The Primal Hunter

It turned out that poor old Polsted had been held up at home by a fourth accomplice of the people trying to rob his store. Everything had been part of some big conspiracy where the young man had been a new employee who was just there to scope out the place, and after learning where the jeweler lived, they followed him home one day and held him at swordpoint. From there, they would spend the next day robbing the store, and the reason the young man had been the only one in the store was to inspect the magical seals on the display cases and eventually dismantle them.

The Darkeye Diamond hadn’t even been part of the expected haul. It was pure coincidence Jake had come by that day, and the thieves had assumed they could just rob the stupid Courier along with the rest of the store. That, or Jake’s insistence on seeking out Polsted had put a target on his head.

Of course, Jake knew there weren’t actually any coincidences going on, but a carefully crafted scenario that tested the Courier and kind of set the stage from the get-go for how these jobs would work. Jake wouldn’t be surprised if the easy option had been to just deliver a letter in a mailbox, with the medium option being something in between that and what Jake had to do.

Jake’s takeaway from the first job was that he had to be careful while delivering stuff, as it was pretty damn easy to mess it up and fail the delivery. It also made a lot more sense he wouldn’t lose one of the three lives if he did mess up, as it would have been so easy. In fact, Jake would guess quite a few would just have given the package to the young man who appeared to be working in the jewelry store. The only reason Jake had been suspicious was because of the very minor clues the young man had given off and the fact he remembered the dwarf calling the one he had to deliver to ”old man Polsted.”

Unless calling him an old man was some weird inside joke between the dwarf and Polsted, Jake had a strong feeling something shady was going on.

After being done with the job of delivering the diamond to Polsted and teaching another robber the literal definition of the phrase ”if looks could kill,” Jake headed back toward the Guild for another job. On the way, he also took the time to reflect a bit on the newly upgraded mythical rarity Primal Gaze. He hadn’t really had a good opportunity to test it since the upgrade, and he had to admit it had gotten a lot stronger than before, especially when it came to the soul-killing part.

In truth, he hadn’t thought it would actually work. He had just hoped to either do some serious damage or knock them out, but the skill turned out to do a bit more than that. True, he had used it with the intent to kill, so it wasn’t like he felt bad about the outcome. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Killing someone around twenty levels below him with a single look was damn good. Before, killing any C-grade outright wasn’t easy, but now it had worked effortlessly, and he got the feeling it would still have been lethal even if they had been a few levels higher. They were pretty weak for their levels, yes, but they were also enlightened and tended to have a bit stronger souls than the average monster.

Then again, it wasn’t like killing them without Gaze would have been hard. A single well-landed stab with Eternal Hunger on each would have gotten the job done just as well. An arrow from a few dozen kilometers away would definitely have, too. But Primal Gaze was definitely the best way to kill them for a few reasons, one more important than the other.

First of all, it was as fast as a kill could be, making it by far the most efficient. Secondly, killing someone with a look had a damn great intimidation factor, and convincing the young man to not only tell him where Polsted was but even turn himself in for his crimes to the guards had been easy as pie after seeing his two friends die from a glance each. It also helped that Jake very much implied the young man could share the same fate as his friends if he didn’t go to the guards.

Third, and most importantly, with the way Primal Gaze worked, Jake would effectively pit his own soul against someone else’s when using the skill. This was actually pretty good exposure training for his own soul to potentially experience a bit of growth simply due to the practice, though he wasn’t sure how much it would help, especially when the targets were so weak.

Oh… and finally, one incredibly vital reason: killing with weapons was messy, and Jake was a good Courier who didn’t also leave the client with an extra unnecessary clean-up fee.

As Jake was still deep in thought, he arrived back at the Guild. It had only been a few hours since he left the first time around, with the only reason it took so long because he had to deal with guards who came to Polsted’s place for a statement after everything was done.

a number as the same dwarf he had talked with the first time called

Courier, over here!” he

could cut the line as he hurried over. Surprisingly, nobody gave him any nasty stares. The dwarf seemed to notice Jake’s surprise and explained as he arrived in front

and few want to walk down that road but prefer to just do other odd jobs,” the dwarf explained. ”Something I am sure I don’t need to

the guards seemed weirdly…

”For someone who entered the Courier industry, you sure know little about it. Oh well, you are promising, so let me give you a quick rundown. Couriers are neutral, unaffiliated individuals who do not answer to or work for any specific faction outside of the Guild. This means you have some levels of diplomatic immunity dependent on the rank of your Medallion, and the Guild is in charge of taking care of any potential trouble you get into. Of course, there are limits, so do control yourself, but in a case like this, you acted in the interest of your

this tale belongs on Royal

this world, he would have just outed himself as either a complete moron who had lived under a rock his entire life. Or maybe it would have outed him as a transdimensional traveler. Well, or, you know, someone just doing a Challenge

on Jake’s lack of

city, and has managed to remain entirely neutral despite the political turmoil. Not to say there aren’t internal problems, but those aren’t for you to

question, but who is the strongest

back the dragon tribes, even slaying the the Dragon King

explanation until he got to the end. There were fucking S-grades in this world. That meant there were also plenty of A-grades and B-grades around. All of this is to say that fucking around could quickly lead to finding out if

him with one other

”Any gods?”

godlike entity, but I am not sure if calling him

nodded as he conducted a minor test. Purposefully, he began to let out a bit of aura from his Shroud of the Primordial. It was the part that signified his Blessing as the Chosen of the Malefic Viper. The aura with divine quality slowly seeped

or do you perhaps want

”Yeah, let me look at the jobs

mess with people at some point. However, it seemed not a single soul could detect it, making Jake believe the Wyrmgod had cut off using divine auras from being a thing. This restriction was probably for the best. It would be an absolutely

three papers. Right

(Easy): Deliver five letters

Job 2 (Medium): Deliver the shipment of Minor Vitae Ruby to