While we were seeing the city of Spokane, that wasn't our destination. At least not the city proper. Instead, we were heading to a smaller clump of buildings that were not as destroyed as the ones in the city to the east. Closer to our location. That's where a village seed to have been ford at so point. Even from the distance, we could see people coming in and out of a few of the buildings that were still standing and so considerably large tents here and there. Tents that seed to be relatively new, even though it was kind of hard to say with the age of the tarps and leather that made out the outer layer of those encampnts.
As we approached, a tired-looking man holding a long spear stopped us by raising his hand.
"Look, we don't have any more space for refugees. I don't care how bad things are south, you going to have to look for soplace else to stay."
I paused. "Refugees? What's going on?"
The man looked up at with an annoyed expression. "You aren't the first one to try that. I'm not going to buy it. Just go to soplace else. I'm sorry, but we are full."
"No, seriously. We're not from the south. We ca from the east. From Flathead Lake. And we're not refugees." I sneaked a glance at Pala, but still continued speaking, hoping that the man didn't notice that. "We ca here to trade and see what's going on in the area."
The man frowned. "What do you have to trade? You don't look like rchants."
"We're not." Michael stepped in. "We are not, but we do have so supplies, so dicine, so food soap we were hoping to trade them for, maybe a place to stay for the night and talk to whoever is in charge here. You see, we are monster hunters. We go around looking for dangerous creatures that are causing problems for various villages and get rid of them. We do hope that after a job well done, we can get paid in supplies and recoup whatever we traded to stay the night but, we are not here to stay for free."
The man raised one eyebrow. "Monster hunters, you?"
Michael chuckled. "I know I don't look like much and honestly, I'm really not. I am more of a tracker than anything else. Cass here is our leader and the girl with the axe. Well, I don't have to say anything" He gestured to Astrid, who was standing with her arms crossed, the veins bulging out of her biceps.
That seed to be enough to convince the man who nodded. "Okay then. Give a mo..." He looked around and called. "You, boy, co here."
A kid rushed towards us. He had long chestnut hair, his skin was a bit thin and his clothes were tattered but still serviceable. Even if not by much.
"Take them to the Chief. Unlike you, they actually seem to amount to sothing."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
I frowned at his comnt, and the guard seed to notice my reaction, letting out a sigh. "Look, too many people ca here and are expecting hand--downs. We don't have enough for everybody. And kids are the bigger problem. We can't actually make them work very much and they end up being the ones who eat the most food."
"Sure, but that still doesn't make it right the way you spoke to him."
The man just shrugged. "I'm tired. I've been dealing with people like that all day. And I'm just don't care anymore, okay? He's going to take you to the Chief and you can handle whatever you want to handle with them. Just don't bring any more trouble."
Like he asked, I didn't say anything. Even though I really didn't appreciate the way he was speaking to the kid, he was tired and being a dick wasn't enough for to get up in arms. I beca even less worried once I started talking to the kid. His na was Joel, and he was very eager.
"Are you really monster hunters?" He asked, and Michael nodded.
"Yes, we are. We just ca from a place called Flathead Lake where we killed the Giant crab."
"What's a crab?" the kid asked.
"Oh, it's kind of like a giant spider that lives in the sea."
"Ooh, that's cool. Scary." Astrid added.
"How big was it?" The kid turned to the Frosted Lumberjack, who just pointed at a nearby tree and said "Bigger."
"Bigger than a tree?" The kid's eyes went wide, trying to understand what we were saying. Astrid just nodded with a smile and it was my turn to ask a few questions.
"By the way, the guard ntioned about refugees? What's going on? Why are so many people coming here?"
The kid's excitent seed to vanish a bit. "Oh, it's because of the monsters in the south. Too many of them. They're fighting and we need to run."
"What kind of monsters? The Eaters?"
The kid shook his head. "Them too, but there are others. Giant rats. And the bats. And there are so monsters in the woods that keep eating children. It's not nice."
Hearing about the rats, I glanced at Astrid, who seed to understand my concern. "Those giant rats? Do they talk?"
The kid looked at like I was crazy. "No? Can rats talk?"
"No. Well, maybe a really smart rat can." I replied, trying to pretend it was a joke. But it didn't seem to land as the kid just kept staring at , as if I was crazy.
"What about those other monsters? You ntioned the bats. What's going on with them?"
"They're getting bigger." Joel replied. "I saw one flying off with a horse."
"Damn, how big are they?" Michael asked.
The kid just replied. "Bigger than a horse."
We continued talking as the kid guided us to the leader of this village and apparently things further south were really not that great. Especially once you reach the desert. Basically, the monsters were everywhere. And there wasn't just the issue with the giant rats and the giant bats. But also people were being people. Attacking each other and causing problems when they should be helping instead. That wasn't that uncommon, but by the looks of it, near the desert, that kind of thing got to be more frequent. That's why there were many refugees coming up north. They were just trying to escape the madness that was going south.
The problem was that according to the kid, so people were saying that the problems of the South were reaching the north. Which ant that it might not take long for even Pops to be involved in sothing like that. And knowing my grandfather, he definitely would be involved. After reaching the shore, I had to double back soon to make sure he was okay.
You know, honestly, maybe I could just go back there. Even if I got there just a couple weeks after leaving, it should be enough for people to accept that I wasn't being chased by an Eater. Not to ntion that at this point, telling them about the System wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. But then again, I had promise Astrid and Michael that we were going to reach the shore and despite Pops being crazy enough to try to help a bunch of people he never t, he also wasn't stupid enough to get into trouble that he couldn't solve. Especially considering that he also had the System. There was no need for to be that worried about what was going on with him.
Joel didn't take long to bring us to the house where the village leader was staying. But even then, he wasn't the first person who we were allowed to talk to. That was for the simple reason that there were too many people in that house. And everybody seed to be working hard with one thing or another. So were talking while looking over a map others were discussing sothing serious on top of a box of sothing, but Joel didn't seem to care about any of them instead he just continued walking past by everybody until he reached a grizzly old man with sunken eyes gray beard and oily white skin. By his side was another man, this one bulkier and younger with dark skin and a stubble.
"Mr. Conrad, Mr. Chad asked to bring those people here."
The grizzly man sitting on a chair looked up and smiled. "You should say 'these people". And well done kid. Joel. Here." He passed a small tal coin to the kid. "Take that to the kitchen so you can get your food for the day."
That thing made frown. "He doesn't get to eat unless you tell him he can?"
"Oh yes. Sort of. It's not really like that. We have too many refugees, and unless they are actually doing sothing to help with the village, we're not giving them food. As long as they do sothing that will benefit us all, they get a token that they can then take to the kitchen and get food instead."
I kept frowning, but I had to understand that sentint. Especially if the village was struggling to sustain everyone which very much seed to be the case.
"Now, what can I help you with? If Chad sent you here, you're not just simple refugees, are you?" Conrad asked.
"No, we're not. We are actually Monster Hunters, and we were wondering if there are any creatures that are giving you so trouble lately." Michael spoke up with a smile.
"Monsters? You think you're so sort of hero?" The man to the side scoffed.
"Oh, not at all. We are not doing this for free and we are not going to go after sothing we absolutely can't kill. But we've been dealing with so pretty nasty creatures. We can't carry that many supplies with us and honestly, usually the at of whatever we kill is much too much for any of us. So we are just offering our services as hunters in exchange for so food and supplies and, more importantly, a place to sleep."
"And let guess you want to sleep first, eat our food and then you're going to go after this monster?"
"Jackson, that's enough." Conrad spoke up, making the man grumble a bit. But Michael didn't seem fazed by that.
"Not at all. We have so food, dicine and soap to barter for the night. We only ask that if we are successful in our hunt, you include the sa amount of supplies that we gave as part of our paynts. That way we're not actually losing anything and neither are you in case we end up dying."
That explanation seed to make Jackson soften up a bit. "And what exactly would be your pay?" The big man asked.
"Well, like I said, the monsters we hunt sotis are too big for us to carry by ourselves. So part of the paynt would be manpower to help bring the creature to the village. If that's sothing, you would be interested in it. The second thing is we get our first pick of materials from those creatures. Since we are hunting, we sotis might need to pick so clothes or the leather to make clothes for our travels. If you have tailors or soone who's well-versed in doing that kind of thing, we would very much appreciate the help."
"So far, all I'm hearing is that you're going to bring a lot of work for us to do. Work that could be spent on sothing else." Jackson crossed his arms. But Michael nodded again and continued with his smile.
"I understand that. And that would be part of the paynt. Help to make sure we can gather the most amount of supplies from the monsters in the most effective way. Beyond it, we would want to stay a number of days here, depending on how long we took us to hunt. Maybe if we are too injured, we would need the dicine, but that's sothing we can work out later."
"Again, a lot of work and not a lot of benefits for us. What do we get?" Jackson pressed.
"Everything we don't want. And being free from whatever monster is being an issue," Michael replied.
"So we get your scraps?"
Michael shook his head. "Not exactly. We travel light. As you can see, we don't have more than a backpack with us. And depending on the monster that is being a problem to you, there's no way we would be able to carry all of its at or its fur everywhere. So after hunting the monster, we bring it back to the village and use it to trade. We will just want so supplies and enough food to fill up our reserves. Plus a bit to eat on the next day or so and then everything that's left it's yours."
Jackson stared at all of us for a mont and shook his head. "I still don't see why..." but Conrad cut him off.
"Jackson shut up. That is more than a fair deal, and we're not going to try to swindle everybody who stops by here. Besides, we do have so problems with monsters. If they want to hunt it, let them. Either they are good and what they do and kill it or they die and we can spend a couple of days without having to worry about that thing."
The grizzly man didn't have to say, but it was clear that he was talking about what would happen if we were killed. As in, the monster would eat us and leave them alone. Jackson grumbled a bit more and started walking away. He stopped just after he was past us and turned around.
"Are you not coming?"
We didn't know exactly what to do and just turned to Conrad, who nodded.
"He's the one in charge of the guards, so if you want to know more about the creature that is being a problem, you should follow him."
Michael didn't say anything, but I was sure as hell going to try to have Pala staying behind as part of our paynt. Even if we had to give up so of the at or pieces of the creature. As long as she wasn't traveling with us anymore, I would be fine. And hunting a monster to level up was just a bonus.
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