Bog Standard Isekai

Book 4. Chapter 9

"Ugh, what is with that guy? He thinks he's so high and mighty just because he earned a Rare Class?" Myra picked at the sleeve of her dress in irritation, unwinding and fixing the hem.

"I don't know, I think he's neat," said Zilly.

"Of course you do," said Myra.

Sion looked pained. “He is useful. The same dedication with which he approaches… certain topics he also applies to his role in employment.” Brin didn’t think Sion talked bad about people behind their backs as a rule, so this faint praise was especially damning.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. He’s dedicated. You have to respect that.” Zilly looked around at everyone nervously, and seeing that no one else was going to take Rhun's side, she added, "It is a little agitating, though. I already beat him, so why do I have to fight him again?"

"I wonder how that feels," Brin said dryly. "Oh shoot! I think my [Dragon Sense] just went off."

"What is this? What is [Dragon Sense]?" asked Sion, looking excited.

"Look alive, everyone. A mighty and dangerous creature is approaching!" said Brin. "[Dragon Sense] never lies!"

"Stop it, that's not a real Skill," said Davi.

"It's true, though. Marksi is two blocks that direction." Zilly pointed in the direction that Brin's Invisible Eye told him Marksi was. He wondered which of her [Rogue] Skills helped her tell that; her sense of hearing was good enough for that, but in a crowded city it shouldn't be possible.

Marksi somehow also sensed that Brin was near. He jumped down off of Lurilan's shoulders and zipped towards them. He careened through the people on the street, closing the distance in seconds. Brin dismissed the directed thread right as Marksi hit him.

The little dragon climbed up and all around him, excited to see him after a day apart. Brin laughed and delivered what pats and scritches he could to the excited animal, but Marksi only stayed with him a few seconds before jumping down and collecting his due from Brin's friends.

When he'd finally calmed down enough to talk, Brin asked, "So what did you and Lurilan get up to?"

Marksi mimed out his adventures, stomping back and forth, pouncing, and growling. The funny thing was that since he knew what Marksi had actually been up to, he kind of understood what he was trying to say.

"What's that? A snake? No way, it couldn't have been eight feet long. Five feet? That's more like it. Ooh, those squirrels sound nasty. I hope you killed them all! Lurilan didn't let you? Oh, bad move, Lurilan."

Lurilan, who was just now arriving and who looked uncharacteristically irritated after a passing [Fishmonger] scuffed his sleeve, said, "I hope you learned a valuable lesson about indiscriminate slaughter. A true [Hunter] never kills without cause."

"Indiscriminate slaughter, Marksi? Well, that does sound like you."

Marksi marched in place with his head held high, completely unapologetic.

"Then what happened next. No way! A deer?"

"How is he doing that?" asked Myra.

"I don't know," said Zilly.

"Perhaps [Dragon Sense] is real?" asked Sion.

"It's not!" whined Davi.

"Lurilan, what really happened?" asked Myra.

Lurilan stood in the square with his shoulders crossed, and briefly gave a description of his and Marksi's outing. To everyone's annoyance, it was exactly what Brin had just said.

Suddenly, the conversation filled Brin with anxiety. What had he been thinking just now? He'd revealed that he had an ability to know things that he really shouldn't. How much further of a leap was it to guess that he was an [Illusionist]? Why had he even done that? Just because he thought it was funny? Maybe it wasn’t so bad. Davi already knew, of course, and he'd already told himself he was going to tell the rest of his friends. Hadn't he? The idea of doing it now was about as attractive as stripping naked and singing the Kukubaru song. If he told them, how could he guarantee they'd keep it secret?

They deserved to know, and they'd probably find out eventually so it was better to hear it from him, but he really didn't want to. His gut-level abhorrence to the idea was probably coming from the [Illusionist] Class. Aberfa had warned him that he'd start keeping secrets for no reason. But didn't he have a very good reason to keep this one?

"So what are we up to next? Lunch?" asked Davi.

"I kind of want to do some shopping. Now that I have some money I want to look at expendables," Brin said, in an attempt to look like he'd been paying attention to the conversation. ?

"I had in mind to visit the Hunter's Lodge with Marksi," said Lurilan. "We would peruse the monster archives in an attempt to find a monster to hunt in order to find a killing method worth emulating. A big cat, maybe? Lions and cougars are well-known for hunting beasts larger than themselves. You could all join me, if you wish."

"Yes! Yes, please!" said Zilly. "You can really bring us in?"

"I don't think [Hunter] Caio would object," said Lurilan.

"I'm down," Brin said, and the rest agreed.

The walk over to the Hunter's Lodge was pleasant and short. Zilly spent the entire time pelting Lurilan with questions about the [Hunter] life, which he answered while casting frowns at all the people they passed along the way. Davi shuffled over to walk next to Myra, and tried and failed to make conversation a couple times. Marksi kept climbing up on Brin's shoulders, but then Lurilan would call "Remember what we talked about! You need to work on your stamina," and Marksi would jump back down. Brin was glad to have his little friend back, but he was getting sick of him tracking dust from the road up and down his clothes.

Despite being inside the city walls, the Hunter's Lodge had extensive grounds so that when they approached it almost felt like they were leaving the city. A plain of wild grass ended in a copse of trees that mostly concealed a large structure made of logs.

There was a fenced area with weapons stands nearby, probably a sparring ring, and a huge field for practicing bows. From what he could see, targets were set up at 50, 100, 1000, and 2000 yard intervals.

"I'm a little surprised this is here. Don't you have people camping out here all the time?" asked Brin.

"Not as much as you might think. [Hunters] have a habit of tracking you down and complaining if you wander into our space too often." Lurilan winced. "There are [Beggars], though. They have Skills that make them undetectable while they sleep. It's quite aggravating."

"It's a weird Class," said Myra. "Why take a Class that helps you sleep on the street, when basically any other Common Class will give you enough money to live comfortably?"

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"Some people like the lifestyle," said Zilly.

Sion shook his head. "You're underestimating how valuable it was to have a family to support you and a town that's invested in your future. Most Classes don't become truly profitable until level twenty, and for most people that means working in them for months or even years. If you grew up on the street, the set of Skills offered by the [Beggar] Class would seem quite fortuitous."

“You know what’s weird? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one,” said Myra.

“You certainly have. They have Skills for making themselves forgotten after you’ve paid them,” said Lurilan, the disapproval evident in his voice.

“I don’t know if I ever remember seeing one either,” said Brin.

“Apologies, my friend, but you have ‘High Mental Resistance and Impatient To Interruptions’ written all over your face,” said Sion.

Davi laughed and clapped Sion on the shoulder. “Nice one! I think that’s the best burn I’ve ever heard you deliver.”

Sion paled, “I must apologize–!”

“No offense taken,” Brin said quickly. He stroked his chin. “I should put that on my status. High mental resistance and impatient to interruptions. That describes me pretty well.”

When they reached the Hunter’s Hall, Lurilan scratched his already pristine boots on the mat, and then lifted each of them to check that there wasn’t a speck of dirt that he had missed, although of course there wasn’t. Everyone else followed suit and did the same.

Lurilan opened the door and let them in.

The inside of the Hunter’s Lodge wasn’t exactly what Brin had expected, but it was what he should’ve expected. The floors and walls were polished wood, and there were antlers, furs, and horns in much of the decorating. A chandelier was made all of horns, and lit by some fairly pricey enchanted stones. Horns lined the picture frames on the walls, all portraits of [Hunters], and long flat furs took the place of rugs and carpets.

What surprised him most was how pristine everything was. He didn’t see a speck of dirt or dust anywhere. The paper-white fur on the ground looked like it had never been touched, though Lurilan strode straight across it as he led them across the entrance hall.

A few couches and reading chairs were tucked in a corner, and there were newspapers stacked on an end table and a small bookshelf, but everything was squarely in its place and he didn’t see anything that could be described as clutter.

It made sense in a weird way. [Hunters] spent most of their lives out in the wild. When they were in civilization, they probably wanted to be civilized.

“Huh. I figured there would be someone watching the door,” said Davi.

“This is a lodge for [Hunters]. Everyone in the building already knows we’re here,” said Zilly.

“I expect some of the cooking or cleaning staff may not. No need to be especially quiet; no one likes to be snuck up on,” Lurilan said. Brin noticed that his footsteps were making regular footstep-sounds. Coming from a high-level [Hunter] whose footsteps were normally quieter than a feather landing on a pillow, that could be nothing but intentional.

He led them through a hallway, and Brin got a glimpse of a reading room with another [Hunter] tucked away, and a large formal dining room that could’ve sat thirty.

The room Lurilan brought them to actually had a lock on the door, to which he had the key, and inside was the first untidy thing Brin had seen in this building.

Bookshelves lined all the walls, stacked horizontally and then vertically to fill up every inch of space. The books that didn’t fit on the shelves were also stacked in columns on the floor, and writing tables were piled high with loose papers, pictures and charts. Maps and diagrams were pinned to every visible part of the walls, and there were maps where you’d have to move a bookshelf to see the whole thing.

“May we…?” Sion began, taking it all in. People guarded knowledge carefully in this world, and this was a treasure trove.

“Be my guest,” said Lurilan. “But remember we’re here for Marksi. Look for interesting monsters or animals near Blackcliff or the Boglands.”

They all got to work, spreading out through the room. With all the wealth of knowledge on display, Brin decided that the best way to help his little friend would be to combine [Multithreading] and [Memories In Glass] to go through as much information as possible. It definitely wasn’t because doing this would also be the best way to copy down as much of this library as possible and store it for later.

He started on the first monster encyclopedia he could find and quickly turned the pages, flipping through as quickly as possible while also getting a good look at each page. Could he set this on the floor and flip through two books at once? He didn’t see why not. He also made a few directed threads to make Invisible Eyes to peer over his friend’s shoulders.

Zilly, Myra, and Sion dutifully also started leafing through books on monsters, and Marksi leapt onto Lurilan’s shoulders while he went straight for a book on large cats. Davi, however, hung back in the corner and tried to hide the fact that he was much more interested in a book on the different varieties of undead. Not exactly helpful for Marksi, but Brin wasn’t in a position to point fingers.

He hadn’t used that much mental space yet, so he made another directed thread and gave it that task to start transcribing everything he was seeing and putting it in a log. He could skim that while his hands kept turning pages.

He could always make another conscious thread, but he found he didn’t really need to. Even without [Multithreading], his Mental Control was high enough that he could skim through a log while also moving both hands to turn pages.

He spotted a few promising suspects. Many venomous creatures; those he noted down in a separate log. One spiky lizard that spat its own blood… ooh! And there were variants. There was one whose blood burned like pepper spray. He noted that one down especially.

Meanwhile, Lurilan was talking to Marksi about big cats.

“...they ambush their prey and kill quickly. See the size of these jaws? The shape of the teeth? This fellow can pierce the skull of his prey. Well, no, if he needs to hunt something much larger than him, he’ll need to do what most cats do. Go for the throat, and suffocate the animal to death.”

Marksi tapped the page.

“The claws? Well, yes I suppose they help.”

Marksi swiped with his claws, then he mimed recoiling in pain and falling over dead, with his tongue hanging out.

“No, they don’t often kill with their claws. Those mostly help for climbing and for holding onto the prey so it won’t get away before it’s dead. Though, I’ve seen a cougar latch onto a bison while it ran and then disembowel it with those powerful back leg claws.”

Marksi tapped the picture again, more insistently. “No, I can’t think of any animals that can primarily hunt with their foreclaws. Bears, maybe?”

Marksi huffed and turned his back.

In Brin’s own investigation, he created a directed thread to list out all the venomous creatures, and then read through them to try to pick a favorite. The winner was something called the Ruby Crested Mud Slider, which was a snake only a bit larger than Marksi with red fronds on its head. It was extremely venomous, and was known to kill monsters the size of elephants with its bite. That sounded like just the thing.

But was venom the way to go? It felt too ordinary, and too cheap for someone like Marksi. What he really wanted was some kind of magical weapon. Maybe something like that basilisk they’d fought on the trip over here?

“Hey, did anyone find something about basilisks?” Brin asked.

“They don’t grow beast cores, unfortunately, so I fear they won’t be sufficient for Marksi’s needs,” said Lurilan.

Well, that was too bad. Now that he’d gotten the idea of Marksi with a paralyzing magic attack, it was all he could think about. Marksi was a magical rainbow lizard. If he needed a takedown move, it should be magical, too. Nothing else would feel right.

He moved his search to focus more on the strange and exotic beasts of the world, but nothing felt quite right. The closest was a type of goblin that developed a fire-breathing attack at high levels, but goblins also didn’t have beast cores. Except some might?

From there, he’d been thoroughly distracted by the tangent of trying to figure out exactly what goblins even were. Some were covered in fur, others were completely hairless. Some seemed to be actual gorillas that walked on their hands, and others were tribal and had primitive languages with as many as fifty words. They seemed so different in species and variety that Brin finally decided there was no connection at all. People in this world just took anything vaguely human like that they didn’t want to give “person” status to and called it a goblin.

“Does anyone have any good ideas on venomous creatures?” Lurilan asked.

Most of them did, and after a brief discussion, they decided that Brin’s Ruby Crested Mud Slider was the best choice. Some were too small, others were too big for Marksi to be able to meaningfully participate in killing it, some were too far away.

Marksi was the last out of all of them to agree. He stared at the picture of the Mud Slider for a long time before finally nodding his head.

“Give me a couple days. I’ll prepare the antidote, just in case, and then see if I can find one of these things. If there’s one in the area that’s close enough for him to get to without a week of travel, we can set out for it. Once it’s slain, Marksi can finally get started on creating his killing move.”

As they started packing up, another [Hunter] appeared in the doorway. This one [Inspected] as [Hunter] Caio and openly showed his level at 56. A powerhouse, and probably the leader of this lodge.

“It sounds like you’re about wrapping up in here?” he asked. He stood with his shoulders hunched forwards, and looked to the side as he spoke. At first glance Brin would say that this man was afraid or intimidated by Lurilan, but in his experience people above level 50 didn’t get intimidated by hardly anything. More likely he was just naturally shy around people.

“We can be out immediately,” said Lurilan.

“No, no, it’s not that. You’re welcome to bring your kids to work. It’s something else,” said Caio.

“What’s the matter? Is something wrong?” asked Lurilan.

“Wrong? Maybe. Strange, more like it. There’s some strange new folk in town.”