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.

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

concept as how he got rid

roughly similar power and numbers. Around half of the remaining survivors

thing harder than killing them. The forest was big, the beasts plentiful, and humans customarily grouped together. Having two figurative beacons attracting more humans made it significantly easier to keep track of

wiping out one of Richard’s squads, staging the battlefield beautifully to replicate what a big fight between

a few small rumors that the other faction had been behind it, putting on his naïve teenager act, easily convincing some

skeptical, and talks had not broken down immediately, so William wiped out a group from the other faction too. That sure as hell sparked the

daily casualties. While groups out hunting often avoided each other, they still got

method for entering the tutorial, ended up meaning that many had lost friends or family to the war. William didn’t even have to

long as no survivors remained

groups in the double digits, but most

Richard’s faction, and he had even taken credit for a few kills, of course acting all shaken up and disturbed by having

first time he killed,

William didn’t still find the whole thing stupid. Especially here in the tutorial. Some people took days getting over having killed someone. He remembered one of the archers who were good at traps had acted like the world was ending just because his damn traps had done their job. What the fuck did he expect

when in Rome do as the Romans do, and when among idiots, act like an idiot. Richard at least

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 prey for him. He

if he was with his entire squad. Everyone in that

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 the wand

a steel-like metal out of mana, which he mainly practiced by conjuring daggers. Which meant he didn’t have to carry around a bunch of

single dagger, so he had to conjure what he needed before the fight. Of course, this was

his evolution had provided allowed him to absorb metal. He could then conjure said absorbed metal, the mana cost dependent on the quality and quantity of what

gotten was one that summoned a massive spinning disc of metal that he could send flying in a straight line. This was the one he had used to kill the heavy warrior earlier, and the thing packed a

conjure a shield and manipulate his movements by wearing metal armor, he would have loved to be able to turn his

stealth-attacked yet. The funny thing was that he could often just walk straight up

day, a wall of stakes slowly being built, and campfires everywhere. William had been

deemed important got stuff first, and William had never gotten anything, which was to say he was not considered important.

teenager was not weak in any way. William seriously doubted the warrior knew much about him, just that he was one of the few people able to hunt

times to important meetings. He liked going to those and just

real opinions known. William did answer all his inquiries but kept up the persona he had so carefully crafted. He deemed It too

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

done. He also knew he couldn’t be too dull, or it would get suspicious. He had to be shy and yet competent enough to not be ignored entirely. Attempting to

where they thought the best thing was to try and fuck him up with drugs. They just had to

never came to pass

for getting thrown in the

he smiled to himself. None of that mattered anymore. No centers, no drugs, just him and an endless

beautiful future ahead of him, he dozed off as he took a quick nap. Even with all the levels and evolution, 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

of time, as mana and stamina potions were very rare at this point, with only a few remaining, all hoarded by Richard and