Chapter 4 - Night Hunt

"Duremium?' Germod seemed a little shocked by it, "where did you get this?"

"That will be a secret for now," Sammo grinned, "I might tell you if you get the thing done."

Germod picked up the mace and scrutinised with it for a moment, seemingly in deep thought. The beastman signalled his goon to go outside, and give space for Germod to consider.

After almost five minutes, Germod put the mace back onto the table and smiled, "Sammo, I will tell you what I think you should do. It will just be a suggestion, and you can listen to me or not."

"Go ahead."

"Ok," Germod cleared his throat, "my suggestion is for you to wait for my weapon to finish. I understand that this Duremium is scarce and expensive, but because I do not know the specific way this weapon was forged, I cannot guarantee that the process will be perfect."

"So you cannot use this?" Sammo frowned when he replied.

"No, no, no, I can use this," Germod maintained his smile, "it is simply the fact that I cannot guarantee the quality of the finished product. It will still work, but it probably cannot reach its maximum output."

"That is fine," Sammo answered in his deep and aggressive voice and chuckled, "I think my skill will make up for the imperfection."

"For sure, for sure,"

"Alright, so when will this thing be finished?" Sammo looked toward the clock; it was ten in the morning.

"Tomorrow morning at six, is that fine?"

"Tomorrow? Can you do it faster?"

"Sammo," Germod sighed, it certainly isn't the first time he had to explain to the beastman in front of him, "I can only do my work during the night. If you want to have it today then find someone else, I can't do it." Germod rose up from his seat, "Aedan, please send the guests out."

"Alright, alright," Sammo quickly stood up as well, "I will come tomorrow. But if it isn't ready tomorrow, there will be repercussions."

"Sure," Germod's smile had fainted a bit, "now please leave and let me get ready."

Sammo, without reply, walked out of the cafe and slammed the door close. Aedan could hear faintly of the curses that came out of the beastman.

Many things were bothering Aedan during the entire conversation and were going to question his cousin what was going on. But Germod seemed to know what he was going to ask.

"Listen, Aedan," Germod yarned and walked toward the staircase, "if you want to know what I do, go get dressed, I will teach you soon."

"Hey Germod, can you be any slower?" Aedan waited impatiently in the bar, as thirty minutes had passed since he had changed into a gambesons Germod had prepared for him.

"Why are you so impatient," Germod slowly walked down the staircase, dressed in all black, from his robe to his boots to his pants, with a strange white pattern displayed on the back of the robe, resembling a particular constellation he had seen before upon the night sky.

What was the most surprising, however, was a crossbow he carried with him. It isn't any standard crossbow either, as this particular crossbow had a wooden magazine mounted on the flight groove.

"This is a repeating crossbow. I had it hand-crafted by a master in the capital, so don't break it," Germod tossed it to Aedan who immediately caught it.

"I teach you how to use it once we get out there."

"What do you meant by 'get out there,'" Aedan didn't understand the meaning behind those words.

"We will spend the night out in the desert."

"What?" Aedan shook his head, "no, I am not going to spend the night in the Sych."

"What is wrong with that?" Germod frowned, "didn't you came here through the desert?"

"Half of our caravan were soldiers, that is how we came across the desert!" Aedan exclaimed out of frustration, "are you out of your mind?"

"Listen Aedan," Germod suddenly stopped smiling, which scared Aedan as it was the first time he had seen his cousin not smiling, "I don't want a coward in my business. If you cannot handle going out there with me, then you can get your ass back to that little town you came from, and we will go on our separate ways." Germod stared at Aedan emotionlessly, "so are you going or not."

Going back to town? There is no way that Aedan will do that. Not only because he was exiled by the Baron, but mainly because he was tired of life back in town. He was tired of the farming country life and was ready for something grander. Germod and Tangille provided precisely that.

"Ok ... I will go out there." Aedan sighed.

"Good," smile had returned to Germod's face, "it isn't as dangerous as you think."

"Hey, Germod, How is your day?"

"It has been fine, Iain." Germod's smile widened when he saw the sentinel of the city gate, "are you doing the night shift today?"

"Yeah, with Crannach gone, rest in peace him," the sentinel pointed toward the sky and smiled, "I will have to do double the shift now."

"Alright, well we will be staying out there for the night," Germod pointed at Aedan, who was carrying the crossbow, "he will be working for me from now on, so remember his face alright?"

"Got is sir," Th sentinel chuckled, but then walked near Germod and asked quietly, "so, sir, would I be getting anything for this?'

Of course, what is an exchange without repercussions? Germod's smile continued, "of course, we are friends after all."

"Of course, of course. Well, you all have a good time out there, alright."

They were a mile into the desert when Germod finally stopped and began to set up the targets on the hot, yellow sand. He loaded a full magazine of bolts into the repeating crossbow and hand it over to Aedan one thousand feet away.

"Alright, start shooting at the target, go."

As Germod finished his sentence, Aedan just held onto the trigger and loaded magazine after magazine of bolts into the target.

"Don't worry about the bolts, we have enough for a team of ten," Germod said light-heartedly. Although he was just letting Germod go crazy with the repeater, he did come over here and there to showcase his cousin how to make the weapon more steady, more accurate, and so on.

Very soon, after hours of training, the sun went done, as the day was transitioning into twilight, and the temperature in the desert had gone down dramatically.

"So, Germod?' Aedan asked again.

Germod already knew what the question was going to be before it was even asked, "you want to know why we are out here."

"Yes."

"Ok," Germod sighed and cleared his throat while watching the sun sinking down the horizon, "we have around ten minutes until the creature comes, so I will make it short. Have you heard of something called Enchanting?"

"No?"

"Ok, that is what I thought," Germod smiled as usual, "enchanting is an art that isn't even known well in the magic community, let alone the general public.

"Enchanting is the process of overlaying characteristics or enhancements upon a weapon or any item to make it either better to use or have unique attributes," Germod pointed at the crossbow in Aedan's hand, "that was enchanted by me around two years ago, and it was enchanted to such a way that the crossbow could shoot two times faster and two times longer than a regular crossbow.

"Usually, when someone was to enchant an item, they would need some sort of magical materials and gems and spells. I follow a completely different style than the norm, which is why I have to do my enchantment in the dark."

This had interested the young lad, "wait, so what exactly do you do, isn't there monsters out here in the night?"

"Exactly, and your job for the day," Germod glanced at the crossbow again, "is to kill some desert wolves, which would definitely come at some point before midnight, since they always cross the desert to go from one oasis to the next for the day. This night, we will need to hunt some down for the enchantment."

As Germod finished his sentence, they saw a bunch of desert wolves racing across the desert around a mile away from them, sprinting slightly to the right of their position.

"Ok, now hold," Germod quickly concentrated solely on the wold pack, and counting them one by one, "there is a total of twelve wolves, two barons ... is that a viscount?"

Beasts were differentiated into six categories, and with each level of evolution, the beasts became exceedingly harder to kill while being exceedingly rare.

It starts off with the ordinary beasts which were beasts that one would generally find in the wild. Then there were barons, which usually lived two times longer than the average life span of an ordinary beast, which had absorbed a lot more natural powers and is tougher, faster, and stronger. Then there is the Viscount, which were generally lived three times longer than a baron, and were beginning to grow new physical structures such as horns, spikes, and scales; in addition to those physical enhancements, viscount beasts could generally use generic magic. Earl, Marquess, Duke, and then King, the power of the beast grows to insane levels once they reached the peak, but something like a King was usually a one-off.

This desert wolf that led its pack was surely a viscount, looking at the horn on its forehead and almost nine feet long body length. It had to have lived for at least ninety years to reach its viscount form.

"We caught a big fish tonight huh," Germod seemed very excited to see the Viscount, "alright wait for them to come within five hundred feet and aim for one of the two barons would ya."

"Which one is that?" Aedan had never seen any beast that was above regular.

"The ones that were right behind the leading wolf and wait until they come within five hundred feet and just spray on all of them but the Viscount."

Aedan nodded and wait. Magazine locked and loaded, his fingers on the trigger, waiting silently on the sand under the cloudy night sky. Three thousand feet, two thousand feet, one thousand feet, the target was getting closer.

Aedan had hunted before when he was back in the village, but he had never hunted anything that would fight back, and rabbits and deers and so on. Despite Aedan constantly complaining about the danger of a night hunt out in the desert, when actually being in the position o the hunter, Aedan had became very excited to see some blood.

As he saw the pack enters within the range, he fired. Streams of needle harp darts shot through the crossbow and instantly mowed down almost half of the regular wolves. The barons and the Viscount realised that they were ambushed directly charged toward the two human to revenge their dead pack members.

The human ignored the barons and the Viscount and focused on killing off the rest of the normal wolves, before transferring toward the elites.

"You focus fire on the barons, I will take care of the Viscount."

Aedan heard Germod said those words with almost ecstasy, and he charged toward the Viscount with a strange looking dagger in one and the mace from Sammo in the other.

Attempting to follow Germod's commands, Aedan got up from his shooting position and began running the opposite way to distract the barons. The Viscount howled, tried to communicate with its allies to eliminate the crossbow human first. Then it felt a bizarre feeling of danger and unconsciously stomped the ground with its front paws, as four feet tall sandstone spikes blast out of the ground around him, with each of them pointed with poison.

Most beasts at the level of Viscount or above have some sort of sixth sense to tell whether the danger was coming or not, and sure enough, germod was incredibly close to getting the kills as he was only two feet away from slitting open the beast's throat with the dagger. The sudden spikes forced him to launch himself up almost ten feet to dodge and landed a few feet outside of the spike formation.

"Wait, Germod you are a mage?" Aedan yelled as he was still kitting away from the two barons.

"Yeah, shut up and finish your fight quickly," Germod replied as he swings the mace toward Aedan which almost smashed his head open and rushed toward the Viscount, "use that mace instead, the bolts are not gonna do much to the barons."

"F**k," Aedan cursed under his breath about that almost friendly fire as he ran toward the mace in the sand and as he pulled it out from the sand he swung it around and smashed right into one of the Baron's skull as it was trying to catch up the human. The blood and gore of the broken head splashed all around the human and the other Baron, which blocked its vision and allowed Aedan to finish it off like he did with the other Baron.

Panting from the constant running away from the two Barons.

Just as he rose up and going to help out his cousin, he looked up and saw one of the most horrifying scenes he had seen since his nightmare the night before.

The Viscount was floating lifelessly midair, with its legs dangling down without motion. The eyes of the Viscount Wolf was turned entirely white, and its body seemed to be squeezed dry, while a constant float of dust coloured light drifted away from all exits on the corpse of the dead Viscount into the odd black dagger, while Germod held onto it carelessly in his right while watching calmly at the victim he had finished off.