Depthless Hunger

Two days later, Kai was beginning to realize just how much of his life had been dictated by his hypothetical future.

Anywhere he'd gone in Monskon City, doors had been open to him as a promising young hunter. While they weren't closed in his face now, it was obvious that the attention of the city had gone toward those who had been most successful. Older veterans who had volunteered time in the practice yards were now too busy to work with him. They all apologized with smiles on their faces and made excuses, but he knew what they meant.

The same day that the Hunters Guild had rejected him, Kai had struck back with a thousand plans. Even if he didn't have a useful Class, even if they wouldn't give him what he was due, he would find a way to keep up.

And again, he'd discovered that his life would never be the same. He'd sent letters to the Lantrian, Orgoron, and Corinin clans... only for them to simply not respond. They'd never ignored him like that in the past, even if they declined his requests for extra training. Above all, the other members of the Granfian clan treated him more like a disabled veteran than a young warrior.

Their pity made him spend more time out in the city, which might as well have been a new place. Oh, he was still allowed everywhere, but he saw it with new eyes. Instead of focusing on the highest institutions, he found himself noticing just how much better the streets were in the upper city. Even the part of the lower city where the Granfian clan lived was much better maintained than others, much less the shacks outside the outer wall where citizens were at great risk of monster attacks.

Once, he'd thought that the citizens held an attitude of grateful respect toward the hunters who kept them safe so near the Frontier. Now, it looked more like deference. He never saw a hunter exploit anyone, but given how much more powerful their Classes made them, did they need to? Instead of Goralia being a nation of people all working together, he saw a hierarchy determined by dumb luck.

None of it was fair, but he couldn't do a damn thing about any of it.

As Kai approached the mercantile square, he wondered if even the merchants were looking at him differently. Since he no longer had easy access to the clan's resources, he had begun buying mana-infused items from an elderly woman who ran a stall. She certainly glowered at him, but it seemed like she glowered at everyone.

"You again? What now?" She sucked on her gums as she eyed him from within a fortress of hanging ferns and piles of jars.

"I've converted my monster cores this time." Kai forced himself to smile pleasantly as he hefted his bag of coins. He had thought he could have traded with the raw cores before, but he'd been forced to sell them for proper currency.

"Good. Children these days, trading oozing cores." The old woman glowered at his bag of coins for a time. "Well? What do you want?"

It was a question he hoped to answer soon. Kai had sold all of the cores he'd collected except for the five largest, which he still hoped to find another use for. That left him with 176 Goralian Eagles, which was more money than he'd ever carried before, but not much compared to the amounts he heard veteran hunters discuss. How far it went... he was about to find out.

"I was interested in one of these sanitation stones," Kai said. "How much?"

"Ten Eagles for the pumice. More for the nice-smelling ones."

His eyebrows shot up. Sanitation stones kept a person clean and not smelling awful - he hadn't been interested in actually buying one so much as checking it as the cheapest magical object he knew. "What about a magical tent?"

"Hmph, how long is a piece of string?" The old woman shook her head. "That one you see hanging in back will cost you two hundred and fifty. They go higher."

So magical equipment was a lot more expensive than he had expected. When it came to average food and supplies, everything was cheap enough that he'd need to break his Goralian Eagles into smaller coins. By the austere standards of the Granfian clan, one Eagle was about a month of expenses. But none of that was what he cared about in the short term.

The woman sold simple healing potions for a few Eagles apiece, and hunter-grade potions for twenty or more. Kai didn't buy any of them, since he still hoped he would be able to talk to Juray and get a better deal, but that was much worse than he had hoped. Even if he was careful, the injuries he received hunting monsters on his own would consume most of his profits.

"No idle questions! You'd better actually buy something," the old woman groused, "or I'll be cross."

"Oh dear," Kai said, "I wouldn't want you to be cross."

"Hush. You haven't seen me more than disgruntled."

He couldn't afford to antagonize her, so Kai moved to his next goal. "These are moonfire herbs, right? For enhancement potions?"

"Seven apiece, thirty for a bundle of five. But you don't look like you know anything about herbalism."

"I'll manage somehow." Kai managed a smile and bought a whole bundle. From what he'd seen, the type of enhancement potions that the winning candidates had received cost at least a hundred Eagles. The ones he could make himself wouldn't be as potent, but they'd prevent him from falling too far behind.

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"Anything else?"

"I guess I just wanted to ask... do you sell mana seedlings here?"

For the first time, the old woman actually looked surprised. She blinked owlishly within her little fortress before responding. "I could maybe get my hands on one if I had a buyer. But you're going to be looking at a thousand Eagles, minimum. Depending on the market. I'd ask if you want to order one, but frankly..."

"Right, no thank you." Kai nodded to her and moved away before he could flush.

Once again, he'd entirely underestimated just how much it would cost. The Hunters Guild and the major clans poured thousands of Eagles worth of resources into their top candidates. No amount of solo monster hunting, much less a normal job, was ever going to let him pay for it himself.

As he walked to his next destination, Kai tried to think of a way forward. If he had no ambitions, he had enough money to live comfortably for years. Trying to become a true monster hunter without any support, he could burn through it all in days. Worse, he wouldn't be able to stay in the Granfian clan forever unless he proved himself, which would only add to his expenses.

No wonder the Hunter Trials made all the difference. It was the only way that someone without clan backing could afford to train... and that path had been taken away from him by his useless Class.

His muscles ached more than he had expected after that morning's training session. Kai was still pushing himself as hard as he could, even without magical support. He could suffer through some pain without potions to ease the aches, but the physical exercises that had once been his life were no longer enough. After two days of grueling work, he felt like he hadn't progressed at all.

When he reached Juray's shop, Kai barely glanced at the window and almost walked on. After two days of finding her absent, he had begun to wonder if she was ignoring him too. The fact that she had opened up her storefront was so unexpected it took him a second to accept it.

"Oh, Kai!" Juray had been working with a mortar and pestle, but began wiping off her hands when she saw him. Far from avoiding him, she smiled rather broadly. "I haven't seen you since the Hunter Trials."

"I tried to stop by," Kai said, "but I didn't see you."

"I'm so sorry about that. The guild has been commissioning me constantly since the trials, restoring their supply of potions and all of that sort of thing. Do you need something?"

He dropped the bundle of moonfire herbs onto her counter. "I've tried to research enhancement potions. These are the main ingredient, right? Could you mix one for me?"

Immediately he saw the sorrow enter her expression, but at least it wasn't pity. Juray barely looked at the herbs, instead examining his face. "The guild judged you, did they?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If they judge someone doesn't have enough value to them, everything changes. I've seen it before, starting with myself. I was never a fighter, so I can't really understand what you're going through, but... I'm sorry that it turned out this way, Kai."

Her compassion didn't grate quite as much as the others, but Kai still frowned and pushed through. "Thanks, but that's life. Can you make the potion or not?"

"I certainly can, it just depends on what exactly you want. You won't... I may not be an expert in training, but I know my craft. You won't be able to maintain all of the amenities that the clan scions can. If you want to advance without them, you'll need other strategies."

"I know." This, at least, seemed more like a test than condescension. Kai reached into his sack and dropped one of the largest monster cores onto the table - he'd had it encased in crystal to keep it fresh. "If all you care about is power, you can brew a potion with more toxicity, right?"

Juray's eyebrows rose slowly. "Well, you're more ambitious than I thought. Yes, I can extract some mana from a monster core of sufficient quality... which that seems to be. It wouldn't be the sort of thing you'd want to take to enhance your training - that sort of potion is grueling enough on its own."

As far as he'd read, potions like that were basically poisoning yourself, but they were the only kind within reach. "I only want to use them to break through walls," Kai explained. "I don't understand everything about them yet, but I can push through normal advancement with effort."

"I'm afraid I know even less about that. My Class doesn't have any severe breaks in power like the military ones. But yes, with these and just a few other ingredients, I can make you one hefty potion. This is from the Direboar? With ingredients of this quality, the result should be equal to anything the clans can produce."

"How much will the brewing cost?"

Juray tapped a finger on her lips for a while, examining him with a strange expression, then answered slowly. "If you agree to bring me all of the rarest ingredients you find or buy, I won't charge you anything."

"Are you sure?" Kai asked. "Is that really a fair deal?"

"It's not pity, if that's what you think." Juray crossed her arms and leaned against the wall of her storefront. "One of the main things that prevents me from growing as an herbalist is lack of expensive ingredients. I could brew amazing potions like the prizes for the Hunter Trials all the time if I had the resources, but most of the year those are all being taken by better healers, or those with rarer Classes. I'll never develop just brewing the same old potions for aches and pains."

"Then consider it a deal." Kai suspected that she was trying to hide her generosity, since there was little hope that he would bring her rare ingredients, but he would take what kindness he could get. Juray was one of the only people who hadn't changed how she treated him, so he made sure to smile at her before he departed.

Was it her ordinary Class that held her back in life? He'd always thought that she could get married easily, given how attractive she was. Just owning a shop put her well ahead of most inhabitants of the city, so she should have been a catch for any man. But thinking about that didn't do him any good, especially since she was one of his only allies in his new life.

On his way back home, Kai was thinking so much about his next training session that he bumped shoulders with another man. He automatically apologized and was surprised when the middle-aged worker quickly apologized and moved away.

He realized that he'd been wrong earlier: the average citizens of the city hadn't changed how they treated him. It wasn't just that laborer, everyone he'd encountered had been a bit deferential. Since he wasn't important enough for any of them to have heard about his Class, it might be that the difference didn't matter to them. For the average citizen, anyone who even dreamed of becoming a monster hunter was high above them.

It should have made him grateful, but Kai stormed back in a worse mood. All around him, he saw citizens trudging between home and work, barely putting food on the table. They never dared to dream of anything else, they just accepted their fate.

The same thing wouldn't happen to him. He wouldn't allow it. Kai hated what that thought implied about his view of all the citizens he was supposed to protect, but he shoved the thought down and got back to work.