Upon exiting the forest Owari found that the women were still basically unable to care for themselves. Hebi had been forcefully making them drink these past days but they couldn’t make them eat. Owari loaded them onto the back of his cart and brought them towards town. When they arrived they were obviously stopped by the guards.

“I’m going to need an explanation.” He said with a gruff voice.

“I found them in an orc village.” As soon as he said it the guard's face changed.

“There’s a village nearby?” He asked with a hint of fear. Everyone knew it was the guards at the gates who die first in an orc raid.

“Not anymore.” Owari answered.

“Really?” He asked uncertainly, clearly not believing Owari.

Owari pulled out his hunter license indicating his rank along with his ID to prove his identity. “Yeah really. Now let me take these poor girls to a hospital.”

“Right, go ahead sir.” As soon as he saw the gold border and two stars on that card he shut his mouth and treated Owari with utmost respect.

Owari just chuckled as he pulled his cart through town. Luckily the cart wasn’t easy to look into otherwise he would get odd stares. Eventually he made it to an emergency hospital which accepts patients who otherwise can’t pay right away or who are in immediate danger.

When he entered the woman behind the counter spoke as professionally as always. “What’s your injury and how severe?”

“Not me. I found three women in an orc village who need tending to. I’m sure you know what that means.” Owari answered.

“Of course. I’ll get someone to unload them and bring them in. You did bring them here right?” She seemed a bit worried since Owari didn’t look like much.

“I have a cart that they’re lying down on. I’ll take the person out and show them where.” Owari stood to the side to let other people go through. Soon two people with a stretcher came out and walked over to him. “This way.” Owari brought them to the cart.

The two people unloaded the women one at a time while Owari waited. It was pretty slow since they were being over careful. These women had been through worse, they could obviously take a hit but they were being treated like fine china. Owari thought it was ridiculous. These people needed mental and physical treatment asap, yet they were being so slow about it. Eventually all three women were unloaded and Owari left. He didn’t bother staying around long enough to be hounded by them about this or that.

Owari went back home and sorted out his maps before going right back out the next day for more work. He still had a lot to do and only so much time to do it after all. As he worked it took a while before he ran into anything of interest again. About two months in he ran into something interesting deep in the forest. It was a massive series of webs. Looking at the powerful sturdy webs Owari was sure it belonged to a powerful spider beast. As he looked at the webs he determined it was a silver spear spider. It has legs tipped with silver that are razor sharp. Despite what one may think it wasn’t actually of the metal affinity.

Silver tipped spiders actually have the dark affinity and are good ambush predators. As he thought this Owari sensed a large amount of hostility enter his detection radius at high speeds. He smiled and jumped back as a large car-sized spider slammed into the ground with all eight spear-like legs aiming for one spot. It had hoped to skewer him completely in one go. At least it didn’t underestimate him.

Owari pulled out his sword and jumped back again as a spear-like leg shot at him suddenly. Soon the spider was skittering around zigzagging this way and that, using its dark affinity to speed up and slow down suddenly as it tried to spear Owari from different angles. Owari dodged the first forward-facing one, then another from his right side, then he ducked under one coming from the left. By this point the spider had skittered behind him and tried to spear him from three angles. However Owari turned and used the dark steel fang to slice through two legs and knock away the third while cutting it halfway through.

The spider silently screamed and tensed up. In that moment Owari jumped back. Just as he landed the spider speared the ground and air around it indiscriminately. Looking at it Owari was disappointed, it was only mid gold. Owari rushed in using the dark phantom step and appeared in front of the spider and swung his sword using the dark steel fang to swing down to split its head in two.

The spider pulled the two damaged limbs in front of its head, killing most of the momentum of Owari’s attack while also sending another leg spear at Owari. Owari jumped to the side, however the spear nicked him across the flank. He immediately counter-attacked with a normal steel fang cutting its leg off. Then he used the dark phantom step to rush by the legs on the spider’s left side. As he did he used the steel fang on each removing the spider’s main attack method for its left side.

After that he did the same on the right. However he only had to cut two of these legs off. Now the spider was defenseless. It silently screamed and flailed its bleeding limbs around. Owari masterfully dodged the blood splatters to keep his haori clean as he waited for it to bleed to death or get tired enough for him to go finish it off. Eventually the latter happened as the spider collapsed and was unable to move any longer. Owari walked over carefully and cut its head off.

After that he had a nice spider stew (boiled spider) and took a nap inside the spider's fairly safe nest. He was elated to find a spider sac inside of the nest. He carefully broke it open while hanging from a tree so he could drop it if the spiders were hatched. Luckily the eggs inside were still a bit off from hatching. Then he destroyed an egg by splitting it with his sword killing the embryo inside.

After inspecting the spider inside he determined they were about two weeks from being fully grown. Owari was about three days from the forest edge. He could make it back to town and sell them in time. However he suddenly had a better idea. Owari ate the mother spider and continued his work while carrying around the eggs sac for the next two weeks. When June began they all hatched. Obviously he went into the forest to wait for this. At that moment he started rapidly branding as many as he could. He found he could brand about thirteen of them. He immediately sicked those thirteen on the rest and killed as many as he could while leaving any stragglers to Fang and Hebi.

They managed to kill all the non tamed ones. After taming all of the spiders Owari made his way back to town while having the fist-sized things hidden in his coat. When he arrived back in town he made his way to a certain location. He rented out a small building for six months and made his way to the Orion Tradecenter. When he arrived he met with Tristain.

“Is this about the map work?” Tristain doubted it.

“No, I need one thing and offer another. Which do you want to hear about first?” Owari spoke with a hint of amusement. Clearly he was playing around.

“Let’s go with the thing you need, I prefer bad news first.” Tristain was sure it wouldn’t be too crazy, after all Owari was never one to ask for things easily.

“I need thirteen workers willing to work with spiders. They need to be people who will work for me and not the tradecenter.” Owari asked for the favor first.

“So what are you offering?” Tristain had a vague idea.

“I’ll make a deal with the Orion tradecenter for the new silk-producing business I plan to set up. It will be quite favorable.” Owari offered as asked.

“What kind of silk and how favorable?” Tristain did his due diligence.

“Silver spear spider silk. And I plan to offer 50% of the silk to the Orion Tradecenter if you help me find employees.” Owari’s terms were fairly favorable.

“I take it 50% is the highest you’ll offer?” Tristain had gained a good sense for Owari’s deals.

“Of course. I didn’t want to beat around the bush on this one since I’m asking for a favor.” Owari replied.

“Very well. We have some silk-producing factories. We can take some apprentice workers and offer them a job for you. Of course we mostly use caterpillars, but some will probably be willing to work with spiders. Why thirteen though?” Tristain asked curiously.

“That’s how many I have tamed and they’re babies so they’ll need a caretaker for each one. I plan to pay the worker to care for the spider’s needs as well as harvesting the silk.” Owari answered as one of the spiders skittered out of his coat and onto his shoulder.

Tristain shuddered at the sight of it. “Right, I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’ll be going then.” Owari left and made his way back to the rented building where he let them loose and gave them some rules to abide by for the time being.

After that he had a thought suddenly and slept through the night before heading over to Noel’s the next day. When she saw him her face lit up. He had seen her a few times during this time, but they only went on a few dates. When she walked over she spoke up. “What’s the occasion?”

“I wanted to see you.” Owari answered honestly.

“Still a talker huh?” Noel was more used to his teasing these days, but she still hid her face a bit.

“I wanted to know when your birthday was.” Owari asked right away.

“Huh? Oh yeah I forgot all about that. It’s actually coming up soon. It’s the 10th of June. What about you? I take it that it’s soon given your sudden interest in the topic.” Noel chuckled. Of course she read him like a book.

“It’s the 10th.” Owari answered after a moment of silence.

“Oh?” Was all Noel could say.

“Looks like we share a birthday.” Owari smiled.

“Seems as though we do.” Noel also smiled.

“Let’s have a proper date then.” Owari decided to take the day off. He was actually done with his official work for the Orion Tradecenter, but he still would go out to perfect the maps and clear out some beasts for training.

“That would be perfect.” Noel was excited. She was quite happy to find out that they shared a birthday.

“I’ll plan the date then.” Owari decided this would be his gift to her.

“What about my gift to you?” Noel didn’t seem to be okay with that.

Owari leaned in and whispered to her. “Just let me sleep over again like last time.”

Noel seemed surprised but smiled mischievously. “How unexpected. Alright, it’s a deal.”

Owari backed off a bit and kissed her before turning to leave. He figured it would be best to leave the date to the 10th. For now he decided to go see Lance. It had been a while after all. He had been visiting Lance and Rebecca these past few months, but he hadn’t seen Lance in over a week so he felt it was due time. When he arrived he was lucky enough to get a meeting quickly.

“So is this a business visit or a casual one?” Lance smiled when he saw Owari.

“Casual as usual these days. I don’t have much business to discuss usually. I don’t like getting involved in all that.” Owari sat down with a laugh.

“Says the guy with numerous business deals and shares in all kinds of enterprises.” Lance chuckled.

“That was for my eventual retirement.” Owari laughed as he said it. Even he thought it was well beyond that point.

“You have a funny idea of what retirement requires. Why think so far ahead anyway?” Even Lance never really thought about how he would retire. They lived a dangerous life after all.

“It gives me a goal to live for. The more things you want to live to achieve the more you fight and struggle to survive.” Owari explained.

“I never thought of it that way.” Lance thought it was an odd way to think, after all the reason Owari gave himself more reasons to survive was so he would pull out more of his potential in a life or death moment.

“Most people don’t seem to think like I do I’ve found. I wonder why.” Owari wondered what made him so different.

“Well it’s probably how you grew up. I won’t claim to know what you went through, but everyone is influenced by their lives up until the present. After all you’ve changed a lot since I first met you.” Lance gave his own opinion.

“I don’t think I went through anything so bad that I’d want to risk my life all the time though. I had a decent childhood.” Owari thought his childhood was pretty normal.

“From what I’ve seen of you when you fight I have a feeling you have a lot of pent-up rage. From what I know about your life before you came to Leviathan city I can’t blame you.” Lance wasn’t sure about the rest of his personality, but when it came to battle he had an idea that this was the case. After all he didn’t show his savage nature back at the train crash until he was left to die and grew angry.

“I don’t think I was angry at anyone in particular. Just angry about my circumstances. Now though I just love the thrill of battle.” Owari smiled a bit as he thought about all the fights he’s been through.

“Don’t make a face like you’re reminiscing while thinking about fighting.” Lance sighed. “Seriously I wonder how Noel and your mother stand it thinking about how close you come to dying so often.”

“They’re very supportive. After all they know who I am and accept me for it.” Owari didn’t think much of it. “Just like I do the same for Noel. Of course I’m worried, but I don’t sit there overthinking it. I deal with it as it comes.”

“Again, a weird way of thinking.” Lance shook his head. He’d never really understand Owari.

“Well that’s enough about that, I came to see how you were doing.” Owari changed the topic.

“I’ve been doing good. Have you heard the news about the new music box?” Lance had been following news on this invention since it was shared with the public.

“Of course I know. I am a major shareholder in the company who designed it.” Owari would often get letters describing what was going on and any progress they made. It was about once every two weeks.

“Oh yeah.” Lance had forgotten about it because of how ordinary Owari seemed most of the time. He didn’t strike one as being a businessman.

“I bet I know more than you. What did they release recently?” Owari laughed when he saw Lance’s reaction.

“Recently they disclosed that the music box had been streamlined and would cost less to produce.” Lance was curious what Owari knew.

“That’s a pretty recent development. Obviously you can’t share what I’m about to tell you but I trust you so I don’t mind giving you some insider knowledge.” Owari checked Lance’s reaction and saw he was practically on the edge of his seat. “They recently made a breakthrough with the crystal disks and have managed to shrink them down meaning not only will the disks be cheaper to produce but so will the disk readers.” Owari figured the information released to the public was only a half-truth.

“That means we’re getting closer to an actual release.” Lance was waiting for that moment. He didn’t care if he would owe Owari a favor, he would ask him to help get one.

“Speaking of music though, how has your guitar practice been going?” Owari asked curiously.

“Pretty well. I can actually play some simple songs now. Not well, but good enough that you can at least recognize them. Now it’s just about repetition and practice.” Lance had picked up the guitar after Owari recommended he get a hobby. It had done wonders for his stress.

“You find a girlfriend yet?” Owari asked with even more interest.

“Where would I have time to do that?” Lance sighed.

“You do work with a lot of pretty girls.” Owari chuckled.

“I bet Noel would punch you if she heard that.” Lance laughed.

“Nah, I’d just say she’s prettier and say I was just comparing them because I knew she would be prettier.” Owari said shamelessly.

“You sure know how to talk to girls.” Lance smiled wryly.

“I watched a guy seduce half a town. It would be hard not to learn something.” Owari sighed, he didn’t know whether it was a good or bad thing.

“Oh yeah, I forget that you were friends with that guy.” Lance had already heard about him a bit from Owari and he had a bad opinion of the guy.

“Yeah, he was kind of a scumbag.” Owari would have been able to admit it when they were friends let alone now.

“No comment.” Lance chuckled. “So are you going back out soon?”

“Probably not, mine and Noel’s birthday is soon so we’re going to go on a date.” Owari sighed, he had been fighting a lot recently so it was time to relax.

“Both of you have birthdays soon?” Lance felt it was quite the coincidence.

“Our birthday is the same day.” Owari answered.

“Really?” Lance was surprised. “What is this, destiny?”

“I don’t believe in destiny or fate.” Owari replied.

“Fair enough. It is a huge coincidence though.” Lance also didn’t put much stock in superstition.

“Right? But that makes it easier to remember.” Owari was always a bit bad with dates.

“It is very convenient.” Lance admitted. “So how are you and Noel?”

“In what way?” Owari preferred people to be direct and simple in casual conversation.

“In a lot of ways. How have you guys been doing lately, how have things been in terms of your relationship, how often do you get to see each other? The usual stuff, nothing specific really.” Lance didn’t really have any specific aim in mind when he asked, he just asked because Owari asked him.

“We’ve been doing fine. Noel is probably getting stir crazy but she gets to go out a lot more recently so that’s good. As for our relationship, it’s been good. Not much to say about it really other than that we still get along with one another and still enjoy being with one another. We also see each other at least once a week or so, I try to visit her before I leave and after I come back.” Owari checked everything off the list one after another.

“Well it’s good that things are going well.” Lance wasn’t sure what to say beyond that.

“Well I’ll let you get back to work now.” Owari stood up as he realized the conversation was dying down. “Before we start talking the day away and you get in trouble.”

“Fair enough. We really need to hang out outside of the agency again one day.” Occasionally they had gone and hung out around various places in town, but it was rare. They especially liked laying in the park and relaxing while talking, it was about the most entertaining thing one could do for free.

“See ya.” Owari said as he left.

“See ya later.” Lance also stood up and went his own way to get back to his office.

After finishing up there Owari made his way around town looking for things to do. He stopped by some book stores and bought a few books on business advice and some textbooks for various subjects that he needed to brush up on. Once he brought those back home he went around to various clothing stores and looked around curiously. He didn’t buy anything, but he did look. He figured it would be good to get an idea for the general trends of clothing since he would be getting into silk trading.

After day started to turn to night Owari made his way to Rebecca’s house. When he knocked on the door the one to answer was the kid who was the leader of the group of three. “Oh it’s you.” He said with disappointment.

“Who were you expecting?” Owari was curious.

“Nobody.” The boy denied the claim.

“Doesn’t look that way to me.” Owari thought for a moment. “If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine.” He shrugged. “Is Rebecca here?”

“It’s her house, of course she’s here.” The boy seemed annoyed that Owari dismissed him.

“I’m not at my home right now am I? Does that mean I’m homeless?” Owari spoke with a hint of amusement clear in his voice.

“Don’t make fun of me.” The boy glared at him.

“I’ll stop making fun of you as soon as you stop treating me like some criminal.” Owari fired back.

“Fine, I’ll go get Becca.” The boy ran away before Owari could ask about the nickname.

Soon Rebecca made her way to the door. “Becca?” Owari asked curiously before she even reached him.

She visibly sighed. “The kids came up with it and now they won’t stop. Even Erica calls me that now.”

“That just means they like you. Kids like to give nicknames to friends.” Owari chuckled.

“I wish they wouldn’t be so forceful about it.” Rebecca waved Owari in. “Come on in.”

“Alright.” Owari nodded and followed her to the living room. When he got there Erica seemed to notice him immediately and ran over with a piece of paper in her hands. She lifted it up to him to show she had drawn a landscape with colored pencils. It was a bit amateurish from an artistic standpoint but the lines were drawn straight and confidently. “You’re improving.” Owari praised her. He had told her to start practicing drawing as it helps with finger dexterity and fine muscle control.

“Thank you teacher.” She smiled and ran back over to continue drawing.

“She still calls you teacher.” Rebecca sighed, nobody at the agency seemed good enough to teach her anymore. In fact she was already making strides in her swordsmanship. With her skill she was already low copper rank at her age. Most kids her age were only in the iron ranking which is around the average adult who isn’t a hunter.

“I do teach her after all.” Owari sat down and smiled, it was only natural that a student call their teacher as such.

“You seem to be rubbing off on her. Recently she split a log in half. With a wooden practice sword.” Rebecca was exasperated but also happy at the same time.

“It was probably a pretty sharp practice sword. How clean was the cut?” Owari was curious, he spoke as if this was only natural.

“It was a bit jagged and splintery, but she used wood to cut wood.” Rebecca could pierce wooden planks with a wooden arrow, but that was because of the exponential increase in power from the bow limbs and string as well as the fact that all the force is in one point. A slash was different as the force is applied through the whole blade.

“That’s too bad. Maybe she’ll get better soon.” Owari didn’t sound disappointed but he also didn’t praise her needlessly.

“I just don’t understand you people. I asked a gold-ranked swordsman from the agency if it was possible to kill a silver rank beast without using mystic arts. He told me it was but that it was very difficult without years of training.” Rebecca had learned that the prerequisite for gold rank was usually the ability to kill silver rank beasts with martial arts on their own and mystic arts on their own. Only then would you qualify to fight gold rank beasts on equal terms.

“Of course it’s possible, after all I did it.” Owari wondered why she even bothered asking.

“Yeah but you’re weird. From what you’ve said about your techniques you have no physical enhancement techniques.” Rebecca had talked with Owari about this quite a bit both because Owari would teach Erica a bit here and there and because it was the topic they had the most in common with.