Freddy stared at the sickly woman sprawled out on the ground before his feet. "Uhhh..." he muttered, mind uncomprehending.
The gorel corpse hanging off the rack behind his back dripped blood on the ground behind him. The sun roared up above, and the sounds of distant combat grew louder with each passing moment as more and more parties engaged, using the day as a cue to finally ambush gorels they had likely been stalking for a while already.
"Excuse me... What did you just say?" he asked, unsure of whether he had heard the woman correctly the first time.
"Please!" she begged. "I'll do anything for it! It doesn't even have to be a whole arm! I can do with just a fist! Or even a finger! Please!"
What is this crazy woman talking about!? he reeled in his mind. "Look, lady, uh... I'm not sure exactly what your angle is, but I don't intend to donate my body parts to anyone."
"Please! It shouldn't be a problem for you!" she insisted. "You can heal them back eventually!"
That took him aback. For some reason, he got the impression that she didn't mean that he could pay for the healing. "What makes you think that?" he probed cautiously, keeping his voice flat.
"Huh?" She raised her head, seemingly confused. "Your talent, of course."
His eyes shot wide open beneath his helmet, and a light sweat broke through his skin, pooling beneath his armor and drenching his one-piece underwear. He worked not to let any of this show outwardly. "I can't do that," he denied outright. "And I do not know how you landed on that conclusion, but I'd like to ask you to—"
"Please!" she yelled again. "Do you want that to remain a secret!? I won't tell anyone, I promise. I swear on my life!" The girl crawled forward and pushed her forehead further into the soil. "Just one finger!"
"Stay away from me!" he shouted as he jumped back and raised his guard.
This woman was incredibly suspicious. As far as he knew, she may have some form of illegal, sinister talent. Talent manifestation didn't follow man-made rules. But men made rules nonetheless.
Some forms of talents had to be forfeited immediately if one manifested them. There was some truly insane stuff, like the infamous Infant Bomb talent a certain terrorist destroyed half a town with.
People usually gave them up willingly as the reward tended to be a lot of money. But some didn't.
Whatever this woman was playing at could very well be the requirement to activate some form of curse or something. He didn't doubt that it would help her in some way—but what would it cost him in return?
"All right! I'll... I'll..." she muttered as she got up to her feet, looking quite defeated. "I won't bother you any longer. Sorry for my shameful behavior. But..." she started again, raising her piercing purple eyes to face him. "Please consider it. My offer still stands. I'll do whatever you want in—"
"Please just," he interrupted her. "Can you please just leave, miss?"
Her mouth opened slightly as she nodded, her eyes falling to the ground and her shoulders sagging. Without saying anything else, she turned around and left.
"What the actual fuck just happened?" he whispered under his breath.
That was... certainly an interesting encounter, to say the least. He felt discombobulated at the utterly bizarre sequence of events.
Regardless of her situation, she was still a one-star, completely unequipped, running around a passage realm. And given the tearing on her clothes and telltale signs of natural-quality healing beneath, she had made it out of at least one fight alive.
As he observed her form, despite the light sagging of disappointment, he could see firmness in her step, a balance in her gait. She was well trained. She was strong. And on top of that, she was headed deeper into the passage realm, likely looking for another fight.
Releasing a heavy breath, he hoisted the deviant gorel up on his back and started running back to the lobby.
As he ran, he could hear the noises of several nearby groups of gorels running toward him. The natural rock formations surrounding the path slowed their approach, and his determined run was enough to lose them every time. Still, the effect of this deviant's corpse on others of its kin was undeniable. He had to hurry.
A few minutes later, he finally returned and dropped the deviant off at the counter. He couldn't help but sigh when he realized it didn't drop a prime. Well, there was no point in lamenting the nature of luck.
That run left him feeling rather exhausted. Before heading back in, he sat on one of the benches to drink water, eat bread, and down a can of cold-brew coffee.
He used Adaptive Water Body for a while to regain his inner balance, did a few minutes of meditation, another few of gathering to replenish his lost reserves, and then went right back to hunting.
For the most part, the hunt went well. The day stuck around, and he could hunt as efficiently as he did on his first day. Whenever the fatigue began setting in, he staved it off with either a canned coffee or an energy drink.
Rather than cutting his delve short, he decided to stick around longer this time. The gym could wait. Profits were his priority.
"Jesus Christ..." He had started that last hunt at around 3 p.m., maybe half an hour before he passed out, meaning that he had been out of it for... what... almost seven hours?
He tried asking several other groups, but they all said the same thing. Nobody had seen what happened.
Eventually, he made his way to the clerks. There, he was told that someone had dragged him inside after finding him passed out not too far from the passage and that the person who had brought him back requested that they remain anonymous.
The clerk also gave him a bill for an emergency medical examination that had to be performed because he was found bloody and battered. His body was naturally perfectly fine, which resulted in them simply leaving him to sleep it off on the bench, but that didn't stop them from charging him 5,000 dollars for the service.
Although that made him want to punch someone, there wasn't much point in fighting them over it, so he simply let it go and asked to have his profits tallied for that day. The receipt included the cost of the medical bill, totaling 20,913 dollars after the costs and fees. That was a lot of money. The deviant alone had gone for almost ten thousand. Well, the corpse itself was 5,000, but it apparently had a nearly 5,000 dollar bounty on top of that.
Despite the impressive profit, he was dissatisfied.
After all, it seemed that he had hit a limit, and he had a hunch that he knew what it was. Although he could prevent permanent damage, it appeared that abusing energy drinks and coffee could only take him so far.
His talent could heal from the damage, but, well... it seemed that the simple need for sleep didn't count. He wondered about that.
He knew that his talent could undo the damage from a lack of sleep. But it seemed that it couldn't stop his brain from simply shutting down due to running out of energy. Speaking of which, despite the hours of sleep he had, he felt dead tired.
There was a shop on the second floor of the building where one could get their gear fixed. It was where he had gone to get it adjusted previously, and the damage to his equipment was more than severe enough to justify another visit. He went to one of the stripping rooms and took everything off, placing it in a small basket in the corner. The basket retracted into the wall, taking his clothes with it.
He waited butt-naked for roughly fifteen minutes, and his gear was returned to him. Fixed, but... clearly battered.
The bracers had notable marks where the gashes had been filled in, and the underwear had new patches of cloth added to where it had been torn. His pants and jacket were also sewn back together.
The fixes were relatively crude and straightforward, so it only cost him a few hundred dollars. While they could charge whatever they wanted for medical services, gear maintenance had to remain affordable for one simple reason—if the cost of repair was too high, people would just buy new equipment instead.
Frankly, the visible maintenance was welcome. If he had no scars to show, at least his equipment would be proof of his experience.
On his way back home, he bought ten kilograms of beef liver at a store. When he returned, he stashed most of it in the freezer and made dinner with the rest. Liver was a great source of dietary iron, and he needed a lot of it to grow his Crimson Mercury.
Once he was done with his meal, he decided to use an hour before sleep to work on the tempering technique. As he started, he found himself quite surprised. The shell was pretty much already done.
"Huh..." he mused. That was a surprise but a damn welcome one. That meant that he could have been done with it yesterday. After doing some extra work to polish the shell, he finally crystallized it.
The poor scattering of wisps couldn't fuel his essence for long, unfortunately, so after only ten minutes, he finished his day, sprawling out on the bed and instantly falling asleep.
***
Freddy arrived at the hub the next day, coming in late after sleeping in.
If the previous day had taught him anything, it was that if he wanted to hunt more, he would have to hunt more efficiently. And if he wanted to do that, he needed to both rely less on essence and conserve his stamina.
Usually, a good way to do so was to use a weapon. It took much less energy to plunge a spear into a gorel's eye than it did to punch it to death.
He walked out into the realm, facing... night again. Brilliant.
As far as the whole spear thing went... he had to admit it; he couldn't really see himself wielding a weapon. On that note, he took the dagger out of the storage ring. It appeared in his grip. Frankly, he barely knew how to hold it properly.
Numerous ideas had gone through his mind while researching everything he did about the blood affinity. Among the first was the idea of manifesting a direct extension to the dagger, either extending it or turning it into a sword. This idea was all right, but from what he had gathered, it wouldn't make the dagger's effect more efficient than just conjuring a whole sword in his second hand.
But swords weren't easy to use. And frankly, they didn't really fit with the style he was creating.
A slight grin formed on his face as he felt his knuckles itch.
While ordinary weapons wouldn't suit him...
He had found an ability that would.