The Primal Hunter 7: A LitRPG Adventure, page 47
"Hey kid, get the fuck up," one of the men sneered.
Sim-Jake barely reacted and kept training as he just turned his head. "What do you want?"
"I heard you made trouble for our boys," the other man said more calmly.
"Funny, I remember it being the other way around. Them trying to rob me.” Sim-Jake finally stopped training and stood up. He was smaller than the two men by quite a bit, but not a trace of fear was on his face.
A teenager before two large men would usually be viewed as a foregone conclusion. Facing little more than a child, the adults naturally didn’t take sim-Jake very seriously as one of them reached towards him.
"Listen here, ki—"
Sim-Jake grasped his wrist and looked him in the eye. “I am listening, am I not?”
The man did not take kindly to this. He wrested his arm free and took a swing. Sim-Jake effortlessly dodged it and took a step back to avoid a follow-up. The man looked like he had some minor boxing experience, but it was far from good enough.
Sim-Jake caught his arm as the man made a wide swing and twisted it. The attacker yelled in pain as sim-Jake just pushed him away, making him fall to the ground.
"Just fuck off already, man," sim-Jake said, annoyed.
The other man, who had yet to attack, looked at his fallen comrade. "Kid, you stole thousands from us. We aren’t leaving.” Sim-Jake raised an eyebrow and frowned as the other party pulled out a switchblade. The man raised it threateningly and added, "Stop being an idiot."
The real Jake saw his simulated version take a clearly defensive stance. The man with the switchblade looked like he had hoped to just intimidate. No one wanted to kill someone and potentially land themselves in legal trouble over what could not be that much money. Yet when the man saw Jake clearly wanted to fight, he sneered and jumped. Sim-Jake dodged the blade, but one thing quickly became clear:
Sim-Jake was fighting someone with actual experience.
A cut landed on sim-Jake’s arm, and he was forced to back away. He began retreating more and more as he took several wounds. When he made it behind a pillar, the man with the blade followed… only to have a rod of rebar smash towards him.
The man leaned back and dodged, once more showing he was no pushover. The first man had also gotten up again and pulled out a knife of his own.
"We really doing this?" sim-Jake asked as he stood there with his rebar rod.
Neither man answered, but they had clearly decided to kill him. It was answer enough. The simulated version of Jake dove forward, taking the men by surprise and managing to hit the guy he had injured earlier on the arm.
Sim-Jake tried to swing again as the man dropped his blade, but he had to stop and jump back to avoid getting stabbed in the gut. The second man came at him again, and sim-Jake managed to keep him away with his metal rod.
Jake—the real one—looked on, noting how mundane the battle was. It was almost weird seeing three people who were just average humans go at each other. His simulated version was in many ways at a disadvantage, but despite being younger and smaller, he held his own.
The situation changed when sim-Jake managed to tackle the second man, and they rolled to the ground. Sim-Jake got up but was bleeding from his thigh, while the other man… didn’t get up. He was lying there with the knife stuck in his own chest, straight in the heart, with a look of disbelief on his face.
This took the two remaining survivors by surprise. It was clear sim-Jake had not done it on purpose. The real Jake also saw how it was just "luck," if one could call it that. Sim-Jake had tried to block while the man tried to stab and had hit Jake on the thigh, but it hadn’t cut properly, and he’d ended up falling on his own knife.
"You! Fucking cunt!" the first man said, but he did not engage. Instead, he began retreating. The man was not the fastest, but neither was sim-Jake.
He just stood there for a moment and stared at the corpse… before something clicked.
He looked at the fleeing man and picked up the metal rod from before. With an impressive toss, he hit the man on the knee as he tried to flee and stormed over, his wounded thigh leaving a trail of blood behind him. Sim-Jake picked up the fallen rebar rod again as he went to the fallen man.
The man stared back as sim-Jake lifted up the rebar rod, yelling another curse just before sim-Jake swung down and hit him in the head. A few more blows sealed the deal. Sim-Jake then dropped the weapon and wheezed. He looked at his hands and started shaking.
"Fucking fuck. Shit… Just… fuck…"
The real Jake noted how they both had the habit of cursing a lot. He also understood the frustration… This was his first time killing anyone. The simulacrum, that is. But… it was a necessary kill. If he hadn’t done it, things would have no doubt ended worse. They would have been back with reinforcements. Taken revenge.
Jake saw his simulated version limp away, still cursing and looking incredibly panicked. For some unknown reason, he also kept looking nervously around, primarily in the direction of where the real Jake was standing within the simulated space. The scene ended there, and everything changed once more.
The next scene was of sim-Jake sitting in a room, clearly older now. An older-looking gentleman in a suit handed him a picture. Sim-Jake looked at it, nodded, and handed it back. He then got up and left.
It switched again, now showing Jake standing over a dead body with a knife in his hand. He cleaned the weapon with a cloth before sheathing it beneath his clothes and walking out of the decrepit apartment building like nothing had happened.
At least he tried to, as there was movement in adjacent rooms.
The real Jake felt everything. Even in the simulation, his sphere was fully functional and showed him the world as genuine. He could see an actual world for hundreds of meters in every direction, and from the looks of it, his simulacrum also had this ability.
He stopped at the door and waited, clearly sensing someone walking through the hallway. The person stopped at the door and knocked. "Hey, boss, one of the corner girls was caught trying to stiff us again. Want us to handle it as usual?"
Yep, this entire joint was clearly a hidden brothel of sorts, and it appeared like sim-Jake had just killed the boss of the establishment. Real-Jake honestly felt a bit relieved that if sim-Jake was a killer, then at least he killed assholes.
The guy outside the door knocked again before finally opening the door a bit nervously. "Boss?"
He barely had time to step inside before sim-Jake snuck up from behind and slit his throat while covering the guy’s mouth. He fell limp to the floor as sim-Jake shook his head and went out the door casually, wearing a black hoodie.
This version of him was probably eighteen or nineteen tops.
Similar scenes repeated, and it quickly became clear what kind of person he was. He was not necessarily a contract killer but just a mercenary for hire. There was even a brief stint overseas where he worked for an arms dealer but left soon after.
Throughout these scenes, Jake came to realize there was a lack of guns. Not used by the other side, but by sim-Jake. He used it overseas but quickly discarded it. Instead, he tended to use knives, wires, improvised weapons found at the location, or just his body.
He would sneak past police with his supernatural Bloodline abilities every time. Like a ghost, he would enter, kill, and leave again. Gradually, he moved up the food chain and went from killing low-life pimps to high-rollers in the criminal world. He even took out a corrupt judge at one point.
Real-Jake observed and went along for all these scenes. Weeks had passed for him, but time moved differently within the simulation room. Some of the scenes were incredibly impactful, while others were just more of the same. What they all had in common was an ever-growing Jake in skill, physique, knowledge, and just overall ability. Compared to other humans, he seemed borderline unstoppable. He was the type of person to bring a knife to a gunfight and utterly annihilate the other side.
The most impressive scene was one of the times sim-Jake was in legitimate trouble. He had been in a motel room but was clearly restless. He was on the run from the goons of a recent target and had chosen to lay low. Yet he felt like they had found him.
It turned out that the one who’d hired him had decided to try and get rid of sim-Jake and had informed the goons of his location. Knowing showing up in force would not work, they had simply placed two snipers focusing on the room’s exits.
Sim-Jake exited one day to move to the next safe house. He looked semi-aware of what was happening.
For a bit of trivia… sniper bullets before the system traveled faster than the speed of sound. Many modern firearms did. This meant that one would not hear the gunshot before the bullet had already hit the target. Realistically, there should be no way to react or know it was coming.
Which is why the sniper was surely bamboozled when sim-Jake swayed to the side and avoided the bullet before taking cover and eventually making another miraculous escape.
Jake had to admit… this version of himself was so different from who he had been. From a university-educated financial worker to a top-tier assassin and killer. Comparing the two was like night and day.
Yet it did not feel foreign. To the current Jake, this made sense. This version of himself just embraced what made him, well, him. He became a hunter, and Jake was certain sim-Jake did not only choose targets based on money or prestige… He did it for the challenge.
He was a Primal Hunter, after all.
It was odd, knowing this could have been a version of him. Assuming the simulation was truly as accurate as it seemed to claim—and it did seem like it was so far—wasn’t this version of Jake just… superior?
There was a lot to think about. He would just have to see what happened as the simulation progressed.
A new scene soon appeared. One Jake could not see the significance of right away. It was just a hotel room with his simulacrum sitting on a chair in a bathrobe, drinking some water. He had a tablet at the side, and the entire place looked expensive as hell.
What skin was showing made the life of this version of Jake clear. Even with his abilities, injuries were unavoidable. Sometimes one had to take a hit to avoid a lethal blow, and this had resulted in dozens of scars covering his body, from knife wounds to bullet holes.
From the looks of it, this was happening not long before the initiation would begin. Real-Jake peeked at the tablet and saw the date displayed, nodding when he realized it was around two months off. It would be exciting to truly see how he would handle that.
But…. then something weird happened.
Something very weird.
Sim-Jake looked deep in thought. He stared at the ceiling before finally sighing, steeling himself, and then looking straight at where Jake was.
"I do wonder who or what you are, oh, silent observer."
Chapter 54
Understanding Thyself
Odd. The world was odd. Jake hadn’t noticed it much—at least, not to begin with—but as he grew up, it became more and more apparent. It was as if someone was watching him. Not all the time, mind you, but this observer appeared at important events. That feeling of a gaze and a feeling of wrongness. It was also only in those moments where he felt observed that he truly felt this oddness of the world.
It was no security camera, no satellite locking in on his position… It was as if the observer didn’t truly exist, yet could observe him. Jake chose to ignore it for the most part, as his instincts told him he could do nothing about it, and so far, this observer had had no impact on his life.
Perhaps it was a guardian angel given to him after his parents died? Or was it a god? Some extraterrestrial being? A creature existing in a world separate from his own? Many theories dominated his mind, especially as the gaze felt so familiar. Familiar, yet different.
As time passed and he grew older, this silent observer seemed more and more familiar. He even began wondering if it was his unborn brother’s ghost. It would make sense if his brother would have been like him, right? That he would have the same abilities and be born with the same innate talents?
Sitting in a chair within the extravagant hotel room, he stared at where he faintly felt this apparition was. He shook his head and spoke out loud into the room, expecting nothing in response.
"I do wonder who or what you are, oh, silent observer," Jake muttered randomly.
And surprisingly enough… it felt like this apparition had heard and understood him.
Jake stared at his simulacrum for a moment as he felt the familiar yet foreign man stare back.
"Wait… did he just talk to me?” real-Jake said. Then he shook his head. “Nah, it shouldn’t work like that.”
"You understand me?" sim-Jake asked, equally confused.
Two Jakes stared at each other. Both were in utter disbelief. The real Jake because his simulacrum, an apparition of the system or the Seat or the Seat of the Exalted Prima, was suddenly aware of him. Sim-Jake because he was talking to what he probably assumed to be a mere delusion that gave him the sense it understood his words.
"What or who are you?" sim-Jake asked as he stood up and went over to where Jake was standing. He moved his hand, and it passed straight through Jake. Yet when it was around his heart, his hand stopped for a second, and he frowned.
Jake also felt it. A recognition or resonance of sorts. Sim-Jake removed his hand and backed away as his frown only grew deeper. "You’re like me?" he asked almost with a look of realization. He then smiled before he started laughing. "I fucking knew it. I now know why this all feels so damn wrong. I’m not meant to be here, right? What the hell happened? Did I get thrown into a separate dimension or universe or some shit? Am I even human? Are you?" His questions were full of excitement.
The real Jake stared as he considered the questions, deciding to answer despite the other version not being able to hear him. "Eh, I guess I am not meant to be you? But there was no accident, just a different choice. And yeah, you are human. We both are. Just more human than anyone else, perhaps." Inside, he was asking just as many questions as sim-Jake.
Firstly… how the fuck was this possible?
This was a simulation. The system was clear on that. Which just raised even more questions. This other version of himself had everything Jake had, including his Bloodline. He was Jake in every sense of the word, even to the level of being aware he was being observed by an outside force he should in no reasonable way be aware of.
Jake knew that the system itself had made this simulation—it had to—and that it could be considered a real world for everyone in it. Maybe the system did just go above and beyond, straight-up creating a parallel universe to simulate what would have happened.
Then again, would that even be going above and beyond? For an omnipotent force, was there truly a difference between creating a speck of dust and a universe? Omnipotence was omnipotence, after all. One or a trillion was equally insignificant before something infinite.
So… if it had just made a new world to simulate that one choice, why not do it perfectly? And a perfect Jake would know he was in a simulated world if he was. Well, he wouldn’t know-know, but he would be aware something was off and that he was being observed.
Villy had mentioned that the system did not create Bloodlines, but he’d never said it couldn’t. Just that it didn’t. Actually, that wasn’t even entirely true, as if the system controlled everything, wasn’t it also the system "creating" new Bloodlines when two people with Bloodlines had a child and their Bloodlines fused, making a new one? Or at least it allowed it to happen.
Jake shook his head as he considered all these questions he would perhaps never get a straight answer to. Even Villy made it clear he didn’t know. All he knew was that the system didn’t create new Bloodlines outright but recycled old ones for some system events, so for it to copy a Bloodline temporarily for such an event was not overly surprising.
What was a bit surprising was that this Bloodline in question allowed the other copy to recognize the event itself.
Recognize the "real" version of itself speaking to it.
"I’m… wrong?" the copy said. The ambiguousness of Jake’s answer about them both being humans and in the right places still seemed to confuse the simulacrum. Especially considering he didn’t actually hear any answer but had to go by pure intuition. "No, not entirely," sim-Jake concluded. "Alright, yes and no questions. Hm… how to confirm answers…"
The real Jake got an idea for this. He began moving back and forth while keeping an eye on sim-Jake. He, of course, noticed and picked up on it instantly. Jake knew he would. They were both Jake, were they not?
"I understand. To confirm, can you move to the left? My left."
Jake did so.
"And right?"
Jake did so too.
"Alright, method of communication with a creature from a separate dimension established," sim-Jake joked. Real-Jake knew he would have made that exact same joke.
"A step to my left is no, and to the right is yes, alright?" sim-Jake said, beginning the “conversation.”
Jake stepped to the right to confirm.
"Okay. First of all, are you human?"
Once more, Jake confirmed that, yep, they were both humans.
"And so am I?"
Yep.
"Hm. But we are different, aren’t we?"
Confirmed.
"Odd. Very odd. Are there others with abilities like mine?"
Jake thought for a second. Well, there were others with Bloodlines, but not others with his Bloodline. So… yes, but also not really? Not knowing what to say, Jake just stood unmoving as his simulation waited for him to decide.
After a good five seconds, the simulacrum frowned and asked, "You don’t know?"
Jake chose to say yes to that one.
"So you do know?"
Yep once more.
"But yet you will not say there are others like me. Us. Hm…"
The next few minutes passed with sim-Jake asking questions and Jake trying to answer as best he could. It was damn weird having a conversation with himself, but it was also way smoother than it should be. Jake naturally understood his own logic, and even with how differently they had lived and grown up, he understood his simulacrum. Perhaps that was telling of how much the Bloodline truly had worked on forming him… or it was an argument that nature mattered more than nurture.
