Depthless Hunger: A Progression LitRPG, page 9
And so Kai felt as though fate had ruined his life again, but it wasn't even the second time. Was he going to let it happen this time? Kai's hands tightened to fists at his side.
Chapter 15: The Wages of Effort
Only Gunjin's request not to make a scene kept Kai in his seat. Once everyone was dismissed, he shot up and marched to the front of the room. The clan heads were speaking to one another, apparently in a wonderful mood, until he arrived.
"Why was I disqualified?" Kai demanded. He glared across all the clan heads. "Why?"
"Rewards are granted at the discretion of the judges," Hannagan Lantrian said. "You have skill, boy, but it seems being a monster hunter isn't your fate. The city cannot afford to invest resources on someone so weak."
"Did I look weak at the end?" He didn't want to admit it, but there were tears in the corners of his eyes. "I fought as hard as anyone, against the hunters you just praised as the best! I deserve to be given the same chances they have."
"You fought warriors who had been training in their Classes for a few days. Do you truly believe that you can keep up with them for months and years? Over that time, the gap will only grow. It's best for everyone if you find a new life for yourself now. I'm sure you can turn that determination toward a more productive end."
Hannagan spoke in soothing, confident tones and stroked his beard with one hand. It was infuriating. Kai clenched his fists and stepped forward, without any idea what he was going to do.
Something slammed into his face and the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground. As he struggled to sit up, he saw Hannagan straighten and realize that the old man had headbutted him. Hannagan kept up that soft smile, but his eyes were like flint.
"I'll speak to the boy." Gunjin stepped in and drew Kai to his feet. "Please excuse us."
Part of Kai wanted to fight, but the blow had knocked most of the anger out of him. He didn't want to believe that it was true, but he had to admit that Monskon City and all Goralia were built on strength. No matter how unfair it was, he had no recourse if he couldn't prove his point.
If they wouldn't support him, should he just leave the city? Kai considered it briefly, but every year most of those who tried to go it alone died in the wastelands, and the hunters who survived outside were generally inferior. No, even though the city was clearly set against him unfairly, running off would be a childish mistake.
Gunjin pulled him into a side hallway and then finally turned to him. "I'm sorry, Kai. Though it seems unfair, the judges will never change their decision. There are records of several promising candidates receiving a Class similar to yours, and none of them uncovered any hidden potential. It's no fault of your own, but you would not have been able to make good use of the rewards."
"How can they act like I don't have any potential? You can all see my Levels, can't you? I've advanced beyond most of the other candidates there!"
"A demonstration of your willpower, to be sure, but unfortunately many are inclined to dismiss it. Some theorized that your Class may slightly increase physical growth, and thus they believe this is already your full potential." For the first time Gunjin's eyes wandered, and he frowned at nothing. "In this, I disagree with them. Just as some Classes are stronger than others, some are barely Classes at all. This is rare, but... I'm afraid you need to face the truth."
"The truth?" Kai grabbed his mentor's shirt and forced him to meet his gaze. "They rejected all my accomplishments so they could give the rewards to Fhazi and-"
Gunjin raised a hand in front of his face and cut him off as surely as a blow. The grim sorrow in his mentor's eyes broke Kai's growing rage.
"Listen to me: Fhazi Lantrian received almost nothing. Yes, he'll live life with a silver spoon in his mouth. But he'll never be able to buy his way to true strength, and even Hannagan can't bestow treasures on him. Our survival is too precarious to give away power to fools."
"But..."
"Shut up and listen. That same logic is why we can't afford to give you anything." Gunjin took a step toward him, his eyes flashing. "You still think of this as a game because you have no idea of the threats we face. Do you even know why monsters exist, or what this city was built to protect? You're a child throwing a tantrum because life isn't fair while people are dying."
The lecture from his mentor took even more wind out of Kai's sails. He took a slow breath and forced himself to look into Gunjin's eyes directly before he spoke. "Tell me one thing: is this my fault? Could I have trained harder.... done something different... why did this happen?"
"I... truly am sorry." The brutal look in Gunjin's eyes faded and he touched Kai on the shoulder almost gently. "You did everything right, my boy. I've never had a student apply himself with such dedication. But we don't live in a fair world, and it seems you've been given a cruel fate."
With that, his mentor turned away as if to leave him. Kai felt as though his chest had been caved in, and he could have just stood there. But he couldn't let it end, not like that. Before Gunjin could leave the corridor, Kai ran after him.
"Wait!" Kai opened the door and thrust a finger toward the table filled with monster cores. "My cores were given to the Hunters Guild, but I received nothing in return. You promised a reward for the Direboar. If you take what I earned with my own hands, you're nothing but thieves!"
His wild declaration drew everyone's attention. Some elders looked puzzled, the assistants looked nervous, and Hannagan looked like he wanted to headbutt him again.
"You little-" Hannagan was cut off when Gunjin gave a low chuckle.
"He's right about that," Gunjin said, then gestured to one of the assistants. "Do as he says. It might be your prerogative to distribute bonuses, but he earned that core by defeating the Direboar."
Kai shifted nervously while cores were placed into a sack. He counted each and every one, and it seemed they really had kept track of his total. They hesitated but eventually gave him the Direboar core, still throbbing a day later. Judging from the way the others turned away, they seemed to have accepted his logic. Though he didn't have a real plan, Kai knew that cores could be traded for money, so at least he wouldn't be left with nothing, and the Direboar could probably be converted into some sort of power.
When he finally had his sack, the assistants made it clear that he should depart soon. Kai had been hoping to return with Gunjin, but his mentor - his former mentor - slightly shook his head. All of Kai's anger was cold and dead now, so he couldn't rage again. The best he could do was gesture for Gunjin to talk one last time.
"Let me prove myself," Kai said. He gripped the sack so tightly that the canvas burned his fingers. "If I'm wrong and I can't keep up, I'll accept what you said. But you have to give me a chance."
"You'll get an entire year of chances, on one condition." Gunjin raised a finger. "You can pursue your own training as before, and the Granfian clan will continue to house and feed you. But this stunt has branded you as a troublemaker, so others may try to use you against the clan. No senseless fights, no trouble-making, no attacking other clans. Understand?"
"Thank you!" Kai felt pathetically grateful, but he needed to cling to any advantage he had.
"In a little over one year, the next monster incursion will threaten us all. Perhaps even more so than usual. If you are capable of holding your own at that time, then I'll throw all the resources of the Granfian clan behind you. Everyone would reconsider their judgments, because you'll have done something considered impossible."
"I'll just have to do the impossible, then." Kai grinned at him and turned to leave the Hunters Guild.
He managed to keep up his smile until he made it all the way out the door and was engulfed in the bustle of Monskon City. Then Kai forced himself to breathe slowly. He did have options. They might have taken all the direct rewards from him, but they couldn't remove his more intangible accomplishments from the Hunter Trials. After just a few minutes, he already had a few plans for how he could train to be ready for the monster incursion.
But right at that moment, he just felt like an idiot carrying a sack of monster guts.
Chapter 16: A New Side of Monskon City
Two days later, Kai was beginning to realize just how much of his life had been dictated by his hypothetical future.
Anywhere he'd gone in Monskon City, doors had been open to him as a promising young hunter. While they weren't closed in his face now, it was obvious that the attention of the city had gone toward those who had been most successful. Older veterans who had volunteered time in the practice yards were now too busy to work with him. They all apologized with smiles on their faces and made excuses, but he knew what they meant.
The same day that the Hunters Guild had rejected him, Kai had struck back with a thousand plans. Even if he didn't have a useful Class, even if they wouldn't give him what he was due, he would find a way to keep up.
And again, he'd discovered that his life would never be the same. He'd sent letters to the Lantrian, Orgoron, and Corinin clans... only for them to simply not respond. They'd never ignored him like that in the past, even if they declined his requests for extra training. Above all, the other members of the Granfian clan treated him more like a disabled veteran than a young warrior.
Their pity made him spend more time out in the city, which might as well have been a new place. Oh, he was still allowed everywhere, but he saw it with new eyes. Instead of focusing on the highest institutions, he found himself noticing just how much better the streets were in the upper city. Even the part of the lower city where the Granfian clan lived was much better maintained than others, much less the shacks outside the outer wall where citizens were at great risk of monster attacks.
Once, he'd thought that the citizens held an attitude of grateful respect toward the hunters who kept them safe so near the Frontier. Now, it looked more like deference. He never saw a hunter exploit anyone, but given how much more powerful their Classes made them, did they need to? Instead of Goralia being a nation of people all working together, he saw a hierarchy determined by dumb luck.
None of it was fair, but he couldn't do a damn thing about any of it.
As Kai approached the mercantile square, he wondered if even the merchants were looking at him differently. Since he no longer had easy access to the clan's resources, he had begun buying mana-infused items from an elderly woman who ran a stall. She certainly glowered at him, but it seemed like she glowered at everyone.
"You again? What now?" She sucked on her gums as she eyed him from within a fortress of hanging ferns and piles of jars.
"I've converted my monster cores this time." Kai forced himself to smile pleasantly as he hefted his bag of coins. He had thought he could have traded with the raw cores before, but he'd been forced to sell them for proper currency.
"Good. Children these days, trading oozing cores." The old woman glowered at his bag of coins for a time. "Well? What do you want?"
It was a question he hoped to answer soon. Kai had sold all of the cores he'd collected except for the five largest, which he still hoped to find another use for. That left him with 176 Goralian Eagles, which was more money than he'd ever carried before, but not much compared to the amounts he heard veteran hunters discuss. How far it went... he was about to find out.
"I was interested in one of these sanitation stones," Kai said. "How much?"
"Ten Eagles for the pumice. More for the nice-smelling ones."
His eyebrows shot up. Sanitation stones kept a person clean and not smelling awful - he hadn't been interested in actually buying one so much as checking it as the cheapest magical object he knew. "What about a magical tent?"
"Hmph, how long is a piece of string?" The old woman shook her head. "That one you see hanging in back will cost you two hundred and fifty. They go higher."
So magical equipment was a lot more expensive than he had expected. When it came to average food and supplies, everything was cheap enough that he'd need to break his Goralian Eagles into smaller coins. By the austere standards of the Granfian clan, one Eagle was about a month of expenses. But none of that was what he cared about in the short term.
The woman sold simple healing potions for a few Eagles apiece, and hunter-grade potions for twenty or more. Kai didn't buy any of them, since he still hoped he would be able to talk to Juray and get a better deal, but that was much worse than he had hoped. Even if he was careful, the injuries he received hunting monsters on his own would consume most of his profits.
"No idle questions! You'd better actually buy something," the old woman groused, "or I'll be cross."
"Oh dear," Kai said, "I wouldn't want you to be cross."
"Hush. You haven't seen me more than disgruntled."
He couldn't afford to antagonize her, so Kai moved to his next goal. "These are moonfire herbs, right? For enhancement potions?"
"Seven apiece, thirty for a bundle of five. But you don't look like you know anything about herbalism."
"I'll manage somehow." Kai managed a smile and bought a whole bundle. From what he'd seen, the type of enhancement potions that the winning candidates had received cost at least a hundred Eagles. The ones he could make himself wouldn't be as potent, but they'd prevent him from falling too far behind.
"Anything else?"
"I guess I just wanted to ask... do you sell mana seedlings here?"
For the first time, the old woman actually looked surprised. She blinked owlishly within her little fortress before responding. "I could maybe get my hands on one if I had a buyer. But you're going to be looking at a thousand Eagles, minimum. Depending on the market. I'd ask if you want to order one, but frankly..."
"Right, no thank you." Kai nodded to her and moved away before he could flush.
Once again, he'd entirely underestimated just how much it would cost. The Hunters Guild and the major clans poured thousands of Eagles worth of resources into their top candidates. No amount of solo monster hunting, much less a normal job, was ever going to let him pay for it himself.
As he walked to his next destination, Kai tried to think of a way forward. If he had no ambitions, he had enough money to live comfortably for years. Trying to become a true monster hunter without any support, he could burn through it all in days. Worse, he wouldn't be able to stay in the Granfian clan forever unless he proved himself, which would only add to his expenses.
No wonder the Hunter Trials made all the difference. It was the only way that someone without clan backing could afford to train... and that path had been taken away from him by his useless Class.
His muscles ached more than he had expected after that morning's training session. Kai was still pushing himself as hard as he could, even without magical support. He could suffer through some pain without potions to ease the aches, but the physical exercises that had once been his life were no longer enough. After two days of grueling work, he felt like he hadn't progressed at all.
When he reached Juray's shop, Kai barely glanced at the window and almost walked on. After two days of finding her absent, he had begun to wonder if she was ignoring him too. The fact that she had opened up her storefront was so unexpected it took him a second to accept it.
"Oh, Kai!" Juray had been working with a mortar and pestle, but began wiping off her hands when she saw him. Far from avoiding him, she smiled rather broadly. "I haven't seen you since the Hunter Trials."
"I tried to stop by," Kai said, "but I didn't see you."
"I'm so sorry about that. The guild has been commissioning me constantly since the trials, restoring their supply of potions and all of that sort of thing. Do you need something?"
He dropped the bundle of moonfire herbs onto her counter. "I've tried to research enhancement potions. These are the main ingredient, right? Could you mix one for me?"
Immediately he saw the sorrow enter her expression, but at least it wasn't pity. Juray barely looked at the herbs, instead examining his face. "The guild judged you, did they?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"If they judge someone doesn't have enough value to them, everything changes. I've seen it before, starting with myself. I was never a fighter, so I can't really understand what you're going through, but... I'm sorry that it turned out this way, Kai."
Her compassion didn't grate quite as much as the others, but Kai still frowned and pushed through. "Thanks, but that's life. Can you make the potion or not?"
"I certainly can, it just depends on what exactly you want. You won't... I may not be an expert in training, but I know my craft. You won't be able to maintain all of the amenities that the clan scions can. If you want to advance without them, you'll need other strategies."
"I know." This, at least, seemed more like a test than condescension. Kai reached into his sack and dropped one of the largest monster cores onto the table - he'd had it encased in crystal to keep it fresh. "If all you care about is power, you can brew a potion with more toxicity, right?"
Juray's eyebrows rose slowly. "Well, you're more ambitious than I thought. Yes, I can extract some mana from a monster core of sufficient quality... which that seems to be. It wouldn't be the sort of thing you'd want to take to enhance your training - that sort of potion is grueling enough on its own."
As far as he'd read, potions like that were basically poisoning yourself, but they were the only kind within reach. "I only want to use them to break through walls," Kai explained. "I don't understand everything about them yet, but I can push through normal advancement with effort."
"I'm afraid I know even less about that. My Class doesn't have any severe breaks in power like the military ones. But yes, with these and just a few other ingredients, I can make you one hefty potion. This is from the Direboar? With ingredients of this quality, the result should be equal to anything the clans can produce."
"How much will the brewing cost?"
Juray tapped a finger on her lips for a while, examining him with a strange expression, then answered slowly. "If you agree to bring me all of the rarest ingredients you find or buy, I won't charge you anything."
