The Eternal Assassin

"Sam!" Brian shouted, running over and giving the bear a big hug. "Asher used one of his skills on me! It's sooo cool!"

"Oh did he now?" The bear asked, removing its head and revealing the missing hunter wrapped within the thick bearskin. Raising her eyebrow toward Asher, she patted the top of Brian's head, smiling at her brother. "You can tell me all about it later. Do you mind grabbing some fresh water so I can start on dinner?"

Eagerly nodding, Brian grabbed a hanging bucket and took off toward the nearby well they shared with a few of their neighbors. As soon as he was out the door Samantha sighed, taking off the bearskin before carefully folding it and placing it by the side of the door. Planting her hands on her hips, she gave him a questioning look.

"Do I need to be concerned about your skill?"

"Doubtful. So long as he doesn't get wet he probably won't explode."

Giggling, Samantha rolled her eyes before walking past him to the kitchen and grabbing a few pans.

"I'm sure he'll tell me all about it when he gets back. How was your day?"

"Pretty good," Asher said, grabbing plates and utensils from the drawers he'd seen Samantha take them from last night as he set the table. "Spent the whole thing hunting heavy boars. Not the most exciting, but good skill practice."

"Not the most exciting," he heard Samantha mutter under her breath as she began slicing up that strange fruit Brian had purchased from the farmer yesterday. Despite having the general shape and color of a pumpkin, the inside looked almost more like a watermelon. "Most people stay clear from their meadows, you know. All it takes is one misstep and you're boar food."

"Oh trust me, I know," he laughed, remembering his shattered arm. "While we're on the topic, is there anywhere in the village I can sell their tusks? I ended up collecting a good number of them."

"Exactly how many is 'a good number?' And where are you keeping them?" Samantha asked, her eyes roaming around the room as if she expected to find a pile of monster tusks poorly hidden under one of their crochet blankets.

"Somewhere safe. And I killed nine boars, so I have eighteen tusks," he said, double checking his Personal Rift with a thought to confirm. Thankfully he was able to sense the exact contents of his rift without having to open it and root around inside. "I was kinda surprised. It felt like with each boar I killed it grew harder to find the next one."

"Eighteen tusks?" Samantha repeated, dropping her knife and staring at him, her mouth agape. "How in the realms did you manage to take down nine heavy boars on your own? Don't you fight with a dagger?"

"Let's just say I fight rather well with a dagger," he shrugged, feeling slightly embarrassed by her stare. "The boars weren't nearly as hard a fight as that demon back in the tower. I was actually going to ask you if there were any more dangerous monsters that spawned around here."

Samantha stared at him for a long moment before sighing. She went back to preparing dinner, but Asher didn't miss the slight frown on her face.

"To answer your first question, nobody in the village is going to be willing to pay for more than a few heavy boar tusks, let alone eighteen. There is a caravan of merchants that swing by once a month, however, and I can introduce you to one that specializes in monster parts. They should be arriving any day now."

"Thanks, I'd really appreciate it. I'd be happy to split-"

Asher froze at the kitchen knife currently being brandished toward his face, and he took a step back reflexively when he saw Samantha's frown deepen.

"I'm trying to work my way out of being indebted to you, not push myself in further," she said, her words surprisingly cold. "I certainly appreciate your company, but I don't want your charity. Besides, it's not shards that I need," she said, muttering the last bit as she went back to preparing dinner.

"As for your monster request… the meadow with the heavy boars is the only consistent spawning ground around here. You'll run into the random monster or two exploring the forest if you're not careful, but that's about it. And like you noticed, I'm pretty sure the meadow needs time to summon more boars after they're slain. I won't pretend like I know how it works, but I remember hearing a few overzealous fighters who spent the night in the village a few years back talk about trying to maximize their profits from the meadow. They didn't look nearly so excited limping out of the forest the next day carrying the corpse of one of their own on their shoulders."

Well damn, there goes that idea. Asher sighed, wondering what he should do tomorrow. He was so used to the busy routine of his old life that now that his day consisted of more than just wake up, drive to work, drive home, enjoy a few hours of relaxation if he was lucky before going to bed, he didn't know what to do with himself. He could spend another day farming the heavy boars, but he was already growing a bit bored of fighting them. Not to mention it was taking him longer and longer to find each new boar the more he killed.

On the other hand, he should probably put up with the boredom a bit longer if it meant earning shards and unlocking the rest of his skills. Due to the growing cost for each element, some quick math told him it would cost him 230,000 shards to unlock the remainder of his skills. And while that sounded like an absolute fortune for any normal person, he could probably hit that in only a few weeks of fighting heavy boars. Less if he managed to sell the tusks to the merchant Samantha mentioned.

"Hey Samantha… What do people do with shards after they've unlocked all their skills? Are they just money at that point?"

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By now the hunter was frying up some slices of meat, and the aroma was already making Asher's mouth water. Tossing a few spices into the pan, she shook her head.

"Even if you can afford to unlock all your elemental skills there are plenty more things to spend shards on, like fueling enchantments, resistances, or skill evolution. After you get a skill up to level 20, it costs 100,000 shards to evolve it to the next tier. All of my skills have been sitting at level 20 for a while now, but I'll likely never be able to save up enough shards to evolve them."

"A hundred thousand," Asher muttered, realizing that meant it would cost someone one and a half million shards to evolve all fifteen of their skills. "That seems like quite the jump in cost."

"You're not even thinking about the base problem," she snorted, the last of the cold aura she was giving off earlier finally vanishing. "You forgot that few people ever even gain a second element in the first place, let alone a third. For most of us, our origin element is all we'll ever have. Even if someone ends up stumbling upon a naturally formed element, oftentimes they'll elect to sell it. Depending on the element you can get a truly obscene number of shards."

I wonder how rare stumbling into two naturally occurring elements is, Asher thought as Samantha began cutting off a few pieces of cheese from a rather large chunk she'd pulled from somewhere. "Out of curiosity, if you could pick your other two elements, what would they be?"

"Now there's a question I haven't heard in a while," Samantha smiled, seemingly lost in a memory. "Growing up, that's all any kid talks about. What they think their origin element is going to end up being and what elements they'd want to find one day. Back then, my favorite combination was always Forest, Wing, and Lightning. Forest to take after my parents, Wing because I wanted the ability to fly, and Lightning because it sounded cool," she admitted, making thunder sounds and pretending to shoot lightning bolts from her fingertips. The tips of her ears turned pink as she realized what she'd just done, and she quickly lowered her hands. "I think just about every kid ends up hoping for lightning at one point or another," she added defensively.

"I definitely see the appeal," Asher laughed, causing her already pink ears to shift to bright red. "Would those still be your picks now?"

"The Wing element for sure," she nodded, busying herself with divvying out the food and trying to hide her blushing face behind her hair. "I bet flying would be the greatest feeling in the world. As for the last one…" She hummed, taking some time to think about her final choice as she finished preparing for dinner. After a minute or two, she seemed to come to a decision. "Forest, Wing, and Water. Definitely Water."

"Water? Why Water?"

"Despite it being one of the more common elements, Water is pretty highly sought after. It often gives a healing-related skill, so people with the Water element are always able to find work regardless of where they go. Not to mention I like the idea of being able to swim underwater without having to come up for air. If I had both the Wing and Water elements, there wouldn't be anywhere in this realm I wouldn't be able to explore," she explained, smiling at the thought.

"If I run into either of those elements, I'll be sure to send them your way," Asher said, laughing at the mixture of annoyance and excitement on Samantha's face. Despite not wanting to fall any further into his debt, it seemed her desire for those two elements was powerful enough to outweigh her dislike of charity.

Throwing open the front door, a struggling Brian finally staggered in, sloshing water all over the floor as he desperately tried to lug a bucket he'd filled far too much over to the kitchen. Sighing, Samantha got up and grabbed a towel that she seemed to keep near the door for this very reason as she mopped up the spill.

"Brian, how many times do I have to tell you? If you only fill the bucket halfway you'd be able to make two trips and be done faster than if you try to fill the entire thing!"

"Sorry Sam," Brian said automatically, as though this was just part of their daily routine. Using what was left in the bucket to fill a few wooden cups, he quickly placed them on the table before sitting down, eagerly looking at Asher.

"So what other skills do you have?" He asked, yelping as a still dripping towel was placed onto his head.

"You know that's rude, Brian," Samantha frowned, grabbing the last of their food from the kitchen and joining them at the table. Dinner was a mouthwatering plate of freshly cooked meat, cheese, and bread, with a side of fresh melon, and for the first time since arriving on this world, Asher silently thanked the wizard for dragging him away from his lonely nights of microwavable dinners. It wasn't that he didn't know how to cook, and in fact he enjoyed doing it when he could, but he often just didn't have the time or energy left after all the shifts he had to work.

"Actually, why is it rude?" Asher asked, thanking Samantha for the meal and digging straight into it. "I would have assumed people went around bragging about their skills all the time."

"There are definitely some people who do that," Samantha nodded. "…But those are normally people with all three of their elements. I guess we don't talk about our skills because we don't want to admit we only have our origin element?" She said, almost asking it more than saying it. "I never really thought too hard about it before."

I suppose most people can't tell how many elements a person has just by looking at them.

"I don't really mind talking about what my skills can do… But I think two of my elements might be a bit uncommon. I want to do some research before I go around talking about them," he finally admitted.

"I don't think you have anything to worry about, there are all sorts of strange elements out there," Samantha said, giving him a reassuring smile. "But if that is what you want, your best bet would be to travel to an actual city. Every city in the Noala kingdom has a library that you could use to do some research. I think Whikoga is the closest. It should only take about three or four days if you go by carriage, twice that on foot."

"Maybe that's what I'll do after I sell the tusks I collected," Asher said, happy that he had some goal for the near future. "I'm sure the two of you will be happy to have me out of your hair again after all."

Laughing, he did his best to fend off Brian's pleas that he change his mind and stay with them for a while longer, the boy even going so far as to offer to show him the bow and arrows he was working on, clearly forgetting that they were supposed to be a secret.

But all the while, he couldn't help but notice how Samantha's smile and laughter as she teased her brother about his secret project felt just the tiniest bit forced. How the hunter seemed to look away from him anytime he caught her gaze. Asher had a hunch that there were a lot of conflicting thoughts going through her head right now, but he decided not to ask her about it. She'd already given him a place to stay and helped him learn about this new world, and he didn't want to impose on the two of them any more than he already had. Besides, he wasn't really a 'people person' anyway. It was why he'd decided to become a mortician in the first place.

So why did the thought of leaving the two of them behind make his chest feel so tight?