Pushing up off the floor, I made my way over to the bed to fix it, so I could have a place to sit again. Starting to consider the different ways I was going to plunder Ki from unsuspecting humans, I thought it would be more practical to go ambush humans who have gone hunting for beasts.
It would be possible to go to one of those bounty houses that nail up hunting missions, I just need to scout easy prey for now within the dome, or it would be easier to tail a group and attack them when they're exhausted after their fight.
Whilst all those thoughts were running through my mind, I heard the bathroom door screech open, as I swivelled my head, I saw Uriel's hair was still dripping with water all over the floor and drenching her jumper.
Standing up, I walked into the bathroom to go look for a towel to fold her hair in, after all, I didn't need her catching a cold whilst I planned to go hunting. A pretty filthy towel was found in the corner, but I thought it was fine as it was just to dry her hair.
Folding her hair into the towel, I throw it over her head. "Leave that on for a couple of minutes" patting the towel in a little I spoke again "I need to quickly do something, wait here"
After saying that, I reached for the sheath and thought about how much money a cheap sword would cost and grimaced. Sighing at the fact, I most definitely didn't have enough.
I thought about Ben and maybe if I asked him and how he could possibly lend me a spare one. Heading down towards the bar, I was hoping that if I caught him in a cheerful mode he would be more than willing to lend me one, but I knew that was a long shot.
Well, my fists it is then. He outright refused, stating he didn't even have enough money to replace the one he had, even if he wanted to.
As I walked back to my room, I began to unbuckle the sheath and tossed it onto the bed when I walked through the door. My eyes made contact with Uriel's and that's when I asked "You ready to leave" She nodded frantically, enough to loosen the towel, allowing it to fall to the floor.
I soon started to scour the streets for a said building that, posts new hunts for people willing to earn easy money where mercenaries practically live, with the child holding onto the back of my shirt again.
I finally located it, as it was quite conveniently placed at the centre of the city. How I missed such a building is beyond me, but now that it was right in front of me, thinking, I might as well stop wasting time.
Entering in through one of the many doors that were placed out front of the building, to see an almost wood styled interior, the floor being a massive flat piece of glass laying atop wood flooring.
The walls and ceiling were polished oak everything was wood, I just shrugged at the wired aesthetic they went for and walked up to one of the billboards that had newly polished wood that kept hitting the back of my nose with a strong aroma.
Looking at all the different monsters and reading each piece of paper that had bounties on, showing off differently weaknesses and strengths for each monster. It was quite interesting seeing all these different types of beasts that were new to me.
However, I started to mesmerize the weaker beast on the board with the thinking that maybe an inexperienced group would take up the challenge. All I needed to do now was wait for the right group, so I started to search the room and found an empty seat in the distance.
Sitting down with Uriel next to me, playing with her hair, I focused back on the board and waited.
Seeing a few groups ponder whether they should or shouldn't take the bounty off the board really vexed me as it began to take me late into the night with Uriel now sleeping on my lap and knowing that at this time but at least now there would be two extra bounties that groups might look at.
Spotting a new group of five, walk up to the board, the leader of the group, ripped off one such night hunt bounty. A smile sprouted, knowing I had myself a catch and if I knew any better, then the beast was located just over by the frozen lake.
As I made sure to see them take on the bounty, I left knowing I had bait. Knowing that they took the bounty now of all time means they would most likely go for the hunt now, it made my job easier of having to just tail them through the night.
Following behind them, I picked out what classes they were, 2 arches, 1 mage, 1 tank and 1 sword wielder. Looking at them my safest bet would be to go for the mage first, then quickly take out the arches, the tank guy can be left for last as he looks pretty bulky, but I need to still be wary, just in case.
Gazing up at the curved sky that was pitch black apart from the moonlight that defused itself through the surface of the dome and coupled with the soft orange glow of the crystals that littered the streets made it quite easy to tail them, especially if I stuck to the shadows.
Thankfully for me, Uriel followed my every move without a fault, and as we passed in and out of shade, I would steal anything that wasn't nailed down to put more warm clothes over her as we would be venturing outside.
With all the layers, Uriel looked like a blotted potato with all the puffy clothing on her. Proceeding onwards, following them past the booths, and this time I could hang back a bit and just follow the trails they left in the snow.
Taking it slowly, I turned to Uriel. "You are going to be my mule and help me carry their things after I kill them, ok?" I asked because I wanted to see her reaction to my statement.
Uriel didn't understand what he meant, nor did she really care to understand, all she wanted to do was be with the man who had the scent of family, so when she replied she said so with a smile "Yes, daddy"
My eyes could only see her unwavering eyes lock onto mine with such conviction, and I could only reply back with "Good" before turning back to follow along the trail again.
The trail went on for quite some time, and occasionally I would stumble upon a lit lamp off in the distance waving in the wind on the end of a stick, illuminating the five silhouettes. Whenever I happened to see that, I knew to pull back.
After I lost sight of them for the umpteenth time, but this time I had hung back for long, so when I started to search for them again, it took me forever to find them, with bright lights flashing off in the distance, I could feel that those flashes were coming from the mage with all the magic pulsing in the air. Picking Uriel up, I started to move off the trail, wading through the new strange ground.
As I flanked around the flashing lights, I got close enough to see them firing at a creature that broke through a very thick layer of ice, I could see it took a lot of force judging by how far, the ice had cracked.
Hiding just behind some trees, I put Uriel down and put my finger to my lips, trying to indicate to be quiet, and seeing her nod gave me the confirmation she understood. Moving around through some trees and rocks.
As I crept closer, I noticed one of the arches were blooding, and it seemed that that sword wielder is in critical condition, with the injured archer trying to bandage him up.
Glancing over to the beast that was extremely sluggish with all the wounds and blood fooling out of it sent a cruel smile to my face, feeling that the bought was soon coming to an end.
Noticing the mage was getting spell ready, I couldn't help but look at him with disgust whilst the tank was standing strong taking the brunt of the slow attacks, when.
"NOW!"
As those words were shouted, the tanker jumped quite comically to the side as a huge white spear shot over the ground, lighting its way till it buried itself through the face of the creature. As the spear was longed into the skull, it had a strong glow to it, lighting up the creature's hideously bulbous body.
Observing the creature drop to the ground so did they, all of them lost strength in their shoulders judging by the way it drooped, and next came to their bodies as they fell onto their backs in the snow.
Finally, seeing them doing that, it was time my time to hunt the living.