11 Ch. 10- Auction Revenge

Today I plan on testing my new augmented abilities from Jareth's evolution now that I have a proper weapon to fight monsters with. I have a quick breakfast of cereal with my summons eating with me at the table. Jareth is sitting up properly in his chair across from me and continues to eat daintily which makes for a hilarious sight considering his type of monster is known for being brutes.

Brutus sits on his hind legs in the chair diagonal from me and quickly demolishes his core. Emett took more coaxing to get onto the chair next to me due to his weight and low intelligence, but once I got him up on there, he seemed content to remain and just sat quietly while dissolving the core I placed next to him.

What an odd sight we must have made, and I'm sure Mira would have teased me incessantly about it, but it felt nice to eat like a family once more. I'd almost forgot what it was like, with no one but Mira to eat wit.

Even then, she was gone frequently due to being busy with her work and experiments. After we had all finished our impromptu meal I sent a quick text to Mira letting her know I would be gone hunting for most of the day and then set off to the gate.

Brutus continued to get bigger, to the point he was nearly as large as me and likely much stronger as well. Seeing as he was large enough to ride by now I decided to try and ride him as a mount into the center of the city.

He seemed to have no problem with the arrangement and after I unsummoned Emett and Jareth we took off down the street heading for the town square. Buildings rushed by in a blur of tan and brown bricks as Brutus raced down the path until a short 20 minutes later we made it to the open area in the middle of town.

I brought Brutus back to my storage and silently slid into line amongst all the other summoners going through the gate. No one seemed shocked at having a large wolf in town as it was a common sight, especially amongst the stronger summoners.

There seemed to be someone gazing at me as I felt a tingling on the back of my neck, but I couldn't pinpoint any one person so I shrugged it off and continued on through the gate after scanning in.

I began my endeavor out in the outer edge of the forest to start off fighting some weaker monsters for a warmup. I had Brutus summoned out on standby in case he needed to intervene and save me. I was kitted out in full tier 2 armor minus headgear, I had my bandolier strapped on my chest and my sword at my hip ready to draw at any moment.

I loved my new sword, it was shaped to cleave just about anything and had a bright green sheen to it that seemed especially sturdy. Despite the price I had to pay for it, it should last me for quite some time as it was a tier 3 weapon which I've only just started to have Jareth hunt.

It seemed that not only did I receive a stat boost, but I also gained a basic understanding of one-handed weapons as a result of Jareth's experience and him being a humanoid monster allowed this ability to pass on to me.

I started with a tier 1 armored ant, it had red plate-like chitin armor surrounding its' entire body and had large piercing mandible, it honestly looked like a miniature tank than an insect.

It started off by lunging towards me with its' pincers set to crush my midsection, but I sidestepped the ant and its mandibles and swept downward with my sword from above and sliced right through its neck, decapitating it with the ease of passing a hot knife through butter.

My increased strength, the low ability level of the ant, and the great advantage of a tier 3 sword on a tier 1 monster allowed me to easily decapitate it as if it was a chicken with its' neck outstretched for me to cut off.

The sword felt natural to me, not only from the inherent skill passed on from Jareth to me but from my weapon classes at the academy where we learned basic sword movements and lightly sparred against each other. The difference in ability with the sword before and after Jareth's evolution was quite clear.

I never would have been able to accurately aim and maneuver the sword in such a way to pass through a gap in the ant's armor and chop off its' head with my previous beginner ability with the sword. Brutus had nothing to do and sat to the side of the clearing waiting for me to finish up collecting the ant body before moving onto our next target.

After walking further into the woods Brutus detects the tusk markings and smell of a boar, so we track it a little ways from where we initially saw signs of its' presence. We came across it a short while later and like last time, I had Brutus take a seat to the side as I face off against a tier 1 giant boar.

This was a harder fight, as the boar was much larger than the ant and faster as well, this speed forced me to avoid and dodge its' charges every time it would come near. If the ant was an armored tank, then the boar was a fighter jet prepared to gore anything unlucky enough to cross its' path.

Eventually, I got a lucky break and managed to nick an artery in the boar's neck after a particularly reckless charge, it seems to have underestimated me to its' detriment. My strategy after having made a deep wound on its' neck was to keep my distance and let the boar bleed out.

I knew cornered monsters and animals are the most dangerous, so I gave myself plenty of room to avoid an attack while also keeping it engaged to prevent it from running off and healing itself. After about 2 minutes of blood pouring from the wound, the boar began to stumble as a result of blood loss.

I knew the time was right for me to finish it off. Its' knees buckled and I darted in to swipe my blade the rest of the way across its' neck while avoiding its' sharp tusks. Despite the energy exerted fighting both monsters I felt surprising spry and decided that I at least had a decent grasp of my sword now and could move on to actual hunting with my summons.

I flicked the blood off of my blade and resheathed it at my side and then summoned out Emett to join Brutus in today's hunting. I would bring out Jareth as well, but I still have trouble with summoning 3 summons for any long period of time, plus it would be overkill to have him fight weaker monsters when I was trying to gauge Emett's ability level.

From what I could see, Emett has low capabilities right now and can only physically attack or shoot out rocks at enemies, so I have him acting as a ranged attacker while Brutus keeps the monsters' attention and does damage to it. They managed to bring down 5 monsters in an hour with Emett dealing the final blows to them to allow for him to evolve sooner and get a better grasp of his attacks.

After doing this for a while and slaying a few monsters with little difficulty I decide not to waste any more time in the weaker area, and so our group moved over to the tier 2 area and began to hunt after Emett is switched out for Jareth.

We go through 3 pairs of monsters with minimal intervention from me before taking a quick break with Brutus getting a dark hound core and Jareth the core of a hobgoblin I had previously bought. As we get up after finishing our meal and plan to hunt once again we are attacked without warning by two summons that seems to have come out of nowhere.

I would have been dead if it wasn't for the warning provided by Brutus due to him smelling the scent of a dark hound like of the core he had just eaten when a gust of wind blew by alerting him to their presence. Luckily his warning came through in time and I was already prepared to launch into action and dodge their initial charge.

As I sense the summons beginning their attack I immediately bring out the steel turtle shield from my storage and equip it to my left arm just in time to fend off an attack from a tier 2 dark hound while Jareth faces off against a tier 3 fire salamander.

Brutus who was left free of attackers quickly attacks the dark hound trying to frantically bite me from behind and catches it off guard. The hounds' entire focus was on the shield I was using to block its' bite, so Jareth struck swiftly and manage to crush its left hind leg. Immediately after, Brutus leaped to the side to avoid the responding bite from the hound.

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I store the shield once more after the hound is distracted and bring out my scimitar that was still in its sheath at my waist. The hound continues to be focused on the threat Brutus presents and has dropped its guard towards me, writing me off as a non-threat I was just an "unthreatening" weak human.

It only begins to respond to my advance after its summoner warns it about me, but by then it was too late and the hound got caught in the front shoulder by my blade. I felt muscle and tendon tear due to the sharp edge of the sword and strength of my charge blow, eventually, it came to a stop after the scimitar met what seemed to be the shoulder blade. After having the hound be rendered effectively paralyzed, Brutus darted around to the hound's side and quickly crushes its throat in between his wicked jaws.

While this was taking place, Jareth was over on his side of the forest in between a row of trees and darted out from one tree to the next to avoid the fire-spewing reptile. Jareth was wearing the salamander out by having it expend all of its' fire, and was moving gradually closer to the summon.

Once the salamander finally ran out of fire to spew, Jareth took advantage of that by rushing in quickly and smashing its head to stun it with his heavy iron mace. The salamander was dazed by the blow and only its thick skull saved it from dying immediately, unfortunately for it, Jareth is an expert combatant and never gives up an advantage when one is presented.

He continued to swing his weapon all the while aiming for the head as the monster blindly waved its claws around hoping to strike at something to stop the barrage. After a couple of swings more, the salamander's head finally gives way and its brain is pierced by the bone shards from the skull being forced into the fragile organ by the iron mace.

The unknown summoner turned around to try and escape once they felt both of their summons die in short order to the ferocious might of Jareth and Brutus. The assailant never even made it past the edge of the opening before Brutus caught up to him and clamped down on his leg and broke it to prevent him from escaping.

I heard the distinctly pathetic cry of a young male in pain when Brutus tore into him to prevent his escape, this is when I began to have an inkling of an idea about who it could have been that would attack me. After Brutus broke his leg I had him back off in case the summoner had a weapon and decided to use it on my wolf summon.

I began to walk towards the downed assailant with Jareth beside me cradling his mace menacingly, he made for quite the sight, a large grey lumbering figure with a bloody mace gripped in one hand as if he was still ready to fight.

The first thing I do as I near the summoner is to ask him, "Why did you target me of all people?". After not getting a response I proceeded to use my sword to rip away the assailant's hood and saw the face of the summoner who I had outbid the day before.

After seeing the distinctly familiar face, I realize the exact reason behind the sneak attack. I shake my head at the ridiculousness of his reasoning, it was either so that he could get back at me for beating him in bidding or to get the weapon from me for himself.

With that settled, I near the other summoner keeping myself as composed as possible despite the burning hot rage simmering within me at the gall of the pathetic boy to try and attack me and my summons over something so petty.

I raise my sword and tell him, "Since you seem to want my sword so bad, why don't I let you borrow it for a while". Ignoring his pathetic pleas and furiously shaking head, I run him through the heart with my menacing sword in a swift and decisive motion and soon the light leaves his eyes.

I had long ago made up my mind to return any harm that someone would wish upon me. I felt no regret at my actions except my regret that it had to happen at all, growing up as an orphan I had long ago discarded any hesitance about taking a life especially considering I grew up during wartime where the death count rose practically every second during the brutal and bloody world war.

I remove my sword from his body, which thumps to the ground in a lifeless heap and clean off my blade of any blood that remained on it with the deceased summoner's cloak. My next action was to take his watch and search the body for anything else valuable on him, it's not like he had any use for it and I figure I might as well benefit in some way from this event.

I then head back to the two dead summons and store their bodies to sell later. Having lost the desire to battle anymore for the day, I go back to the city and sell the 7 tier 1 cores, and 6 tier two cores for 67 credits in all.

After having sold off the remaining cores I head over to the monster summoner association building to report the attack and sell the monster bodies. Once more I line up at Max's familiar desk and he greets with a head nod before motioning for me to start unloading the bodies in my storage like I usually do.

I shake my head and instead inform him that I was attacked by another summoner and that they are now dead. As proof, I bring out the watch of the summoner and hand it over to be scanned so that the incident can be fully filled out with information like the name of the summoner which of course will be registered at the association.

Events like this weren't uncommon in today's world and usually the association didn't intervene unless someone was known to be a repeat offender with evidence against them, it was bad for business if summoners were killing each other off, but usually what happened in the wild stays in the wild.

Max takes down the name which happened to be Terrence Fitzgerald and hands back the watch as spoils of battle. Once that was taken care of I then proceeded to sell the armored ant for 5 credits, giant boar for 4 credits, the 5 common tier 1 bodies for 15 total, the dark hound body for 30 credits, and the 6 common tier 2's for 150 total. Earning me an additional 204 credits.

I kept the core of the dark hound for Brutus and then went over to the auction house to place the salamander core and corpse up for auction separately in hopes of earning even more money. Once I mentioned to the receptionist that I had some items to put up for auction I was shown a side room and once an appraiser entered we began negotiations.

I brought out the core and corpse of the fire-salamander to be looked over and appraised, the balding elderly man informed me that the core will be valuable due to the demand for elemental cores like it to guide evolutionary paths, and since the corpse is in good condition aside from the head it would also be worth a nice sum.

The hide will be used for fire-resistant armor and the organs would be useful in rare potions. After agreeing to auction off the body and corpse with a 10% commission of the final sale going to the auction house, and receiving a numbered chip to exchange after the next auction for my money, I head out the door to go to the market to unload any unwanted items from the summoners watch.

As I walk I look through the watch and end up finding 450 credits, which I transfer over to my account, it seems my assailant was quite rich, just not enough to have been able to afford my sword at the auction. Along with the money were some clothes, a cheap dagger, 5 tier 1 wolf cores, a tier 2 shadow wolf core, and 4 ember lizard cores.

Seeing as basically everything but the wolf cores could be sold, I unloaded them on the nearest merchant I could find for 45 measly credits, which was small compared to the amount he had in his account. On the way back home after this long and stressful day, I go and pick up 2 dinner meals from a fast-food restaurant for me and Mira.