Alpha Realm (OP.MC.|Harem|NSFW)

Name: Argo | Age: 23 | Level: 34

Title: Silver-rank Hunter (B+)

SE: 8 | HP: 115 | MP: 80

Race: Human

Argo led a large hunting party—known as the Argo's Brotherhood—in The Death Valley, a mostly unexplored sea of green that extended north, farther than the eye could see. It took them half a fortnight to cross The White Shield, a stretch of tall mountains that extended from East to West, separating the Wild Lands from the Horen Duchy.

Even in the middle of summer, when most predators and monsters migrate further into the Wild Lands, it was a risky task.

'Very risky indeed,' Argo thought.

A group of hunters looking to make money hunting goblins, also taking advantage of summer, reported a hobgoblin sighting a few weeks ago. They were silver rank, but were unprepared to engage the high-tier two monsters.

Sighting a hobgoblin so close to the White Shield—barely thirty clicks in—was not normal. The fact that it happened in the middle of summer was even more uncommon. It would be somewhat acceptable if it were winter and the monsters followed the migrating animals south, but in this season, it could only mean one of three things.

Something pushed it southward, be it a natural disaster, another monster, or hunger. Each option worse than the last. Changes in nature were rare, and there had been no reports of quakes or blizzards, the most common ones this far north into the continent. If it were running away from a stronger monster, the hunters would be called to deal with it before it could bypass the White Shield. If it were hunger, a lot of possibilities to take into account would open up.

There is, however, a fourth reason, one that would come with both riches and tribulations. A new Dungeon spawned nearby. The timing even made sense; the last dungeon heat was less than five winters ago. And this region was not inhabited yet. So, the area was not properly culled during the last dungeon heat.

"Scout’s returning, Boss."

The hunting party let out a collective sigh of relief; they all visibly relaxed after those words were uttered. The only worse thing than hunting beyond the shield without a Gold Rank Hunter leading them was having to do so without a scout.

Their current scout, Hunter Vex, was a Were-Dog with an incredible sense of hearing and smell. Spotting ambushing goblins from a click away with ease.

Unfortunately, due to how new the town of Redvelia was—its walls were not even finished yet—the hunting guild was low on personnel. Their party was already taking a huge risk by venturing into The Death Valley. So having just one proper scout gave the mission the rank it deserved.

'At least the danger means more silver for us, the crazy ones.'

"Sir, we saw something last night… the good news is that we are on the right path."  Hunter Vex said once his little group came to make their report.

"Good news? Does that mean there are bad ones?"

"We don’t know exactly…"

— — —

Weird news; that is how Argo would classify that report. Last night, the scouting team led by Hunter Vex was resting on a hill that gave them sight and terrain advantages. They were woken up by the sound of thunder; the sky was clear of any clouds, and the sound did not come from it. It came from the direction they were supposed to go the next morning, the last location the silver rank hunting party reported seeing the hobgoblin at.

Before they could even begin to speculate as to what was happening, a flare of red light pierced the thick forest canopy, followed by the constant roar of thunder that echoed all around them. They immediately packed up their camp and returned to the main group.

"Aya! Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

"Calm down, bronze. Vex has not heard anything yet."

"Without respect, boss. We are in too deep, in shit that is. I can’t see past these thick trees. If a gobo comes running at us, we will have to engage it closely. I hate getting close to gobos."

'Who doesn't?' Argo thought.

The bronze rank was not wrong; if a goblin decided to make them its dinner inside the forest, they would lose a couple of men before even making it bleed. They were not a small party by any means, but most of it was composed of long-range and low-rank hunters, with a few brutes in between.

None but brutes like himself could engage goblins at short range. A goblin’s skin was tough; they had bladed claws on all four of their limbs, and they were stronger than a specialized lumberjack.

'Way stronger.'

This party had only taken a few goblins so far, and even in the open, they had lot men. Nothing unusual, but still unwelcome.

But he needed his man to respect him, no matter the danger or fear. Unfortunately, before he could reprimand the man, Vex caught wind of something.

"Sniff-sniff."

"Hold!" Argo yelled. "What is it, Vex?"

"Dead gobos, a lot of 'em"

"Sniff-sniff."

"… And a live one. Fuck!"

"In position!" Argo yelled his order.

The men arranged themselves with haste. The brutes made a wall with shields, circling them all. Spearmen stood slightly behind them. Archers stood in between the brutes, already drawn and ready to shoot. Slingers got in the middle of the formation and started to rotate their slings with the pointiest stones they carried.

Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.

The sound of spinning slings and their heavy breaths was the only sound that came from the party.

Tsk! The breaking of a branch was all the alert they had before hell broke loose.

"Right side!.. Archers!" Argo Ordered

Sprinting towards them, a single goblin charged with fury in its steps and madness in its eyes. Four arrows struck it, but did nothing to slow it down. It threw itself at their line before the archers could notch another arrow.

The goblin broke through their line and immediately jumped at one of the archers, biting his neck and tearing it apart in a single movement of its head. Blood sprayed out, high into the air.

Crack!, crack!, crack!, crack!…

The ones closer to it stepped back, and the sound of cracking whips at the release of the slingshots filled the air, quickly followed by a shower of arrows. Some arrows managed to stab it, but most bounced off before impaling it, or were simply deflected by its thick skull. Black holes appeared all over its body, oozing black blood where some of the few rocks from the slings managed to lodge themselves in. It was missing an eye and had a broken jaw, but it was still standing.

Before the archers could notch their next arrow, it launched itself towards a slinger, rampaging and tearing him open with its bare hands.

A brute managed to hit its ribs with a large hammer, using all of his might. It stunned the monster for a moment, but a moment is all they needed. Spear-man stabbed it on both sides, then the brutes came from the outside of their defense and started to bash it in with hammers. Only stopping as the goblin’s head was nothing but a gory mess on the forest floor.

"Return to your positions!" Argo yelled.

They quickly reassembled their defensive circle, waiting in silence that was only broken by the agonizing sounds of the dying slinger.

"Talk to me, Vex."

Hunter Vex waited a moment before responding, "That was the only one, Boss."

They relaxed a little but were still on edge and paying attention to the sounds of the forest. Argo got close to the dying man, but there was nothing anyone but a Temple healer could do. And they did not even have a normal mage.

"I smell hobgo!" Vex Called.

"Musketeer!" Argo yelled.

A man armed with a long, arcane weapon came from their formation. It threw small shards called bullets at unimaginable speeds. But it carried many downsides. It was not only expensive to build, repair, and train its users. But the bullets it used also required a carefully cut mana crystal—that was worth the same as an entire 'clean and fresh' hobgoblin body—for crafting each bullet. "Like shooting a hobgoblin with another hobgoblin," their users were often caught saying. It could, however, kill monsters up to tier 3 in a single, well-placed shot.

"Ready for action, Boss," the musketeer replied. He was sponsored by the guild, and neither his weapon nor his training was paid for by himself. But the bullets he carried were few.

"And we need you ready."

— — —

They were not prepared for the scene before their eyes. Bodies of goblins were left out in the open; some were clean kills, having been killed by a single slash to their neck or charred skin with no other visible wounds. Others were gutted with a clean wound through their abdomen, with their innards sprayed out everywhere, as they probably did not die instantly.

The frightening thing came when they found the body of a hobgoblin. It had apparently been struck by lightning that exploded its mana crystal from within.

"What the actual fuck?"

"Sun, guide us…"

"M-Moon, k-keep us."

"…"

Some men cursed, others prayed, but most were just silent.

"What could have done this, Boss?" Vex asked

"Your guess is as good as mine, Hunter Vex. There are hidden beasts in the woods. Some are benign, old masters that got tired of man; they just want peace and will leave you alone as long as you don’t bother them… Others, however…"

He did not finish his sentence; they all had heard stories of beasts that lurked in the shadows. Deep within the seas and lakes, high up in the mountains. Or deep inside forests.

'Pray you never meet them, Vex. Pray.'

Argo pulled out a ring from a chain around his neck. Probably the most expensive piece of equipment out of the whole party, combined, not counting the musket. A Ring of Timeless Holding; it was one of the smaller ones, capable only of carrying a small chest's worth of stuff, or a single hobgoblin body. It was also provided by the Temple, just for this mission, as it was something he would have to save a few winters to buy for himself, and only if he stopped eating and started to sleep in the stables, maybe then he could afford it.

After removing it from the chain and putting it on his right index finger, with a thought, he (Infuse) both it and the body of the hobgoblin. A dull thump was heard, like something heavy hitting the dirt, as the body vanished before their eyes.

"Pack the bodies and useful guts, man; the mission’s over. We're going home."

— — —

Name: Aizel Kadashi | Age: 19 | Level: 4

Aizel was back in his shelter on the cliff edge. He had spent the entire afternoon of his seventh day on this world waiting for his mana to fill up again, and thinking back to what happened last night.

His new skill (Lightning bolt) had evolved to (Discharge); the system said it was because of "advanced usage" and not Knowledge like (Purify). The problem was that he had not been able to milk it too much for SE. And now it was the same as (Purify) and (Restore), where he was afraid of deleting it in case he could not get it back as easily. But this one was even worse.

(Purify) evolved from (Clean), which was an easy enough concept to grasp, for an earthling, and not that useful for survival—in his case, at least. It was not as if he was eating monster meat. He had mainly used it to clean himself and his dagger. Just for a quick cleaning, it did not consume any significant amount of mana.

(Discharge), however, was different. It behaved like (Lightning bolt), but he could continuously cast it. He could add more mana for a larger energy output, or much less for a baby lightning that looked like a plasma lighter.

Would he be able to learn (Lightning bolt) again if he deleted (Discharge), or would it jump directly into the Advanced version?

Then there was the question about the red lightning. He was pretty sure he could recreate the effect, as (Discharge) was back to being a normal color of lightning; it had something to do with him using HP instead of MP, and it even had the color associated with health and blood.

Not wanting to waste all of his mana just to test the theory, he did the next best thing. Moving all of his MP points to his HP.

It did not make him feel much stronger than before, but it still did and felt nice. He did a few jumps in place just to see if he could suddenly match an Olympian athlete, but he could not see that much of a difference.

The weird thing came when he looked down the cliff; he was assaulted by a sense of vertigo that he had not felt since the time he first acquired (Focus) and managed to materialize these wings for the first time.

'Right, they use mana… Good instincts?'

'Does this mean that I need to throw myself from the cliff like this to re-acquire (Focus), then somehow move my points to MP, and materialize my wings, before splashing on the forest floor… Nope, not worth it.'

Feeling quite insecure about being so high up in the mountain without quick access to his wings, he started the testing right away.

At first, nothing happened. He tried to use (Discharge), but the skill would not be released. He could feel it was there. But he felt weird about it, as if there was something preventing it from activating.

He felt it was possible, but there was a pressure holding him back, as if he was standing at the edge of the platform over a diving pool; he knew he would not die, but it would probably hurt, since he knew not how to dive from that height.

'It's a good analogy; I just need to stop being a bitch and take the metaphorical plunge.'

Fear was replaced with rage. Why could he not use the skill? He had already used his HP to fuel it, so what was the problem? Pain? He knew pain. It was a guy from Naru— …an old friend, always with him after he first broke his knees, growing closer to him every day, only kept at bay by his other friend, substance abuse.

In this world, he did not need that other mistress; he had a simple skill that fixed a bruise in seconds. He was now part dragon, for fuck’s sake! He had a dragon dick and scales on his forehead to prove it!!

Tzmp! "Yeah! Infinite—" Tzzzmp!

A huge bolt of red lightning shot from his hand and annihilated his rustic fireplace and part of his smoker.

He was actually a little tired after that; never before had a skill exhausted him by itself. It did hurt to use the skill like this, but it was manageable, more like lifting a weight too heavy for him than an injury-driven pain.

'I guess it uses my stamina, strength, and health in general alongside mana?… HP Is called Health Power…'

The iridescent vapor coming from him had also acquired a reddish tint; he had grown used to always seeing it in some way, but had already gotten used to it, so now it was pretty obvious when it changed.

His HP had gone down a bit. The HP equivalent was using MP divided by ten.

The base cost of (Lightning bolt) was 50 MP, but this time, not only did he use (Discharge) for much longer than (Lightning bolt) was ever active, but the power was much higher, stupidly so.

Now the problem was that he needed his MP to fuel his other skills and dragon materialization. He could materialize and then move his points to be at zero MP, but what about (Infuse)? He needed that for flying. Or (Focus), his main tool for fighting. A goblin would tear him apart without it; even with it, he still traded blows.

'But why am I limiting this trade to (Discharge)? What are its limits?'

He tested some of his skills one by one. They all had that little resistance or barrier of fear he needed to push through. But once he did, they reacted in interesting ways.

(Infuse) was the easiest one. It even gave him a "deeper" feeling of connection with anything that he infused with mana, allowing him to almost feel through it as if it were another sense. Because he was in grave need of more of them¿ It used so little HP in his test that he did not even lose a point.

(Spark) shot like a magnesium flint, a worthy amount of red sparks that ignited the grass below him, consuming 'only' 1 HP.

(Purify) also changed its ethereal blue to angry red, it cleaned faster, but he had not really a way to test how 'clean' something was, he could use it as before, for a light clean that was more in line with the original (Clean), or use more HP for a deeper cleaning, managing to clean his looted daggers and removing rust for 2 HP

(Focus) was a welcome surprise. Whoever made this HP mechanic was clearly a fan of video games because when using the skill, the surrounding colors gained this edgy reddish hue, like how one would represent a berserk trance. The good thing is that the skill was now even more powerful; his perception of time slowed down even more when he used it, and his feeling of moving in this state went from trying to move through water to trying to move in syrup, but he also felt more in control of his body.

He could even do some tricks that he never managed to do in his MMA training, like butterfly kicks and 720 kicks, just in case four goblins came to him stacked on top of each other. It was quite entertaining to throw spinning daggers in the air and catch them by the edge. His HP usage was about 1 point every five perceptual seconds, but quickly using it in short bursts before the threshold did not drain a point.

It did, however, punish his body quite a lot, leaving him feeling quite tired and with his muscles burning afterward.

'A nice trade. Now it's a proper workout… Not that this body needs it'

He did not try to use (Restore) or (Cook); the latter, he was still salty about the consumption rate, and the former, he was not feeling particularly masochistic about trying to cut himself to try and use it. He was curious if it would be a buggy mess, or if it was actually implemented.

'You know, because of the whole using HP to heal?…'

Now that he had proven that all of his combat-related skills worked with HP, and even better than with MP, just with some pain on the side. He wanted to try to manifest his Draconian features with it. Since all the skills seemed to gain a power-up, he hoped that his dragon side also gained something.

It was not because he was being lazy about moving his points around before a fight, definitely not¿¡

The fear barrier that came from using HP instead of MP became a wall of terror. All of his instincts told him not to. But he was a contrarian by nature, even against himself.

He was the kind of person who took pictures where there were signs not to, just to spite others; he did not even like taking pictures in the first place, but he liked even less to be told what to do, within reason. He was not crazy and was very respectful towards others.

Unless there was room for malicious compliance.

With this mindset, he looked at the diamond scale on the back of his right wrist. He focused and pushed; he had materialized his scales so many times before that the feeling was already seared in his mind.

The scale started to hurt, then to burn, then to bleed. Thick red vapor oozed out of it, fighting against his will, begging him to stop. But he could feel his scales also fighting to be released.

Like an old lobster fighting against its old shell, a phoenix burning to be reborn, he pushed and pushed, his rage against his own weakness greater than the pain he felt; he would not become complacent just because a little pain, if there was strength to be gained, he would push through.

With a burst of red flames and a puff of blood, his whole arm was covered in scarlet scales, which were larger, sharper, and heavier than his blue scales. Blood came from within them, but it was evaporating like water. The little blood that reached the dirt was sizzling like hot oil.

He did not even look at his HP. He just wanted to keep going. Unlike the pain from old age, this pain was invigorating; his brain filled with happy juices that were better than a full workout. It was probably better than sex, but he had zero experience on that front, so he chose to ignore that little blemish on his pride.

With another burst of red flames, his left arm was also covered in scales. He took a moment to appreciate them; that is when he noticed that his scales felt more like his own body and less like something that covered it. They also moved individually; they flexed outward in a wave pattern alongside the goosebumps he was feeling.

They also covered a bit more than before, coming all the way to the back of his hand and even over the outside of his fingers instead of stopping at the wrists.

With a large burst of flames, the outside of his legs became scaly. His boxers charred a little, so he pulled them down as he released his tail. This time, he could see how there was a wave that moved through as he flexed it. It did not look like a snake attached to his back anymore; no, now it was a proper dragon tail, with small spikes coming from the middle of it that covered half its length.

His horns came next; they were still arched back, but they were a little longer, and their profile was more aggressive and angular instead of rounded, and had a bluish-black color over black, like his tail spikes, instead of bone white. They also had small branches coming from the sides. His forehead and sideburns were now partially covered with the same black bones.

The claws were easier to materialize and did not really change that much; they looked even a little smaller, maybe they were denser?

Lastly were his wings. With a roar and a last push, he released them. They were the same size as before, but their shoulders were now larger and more muscular; they felt more like a proper second set of arms this time. The curved thumb claw was two times larger, now looking more like small curved daggers than small karambits. The ends of the digits also gained small spikes, and their membranes felt sturdier.

He looked down the cliffside; the excitement from flying was back. Without a second thought, he jumped off into the night sky.

— — —

He flew at high speed, not caring about his HP consumption. He would rest when he died again.

In less than five minutes, he had already flown into the goblins' territory. It did not take him long to find his first prey. A group of four goblins was camping below a sparse patch of trees in the forest.

The primitive sandals were destroyed as he landed, drifting on the floor. The night was just beginning, so they were still awake and alert.

He slashed at the first one’s face; before it could even reach him, he opened its neck with his claws and kicked it back.

The second one, he tripped with his tail before jumping on him and gutting it on the floor. A third one got the lightning treatment and died standing with an exploded back. The last one had glowing eyes, but Aizel did not care, for he did not wait for it to make a move and jumped into its guard. Sending a punch into its solar plexus, followed by a right hook to the face, and finished it off by slashing its throat.

Immediately after, he went back into the sky, finding a second group, then a third, then a fourth.

〔 Notice:

Level: 4 ► 5 | SE: 0 ► 1 〕

He only stopped his rampage once he gained a level, and he quickly assigned the SE to his HP.

Aizel was breathing heavily; he was exhausted, more tired than he had ever been after a hunt. Not the hobgoblin encounter, which did not count in his book: almost dying and getting his ass handed to him until Geas ex Machina saved the day.

He flew back to his shelter, dropped his Draconian form, and fell asleep almost immediately.

— — —

「 It was noon of his eighth day on Geas. 」

Aizel woke up quite rested; his HP had filled up again. After eating the last of his meat, he went to try to exploit his skills for SE. He was also curious how the new Skill acquisition would work with his new HP or mana-less setup.

He ended up biting the metaphorical bullet and chose to exploit (Focus); he had been using it so much every day, even just to fuck around.

It was so easy to re-acquire the skill that he had taught himself to be dumb for not trying to do it earlier. He was about to report it as a bug because the first time it did not cost him any HP, but after the second one, it did cost 2 and then 4, so he did not report anything.

Feeling a slight strain in his soul made him stop. He decided to put a stop to his skill milking for a while until he hit level 10, because now he had to wait at least a day to earn a level, to not put his soul under more strain.

(Discharge) was his only real offensive skill, but it was not only quite MP-intensive. Now HP-demanding. Because it worked best with (Infuse), which in turn worked best with (Focus). But it was also too flashy and loud; he almost lost his hearing every time he used it. The fact that he had not lost his hearing spoke more about the reliance of a Were-Dragon body.

As the sky turned orange and then pink, just before sunset, he finally managed to acquire a new skill. At first, he wanted to explore something like a fire bolt, based on how (Spark) behaved; it seemed to create matter, or transmute it? It from mana, since the sparks were clearly physical. But that would defeat the whole point of having a less flashy skill.

Ice lance seemed to be a better prospect, at least at first. It took him a lot longer than he expected to do something actually useful. Having acquired a lot of skills easily had left him spoiled and with high expectations.

The skill he got was called (Condensate), and he could not use it everywhere. It did not conjure water, and that was probably the mistake he made, trying to pull water out of the atmosphere. It was not until he went to the river that he actually managed to acquire it.

Not only that, but it was not very demanding MP/HP-wise. But since it did not magically create water, it was heavily reliant on the humidity or moisture in the air. It probably had its utilities, but it was nothing like what he wanted.

He tried to visualize how it would feel and happen to shoot an ice lance from his hand, but unlike with (Lightning bolt), the leap was too great; even if he managed to somehow take enough water from the air to make a small ice spike, it would probably behave as (Spark) and just drop to the floor, not shoot like a bullet.

Feeling dejected, he decided to do some scouting, and another thing that he noticed was how inefficient his current hunting method was. He wasted too much HP flying from one small goblin camp to another. It would be more efficient to find a large one at night.

If he could find another like the one that had the hobgoblin, it would be perfect; he would just have to deal with the overgrown turd first. Thinking back to that encounter, he noticed how he had failed to make a path through the monster’s brain. After failing once, he blasted lightning bolts at it. At least he had come up the better for it.

He was planning on combing the forest in a zigzagging pattern from East to West while slowly moving North. But before he could even finish deciding just how far east he would move, he noticed something quite interesting.

There was a large thermal signal flaring in the distance; at first he thought it was another hobgoblin camp, seeing how he had torches inside the cave.

Once he got closer to it, however, he noticed a large group of humans camping.

A group of about a hundred males was lazing around a campfire; simple tents were already made, and they seemed to be traveling on foot. They had simple medieval equipment that consisted of wooden, stone, and metal hammers, wooden shields, short bows, and metal pointed spears.

He flew higher but closer and started circling them. Paying close attention to not be spotted.

Three things jumped out to him; the first and simplest was the fact that a large portion of them carried simple string slingshots. The second was that there was a man with dog ears and a tail, or maybe a wolf tail and ears.

'They look like they belong to a husky more than a wolf. A Were-Doggo, Were-pup? Is that a slur?'

But what really caught his eye was a long rifle-looking thing one of the men was carrying.

'Is that a fucking lever-action?'

An honest-to-God fantasy lever-action; it looked more like something an artisan would make than a factory-produced one. It had golden runes carved over dark blue metal. It was also longer than a modern lever-action rifle, maybe as long as an old musket, and had a lever below it with a bullet slot on its side.

'A few firearms "here and there," my scaly Were-Draconian ass! The first group of humans I encounter, and they carry one!'

'Though, I do want one…'

The Were-Doggo was looking around, sniffing the air, and generally maintaining vigilance around the camp; thankfully for Aizel’s peeping, it did not have the foresight to look up at the sky.

A part of him wanted to just go down there and introduce himself; even a shut-in like himself was feeling socially starved after a week of no human interaction. The internet proved to be a nice social outlet, even if all he did was lurk and never actually interact with anyone.

But Deez Nerd had not failed him so far… excluding the weak-ass clothing that he gave him, lack of footwear, salt, the mind-raping scroll, and his estimates on the amount of firearms going around… Still, he decided to heed his advice and wait to reach level 10.

He had not specifically told him not to interact with humans before then, but if he were to go down there, they would probably ask him to accompany them to the southern town. If he refused, they would probably think him a weirdo and make things awkward once he showed up later.

Looking around, he saw that they actually picked a pretty good spot to make camp; it was a nice little hill that was clear on all sides, and the tree line only began about a click away from them. It would give them enough time to prepare for a goblin ambush, even at their unnerving running speeds, if one decided to turn them into a late-night snack.

For aerial predators, they looked like a buffet served on a green platter. He could easily do a flyby and take one out; they even looked lighter than a deer, so he probably didn't even need to stop and carry one with him.

'What the fuck am I even thinking?…'

He went for a few goblin camps around the group, just to make life easier on them. As he continued to stalk them, he had lost count of how many little green shits he had killed so far, so he slowed down, delaying his level-up to let his soul rest.

His original plan was still in effect, so he resumed combing the forest. He did not find any large camps at first; it was not until around thirty clicks north of the mountain range that he spotted larger and larger groups.

The camps started to have greater distances between them, and their population increased little by little. Hobgoblin camps also started popping up, and they were easier to spot since some had fires going. Those camps also had a larger goblin presence, some having up to ten goblins for one hobgoblin.

Their tool usage also increased, with wooden spears lying around, rusty swords, nets, and leather armor. It all looked like stolen shit since it was all damaged to hell and back, and it was either too large or too small for them.

He scouted for most of the night, gliding around at a slow speed. By the time the sun began to rise, he was already back in his shelter. Aizel was quite proud of his little nest in the mountain, but he could not help but envy some of the tools and commodities he saw the other humans use; a simple sheet would make his sleep more comfortable.

"Soon, Aizel, soon."