The Primal Hunter

He ran through the woods, feeling the wind whisk by as he made his desperate escape. This entire situation was so fucked up. He had gone out hunting with his regular crew like any other day the last two weeks. While that guy Richard and his camp had been causing trouble for them, it didn’t normally disrupt his particular party’s daily routine.

Their leader, some ex-military guy named Hayden, had told them to avoid hunting in the area in between their two factions. An order everyone gladly followed as no one wanted to risk fighting other humans. While fighting beasts was dangerous, other humans were just a whole different kind of danger.

Yet they had still been attacked. And not by a group, but a single person. No, a goddamn monster. He had appeared out of nowhere, not said a word, and just started killing. Daggers were flying everywhere, and what seemed like a giant freaking sawblade that cut their heavy warrior in two: shield and all.

It was mayhem with blood and body parts flying everywhere. Luckily, he had been scouting ahead, being an archer and all. With zero hesitation, he had taken off after he saw half their group die. Yet it was for naught.

A dagger hit his leg as he stumbled, followed by another, and then another. His legs got utterly destroyed as he screamed out and tried to crawl away.

“Damn, you’re fast.”

He heard a casual voice behind him as he turned to stare at the monster that had been chasing him - a young man with blonde hair and blue eyes staring back.

“Dude, come on, you didn’t have to bolt off like that. Do you know how much mana I wasted? Ah, forget it, just give me some good info, and I promise to let you go,” the teenager said as he walked closer, a big sinister smile on his face. The archer’s eyes, however, glued to the small red bottle in his hand. A health potion.

The archer finally saw just the tiniest glimmer of hope as he bit through the pain from his mutilated legs. He started explaining everything he thought could be of the slightest interest. Even seemingly unnecessary side notes and comments. It was a torrent of information as the archer just hoped that the monster would decide to spare him.

After a while, as he kept desperately throwing out words, the teenager finally raised his hand, motioning for him to stop.

“Well, I guess there was some useful stuff in all that senseless yapping,” the blonde teenager said as he shrugged.

“I told you everything, please just ask me about anything. I promise I will tell you whatever you want,” the archer pleaded, hoping to prove himself useful enough.

“Oh, it is quite alright. I think I got everything worthwhile.”

The archer breathed out a sigh of relief as the slaughterer started to walk away from him. But just as he got his hopes up, another dagger flew out from underneath the teenager’s cloak and hit the archer straight in the chest, penetrating all the way to the handle.

The archer coughed up blood as he stammered: “Y… ou…”

“Oh yeah, I lied. Sorry mate, pretty gullible to believe I was gonna leave perfectly fine experience and tutorial points alone.”

The archer only heard the first part before he passed away.

The teenager, William, walked away from the corpse without looking back. Leaving the dagger in the man’s chest. He wanted them to know the killer was human, after all.

William was slightly disappointed in the levels of this group. Only a few of them had their class evolutions, which led to a rather dull fight. More importantly, it also meant less experience and tutorial points.

Not that he had expected much, just more than that. At least the tutorial points were worth his time. Not that he knew what they could be used for yet. He just liked to see the number go up. He especially liked to compare how many points he had to those killed - an objective measurement of how superior he was to all of them.

For William, who was already level 32 in his class, killing a bunch of humans barely gave any experience. Still, it gave more tutorial points than killing several beasts at, or above, his own level. After level 10, one had to kill around 10 or so beast at your own level, while above level 25, you had to kill even more. Coupled with beasts over level 25 getting a lot stronger, it only made human-hunting even more worth it. The notifications did say he got extra experience from killing anything above his race level, but it honestly felt negligible.

dangerous in a straight fight, but they were also far more easily exploited. Their

concept as how he got

half of the remaining survivors were in those two camps combined, and more joined by the day, which was perfect for

perhaps the only thing harder than killing them. The forest was big, the beasts plentiful, and humans customarily grouped together. Having two figurative beacons attracting

William decided to throw a small spanner in the works by wiping out one of Richard’s squads, staging the battlefield beautifully to replicate what a big fight between two groups would look

spread a few small rumors that the other faction had been behind it, putting on his naïve teenager act, easily convincing some of the middle-aged women working as

so William wiped out a group from the other faction too. That sure

was a full-on war with daily casualties. While groups out hunting often avoided each other, they

the tutorial, ended up meaning that many had lost friends or family to the war. William

he could kill others as much as he wanted. As long as no

the more prominent groups in the double digits, but most were only five to six people, making them easy

was still officially a member of Richard’s faction, and he had even taken credit for a few kills, of course acting all shaken up and

reaction after all. Something William hadn’t been particularly good at the first

whole thing stupid. Especially here in the tutorial. Some people took days getting over having killed someone. He remembered one of the archers

the Romans do, and when among idiots, act like an idiot. Richard at least took killing people rather calmly, but then again, from what William knew, the man had prior experience killing people. Speaking of Richard, he couldn’t

highest level and tutorial points besides himself. It would be glorious when he finally got to him. When it was finally time to cash in. For now, however, the man still had work to do, acting as an excellent little shepherd gathering more

straight-up killing the man, especially not if he was with his entire squad. Everyone in that squad had their class upgrades, and William knew precisely how much of a boost that

Savant], which was a massive boost to pretty much everything. His existing skills got stronger, his control improved massively, and he even gained a few new skills. It also granted him the metal manipulation, meaning he didn’t even need

out of mana, which he mainly practiced by conjuring daggers. Which meant he didn’t have to carry around a bunch of them all the time. Though he still always had a couple on him, as manipulating existing ones was less mana-intensive than making

making it harder to stage fights. On top of that, it also took a lot of time to make just a single dagger, so he had

him to absorb metal. He could then conjure said absorbed metal, the mana cost dependent on the quality and quantity

could send flying in a straight line. This was the one he had used to kill the heavy

was that he still lacked reliable defensive methods. While he could conjure a shield and manipulate his movements by wearing metal armor, he

yet. The funny thing was that he could often just walk straight

up every day, a wall of stakes slowly being built, and campfires everywhere. William

care less for all the silly politics going on in camp. The members deemed important got stuff first, and William had never gotten anything, which was

He knew the teenager was not weak in any way. William seriously doubted

liked going to those and just listen in. Throwing in

about himself, he never made his real opinions known. William did answer all his inquiries but kept up the persona he had so carefully crafted. He deemed It too suspicious

to be what people expected of you. What they hope for you to be. If they have a positive impression, enforce

would get suspicious. He had to be shy and yet competent enough to not be ignored entirely. Attempting to be too ordinary

this out. That was until he was thrown to another center where they thought the best thing was to try and fuck him up with drugs. They just had to ‘rehabilitate’ him a bit

came to pass

was still mad at himself for getting thrown in the first center, to begin with. One mistake and everything had

anymore. No centers, no drugs, just him and an endless universe. In this new world, his abnormality was synonymous with strength - his ‘defects’

one still had to sleep a bit once in a while. Only a couple of hours every couple of days, but you had to. It was not exactly physical tiredness, but the exhaustion of the mind. This need for sleep was reduced by every level and was significantly reduced

couple of hours did more or less fully restore mana and stamina, though. So, it was not entirely a waste of time, as mana and stamina potions were very rare at this point, with only a few remaining, all hoarded by