Magnus had a smile on his face; Ophelia, not so much.
“We need a bigger room,” Magnus said instead of hello. “Our room in the quarters is currently separated.”
“Which room are you staying in?”
“On the third floor,” Magnus said.
I glanced over at the quarters and saw the room in question. Concentrating on it showed me the gridlines that made up the home. By touching a certain wall, I was able to move around it or zoom in or out. I was able to move up to their floor by just pointing at the third floor, and once I was there, I found the wall separating the room that they’d chosen from the adjacent space.
Would you like to remove this wall?
Cost: $100.
(Yes/No?)
I selected “yes,” and with a flick of my wrist, the wall was gone.
“Done. Anyone else need anything?”
Altsoba smiled at me. “I would like an entire room made of mirrors.”
“Made of mirrors, huh?”
I looked to Iris and she shrugged. “That may cost something. Let me see the cost.”
I found Altsoba’s room, pressed my finger against a semi-transparent setting icon, and a list of possible customizations appeared. There were tons, and I quickly found the search bar to help me parse through the options.
Simply thinking the word ‘mirror’ made a bunch of mirror options appear. This got me thinking…
“Are all the rooms bare?”
Fujin nodded. He still hadn’t spoken or given me his name and his stats simply listed his name as “Fujin.”
I considered this for a moment. “We’ll need to upgrade them then.”
“Which is why we need to enter tournaments,” Aya reminded me. “Or we could go out for more catches, get some mythcrea and trade them.”
“What about my mirrors?” Altsoba asked, the dark-skinned shifter stepping towards me.
I saw the price, a thousand Proxima bucks, and shook my head. “We don’t have money for that right now, but don’t worry, though, we are going to start earning money as soon as humanly possible.”
“When?” she asked. “And I’m not human.”
“Tomorrow. Tomorrow night,” I assured her. “We need one more catch and we can enter tournaments. Right now we have four: you, Ophelia, Magnus, and Fujin. One more and we have a fighting party.”
Altsoba lifted her chin and looked down at me with darkened eyes. “Then we will get mirrors.”
“Sure.”
“Ooo, and don’t forget our cabins,” Lady C. added. “But those can wait a little bit, as long as you have room in your bed for us.”
I swallowed hard. “And the cabins for our Huntresses. Is there anything else?”
Magnus looked to Ophelia and shook his head. The four mythcrea disappeared, leaving Aya, Lady C., Iris and me standing in an empty field.
“So, training…”
“Oh! One thing I was going to tell you,” Iris said, “is about this cool way to train. Okay, sure, you could just ask them to show you what they can do and coordinate it, or you can buy some training gear and have them actually perform the moves on you.”
“Why in the hell would I do that?” I asked, looking at Aya’s huge buster sword.
“You won’t die. Your body will automatically come back together after each move is performed, but you can see which move does the most damage.”
“And let me guess, there’s a cost?”
“Yep.” Iris laughed. “Everything costs money. Should be between two and eight hundred Proxima dollars.”
I focused on my dashboard, noticing a semi-transparent store icon next to the gear-shaped settings icon.
I selected the store icon, and found that I could buy tons of stuff, from gear to various add-ons for my Dojo.
Hmmmm, I thought as I selected a category called ‘User Items.’
There were many things here that would come in handy, but I was more focused on the training gear. I only had $400 PD to work with, which wasn’t a lot. The $200 gear just allowed for instant respawn. Iris was wrong about the cost range, as some of the training gear went up to several thousand dollars.
One, known as the Hunter Breaker, increased the general stress and fear in the vicinity of the user. This created more of a chance for the hunters or huntresses to learn a new technique based out of distress. It also allowed for one to train with the rest of their Fighting Party. Problem was, it cost two thousand PD.
I settled on the most expensive one I could buy, the $350 gear that allowed for some analysis, including damage taken.
Proxima Dollars: $50
Spent: $9,500
Loan: 0
“Got one,” I said as soon as it appeared on my body. While it looked sleek in the 3-D stock version, the real version looked more like one of those outfits a dog trainer wore.
“This should be interesting,” Aya said as she drew her blade from her back.
“Actually,” said Lady C., her hands on the hilts of her two swords, “let’s move to the meadow. It operates more like the conditions of a place we may actually fight.”
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
“Ready?” I asked, turning to Aya and Lady C. We were in the center of the meadow, the pond not very far behind me and the mythcrea quarters simply lights on the horizon. “You’re keeping track of their moves, right, Iris?”
“On it,” she said, her glasses flashing.
“I’m just worried one of them will knock me out.”
“You should more worried about this!” Aya did a one-armed cartwheel and came down with her blade, slicing my arm off.
-150 HP!
“Fuck!” I shouted as my arm separated from my body and quickly moved back into place, as if it were attached by a string and someone had pulled the string from the other side.
I watched as the red icons fizzled out before me, letting me know the strength of her attack.
With a grunt, Aya turned her back to me and brought her blade around using the full motion of her turning body. She cut through my body, from the muscles on my neck out through the side of my body.
-597 HP! Instakill!
“Holy shit,” I said as my body actually separated, and snapped back together.
“That’s it!” Iris clapped her hands. “That’s definitely a move you should use again.”
“Hold up,” I told Aya as she came at me again, sword overhead. She stopped, and slowly lowered her weapon to the ground, glaring at me the entire time. “How do you know it’s a special move?” I asked.
“You can tell because of the way the weapon glowed when she performed it. Name it so you can call it out.”
“Got a name for that one?” I asked the Thulean warrior.
She thought for a moment. “Duchig Destroyer.”
“Doo-chig destroyer?”
“My surname is Duchig. It means ‘Death.’ Do you dislike the name?”
I laughed at the way she now stared at me, and as I did, her glare softened. “No, I very much like it. Okay, Pounce Attack. Hit me with that one.”
Aya jumped into the air and came down hard with her blade. Rather than slice me with it this time, she landed directly next to me, causing a mini-explosion that sent me sideways.
-197 HP!
“Not bad, okay, two special moves then. Let’s get a third one going and then we’ll switch to Lady C.”
“I don’t know why you like these ‘special moves,’ as you call them,” Aya commented. “Maybe you are a lonely guy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She screamed, unleashed three throwing knives, slid towards me, and as the knives went into my chest, she lifted into the air and disappeared.
-890 HP! Instakill!
“Whoa!” I said as I saw the tip of her blade press out of my chest. She stood behind me now; I was completely skewered, not to mention the three throwing knives sticking out of my chest. “Where’s the…?”
Iris, a look of utter shock on her face, pointed to
her forehead. I reached my hand up and felt the hilt of the final knife.
As I did, my skin pressed it out and my training gear did the rest.
“What’s that one called?” I ask as Aya withdrew her buster sword from my back.
“How about Lonely Guy? Yes, I like it. Let’s call that one Lonely Guy,” she said with a flirty squeeze of my shoulder. Her hand still on my shoulder, she walked around me and smiled, something flickering behind her orange eyes.
“Lady C., you’re up,” I said as Aya moved away from me. “Give me what you got, and I want you to focus less on sword moves and more on spell attacks. A combo could also work.”
“Kick his ass, Cassandra,” Aya said in a playful way as she stepped over to Iris. She turned to Iris, patted her on the head – Iris was a foot shorter than the Thulean – and touched her glasses. “They are powerful magic glasses, aren’t they?”
“Sort of,” Iris said, beaming up at Aya.
I cleared my throat as Lady C. approached me. “The first thing I want you to practice is using your Time Skip ability to deliver a finishing blow. I mean, I’ve seen that you can do something like that, but let’s solidify it,” I said, growing in confidence as I instructed a woman who, if this were real life, could fillet me in a heartbeat.
“As you wish.”
Lady Cassandra approached me with her blades drawn. She was behind me in a flash, her blades visible in my peripheral vision as they pressed over my shoulders.
Like scissors, I thought as I waited for her to finish the move. “Just do it,” I told her. “Wait, start over from the front and try again. I need to judge the full effect.”
She returned to my front, grimaced, and disappeared again.
-560 HP! Instakill!
My head separated from my body, and I was quickly pulled back into place.
“That’s a damn good move.” I rubbed my neck and turned to her.
Iris spoke up. “The problem with that one is that you don’t want to kill mythcrea. This is also the problem with two of the new moves Aya learned. Your goal is to disable, not kill. If you kill, you can’t capture them. You must have some finesse. That said, you can and should use these in tournaments and brawls.”
“Okay, that’s fine. What do you want to call that one, Lady C.?”
“It doesn’t have a name.”
“It should be called Time Scissors,” Aya suggested.
“Good, that works for me. Since Aya will be focused more on combat, let’s focus more on disabling. What other books on magic have you read?”
“Recently?” Lady C. asked, her face lighting up. Apparently, this was the right question to ask her.
“Sure.”
“I read a book called Lume Glacio, which is about using lightning and ice magic.”
“That sounds awesome,” Iris said.
“Okay, Lady C., were there any spells in Lume Glacio that you thought were interesting?”
“There were plenty!”
I chuckled. “I’m not finished. Interesting and that you can use at your current level.”
“There was one spell that I’m pretty sure I can cast. It’s a Level One spell, and the requirements are just that you have a certain amount of mana. It’s called Bomb Cyclone.”
“Let’s see it.”
Lady C. sheathed her swords and raised both hands in the air. Thunder rumbled above me as snow flurries poured out of her open palms. Soon, the snow swirled so quickly around me that I became confused.
“Shit,” I said as I grew increasingly concerned that I was somehow stuck in a snowy vortex. “Okay! I got it,” I called out into the snow flurries. They landed on my body, my face, blurred my vision, they were everywhere, and then suddenly, they were simply gone.
“Bomb Cyclone,” Lady C. said with a grin on her face. “That should help us.”
“It surely will,” Aya commented. “I can rush into that and, ha, disable a mythcrea.”
“What’s it look like from the outside?” I asked Iris. “I mean, from your perspective.”
“It looked like you were trapped in a mini-cyclone.”
“That is definitely going on the list. Anything else from Lume Glacio?” I asked her.
“Not that I can perform at this level.”
“Other books? What else have you read that had spells?”
“Lothar Shane’s Terra Incognita Volume One detailed some old Unigaean earth spells.” Lady C. pulled out the leather-bound tome, and started flipping through the pages.
“That’s a huge book,” Aya said.
“Yep, and it’s pretty boring too, and that’s coming from a person who likes boring books. But like I’ve said in the past, the best information can usually be found in the most boring of places. Here it is. It’s a spell called Mudslide.”
Her hands came up and magic spread between her fingers. A whooshing sound was accompanied by the ground beneath my feet giving way. I tried to move away, but each step I took was completely weighted.
One glance down and I saw that I was sinking into a hole made of mud, and no matter how much I tried to get out of it, I wasn’t able to free myself.
It was freaky as hell.
My heart beating against my ribcage, I tried to claw at the ground to free myself from the hole. I cried out, and it was then that the mud suddenly stopped, and I stood once again on solid ground.
“That’s ...whew! That’s craziness right there. It will definitely help us capture creatures, though.”
Lady C. frowned.
“What is it?”
“That spell takes a lot of mana, and it also has a just above average chance of hitting.”
“That’s fine, at least it is in our arsenal. What else do you have? What else have you read?”
“Recent books I’ve read,” Lady C. said, and paced for a moment. “I’ve read a few romances, but those are just for fun. I like paranormal romances. They’re cute. I wouldn’t date a ghost, though. Anyways, nope, that’s all I can think of for now.”
“We need to practice at least one or two offensive moves,” I said. “Can you do anything like cast magic on your swords? What about one sword Lume and the other Glacio?”
“I never thought about trying to cast spells on my weapons.” She drew one of her swords and waved her hand before it. The blade shifted from silver to an icy blue.
“Attack me with that,” I said, a smile forming on my face.
“Um, okay…” Lady C. approached me with her blade at the ready. She was just about to swing when something peculiar happened. She stopped, inches away from the skin on my arm, and an ice explosion sent me hurling sideways.
-350 HP! Critical hit!
“Ouch! Yes!” I shouted as I got back to my feet. “Again, Lady C., do whatever you just did.”
I ran at her and the same thing happened. Her sword never touched me; rather, it stopped inches away from my skin and caused an explosion instead.
-371 HP! Critical hit!
“Ice Explosion. That should really help. Okay, what about lightning, I mean, Lume.”
She lifted her hand and tried to add lightning damage to her sword. It fizzled and sparked, but nothing else.
“Try a different blade,” I said. “Not the one you just cast the ice magic on.”
She sheathed her icy blue blade and made a cute brrrr sound as a portion of the cold blade touched her skin. She retrieved her other sword, tried to cast her lightning spell on it, and failed again.
“Nope, doesn’t work with that one,” she said. “Not yet anyway.”
“Good, all this is good. We’ll do this again soon, and learn some new techniques and spells once we get our next capture.” I rubbed my hands together, tired, but happy we’d had so much progress. “Let’s head back to New York.”
“You can stay at my place if you want,” Iris offered.
Aya looked to Lady C., who looked to me with her eyebrows raised.
“Maybe another time.”
“Come on, just stay,” Iris
said, “like you used to. Besides, it’s late. No sense in paying extra for an UberLyft.”
It was true, there were several times I’d ended up crashing at Iris’ place because it was too late to try to get home; that, or I was broke and couldn’t afford a taxi until my next universal basic income payment came in.
I ignored the two Huntresses as I said, “Sure, I’ll stay at your place tonight.”
“We’re going too,” Aya said, winking at Iris. “Someone has to keep an eye on Chase.”
Chapter Nine: Little Little Bear
What a day, I thought as I lay down next to Iris. It wasn’t often that one walked around New York surrounded by warrior women catching mythological creatures. I offered to sleep on the floor, but she insisted that I sleep on the futon. I’d shared it with her before.
Realizing I still had my glasses on, I removed them and placed them on the table near her bed. I was in one of our old band shirts and my boxers. The shirt was two sizes too large, perfect for a sleep shirt.
Iris wore her sleep clothes – an XXXL Curious George shirt that read “Chicks Dig Me,” and a pair of panties – at least I assumed she was wearing panties. Her hair was pulled back into a short ponytail, and she’d just finished applying night cream to her face. Iris’ face was extra pink too, her cheeks reflective from whatever cream she’d applied.
Of course, Aya and Lady C. had also changed into their sleep clothes, which I thought Aya did just to fuck with me.
While the sleeves and the legs of her pajamas had some lace, Lady Cassandra’s sleepwear was pretty modest. Just a two piece that buttoned up in the front. She did wear her pants a little saggy, which was sexy. She also had a matching sleep mask.
Aya was another story entirely.
The Thulean wore a pair of leggings and a sleeveless shirt that bared her midriff. Covering her face was an overnight clay mask, and her hair had been pinned back to prevent her orange locks from messing with the mask.
“What are you looking at?” she asked as she approached the bed, her hips slinking side to side with each step.
“Nice clay mask.”
She placed her hands on her sides and her shirt lifted, revealing more of her muscled stomach. “You’re going to make room for us, right?”
Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure Page 8