Chapter 12

The next morning, Jack woke up to a weight on his chest, he looked down to see a mass of blonde curls resting there. He smirked smugly before gently shifting the woman off his chest and getting out of bed.

She stirred and began to wake up before rising herself. She turned to look at him with a small smile as she got up and began to get dressed. They didn’t bother speaking since they both knew it was a one time thing. Jack watched as she got dressed before she sat back on the end of the bed and leaned down to put her heels on and grab her handbag. She got up and made her way over to the door, she turned back to him with one last smile and a wave before slipping out.

Jack went back to bed and fell asleep again.

Later that morning Jack finally decided to get up and make his way to the kitchen.

“Ah! There he is! Someone had a fun night!” Katie teased as he sat at the breakfast bar with the rest of the team bar Nate.

“Oh yeah? Who?” he shot back with a smug grin.

“You know she took your underwear with her don’t ya?” Katie asked, grinning back.

“She….wait what?” he paused while pouring himself some cereal.

“Stacey saw her stuffing your underwear into her handbag as she was leaving,” Katie told him with a giggle. Stacey looked uncomfortable as she bit into an apple. The others all laughed at his shocked face.

Jack took that in for a moment, not knowing whether to feel creeped out or flattered. Before he could decide however, Nate suddenly barged into the apartment and rushed over to them.

“Kladican! A Kladican’s been sighted! They’ve just posted a hunt for it!” Nate exclaimed excitedly as he used Noah’s bulk to bring himself to a stop.

Jack looked at Meredith, remembering his old promise to her. But he barely had to speak before Meredith stood up in excitement, mirroring Nate's own.

“Everyone get dressed and let's go!” With that she went to her room and pulled on a pair of trainers before rushing through the common room and out the door with Nate and the others following close behind her. Jack was forced to grab his clothes and change on the go.

When they got outside, there was a steady but frantic flow of excited people running towards the lounge where the jobs terminals were, not just hunters but all sorts of other guild personnel too, all wanting to see if the rumours were true and who would get the hunt.

When the team got to the lounge building, they joined a large crowd milling around outside, it seemed the doors were shut and people weren’t allowed in. The commander himself was there along with some admin staff and Cheryl, they looked to be discussing something important and the crowd seemed to be waiting for whatever they were talking about.

Eventually, the commander finished whatever it was he and the higher ups were talking about and approached the crowd.

“Okay everyone…..” he began but the crowd didn’t hear him and continued to murmur amongst themselves.

“Shaddap!!” the commander cried in a stern voice. Everyone promptly closed their mouths. “Right! I know what you’re all here for and I know every hunter team here wants a crack at the beast but we’ll only be sending two teams out,” he stated and the crowd groaned in disappointment and multiple people voicing objections. “Yeah yeah, complain all you want, but we can’t afford anyone else to pursue this, believe it or not but you do have jobs to do and quotas to fill, in fact most of you here already have jobs you're registered for. The teams we’ve selected that will be going out will be….team Stalker and team Meredith,” he said after consulting his touchpad.

As soon as he said the names the crowd let its displeasure be known again.

“What!?”

“Favouritism!”

“Nepotism!”

“That's bull!”

Jack and the others meanwhile couldn’t help but let slow grins spread across their faces, even Noah looked pleased with himself, and Nate was currently hugging a random disgruntled hunter in sheer joy, jumping up and down. Multiple hunters turned to give them dirty looks. One pretty female hunter glared daggers at Jack.

“Wanna hug it out?” he suggested to her with a hopeful grin. She turned away with an angry snort. The crowd slowly dispersed with a few remainders approaching the commander to complain in person.

The commander saw them and shoved one of the complainers out of his way.

“The hunts yours if you want it, if so then go get your shit and be at the command centre in ten minutes,” he bluntly told them before turning back to the irate hunter who was gesticulating and whining.

“Yeah!” Jack heard someone yell out, he turned around to see another group of hunters behind them, celebrating and high fiving each other as they jogged away.

“Let's go guys!” Meredith urged them. They followed her back to their quarters to get their hunting gear. Within ten minutes they were ready and entering the outpost command centre, when they entered they were immediately directed to a map room by some guild personnel. The other team was already there along with Cheryl and the commander.

“Good you’re here, let's get to it then.” The commander noticed them as they walked into the map room.

He gestured for everyone to join him and they all gathered around a large table map. By now Jack had begun to recognise the map and remember where all the different locations were off by heart, having trekked all over the surrounding area for the better part of a month. The commander pointed to a spot barely two hours from the outpost’s location.

“This is where the beast was last sighted,” the commander stated. “The jobs simple, find it, kill it, and harvest it,” he said that last bit whilst looking at Jack. Jack nodded back. “Also, there is another objective I want you to fulfil if you’re able, we had a surveyor out in the area keeping watch over a local tribe of goblins, we lost contact with him earlier this morning. I want you to see if you can find him or atleast find out what happened to him. Questions?”

Team Meredith and team Stalker both fired off questions to the commander about the specifics of the hunt. However, they were interrupted when an indignant voice cut through it.

“Let me through! Let me through! Do you know who I am?!”

Everyone in the map room paused and looked at the door. Through it burst Jason, the new lightning cultivator followed by an embarrassed looking Ricky and an ever cheerful looking director Welts.

“Can we help you?” the commander asked mildly in a bored tone.

“Ha! Isn't it me who can help you?” Jason arrogantly smirked.

The commander didn’t answer him but simply stared at him without expression.

“You’re going after that Klady - whatsit thingy right? Out in the Dire Woods? It’s an A ranked monster, so that means you’ll want the whole thing harvesting. Well then, you’ll need a lightning cultivator for that,” he stated proudly and looked at the group expectantly. Behind him, Ricky continued to grimace in embarrassment and rubbed his eyes.

“Errr, don’t we already have a lightning cultivator?” one of the hunters from team Stalker piped up while pointing to Jack. “And aren’t you like……a G ranker or something, what are you even doing here?” he asked Jason in confusion.

“Pff! Mr mediocrity over there?” Jason scoffed while turning a scornful look at Jack who waved at him cheerfully. “Can he even fight? I bet his team just uses him to attune harvestables for them and as a loot mule.” Jason crossed his arms smugly. Everyone cautiously looked at Jack to see his response.

“He is more than welcome to come with us,” Jack joked half seriously. “We’ll even allow him first crack at the beast.” Every hunter in the room chuckled, even the commander smirked slightly.

Before Jason could say anything further, Welts stepped in. He came up from behind and clapped his hands on both of Jason's shoulders in a firm but friendly manner, Jack noticed Welts always seemed to do that to prevent young hunters from doing or saying anything stupid.

“Okay! Haha! Yes, as you can see the next generation of lightning cultivators is certainly a hungry one, very eager to prove themselves! Haha! Yes!” He addressed the room cheerfully before speaking to Jason. “Now Jason, your time will come but you’re not quite ready for a hunt in the Dire Woods just yet,” Welts told him firmly.

Jason opened his mouth again to protest but Welts interrupted him again. “Now then! Let's go back to the canteen, you know they poached some of my best chefs from branch headquarters a few weeks ago. I believe it was Willis who was responsible for the Profiteroles yesterday evening, he was always good with desserts.” Welts took a reluctant Jason by the shoulders and gently steered him out of the room while continuing to chatter along.

The room was silent for a moment before the commander spoke up again in an impatient voice.

“Does anyone else have some nonsense they want to bring to the attention of the group or can we all get on with our actual fucking jobs?” he asked, no one dared say anything. “Good, then get to it hunters.” With that they were dismissed. The commander swiftly walked out of the room and left both teams alone together.

“Ermm….” Meredith began before stopping nervously. She’d come a long way socially, but she still a bit of a mess when having to speak with strangers. Jack wasn’t much better, truth be told.

After a moment, Noah decided to step in and save everyone from the awkward tension.

“We’re team Meredith, that's our team leader; Meredith, I’m Noah, her second and that's Nate, Katie, Stacey and Jack,” Noah introduced them all.

One of the hunters from the other team stepped forward, a tall man wearing a mix of monster bone and leather armour. “I’m Simon, leader of team Stalker. That's Hector, Gina, Matthew and Lucy.” He pointed to two men and two women of whom all but one wore a similar mixture of monster bone, leather and monster scales for their armour.

Jack recognised them as one of the teams that had been in the Dire Woods since before their own team arrived. Except for the last woman, they all looked like veterans of the Dire Woods, they had vigilant eyes that constantly darted around as if assessing threats, their hands were always resting upon the hilts and pommels of their weapons. The last woman seemed a little out of place compared with the rest of her team, where their armour was all beat up but still serviceable, her’s seemed newer and was composed of mainly plate and kevlar with a few pieces of monster bone. She also didn’t quite have the same wary, haunted look in her eyes as the others.

“Well then, if you don’t mind, we should probably get to it, if you’re ready that is?” Simon looked at them questioningly.

“Ah, we’re - we’re ready.” Meredith spoke up with a firm nod.

Simon nodded and led the way out of the briefing room. As they walked outside and down to the main gate of the outpost perimeter wall, one of the hunters from team Stalker spoke up.

“Hey, why do we need to hunt this thing anyway? I mean, it's not like it's a danger to people is it? We’re in the Dire Woods, not a population centre. What if it's just like…..minding its own business? Hicc,” she asked in concern before hiccuping out a small cloud of smoke. It was Lucy, the newer looking member of the team.

What a strange thought for a hunter and monster slayer to have, Jack took another look at her and saw she looked familiar somehow. She had blonde hair and blue eyes, a pretty face and a soft voice. The way she hiccuped smoke also seemed somewhat familiar, though he couldn't quite place it.

“It's necessary because the more powerful monsters like the Kladican often seem to gravitate towards the Dire Woods entrance before they come through into the Yorkshire Dales. From there they could go wherever they please in Britain,” Simon, the leader of team stalker explained.

“Yeah, before the expedition into the Woods got going we had a rash of powerful monsters emerging from the Woods and rampaging around the countryside, I actually remember that, it was over a year ago though it feels like a lifetime now,” another member of team Stalker remarked.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“But if a Kladican is so powerful then shouldn’t we wait for it to come to us and let the perimeter defences take care of it? Or at least slow it down?” Lucy continued to question.

“A Kladican is too fast and agile to get caught by the wall guns, it’ll just jump straight over the wall and kill a bunch of non-combatants if we let it come to us,” Noah informed her gravely. “We’ve got to go to it.”

Lucy simply sighed tiredly before letting out a small hiccup of smoke again.

The two teams continued to walk down the wide paved avenue to the main perimeter gates and then out into the Dire Woods perimeter. As they walked, the two groups spoke and exchanged ideas on how best to kill the beast and coordinate their efforts.

Jack and Nate spoke of how they’d seen a Kladican in York city centre get slain by a powerful earth and water cultivator hunter duo. The Kladican had been overwhelmed and incapacitated by a barrage of earth attacks before being drowned by a precision attack that sent water straight into its lungs. Nate however, was acting rather unlike himself as he spoke, he sounded hesitant and unsure of himself, almost nervous, probably because that was when a former teammate of his had gotten brutally killed by the Kladican several months ago.

Unfortunately, Noah and another member of team Stalker informed them that because there was no concrete or asphalt in the Dire Woods, then those types of earth attacks wouldn’t work or be powerful enough to overwhelm the Kladican. Also Meredith and Stacey admitted that they didn’t quite have the level of control needed to force water into another creature’s lungs, apparently that particular technique actually took a certain level of finesse to pull off.

So they were stuck with confronting the creature head on, or atleast pulling off a good old fashioned ambush once they’d tracked it down. However they did decide that as the senior ranking hunter, Simon would take the lead for the hunt and give commands to both teams for the duration of the hunt.

After about an hour of trekking through the forest, Katie informed them they were getting near the beast. Everyone continued to push through the thick undergrowth cautiously until they came within sight of it. The Kladican was busy rubbing its colossal antlers against a tree trunk, tearing out great gouges from the bark. After a moment it stood up straight and the team was treated to the sight of the beast in all its glory.

It looked similar to the one slain months ago in York. It looked like a demonic super moose, it stood close to nine feet at the shoulder with black shaggy fur covering much of its body. It had silver segmented metallic looking plates running down its massive neck and back, the plates continued past its back to form a long thin silver tail that lazily trailed through the air some metres behind it. The things that passed for antlers or horns on its head looked more like thorn covered tree branches with hundreds of razor sharp tines.

Everyone slowly spread out whilst keeping an eye on the creature, the previously agreed upon plan had been to simply surround it and attack from all sides. Not a particularly fancy plan, but after a fair amount of trial and error, many hunter teams had found that simple battleplans were the best. No need to make things overly complicated.

While everyone was getting into position in the surrounding bushes, Jack took the opportunity to take a quick selfie with the Kladican just ten or so metres behind him. The guild unofficially encouraged Jack to take as many selfies of his hunts as possible, apparently they all went up on the guild website as a form of positive PR and recruitment, or propaganda.

After a short while, everyone was ready to go. Simon let out a quiet bird whistle as the previously agreed upon signal and Katie started things off with a shot from her bow.

The arrow streaked out from her hiding place and stuck into the Kladican’s neck. The beast reared up with an angry screech, its silver tail lashing around in a frenzy. Almost as soon as Katie's arrow landed, Jack threw his own payload of steel marbles, however his shot only scraped the beast and only pissed it off further.

Now the Kladican was on full alert and its head was whipping around looking for threats, its nose snorting out thick plumes of steam. Before it could find and focus on one particular hunter, Simon emerged from his cover and yelled out.

“Let’s go!” With that he brandished a large trident and charged. Everyone followed suit.

Nate along with two hunters from team Stalker threw out gouts of fire as they ran at the beast, it tanked the fire and came charging straight at them. Nate and the two hunters scattered, just barely avoiding the swipe from its antlers.

Everyone else was kept at bay from the Kladicans rear by its slashing silver tail.

“Hector! Mince it!” Simon commanded. The hunter known as Hector nodded before thrusting his hands forward and twisting them. The ground at the Kladican’s feet twisted and the creature stumbled as its hooves suddenly sank several inches. A moment later Noah joined in his efforts as he realised what Hector was trying to do. The beast sank a further half a foot as it struggled to free itself, its head whipped back and forth in a frenzy, it let out angry deep rumbling bellows of rage that assaulted their eardrums.

“Now! While it's trapped!” Simon shouted. He charged the beast's flank, narrowly dodging its tail and sunk his trident prongs deep into its ribs, the beast let out another angry bellow.

The others weren’t far behind as they copied his actions, Meredith even managed to smoothly sink the blade of her sword spear into its throat. However, it seemed no one ever bothered to explain the difference between a mortal wound and a flesh wound to the Kladican as it finally freed its hooves from the ground and shook its attackers off like annoying ticks.

It swiped its antlers to the side and slashed Simon in the chest, he went down with his breast plate in splinters and blood jetting upwards. Everyone else backed off in a hurry as the beast rampaged, it kicked back and one of its hooves sent Gina flying over a dozen metres back into the brush.

Everyone continued retreating and sent as many elemental attacks as they could but the creature’s hide seemed impervious to their assaults, it was still hurt however, judging by the pool of blood beneath it.

The Kladican snorted and chose a target, its eyes focused on Jack. He allowed himself just enough time to curse under his breath before grabbing his black chain and waited for the beast to come. And come it did.

It charged the short distance that separated them, Jack knew he’d have to time this just right so he channelled some energy into his brain and allowed his perception to speed up. The Kladican seemed to slow down to a crawl and Jack got his chain ready, just as it got within a few metres of him, he swung it to loop around one of its horns and poured as much lightning energy into the chain as he could.

The Kladican had just enough time for a confused snort before it face planted into the ground, both its antlers tearing into the ground. Jack swung some more loops of chain around its head and antlers and poured even more lightning into it, the chain grew so heavy he could barely hold onto the single thin link he still held.

The beast struggled for all it was worth and alarmingly it managed to raise its head slightly to give Jack a look of hatred. That was both incredible and frightening because during the tests he and Gary had done some time ago, Jack could get the chain to weigh almost five tonnes depending on how much lightning he poured into it. The chain also contracts upon itself and tends to crush whatever it wraps around, god only knows what it's bones and antlers are made from if they can take that sort of punishment. It made a few shaky steps towards him, Jack stepped back slowly, not able to fully retreat without letting go of the chain.

In a feat of monstrous strength, the Kladican lunged the last few metres separating them. It brought its antlers to bear and Jack just barely had time to bring his hands up, preventing the hundreds of tines and thorns from turning him into a pincushion, however they sank deep into his hands and forearms.

Jack hissed in pain as blood erupted from his arms, but he ignored it poured every bit of lightning energy he could from his core and into the beast. The antlers almost reached his chest armour where all of Jack’s squishy insides were but they stopped just shy of ripping into him, Jack’s strength and the weight of the chain just barely able to keep the beast from advancing further, for a few moments at least.

Now if Jack was on his own, he would be able to safely conclude he was irrevocably fucked and get on with the rest of his day, but he wasn’t alone.

“Yaaargh!!!” Noah came charging in from behind and brought his rocky, enlarged warhammer down on one of its hind legs. There was a snap and the Kladican screeched in pain, its tail lashed out and took Noah straight in the face, his helmet faceplate almost caved in. Noah was sent reeling backwards from the blow but stayed on his feet and came back charging in with another strike to the same leg. There was a louder snap and the leg gave way, Noah dropped his hammer and staggered off to the side in a daze before falling to his knees.

The Kladican collapsed briefly with a strangled sounding snarl and Jack felt the pressure from its antlers recede, he ripped his hands and arms away and scrambled backwards. The rest of the hunters took advantage of the situation and attacked for all they were worth.

Everyone still standing sunk their blades deep into his flanks and held them there as it struggled, Nate managed to finish it off by sending an incandescent plume of white fire into the beast's ribs through his hollow sword.

Smoke and liquid fire poured out of its mouth and wounds before the Kladican finally toppled to the ground and lay still. Everyone looked at it for a moment, not daring to believe it was actually dead, but when it was clear it was, they all let out breaths of relief.

The hunters of team Stalker rushed over to their fallen comrades while team Meredith did the same. Jack found himself being fussed over by Stacey.

“You okay Jack?” she asked in concern.

“Urgh, define okay.” He was sitting on the ground, holding his torn up forearms and hands, blood was still dripping down.

“Let me see,” she said before gently taking off the remnants of his bracers and gauntlets. His arms were a mess, deep cuts and punctures covered his hands and forearms, bits of skin were hanging in bloody flaps here and there, he was also having difficulty moving some of his fingers. Overall his arms looked like they’d been wrapped in razor wire and enthusiastically stabbed with a knife over and over.

“Yeah, that's not great,” she observed as she poked at the wounds, drawing a hiss of pain from him.

“Is that your professional medical diagnosis?” he winced as she prodded him again. “Argh! Get away woman!”

“Relax! Look, some of the wounds have already stopped bleeding. And for your information I’ve been attending the guild’s medic course to become a certified field medic,” she informed him smugly.

“Urgh, great.”

“Can you move your fingers?” she asked while continuing to poke and prod.

“Not very well,” he responded grimly.

“Hmm, well I don’t think there’s any nerve damage since you can clearly still feel this.” She poked a finger, eliciting yet another hiss of pain and an indignant look from Jack. “But I think you may have damaged tendons in your arms and hands,” she informed him.

“Is that bad? That sounds bad,” he asked worriedly.

She shrugged. “For a normal non-cultivator it might mean surgery and then weeks of physiotherapy. For you it might mean a few hours in the med-bay, I think the process they use is to put the tendons back together and then hold them in place with pins and clamps while your accelerated healing does its thing,” she cheerfully told him before getting up and helping him rise.

“Pins and clamps?” he asked in increasing worry.

Stacey ignored him as she went over to check on Noah, he was still kneeling down and Katie was attempting to help him to his feet, which was easier said than done as he was almost a foot taller than her.

While Stacey was checking on Noah, Jack looked around at the rest of the hunters, Nate was standing next to the Kladican corpse, looking at it speculatively and Meredith was with two members of team Stalker who were kneeling over Simon. Jack joined them.

Incredibly, Simon was alive, though he didn’t look great. His armoured breastplate was almost non-existent, it had been removed in shredded, splintered pieces by his teammates and discarded to the side. His chest wasn’t any better having received the same treatment as Jack’s arms and hands.

Simon wheezed painfully from where he lay and spat out some blood, he didn’t look particularly unhappy however.

“Gah, just a scratch, I’ve had worse. How’s Gina?” he asked.

“I think her sternum is broken plus a few ribs, Hectors getting her back to her feet now,” one of his hunters answered. Despite the severity of his team leader's wounds, he seemed rather calm.

“Mm, fine then. That fight and all this blood will’ve attracted something nasty, we should be getting out of here soon. Can your man attune that thing or not?” Simon asked Meredith.

“Erm yeah, I think. It shouldn’t be a problem?” Meredith turned to Jack with the question. Jack shrugged and walked over to the Kladican, it lay on its side with multiple gashes marring its hide, a faint misting of multicoloured vapour was already starting to seep upwards from its wounds.

Jack knelt down and got to work, this was probably the strongest beast he’d ever cultivated from. He could’ve done so from the Armoured Viper, but he didn’t have a hand in slaying it so he didn’t cultivate from it as a matter of principle, he simply attuned it for harvesting.

But the Kladican however, that he felt perfectly entitled to. He placed a single hand onto the beast’s flank, taking note of the silvery segmented plates along its back for later, and pushed some lightning energy in. Then he pulled, oh my. If he had to compare it to what he normally used for cultivation essence, it was like drinking a sugary beverage for the first time after drinking nothing but lukewarm tap water for weeks.

The sweet lightning essence flowed up his arm like he’d dipped it in honey, this stuff was miles better than almost anything he’d had before barring dungeon monsters. He greedily drew up as much lightning essence as he could, going just beyond his limits, after several minutes of just gorging himself, he rolled onto his back with a satisfied sigh. He was pleasantly full, he could just go to sleep right there……

“Hey, wake up!” Someone’s boot nudged him just as he closed his eyes. He opened his eyes and saw Stacey looking down at him. “It’s time to move out, we’ve got to get back to base before some more predators or scavengers get here.”

“Urgh, fine, fine. Help me up,” Jack grumbled. She nodded and held out a hand to him, but he didn’t move to take it, he just laid there and smiled up at her. With a roll of her eyes she grabbed the front of his flak jacket and heaved him up with one hand.

“Whee!”

“Oh shut up.”

Everyone gathered up and surrounded the Kladican corpse, overall it had to weigh far beyond a metric tonne, not something a group of normal people would contemplate lifting without access to a crane. However, no one in that group was normal, but instead they were all advanced cultivators with greatly enhanced physical strength and endurance. Carrying around a tonne and a half monster corpse between their group was definitely possible.

“I am not carrying that,” Mathew from team Stalker objected.

“Me neither!” Nate echoed him.

“Same!” Katie also put in.

Gina simply coughed and spat on the ground while loosely carrying her caved in breastplate.

Simon looked helplessly at Meredith who stared back at him and shrugged. Behind her, Noah held his flattened nose between his fingers, he twisted and with a crack he fixed his nose, sort of, after which he spat up a glob of bloody phlegm.

Simon sighed. “Okay then, how about we just harvest the plates and the horns and then see if we can send another team back for the rest if it's still here?”

Everyone tiredly agreed and got to work, they pried off the silver metallic like bone plates from its back and neck and also chopped off the antlers before covering parts of them with thick layers of leather scavenged from Simon's ruined breastplate.

By the time they were finished they had neat stacks of silver armoured plates divided up between them while four of them were gingerly carrying the ends of the thorn covered antlers.

With the job done they headed for home.