Bounty

A few days before Winslow taught his Granddaughter about their family art, on the edge of the Henril Kingdom on the border of the Ether forest, a group of rough-looking men stood or sat around bored.

Some sat on barrels and had makeshift tables between them where they could drink and gamble. Some leaned on the wooden walls of the quickly built temporary walls to protect this frontier town from the monsters in the area.

These "guards" looked more like bandits, with all the bottles of alcohol dumped in the area and with a few of them beating each other up.

Two specific bandits sat with bored expressions as they leaned against their weapons next to the entrance of the town. They both looked dead as they stared blankly into the forest. This job was the most boring thing in the world since nothing ever happened here.

There were only a few monsters that were in the area that would actually bother attacking so many strong evolvers. The majority of those here in this border town were 2nd and 3rd Rings since this was more of a military outpost rather than a town for civilians.

Of course, there were still a few of those kinds of people here, but even they were strong evolvers as well.

"Hey Phil, why did we take this job again?" A bald man in a green tank top yawned and picked his ear.

The man he addressed had a buzz cut and tattoos sleeves under his plain grey shirt. He leaned against his spear and didn't look at his shift partner.

"Mmm," the man named Phil grumbled, "I think the boss said somethin' about keepin' an eye out for his girl."

"Ugh..." the other man, Derrell, groaned.

There was another long moment of silence between the two until Derrell spoke up again.

"Hey, you see that?"

"You mean trees? I'm not playing eye-spy with you again." Phil cursed the idiot beside him and rolled his eyes.

"No I'm serious man, there's somethin' there!" He pointed toward the trees, able to pick out a figure of sorts.

"Were you smokin' again? Just shut up and go to sleep before I make you." Phil scoffed and kept his eyes on the boring forest.

However, he suddenly saw the same boring forest have a figure going by. He narrowed his eyes and sat up straighter. Derrell was cursing his partner but Phil wasn't paying attention to his words.

Phil slowly got up and moved carefully to where he last saw the figure. Derrell at this point followed his strange acting partner and started complaining about how no one believed anything he said.

The other bandit-like guys in the area also noticed and laughed at them, knowing those two were told to "babysit" basically.

Phil reached the area he last saw the figure and carefully used his spear to move away some of the branches and brush that were blocking his vision. He spotted a pair of feet, covered in dirt and blood.

He narrowed his eyes as he moved farther forward to see the entire figure. It looked female, but she was in terrible shape. Her entire body was covered in blood and dirt and her clothes were in tatters. Her raven black hair was singed to different lengths and her lips were cracked and blue from her dehydration and hypothermia.

When the two guards saw this female, they both paled.

"I-Is that really her? I thought she was for sure dead already!" Darrell leaned on a tree and held his mouth to prevent himself from vomiting.

"I had hoped so too... She's too much like the Boss..." Phil shook in his spot.

This woman who was on death's door was an existence that had tortured many of the people here at this outpost, and hundreds more back home further inland.

By now, a crowd had formed around them as the bored bandit-looking people saw the two guards found something. With nothing better to do, they went over but immediately regretted it. All of them paled and shivered in their boots.

Someone threw up and someone even peed his pants. A very tall and muscular man who towered over his peers started bawling as he unconsciously held a hand up to his crotch and closed his thighs together.

Those around him patted his shoulders and back in comfort and relived their own trauma. This woman, no- Demon, in front of them, was none other than Kate. The r**ist.

Her horrible habit of forcing men into forcing her down made even the manliest of men cower in fear. She made them lose their dignity and defiled their bodies regardless of whether they had a wife or girlfriend or not.

Her reckless actions caused many hearts to break and many wed bonds to shake. The men here had all lost something to her, whether it be dignity or a loved one or something in between, it all brought them closer together this way.

Her father, of course, was their Boss. His name was Horizon, and he was the leader of this faction of rebels. To most outside of the Henril Kingdom, they were unaware of the situation inside since the kingdom did such a good job of keeping mouths shut.

The kingdom was currently in a civil war, and Horizon was the unofficial leader of the rebel alliance. He may look like a criminal, and all his subordinates looked like them too, but looks were deceiving.

The proof was in the pudding by the woman named Kate who looked like your average beauty but hid a nasty personality behind it. These men were a part of the border brigade that was stationed along the Ether forest border to prevent unwelcomed guests from sticking their noses into the affairs of Henril.

While they were the opposing faction, Henril natives were very stubborn and refused outside help. They were a mostly self-sufficient kingdom and tried to stay out of foreign affairs if they could help it. Most of the other kingdoms got used to it, but some, more nosy, kingdoms like the Sorketh Kingdom wanted to see what they were hiding.

They weren't hiding anything specific, but they did have an extremely well-trained army and advanced weaponry and radar systems powered by e-stones that could alert them to enemies far away from them.

While radar technology was known on earth, here on Nova, it was brand new! So they, in fact, did have something to hide but as the nation who first invented it, they didn't think it was super special. They just used it to find spies from other kingdoms who suspiciously hung around the outside of cities without going in.

They were also using it a ton in their civil war so there was a race to build anti-radar devices and that was exactly why Horizon sent his daughter to the Floren area to search for that treasure. He was hoping it would be something worthwhile that could help turn this war in his favor.

He was a brilliant strategist and used mostly guerilla warfare but it was effective in preventing the Kingdom's army from overwhelming his own forces.

"C-Can't we pretend we just never saw her?" Derrell turned to his partner while wiping his old lunch off his face.

"We can't unfortunately. If he finds her dead, we are dead anyways." Phil shook his head and hated having to be the level-headed one.

He went down and picked up the unconscious woman while the others backed away from him and made a path so he could make his way into the fort.

All the other men around said their prayers and hugged each other as they hoped for a safe life. One of them even ended up killing himself from all the trauma she caused so they had a funeral for him, making the atmosphere of the fort even worse while the young woman who was recovering was on her way to meet her father for the first time in almost a year.

- - -

"General Horizon, you're daughter is here." A woman in a receptionist-looking outfit spoke through the open door of her Lord's office.

He had an open-door policy that allowed anyone to come to him if they had questions. He did this to keep them more open with him about the affairs of the alliance and to prevent a rift from forming between the higher officers and the soldiers.

He knew he couldn't afford to deal with internal affairs in such a losing war. His troops just weren't trained well enough so unless he could somehow beat his enemies' radar system, he was only delaying his inevitable demise.

"My daughter is back?" General Horizon looked up confused.

He wasn't expecting her to be back for at least another 2 years or so. The Ether forest was a very dangerous place and she had yet to determine the final location of the treasure and even he wasn't sure what kind of dangers would be in there.

Since he couldn't send any of his strongest men from off of the frontlines, he told his daughter to grow stronger with the help of the forest and slowly complete the dungeon that housed the treasure.

However, he had no way of knowing that it was guarded by several dozen 3rd Rings! His daughter would have to be at least a high-level 3rd Ring herself, maybe even 4th Ring in order to complete that dungeon which would take much longer than 2 years.

The civil war would probably be over before then.

"Bring her here then. I'll here her report myself." He said as he started cleaning up what he was doing.

A few minutes later, his daughter came in with a blanket around her. He narrowed his eyes as the first thing he noticed was the huge bandage wrapped around her chest and abdomen. The second, and more surprising thing that made his 7th Ring aura escape him, was the slave collar on her neck.

"What the hell is that thing doing on your neck?!" He yelled and pointed to her neck.

Kate looked down and smiled wryly. 'Was this why everyone gave me weird looks?' She thought but it was only 20% true. The other 80% was the fear and hope that she would have died on her mission.

"It's my punishment for failing the mission." She said with a straight face.

"BULL-FUCKING-SHIT!! We don't have those horrid tools in my alliance so how the hell did someone get one on you?!" His rage seethed but he was careful not to direct his aura to his wounded daughter.

For a 7th Ring, he had especially good control over his aura. Since the aura was in turn, connected to the soul in ways, it meant his soul was strong and flexible enough for him to move his aura where he wanted it.

Kate sighed, feeling tired from her deadly journey home where she encountered too many strong beasts to count. She spent most of her time hiding and scavenging and covering up her tracks so monsters wouldn't catch on to her presence.

It worked for the most part, but sometimes, especially the high-level ones would be able to find her. If it wasn't for her special skills, she would have been long dead.

"I fought someone near the border of the Sorketh Kingdom and when I was injured by my skill's backlash. Even if I didn't have backlash, I probably couldn't beat him though." Kate looked off into the distance with a dumb grin on her face.

Her father twitched the corner of his mouth since this was the exact look she got when she found another "play toy." But his mind was mostly on the man she mentioned who beat her. In her Ring and even a bit higher, she had no match.

Her strange skills allowed her to also take on multiple enemies and he would know since he gave her treasures for those skills. The only downside was that she would get periodic backlashes where her own skill would attack her.

If she was lucky, she would be injured in a non-vital spot, or it could be like her time against Alex, where it was a more vital area. Her injuries weren't caused in battle, it was just her own doing.

Horizon continued to think before asking, "Is he the one who put that on you?"

He was a smart man who had to govern millions. If he couldn't connect the dots to his daughter's story, he would give up and surrender right now.

"Yes, I let him," She smiled and her father shivered, "He was so strong, the way he pinned me down and force his cum insi-" *AHEM!!!*

She was cut out of her daydream by her father's loud clearing of his voice. She glared at him and scoffed but didn't say anything else. He asked a few more questions about the incident and found out the young man took his map.

He was furious, so after his daughter left, he put a bounty on this young man's head. He needed that treasure no matter what and would give anything for it.

Little did he know that neither him nor the young man who took it, could even use it since it was specifically made to be used by a Beastman.

And Beastmen were extinct in the Henril Kingdom.