desperate for dignity.
"Tell me, darling," She asked with interest and an air of mockery.
"Are you interested in getting stronger?"