One Last System

It took me a short while to free myself from the rubble, dust my robe off and stand up. Yet, instead of following the man, I looked down at the ruined fruit of my hours-long efforts.

For a moment, a rage welled up in my soul. Yet, the second I even allowed a hint of it to get to me, an abyss opened.

An abyss of all the feelings and thoughts that I refused to acknowledge. Succumbing to rage would be an easy path, but it would force me through the hell of what I refused to accept. It would force me to accept and live through the reality of what happened to me back at the skyladder sect.

\'How easy it would be to just burn his tent down in retaliation,\' I thought, prompted by the last sparks of hate and anger. Thankfully, before I would succumb to the soul-breaking emotions caused by what I experienced, I managed to quell the sparks of rage and calm myself down.

"Setting out to the forest at night is a foul idea," I shouted over, my eyes still latched on the ruined house of mine. Right now, I didn\'t dare to look at my Overseer\'s face.

Not because I was scared of him. Even with how weak I was right now, I was sure that I could somehow deal with him.

I was simply worried that I wouldn\'t be able to keep my calm in check by looking at that despicable man\'s face.

"A contractor isn\'t a job for the cowards," the Overseer sneered. "Give up or do your job. It\'s up to you," he barked before turning his head back and moving his feet.

This bastard was clearly determined to continue with what he decided on.

\'Arthur, calm down,\' I thought to myself, trying to manipulate my own mind. \'If he doesn\'t want to listen to you, he won\'t. And who knows,\' my lips suddenly formed an ironic smile, \'maybe he actually knows what he is doing?\'

I was still too new to this entire contractor thing to figure out what this guy could do to me and what he could not. I would have to ask a lot of questions on the day we get to the sect\'s headquarters. For now, though, I could risk losing my role as a contractor.

Not because I cared for it to any extent, but because I couldn\'t afford to ditch my responsibilities as Mia\'s sponsor!

With that said, I breathed a deep sigh to calm myself down even further before turning myself towards the Overseer\'s back and following after him into the woods.

Soon, all the notions that this guy knew what he was doing disappeared from my head.

I only learned about hunting under the pathfinder\'s tutelage for a few days, but even I could see all the mistakes this guy was making.

He didn\'t check the wind, allowing all kinds of monsters to smell our approach long in advance. Even then, he didn\'t pay any attention to where he was placing his steps, making a constant flurry of noise.

Roughly ten minutes of walk into the forest, I couldn\'t take it any longer.

"You are scaring all the prey away," I muttered, just loud enough for my Overseer to hear. All this time, I struggled to maintain his peace while making my presence as small as possible. But with how tired I still was, it was only a matter of time when I would simply decide to fuck it and just act like that idiot.

\'I guess that\'s exactly what he wants me to do,\' I thought, looking at the back of the man only to roll my eyes in the next moment. \'Wait, aren\'t I overpraising his intelligence?\' I reflected. \'This kind of scheme requires actual wits to come with,\' I realized.

"I have no need for monsters that run. They do not make for good prey," the Overseer replied arrogantly, not paying my advice any mind. "First lesson. Monsters that run from you are not worth your time to hunt," he added in a gleeful manner.

Soon, his words proved deviously true. We found a monster that didn\'t bother to ditch despite being clearly aware of our approach.

I figured out the reason with a single glance.

The monster itself appeared like your everyday goat, ready to be filmed for a funny video, fed the shirt of your colleague, or milked for some millenial-praised liquor. Yet, the aura that surrounded it made its very own fur stand up straight, making it seem nearly twice as big as it actually was.

\'It\'s strong,\' I thought, instinctively lowering my center of mass and hiding in the dense forestbed. Feeling the wind on my back, I could only play that this monster wouldn\'t notice that two men were tailing it rather than just one.

"Now, that\'s a monster worth my time!" the Overseer jovially shouted, raising his chin high and brandishing a long, elegant sword.

\'A weapon unfit for a crude person like him,\' something told me. It was a strange feeling as if this notion resonated with something hidden deep in my soul.

But right now, I had no time to ponder over it.

"Go in first and get its attention," the Overseer ordered, his eyes glued to the monster in the distance.

"I came here to cooperate with you, not to be your slave," I refuted.

There was no way I would make myself a bait against a monster on the same level of strength that the beast that pathfinder and I struggled to hunt together!

"You can either act as a bait, just like I ordered you," the Overseer turned his face to me and sneered. "Or you can do your best at filling your quotas on your own!"

\'Fuck,\' I cursed inwardly, lowering my face towards the ground.

I didn\'t know enough about my role. I didn\'t know what this guy could do officially and what the sect would accept him doing underneath the table. I didn\'t know his influence, his worth, nor did I know shit about how important I was to the sect.

In other words, I didn\'t know the frame of what I was allowed to do, what I was forbidden from doing, and what I was privy to.

As much as I hated it, I couldn\'t risk leaving Mia on her own in such a situation.

\'It\'s a pity that I didn\'t get to talk to her before leaving,\' I thought. If only I did that, maybe...

No.

I had no right to these kinds of thoughts. Not after I pushed her hand away. Not after I hurt her. Right now, for me to be a man, was to tighten my teeth and just do what I had to do.

\'Only two more weeks,\' I thought, tightening my hands into fists before starting to crawl towards the monster through the wet, forest bed.