Chapter 11

"Hello, how can I help you?"

After waiting in line for a while, it was finally James's turn.

"I want to see a list of D rank slaying quests."

"One second"

After saying that, the receptionist reached under his desk and brought out a big book.

After putting it on the desk, he opened it and started flipping through the pages until he reached the D rank slaying missions.

"Here you go."

After saying that he handed James the book still open on the D rank slaying section.

Taking the book, James started going through the missions to find a good one, and after a few minutes he found one.

-Wobit hunt.

A pack of Wobits was found in the forest near the city and hunts anyone who enters the forest.

Request: Exterminate the pack.

Reward: 200 gold coins per Wobit killed.-

'I don't know what Wobits are, but the reward is good, and it should be a good test against many enemies.'

"I will take this mission."

After that both of them just sat in silence for a second.

"I need your card."

"Oh sorry."

James quickly ended over his card while feeling embarrassed.

After putting the card in the compartment and looking over the card's information in what looked like a tablet screen, the receptionist couldn't help but ask.

"Are you sure? A wobit pack might be too much for a beginner mercenary."

"Yes, I'm sure."

The receptionist looked at James like he was looking at an idiot.

After that the receptionist added the mission to James's card and handed it over to him.

"The mission was added to your card, to confirm the kills you need to bring the mana crystals from their bodies, of course, the mana crystals are yours, but we will buy them from you for a good price, same goes for the rest of the body if you can bring it back here."

James nodded.

"If you want, we can send people to bring over the bodies for just 10%."

"No need, cya later."

And so, James got up and started walking away while putting his card in his pocket which turned into swamp and swallowed the card into James's body.

'Why would I need help to carry them when I can just store them in my body for free?'

While James was walking on the streets towards the gates of the city, James couldn't help but think of uses for his swamp swamp fruit, it can store an immense amount of stuff, maybe he can start a moving business or something.

And with those thoughts and other he continued walking until he finally arrived at the entrance to the forest.

'Okay James, it's time to focus.'

Leaving those thoughts for later, James started getting serious and activated his observation haki.

'Nothing in this area.'

And so, James started walking around in the forest while keeping his Haki active, doing so drains his spiritual energy, which is a bit like a spirit's stamina. Using it for a long time can make him exhausted or even lose consciousness, but he can't lower his guard at the moment, one mistake and he might die.

After walking for a long time, sensing harmless small animals and insects, James finally sensed a group of bigger animals.

Walking towards them slowly and quietly James wanted to make a surprise attack.

Which unsurprisingly didn't work since they could smell him coming.

'Fuck.'

James couldn't help cursing when the pack started running towards him and surrounding him.

'That's a wobit?!'

No matter what James imagined when he heard the name, he wasn't imagining bear sized giant wolf bodied rabbit headed monsters.

He now felt like he fucked up a bit, but he wasn't too scared, after all the training he was confident that he can win or at least survive this battle.

James was currently surrounded by 14 wobits and using his observation to focus on all of them at the same time was quite tiring to do, but he didn't have a choice.

Out of nowhere one of the wobits circling him started running at him.

'Oh? You're approaching me?'

When the wobit arrived in front of James with it's claw swinging towards him, James moved to the side with wind walk, dodging the blow.

'First form, Stone hammer'

James brought his leg up and delivered a strong kick to the wobit's side, making it fly away.

After hitting a few trees, the wobit stopped and fell to the ground injured, but it was not down yet, after a few seconds it got up and roared, which seemed to make all the other wobits fired up and more started attack.

'3 this time.'

When they were almost on him, James jumped above them.

'Fourth form: Landslide'

James started delivering many strong and fast kicks to the 3 wobits under him.

After they seemed to have lost consciousness James stopped and dropped to the ground, just for another one to swing their claws at him.

Dodging again, he used another attack.

'Swamp jail'

James delivered a kick to the wobit, similar to stone hammer, making it fly, but before it got away from James's kick, James turned his leg into swamp, making both the wobit and swamp fly away and when they hit a tree, James made the swamp that surrounded the wobit at this point harden and keep it in place.

'Well, time to end this.'

James was getting tired from using his haki so much, so he planned to finish the fight fast.

'Swamp overtake.'

Suddenly, swamp started coming out of James body and covered a large area around him, slowing down everyone in it.

'Swamp attack.'

The swamp started moving under the wobits and spears made out of hardened swamp came out of it, stabbing the wobits killing them all in seconds.

'Phew, wasn't sure if it will work.'

This was the first time he was using it in combat, from the testing he did, the spears are very sharp, but they are about as strong as stone, which means they can be broken pretty easily, luckily for him, the monster's hide wasn't strong enough to block the spears.

'I need to train my control more and make it stronger, but for now it should be enough.'

The reason the swamp was just as strong as stone was mostly James not having enough control, the elements of one piece are really weird, swamp can somehow be hardened to become as strong as stone and probably steel and even higher when he gets enough control over it. But he wasn't going to complain, it works in his favor.

'Anyway, I should finish everything and go back to turn in the mission.'

Thinking of that, all the bodies went into his swamp and the swamp returned to his body.

'There is one still left.'

Looking over at the single survivor that was currently stuck to a tree with hardened swamp surrounding it, James started to feel the adrenaline disappear and he started thinking of what he has done, he killed, even if they were monsters, it still was something he did for the first time, he killed something that was once alive.

James knew that he needed to kill to survive in this world and that is one of the reasons he didn't do any missions and just trained for the last week, he wanted to delay it as much as possible.

Looking at the last survivor of his massacre, James started to feel guilty, he just killed its whole pack in front of it.

After looking at it for a bit, James decided to give it a chance and let it go.

Walking close to the wobit, James kicked the jail with a stone hammer kick and broke it.

"You're fre-"

And like James expected, the wobit attacked him, and he couldn't really blame it, if he was in its position, he would have done the same.

James tried calming it and leaving a few times, but it didn't give up and James started being a bit worried about letting it go since it might go out of the forest and start killing humans out of anger.

"I'm sorry. Swamp armory"

James's hand turned into swamp and some swamp came out of it, after a few seconds it turned into the form of a sword and hardened, and with one swing James cut the head of the wobit off.

'I'm sorry.'

After that James looked at the body and decided to bury it, James didn't know why he did it, maybe it was to try lessening the guilt he was feeling, but it didn't help with the bad taste he had in his mouth, being logical about it didn't help either, all he could do was go finish the mission and end the day.

This was his first time killing but certainly not the last.

And so, successful with his mission but a bit depressed, James started walking back to the city.

Hmm. Depressing way to end the chapter but I can't do anything about it, I'm just a narrator, it is out of my power… Well, I will see you next time.

(Well, at the start I just wanted to do a cool battle and showcase some of James's abilities that he learned and thought of in the week of training.

But after James finished killing them, I thought to myself, this isn't right, a normal person won't just be okay and not feel anything from killing at all, I know I won't. so I decided to make James feel guilt and some depression, no worry it isn't going to turn into a long arc of self discovering or something, it is just so James knows that this world is not just fun and games, it is something that I have shown before or at least tried, but this time I tried being more direct with it, it is a real world and there are consequences to his actions, anyway, I will stop here, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and sorry for ending it in a depressing note. Cya in the next one)