The Primal Hunter

Jake sprinted through the mist, Sylphie flying along with him. His Sphere of Perception was a bit over 300 meters in radius as he scanned the area at the ground level and even scanned to see if anything was hidden beneath. With his eyes, he scouted the area ahead, seeing movement here and there within the mist. It was incredibly subtle shifts in the background, a bit of mist not moving as uniformly as the rest, or it swaying in a too predictable pattern.

Yet, he wasn’t aware exactly of what lurked within. It was clearly some invisible creatures, and they were hiding from not only his eyes but his other senses too. None had entered his sphere either but seemed to keep a very healthy distance. He didn’t doubt they were aware he had seen them.

Not simple beasts, he thought. On the contrary, they were careful and calculating. Smart… but not smart enough to avoid Jake’s curiosity.

He threw Sylphie a glance, and she seemed to get it as he took a step forward. Jake teleported, took another, and teleported again. He repeated this seven more times until he was at the shimmering form that was hiding. It knew he had found it, and instead of trying to futilely run, it attacked.

Jake saw four long claws reflect a tinge of light out the corner of his eye as it swiped for him. No, it wasn’t claws; it was nails. Long nearly sixty to seventy centimeters long nails came for him, but Jake was ready. With one hand, he blocked the blow as a barrier of mana appeared around his hand, as with the other, he released a blast of arcane mana.

A high-pitched scream sounded out as his foe was blasted back, its invisibility now dispelled. He had naturally already seen its form in his sphere, but it was just something else when done with his eyes.

It was a thin figure with one large black eye in the middle of its forehead and a giant circular maw of teeth beneath. Its hands were disproportionally large and had what looked like useless thumbs and then four extremely long nails. Its skin color was grayish blue, and it looked sickly and thin. Unfortunately, his Identify didn’t exactly help him understand what it was.

[Young Ekilmare – lvl 118]

I would ask what the fuck an Ekilmare is, but this appears to be it. Huh, Jake thought. He was honestly a bit more used to what was essentially just mutated Earth creatures. But this? This was something entirely else. Well, the Deepdwellers were also kind of weird, but they were mushroom-loving assholes so that at least made sense.

At first glance, it actually reminded him a bit of the undead, but at the same time, he clearly felt a strong sense of vitality.

The creature stumbled to its feet, but this time it didn’t attack but just slowly backed away as it turned invisible again. This was totally okay for Jake as he wasn’t really that interested in them. He did find it interesting how this was only a Young Ekilmarre, making him wonder what the mature version looked like. But alas, he wasn’t in the mood to bully some lower-leveled creature to find out.

Sadly for the Ekilmare… Jake’s bird pal was totally fine with it.

Sylphie zoomed past him as she headed for the creature. A domain of green wind spread out around her, and Jake saw the mist appear to almost be locked down as it stopped moving. simultaneously, the creature’s invisibility was dispelled, forcing it out into the open where it had to fight.

Jake saw it shimmer again, but this time it didn’t turn invisible. Just as Sylphie got close, it swayed and teleported to the side, and a fraction of a moment later, it teleported again, this time behind Sylphie, ready to cut up her small body.

Yeah…

A glowing wing met the claw as a blade of dense green wind cut forth, severing the arm of the Ekilmare.

That was dumb…

retreated. Alas, it was far too slow. The small hawk attacked again, and this time the Ekilmare didn’t

dash, her wing extending like a lucent blade as she passed. Then, she did half-loop in the air and flew back, landing

few seconds later, a severed head

wiggled for a bit, but soon it died for good. Some kind of active regeneration skill… not like

was fast, had a powerful attack power, and of course, the ability to be invisible and even teleport. Especially the invisibility was respectable. However, to Jake, it was far from enough. Even Sylphie could still detect them. As a hawk, she had high

put it in his inventory anyway as he had decided just to take everything, considering he had the special storage for this event. However, first, he would ask the one who had actually

can you store it?”

down. She poked the corpse with her talon, and the entire thing

it instead made Jake frown. Because he just felt the

a corpse was dumped on the ground. This only made Jake frown

confusion, but she did as he

and signaled for the bird to put it in the inventory. She did without any

a range limit… isn’t this just kind

back to her, he talked. “It appears we share an inventory… do you

“Ree!” Sylphie screeched.

put them in the Treasure Hunt one. “But, it also means we can split up and get twice the loot! Imagine how many tasty pellets you could get if you managed to

went wide at the thought as she screeched in agreement. It was lucky they could split up, as, quite frankly, they weren’t exactly good at fighting together. Jake sucked

learned one thing about Sylphie during their time together, it was how difficult she was to put down. In fact… he would say she had a higher chance of escaping than he did if they met a foe he couldn’t handle. Her fully stepping into D-grade had not been a small upgrade.

“Ree! Ree?” Sylphie screeched.

make sure to do the same,” Jake answered with a big smile. It was something else both had easily noticed after their contract. Both could vaguely feel the location of the other, mainly just the general direction, but also if the other was still in good

snickering, getting a confused head-turn from Sylphie, making him re-word it: “Good luck getting

her head. Then, with a determined look, she took flight towards one of the hills in the distance, a green tailwind left in

the hill Sylphie had chosen was a far ways off, and this mountain was even further in… and damn

took off, focusing on his sphere the entire way. He did spot a few minor things, like a rock his Sense of the Malefic Viper picked up on containing a lot of mana, a herb here and there, and stuff like that, but nothing truly worthwhile.

something to come by to try and claim them. Or were they just close because they themselves absorbed a bit of mana from the items? It

completely ignore any other humans. Considering he was likely the one with the highest perception

or maybe there was some collective agreement that it simply wasn’t time yet. Jake did not hold doubt in his mind that the more time passed, the more humans would switch their goal from finding treasures

around. Even if the person were incompetent, over a week’s worth of collecting would still

someone wanted to rob him, it would only be fair to rob

hour as he ran at high speeds. He avoided using his One Step Mile to not miss anything with his sphere and also to give those invisible stalkers time to get out the way

time spent feeling his super comfy boots and their ability to feel earthbound herbs and natural treasures. This did expand his searching perimeter quite a lot, and Jake was essentially a one-man locust swarm, scouring anything

they grew in levels. Sylphie seems to be having fun, he thought with a smile