"It's bounty hunter's work," Leslie said, sliding a stack of documents toward Arthur. "You'll be paid right away, and the results are easy to confirm. Perfect for a first job, don't you think?"
Arthur glanced over the papers. "John Hans... a Scavenger? Haven't heard of them in a while."
"You're definitely not from around here, are you? They're quite active, especially near Wallen City. This guy, John, he was their squad leader," she explained.
"So they even kicked him out for causing trouble with Noel Tech. Typical scavenger behaviour," Arthur remarked, cutting in before Leslie could finish.
"Are you taking the job, then?"
"Yeah. The pay's decent, so no reason not to," he said, finishing his drink and rising from his seat. "Let's go, Claire."
"Understood," Claire replied immediately, but this time her voice held a faint, subtle sadness that didn't go unnoticed by Arthur.
He glanced at her glass, still half-full. "Want to finish your drink first?" he asked.
"No, it's alright, Master. We should go."
'So she does have feelings,' Arthur mused, a faint grin of satisfaction tugging at his lips. "No, go ahead and finish it."
"Okay."
Her tone was still the same as usual to others, but he could detect a trace of quiet satisfaction, which made him smile a little, as he continued to watch her hurriedly finish her drink.
A few minutes later, Claire drained her glass, and the two left the bar.
"According to this, he was last seen in the forest on the outskirts of Wallen City," Arthur muttered as they walked.
Although his expression remained composed, he couldn't deny that tracking down a rat like this, while seemingly simple, could be more annoying than it sounded. Investigating and then hunting someone down solo required patience, and he was in no mood for a wild chase.
The real reason Arthur took the job, however, was to prove his abilities and ultimately gain Leslie's trust.
Leslie Horkwork.
He had heard of her through one of his few friends who used to work for her. And his determination to win her trust came down to two main reasons.
First, he needed a new identity.
In the eyes of Volford and possibly the whole world, Arthur Volford was already dead, and continuing to use that name would only bring him more trouble.
He needed a fresh start, and only Leslie, with her vast network, could provide a reliable fake identity card.
In human nations, living without an ID was practically living as a criminal, you'd be unable to access basic services, walk the streets freely, or travel to other territories.
Second, Arthur needed access to dungeons to grow stronger and use his system powers. Relying on killing humans or slaves alone wasn't sustainable. Dungeons were essential, and Leslie's connections were his only way in.
Then there was money. He was completely broke, having spent everything on slaves. He had even rushed out of the bar to avoid paying his tab, hoping Leslie would overlook it in the midst of work talk.
And It seemed to work perfectly, as Leslie hadn't brought it up.
'Maybe she forgot,' he thought as they walked.
Now, the challenge was locating John. The only lead he had was John's last known location in the forest on the outskirts of Wallen City, along with a blood-stained piece of his clothing from Noel Tech that Leslie had included with the documents.
"So, his last known location is the forest on the outskirts, right?"
Arthur muttered as he and Claire walked in the direction of Wallen City.
The streets were dark, nearly void of light, but dawn was just breaking. As they left Stefan Street and entered the Wallen City limits, the first rays of sunlight cast a faint glow on Arthur's face.
Ahead, he noticed a bald man leaning against a lamppost, smoking. 'He should know the way to the forest,' Arthur thought, moving toward him.
"What do you want, brat?" the man grumbled in a rough, irritated voice, sizing up Arthur and then eyeing Claire, who stood silently beside him.
The man's gaze lingered on Claire, a lecherous gleam in his eyes as a smirk crept onto his face. But before he could speak, Arthur interrupted.
"You know the route to the forest on the city outskirts?"
"Of course I do. You must be new here."
"Yeah, I'm not from this area."
"Well, that explains it. Things aren't so straightforward here. It's risky to take the main path, but I could tell you a safer route if you want."
Arthur narrowed his eyes. "So what do you want?"
The man chuckled, his voice dripping with lust. "Nothing much… just let me borrow your girl here for a little while."
Arthur clicked his tongue, muttering to himself, "Figures, not a single useful person here." Then, without a second thought, he gave the order. "Claire, kill him."
"Yes."
Bang!
Without a moment's hesitation, Claire raised the pistol in her hand and shot him directly in the head.
Thud! The man's body slumped to the ground, and just then, a notification appeared before Arthur.
[You have been involved in the death of a person. Do you wish to sacrifice their soul?]
Arthur glanced at the notification floating in front of him, then looked back at the man's lifeless body.
'Might as well give it a shot,' he thought, intrigued by the option. He spread his hands and recited the words displayed on the screen.
"With this sacrifice as the key, I summon forth the bound spirit of power, to serve and obey in unwavering loyalty. Rise, and heed my call!"
[Ritual Successful!]
[Host, please select the desired racial class for summoning:]
[Humanoid] [Demihuman] [Heteromorphic]
Arthur sighed his expression a mix of irritation and embarrassment. 'Is this embarrassing ritual necessary every single time I summon?' he thought, then flicked the [Demihuman] option.
The notification vanished, and the dead body began to emit a bright white light, slowly shifting and morphing until it took the shape of a small, green-skinned goblin.
"Grrraah!" the goblin growled, its yellow eyes locking onto Arthur, saliva dripping from its jagged teeth as it walked forward.
"Sit,"
Arthur commanded, testing its loyalty.
Immediately, the goblin dropped to its knees, bowing its head in complete submission.
"So, they can understand human language... or maybe it's just because I'm their summoner," he muttered aloud, half-expecting the system to answer.
Instead, a new status screen appeared before him.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Summon Status ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: None
Gender: Male
Race: Goblin
Racial Classification: Demihuman
Loyalty Status: 🟢 (Fully Loyal)
Note: Loyalty status may shift due to certain effects or external factors.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Attributes ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Grade: G
Anima: 0 / 100
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Special Traits & Talents ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
None!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ Skills ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
- Scavenging (Lv: 1)
- Basic weapon handling: (Lv: 1)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
☘︎☘︎☘︎☘︎☘︎☘︎
{A/N}
Q: If you were on a bounty hunt, what methods would you employ to track down the target effectively?
Options:
1] Tracking with the help of some summoned beast which has strong tracking abilities...
2] Start your investigation by interrogating locals around you if they have seen John or if they have heard about him.
3] Hire a mage who is capable of tracking magic.
4] Study John's background, learn about his friends, habits, and family, and track him down by outsmarting him.
5] Any more Creative guess?
Comment and share your opinion on which method would have been more efficient.
Now, another thing, I don't know if you guys noticed it—Q: Why does the status window appear this time without the previous set requirement about naming?
Actually, there is an obvious but also logical reason for it.
Comment your answers below, let's see who figure it out first.
Thanks for reading and peace out!