Jason grimaced uncomfortably as he brushed hardened mud and grime off his body. His enhanced senses basically screamed out everything that touched him, and he curled his nose as his stench grated against his sense of smell. At the same time, his hands were preoccupied with the mud-stained corpses that he dragged behind him, digging a small furrow into the ground.
Around him, several other hunters gasped at the two Marsh Snappers he had in his hands. They were a dangerous beast –ambush predators like the Lyonire– that many normal humans would not dare to tackle alone. Marsh Snappers were too troublesome to deal with as each one was the size of a horse; had shells that warded off any weaker arms; and they were only found deep in poisonous mud. As such, only confident hunters or Delvers tended to hunt them alone.
Of course, they sold for much more because of those facts.
"Wow, those look impressive." A slimy voice caught Jason's attention as he settled into the back of the line that led to the passthrough for the Hunting Ground he was in.
Jason tiredly turned to the man, finding that they were a thin, black-haired man. His eyes narrowed in on the loose jacket on the man's shoulders. It wasn't a Delver's leather jacket, but Jason took note of the insignia of a white, multi-tiered tower embroidered on the man's lapel. Not a corporation he recognized in his City Pillar.
"Can I help you?" Jason asked, eyeing the normal human up and down. He was armed –like everyone sensible– with what looked like an expensive-looking hunting rifle and a lower caliber sidearm. Taking stock of his surroundings, Jason found that other people in the line also shot him a glance before they went back to minding their own business.
However, Jason caught a couple of men who lingered around the area. There were several lines that stemmed from the pass through for the walls of the Hunting Grounds, but Jason found that each line had three or four men who wore similar jackets like the man in front of him. With his sight, he caught the same insignia on all of them.
"Pardon me for startling you, young Delver." The man said, pulling his lips into a fake smile. "My name is Lucas. I am a proud member of the Tower's hunting team, and I was wondering if I could buy those Marsh Snappers off of you. Ah, obviously, I will pay the premium available in the inspections over there."
Jason raised an eyebrow, finding that similar deals played out around him. His hearing caught many people telling the men to "fuck off" while a small portion of them accepted the deal. Which, admittedly, gave him nothing on the matter.
"Bits?" Jason asked after a moment of listening in.
Lucas hid his flinch well, and spoke again, "Well, paying in Bits may be a bit hard to do here. I can give you verified vouchers for Tower Corp's own coins, and I can confidently say that the exchange rate of our T-coins for Bits is among the highest for–"
"No thanks." Jason cut the man off. Even if Lucas was not lying, Jason still would not be able to exchange the coins for what he needed.
"I– thank you for your time, young Delver. If you need anything, please do not hesitate to contact our Holo-call centers." With that, Lucas gave another fake smile as he hurriedly left to bother another person in line.
Jason frowned as he watched the group of the so-called "hunting team" continue to harass hunters in line, and he could tell that others were pretty wary of them. It wasn't uncommon for corporations to build their own teams of hunters to go into the Hunting Grounds, but the problem came when they started to bully normal, solo or smaller hunter groups out of the area.
His dad constantly told him that they existed in harmony with the Hunting Grounds. They would hunt only what they needed, but corporations tended to bleed areas for everything that was worth something. While there were blanket laws put in place to prevent overhunting, that didn't stop the corporations' hunting teams from shutting down Hunting Grounds because they overdid it.
This was going to cut into his plans, Jason knew. Whether or not this Tower Corp. cleaned out this Hunting Ground didn't really matter when they started to take the more expensive prey. In the end, the hunts he could go on would dwindle until they became less profitable than the effort required.
The teen sighed inwardly at the uncertain future as he eventually made his way to the front of his line. He was led through the massive hole in the wall to another section labeled with "monster inspection" over the door, passing by other hunters who put their catch on large carts to wheel them around. Ignoring a couple hunters who gave him a side glance, the door slid open into another hallway where a series of doors lined the walls. Above every door was a simple red or green light, and Jason hurried to the nearest door with a green light over it.
Inside, the room itself was fairly bare. It was cubic in design with only gunmetal walls that made it seem like one walked right into some sort of clinic in the lower floors of his City Pillar. On the wall opposite of the entrance there was an opening for a chute with tiny specks of blood around the edges, and the constant whir of gears echoed behind the wall. Jason's nose twitched at the various scents of blood and body odor in the air, praising whatever chemical they used as he had smelt worse. He would give it to the organizers of his Hunting Ground as this was one of the cleaner inspection rooms he had been in.
Directly in front of him was a clean, metal table that looked bolted to the floor. It took up the majority of the room where two men sat around the edges, lounging in chairs. The two of them got up as soon as they saw Jason enter the room, but they paused when they saw him easily carry the Marsh Snappers with one hand.
"Delver license?" Jason jumped slightly at the nearby voice. It was another man who was seated by the door and hadn't gotten up when he came in.
Jason pursed his lips as he noticed the man's leather jacket with the insignia of three white clouds clustered together. Cloudstrider Industries, he surmised.
Still, the teen felt a little off. The man's hands were folded in an odd way –his fingers were steepled where only his fingertips touched– and Jason felt the mana veins near his heart twitch as the air grew a little… energetic? He didn't really know how to explain it, but his eyes narrowed slightly when a small cloud of red built up around the Delver's hands.
Jason immediately recognized the signs of a rudimentary mana domain.
"You guys check that now?" Jason asked but complied, sending over his information to the Delver's Holo. His attention was stuck to the Delver's hands where the small red cloud of mana slowly dissipated around the man's wrists.
"Marcos." One of the other men in the room spoke.
The man grunted, frowning in Jason's direction and the small rudimentary mana domain dissipated into the air. He took a look at Jason's information before a throaty chuckle escaped his lips. "You tha' bloodhound? City Pillar 476?"
Jason felt his lips turn downward. "No," he then turned to the other two in the room. A man in a suit and another in a thick apron. He regarded the man in the apron, knowing he was the only one who was directly associated with the Hunting Grounds while the others were sourced from the outside. "Do you ask these questions here for everyone?"
"We don't." The man in the apron said with a grimace. He gave a quick glance at the man in the suit before he motioned to the table. "You do not need to answer. The Frenick clan's Hunting Grounds never ask hunters to give out personal information beyond the required stipulations. I will give you the best assessment I can manage."
Jason hummed, casting a glance to the others in the room. The man in the suit ignored Jason as he sent silent glares at the Delver. As for said Delver, Marcos had simply pulled up his Holo and started to watch something. The teen wanted to know what it was, but he pushed down that curiosity as he slung the two corpses onto the table. It creaked slightly under the weight but held.
The man in the apron winced slightly at the sight of the two Marsh Snappers. Each of them was a massive armored reptile about five feet in length. Their shells were rough and diamond-patterned with inch-long spikes that protruded at random intervals. Tough, scaled skin stuck out from their thick shells, and most importantly, a crushed skull hung limply over the table as blood dripped from the various cracks in their shells.
Anyone knew they weren't in the best of shapes; he had spent quite a bit of time hunting them, and he might have gotten a bit rough when they tried to hide in the pungent mud each time he let them escape. From past experience, Jason knew that many inspectors wished for complete corpses, but his normal tactics of "crush it till it dies" doesn't normally help.
"Would this be a full assessment or do you want to keep parts?" The man in the apron asked professionally, but his face was a bit strained.
"Full." Jason passed a glance to the man in the suit. "Can you pay in Bits?"
"I can take it from here then." the man in the suit smiled, and Jason knew he needed to choose his words carefully or else the man would cheat him.
~~~
Money was always a point of contention for everyone. Jason's education touched on the evolution of currency after humanity rose out front he bunkers; how directly following the Great Fall, barter held a majority of the commerce. However, this was quickly followed by the rise of the first City Corporations where companies built, managed, and protected their cities and profits from the encroachment of the Abyss.
A long story cut short, corporations, even in their beginning stages, required a way to control their residents, so they all printed their own currency. It was only during the Unification Wars that the advent of the Rothschild-Maybarker Bank unified every currency under their own RMB, or Bits. Something that was easier said than done.
Normally, Jason wouldn't really care too much about all the conversions. He didn't need to know the trends of companies as he only converted his hunts to the currency of the place he and his friends were going to hang out at. Now, things are more complicated. Between the three companies that managed his City Pillar, Balic Incorporated had the most expensive shares, so that meant their currency, Balic Dinars, was the most potent. Yet, a single Dinar was worth less than half a Bit.
Jason checked his account on his Holo again, counting the Bits he had saved up with a frown. A frustrated sigh left his lips as he thought over his situation.
In three months, he had only saved up half of the Bits required for a single semester at Halo.
"You okay there, son?"
Jason wiped the frown off his face as he glanced at his dad. "'M fine."
"Mhm," the man hummed and slid into the seat next to Jason. He jostled slightly as the train took a hard turn. "Still, you look like you've just been swindled of half your Bits. Did you let those Cogs in the inspection booths scam you again?"
Jason scoffed, shaking his head. "I'm fine, dad. I referenced the current rates for Bit exchange, so I knew what I was getting."
"Tsk, tsk, this is why you should have told me. Anything on the Holonet is half true and half subterfuge." His dad explained. "You can probably get more if you just went to the bank and asked to convert it there. Many Cogs push that there's a fee for the conversion, but that is only if you do it through any company not owned by the Rothschild-Maybarkers."
"Seriously?" Jason asked, feeling a little annoyed. His eyebrows knit together as he turned a glare to his dad. "And you didn't tell me until now?"
His dad sighed, pursing his lips. "Jason, I know your plan was to try and save for one of the Delver colleges. How much does it cost?"
The teen narrowed his eyes. "You and mom don't think I can?"
"That's not what I was saying, son. I just know how much those colleges cost; they're sponsored by multiple corporations, so that just raises the price for anyone not affiliated with said companies." His dad said, leaning into a palm. The man's gaze turned to the window of the cylindrical train they sat in, watching the various holographic ads that played on the sides of the Hunting Grounds. There was something in his gaze that Jason couldn't quite understand.
"Its a lot of money to become a Delver, and the fact that you're gathering Bits means you want to go to the Origin world." His dad continued with a wistful smile. "You really have the talent to make it big, son." Tearing his gaze away from the bright lights outside, he turned back to Jason. "So, your mom and I want to support you. It'll be hard for a while, but I am sure we can afford to send you to the Origin world for a semester or two."
Jason bit back the retort he wanted to say. Like Lee, Jason knew his dad wanted to become a Delver some time ago. That emotion had faded when the man met his mom, but Jason could see that his dad's dream seemed to have been reignited with him.
"I– I am making good on Bits."
"Yeah?" His dad's grin told Jason that his lie did not pass. The man gestured to Jason's mud-caked clothes. "Let me guess, you went into the marshes. Judging on the mud and your uh… odor, you went in pretty deep. Small cuts on your hands mean you were going for burrowing prey, so, hmmm," he paused, tapping his chin with a grin. "Draken Guppies are a little too weak to cut your skin, and you can't catch a Bandersnatch yet. So, Marsh Snappers? Two, maybe three?"
"Uh…"
His dad chuckled slightly, patting Jason's shoulder. "You'll learn the signs soon, son. You got the senses for it, you just got to use them to build a picture." he then leaned back in his chair. "So, two or three Marsh Snappers are equivalent to 'making good Bits'? They really lowered the prices the last time I looked them up, huh."
Jason felt the tips of his ears grow hot. "'M also doing gigs…"
Another raised eyebrow shot down Jason's further explanation. "Even still, your mom and I want to support you. We don't want you to… get caught up in the elements your mom despises about Delver culture."
"... I– I will see what I can do." Jason found his words again, feeling a little awkward. He shuffled in his seat. "Let me just try to make some Bits; I don't want you and mom to pay for everything. Halo is a lot of money."
His dad's smile let him know that was a good answer. "Sure, son! And besides, I sure hope you start to make money! Successful Delvers make tons of money, so I expect at least three mansions in the Clouds! Maybe you can even join something like the Infinite Sage's Monastery?"
Jason's awkward smile scrunched up into a look of disgust. "Don't they require their members to shave their heads and stuff?"
"Eh? Hmmm," the man hummed, rubbing his chin as he looked at Jason. "Yeah, you'd probably look better without hair anyways."
Jason rolled his eyes, doing nothing to hide the smile on his face. Slowly, he and his dad fell into a routine conversation. What did you hunt? Some flying creature. Jason asked which Hunting Ground that was, and his dad would start to explain the environment and how to take advantage of it.
It was nice, Jason thought. That he and his dad could just laugh and joke like old times. The various hunts his dad went on always served to impress Jason as he thought about how he would accomplish what his dad could. Sure, his Delver physiology made it such that most physical tasks were absurdly easy, but his dad was a normal human and could still do things Jason found rather difficult.
As their train came to City Pillar 476, their conversation dwindled down until only comfortable silence was left. Jason's enhanced hearing made it such that the world was too loud to ever be silent, but he felt it came pretty close when he sat next to his dad.
Suddenly, Jason paused as his Holo buzzed right as they exited the train. People moved around him, muttering small curses his way as the teen stopped to read his message.
"Something wrong, son?"
"Hm?" Jason looked up, deleting the message from Oliver. "No, just my friend telling me about a gig in the Blues."
His dad's eyebrows raise minutely. "I know you want to make money, but you don't need to be in a rush. Your mom and I can support you."
"I know. I just… don't want to always take from you guys. Besides, I'll be back home before you go to bed."
His dad just scoffed, seemingly seeing through the ruse. "Sure, just make sure you don't bleed all over your room again. You know how much your mom complains about you dragging blood all over our floors." Then, his eyes narrowed. "Is this gig near the Basement floors?"
"Not from what Oliver said." Jason lied.
"Alright, I know you can handle yourself, son."
Jason rolled his eyes and waved as he gave a quick hug to his dad. "Love you too, dad."
A soft "love you" made its way to Jason's ears as he disappeared into the crowds of people. He maneuvered through the crowd, being sure not to shove anyone too hard. His destination: the Basement floors.