The Primal Hunter

Four people stood starring at the massive cube. The bearded man had truly just taken off, not bothering to stay and try to solve it. The earth mage, the rogue, the gunman, and Jake were the only ones left, and from the looks of it, the gunman and rogue were also close to leaving. Jake wasn’t sure if the earth mage actually had a clue about the puzzle or if he was just staying out of pride.

The puzzle itself was very much a Rubik’s Cube, but not the kind with colors or easy symbols. There weren’t only six types of symbols but instead hundreds, and from Jake’s initial assessment, he believed that before one could figure out how to solve the Rubick’s Cube part of the puzzle, one had to first determine what each of the six sides should look like.

Compared to the puzzle he had solved with Reika, this one was far harder.

”Could we just try all the combination and solve it like that?” the guy from the Court of Shadows asked.

”Sounds like a great way to waste the rest of the Treasure Hunt,” the rogue woman said, speaking for the first time.

Jake nodded. While he had never been that much into Rubik’s Cubes, he had watched online videos on them while bored. A simply 3x3x3 cube already had possible combinations in the quintillions. He doubted he would manage to brute-force a 15x15x15 cube even if he spent the remainder of his entire D-grade lifespan.

He considered if even trying to solve it was worth it. It would no doubt take a while, and he could clear more Vaults if he found some he could open just by killing stuff. Well… he could try if moving the rube around incorrectly would trigger some combat mechanism like the tree.

”I’m going to try and manipulate the cube. It may cause enemies to appear, so be on guard,” Jake said as he extended a string of mana. The cube happily responded as Jake moved one of the rows, making it turn, and-

”-oody waste of- wait, what the fuck?”

Just as Jake manipulated the cube, the bearded man suddenly appeared. Jake looked confused at him as he looked back at them with a confused expression. ”Did you drag me back or what the actual fuck just happened?” the bearded man asked.

”We just moved the cube,” the shadow assassin explained.

”Oh.”

Jake ignored their conversation as he sensed the area. Faint traces of space-affinity mana surrounded the spot where the bearded man had appeared, and when Jake really focused on himself, he noticed something. A small mark, not dissimilar to his own Mark of the Avaricious Hunter was on his body, or more accurately, his soul.

”Someone try to leave the valley,” Jake said, needing a guinea pig.

”Here we go again,” the bearded man said, not even asking twice as he took flight and began flying away. Meanwhile, Jake turned the cube repeatedly. The moment the fire and ice mage was a few hundred meters away, he got teleported back where he had originally been, still firing flames out of his feet.

”Okay, fuck this,” he complained. ”Ya messin’ with me, or we actually stuck?”

”Seems like it,” the shadow assassin said, looking quite worried. The others did so too, especially the fire and ice mage and the rogue looked very bothered. The earth mage didn’t visibly display any signs of being annoyed or put off, though Jake theorized that had more to do with honor than his actual feelings.

Jake sighed internally. That pulse earlier had likely been the source of the mark, and when Jake inspected it more closely, he had no idea how to remove it. He did feel like it would disappear within a day or so, though. He guessed the lower duration was the trade away for it being hard to remove… or maybe it was just far above his level.

So, solve the puzzle or be stuck here for a day doing nothing… I guess this is the system’s way of not just letting people run between the most straightforward challenges, Jake concluded.

”What’s the game plan?” the rogue woman asked, looking up at the cube. ”I don’t know anything about these magic things.”

”I know a bit,” the shadow assassin chimed in, seeming truthful.

fucking hate shit like this,” the ice and fire mage said, making it obvious

magic circles,” the earth mage

all looked at Jake. He just shrugged. ”I don’t

solid grasp on these kinds of magic circles or runes or anything like that. He was just a fast learner and generally good at magic, which he leveraged when it came to

basically fucked,” the shadow

mark keeping us trapped will be gone in around a day,” Jake informed the others. ”Also, the

He hadn’t realized the way his words could be interpreted before he saw three of them back away from him slightly. The three – all except the elemental mage

glance,

sure

seems risky. Someone else could just come around and move the cube and teleport me back.

the fire and ice mage

the three wary people. ”The best way to not tempt me into believing going full murderhobo is the best option would be to

he took out a small notebook and began writing stuff

to realize the best choice was to actually try

firing an arrow at the

That didn’t work either.

to finding and exploiting the resources of the local land. It was why settlers

all the valuables were hidden. However, often these natives were not friendly. Sometimes diplomacy simply wasn’t working, or, more often than not, it wasn’t considered worth it to ally with them. With superior power,

in his eyes not foes to hunt down but beasts to use. They knew of the land and where the valuables

his side going into the Hunt. It was the pathfinder named Summer whose primary skill was her ability to mark and see through the eyes of others. This ability proved extremely useful

a hard time deciding if keeping the woman around or not was the smart choice. He was aware of her stalker tendencies, and he was

until he realized that those stalker tendencies had been turned to him. She was the kind of lunatic that fixated on a single target, and her type seemed to be the man who had everything… and apparently, Sultan fit that description. He would have thought someone like Mr. Thayne was more her type, but perhaps even she had a tinge of sanity in her mind making her not pursue

her – a rule he had followed – she had only become more servile and obsessed. Ultimately, however, he decided just to make use of her. She was in his mind an indentured servant, working with him until anything else was demanded of him or circumstances changed. He did not fear betrayal either, as she was bound by the

craftsmen and women, and he had made ample use of the System Store. However, it was more what simply being related to Haven granted him. It was like a protective shield hung over him. Once people knew where he was

that he feared getting into a

Not again.

servant but was in all but title a slave. She had no possibility of fleeing, no passport to travel, and was

began taking advantage, no one stood up or said anything. When she got pregnant, the man simply tossed her out onto the streets, not a

raise her son, but he still had to do many things to survive. Out of all the people he had ever known, his own mother was still the person he respected the most. That was also why he would never take advantage of a slave

he believed deserved it. He still remembered the day he looked his father in the eyes as he took everything from him. The day he destroyed his own ’family’ and left the formerly prestigious man in shambles, a poor

working as a servant. Sultan had believed the old man would have killed himself, but no, the old bastard had been too much of a coward to do that. Could Sultan have ended his father’s life? Yes, he easily could… but the day he saw the pure misery in his eyes, he knew a life of servitude was a worse punishment than death. He had come to believe that for those in power to be dragged from their high towers into the streets to struggle with at the lowest rung of society was the best punishment. Ah, but that didn’t mean there were no celebrations when he heard his father died of a heart attack from overworking

was also fully aware many would view him as a hypocrite who was just as bad as those he despised, and he wasn’t going to argue against it. He didn’t need to be a good person – just competent enough

top of the tower, and Sultan was perfectly fine with that. He had his own rules and his own creeds, just like Sultan himself, and as long as the merchant managed to identify those and play within the Chosen’s rules, he should be fine. In the end, it was all about benefits and perception –

have located the closest Vault

he brought his ship to the Treasure Hunt, anything else would be silly – and set course for where Summer directed. He leaned back as they sailed through the

them long to reach their destination, where he found the Ekilmares fighting. Those controlled by him were clearly losing, but that was only to be expected. An unfortunate downside with domination was that often the dominated targets weren’t as powerful. It wasn’t due to a reduction in stats or anything like that, but simply the fact that any being not moving according to its own will wouldn’t be

Ultimately, it could simply be system-imposed rules, but alas, it was just something he