My Last Hunt

A Level Zero's Struggle (part 9)

Weapons And Luck Cannot Be Borrowed:

"You have to visit the downtown if you want to buy fleece and I would suggest you to buy it first," the group leader spoke. He wanted to team up with this guy and quickly earn some spoils.

If they could find one more level one monster and earn some spoils, it would be more than enough for him to buy a better weapon.

He urgently needed a better quality weapon.

Hunters without a weapon was like a monster without defense, which could be easily be trapped and killed.

Qiao have no idea about the places of this world so he could only follow this man. He still remained cautious inside. He would observe him to judge whether he was what he showed him on the surface.

Whether enemy or friend, whoever could give him some information, he would not mind. He needed it urgently.

They slowly walked down a path.

When Middletown was under construction, those who designed the big structure created nine exits and entrances. These were not limited to reaching the Middletown, instead the extended the pathways toward downtown very skillfully.

Few of the pathways led toward Hightown Mountains but none of the hunters lower than level five ever considered to walk on these paths because of the hidden dangers.

So, it was easy to follow a path which slowly steeped downward toward a number of downtown localities.

The leader was familiar with these pathways and he was going to the nearest downtown because they needed to return back for hunting soon, before the evening fell.

He kept looking at the weapon in Qiao's hand, wondering what it was to even help this brawler help kill a level one monster.

"Where did you get this weapon?" unable to keep his curiosity, the chaser asked.

Qiao who was kicking away a dried bough on the ground spoke, "Weapon and luck cannot be borrowed," as he spoke, he moved his hand and a big spider fell, it was going to land on the chaser because he was not giving attention to secure himself.

The chaser was agape, this was poisonous spider.

He looked at the brawler with disbelief. This guy was much more than he let others perceive.

....

Qiao wondered that he should keep some pearls in his pockets as opening his bag every time would bring unwanted attention. He hurriedly kept a few pearls in his pocket.

In this world, things were not bought with the money but exchanged with objects of equal value or if they were in demand. For example, spoils can be exchanged too, though they were valued much more if compared to the normal objects of daily life like fleeces, food…

They reached the nearest downtown and there was a small market.

Though not much customers were present.

Those who came here were mostly chasers and wanted to buy some strong fleece for themselves.

There few were asking about some market where they could buy weapons but you would not find any good weapon here. All kind of weapons were to be found in Middletown at silent auctions.

Unlike normal auction houses, silent auction houses offer a fixed price or treasure to exchange for if anyone was interested to buy any weapon.

These silent auction houses were under the strong families of hunters and traders.

No bargain was acceptable unless the customer brought more expensive treasure or spoils from some rare hunt.

They stopped in front of a small shop and Qiao surveyed his surrounding first.

He then looked at few of the fleeces prepared by the peasants.

There were no racks of limitless variety of fleeces here. Instead most of them seemed to be similar in build and served the same purpose. Their quality seemed same and handwork was not distinguishing at all.

He decided on one at random and asked the price.

The shopkeeper told the price and Qiao brought out a pearl in exchange.

The shopkeeper was shocked coz he knew this was worth more than tens of pelages.

"You can keep it as a tip from me," Qiao waved his hand and shopkeeper did not understand what the youth meant.

Only that the youth was generous to give more than the worth of pelage.

Qiao was worriless about it.

"We should head back now," chaser informed.

Now he could tell that it wasn't that this youth had too much spoils on him or considered them worthless. It was just that he had no idea about their value.

Other chasers would almost kill others to get the spoils for buying weapons or other stuff of their necessity. But this guy just threw away these as if they were common stones.

He suddenly had an idea.

He was more than willing to hunt with him and find out more of him. If he really just doesn't care for spoils then he would be glad to rob him off first. After all he was still a higher-level hunter.

He was supposed to hunt recklessly for spoils and a treasure bank was right beside him. He would be a fool to miss such an opportunity.

Who could resist such plain robbery where the owner does not care about the money at all?

This was truly negligence on Qiao's part. He did not know that he needed great wealth to buy a better weapon or armor. Also, that he needed to pay an annual fees to the Guild.

The annual fees for the Guild was obligatory and everyone had to pay up for it.