Chapter 77: The Hunter's Dream.

I opened the doors to a sight that felt rather nostalgic to me.

Under an orange sky blotted by heavy and black clouds. I arrived at Yharmam proper. Quite ironically, my first real step into this world was into a graveyard. But I must say, this place is FAR more aesthetically pleasing than Lordran.

I arrived at the front yard or the courtyard or whatever of the clinic, And really, having a graveyard right next to a clinic is a really, REALLY poor financial decision in my opinion.

Now that I think about it maybe they also double as a burial service, in which case it is an actually good financial decision. Besides, these people drink blood regularly I don't think I can apply my own common sense to them.

I found another loot spot that contained 10x quicksilver bullets. But as I did not have a singular clue how they could be used in real life I used inspect for the first time in what felt like years.

----------------------------------------------

[Quicksilver Bullets]

Special bullets used with hunter firearms.

Ordinary bullets have no effect on beasts, and so Quicksilver Bullets, fused with the wielder's own blood, must be employed.

The strength of Quicksilver Bullets depends greatly upon the wielder's bloodtinge.

----------------------------------------------

Now it made sense. Magic blood bullets. Shrugging I put them into my inventory, I wasn't about to argue with this world's logic. Besides it made sense, from what I could feel and have observed blood seems to have a... special property in this world. But even with my experience as John and Manus I still couldn't decipher what.

Regardless I looked around. As I mentioned before this place was far better looking than Lordran for me. That might be the trauma and PTSD talking but at least this place had at least some semblance of coherency in how it was built.

By that I mean this place looks like London if it was built by a vampire.

Much better than the architects of Lordran who built the entire damn thing apart from Anor Londo while they were on every single hallucinogenic conceivable by man and god kind at the same damn time.

I quite like the gothic Victorian-era giant buildings, I would like it even more if I didn't know the cosmic horrors lurking around every corner of here. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if some Eldrich entity was breathing down my neck right now.

--------------

+1 Insight

--------------

I w a s j o k i n g

Horrifying implications aside, the moment I gained that insight, even if a little, I felt like I understood the world around me a little bit more. If I were to describe it it would be like if you were tired and trying to solve math and then someone injected a bit of caffeine into your veins. Scary.

Shaking my head I went up to the main gate. Now I could open the door normally but when was I ever normal? I raised my leg and poised myself.

'{Deadman's Blow}!'

< {Deadman's Blow lv.1} -> {Deadman's Blow lv.2} >

*BANG!*

My kick broke open the gates along my leg. And since I didn't have anymore blood vials on me I would just have to limp my way forward. Unless...

Even with my experience and memories I couldn't really perform any spells in Yharmam as the laws in this world seemed far too different to do so. And the mana in the air was basically nonexistent. Instead of that, it felt like there was an imperceivable cloud of something I couldn't decipher. And without my divine souls, I can't really generate mana or control it easily if it even existed.

But my own body should be a different deal. Applying the same principle as {Power Within} and my immense self-control over my body I could somewhat gain access the to the 'mystery' inside of my blood and try to replicate my miracles with it.

Using that mysterious energy in my blood I applied the same principle of {Transformation} to it. And for some reason, the mystery inside my blood was really attuned to this form of manipulation. As if changing the body was one of its basic properties, allowing me to replicate the ability.

<You have acquired the skill {Body Moulding lv.1}>

Using Body moulding I forcefully pinned my bones back into place, basically using my muscles as a makeshift cast. Nodding in satisfaction I stepped out into the Yharmam.

...Great, the first thing I see is a dead horse. Whatever. I walked past the overused joke and looked around the wonderous cityscape discounting the murder and knife crime. It also pissed me off that I spent all that effort stabilizing my leg just to find a blood vial literally 3 meters ahead.

Chugging the blood vial I looked down at the scenery for a bit before walking away but the moment I turned the corner a feral axe-wielding British person violently attacked me.

Which I calmly responded to by sidestepping the axe and instinctively plunging my hand into the man's throat, before tugging and ripping his goddam head off. I didn't even notice that I did so until the head landed at my feet. Cool.

My murderous instincts were working double overtime for some reason but I feel like they will be pretty damn useful with most of my skills gone.

I pried the axe off of his hands, the size was a bit weird and the balance was off but I could work with it. I saw two people lying on the ground but they couldn't fool me, I threw my axe at the first one, decapitating them before they could even hope to attempt to get off the ground. The second one was not as lucky.

Before it could reach its weapon I dashed over and grabbed its forehead and dominant arm, the full potential of my body was on display as I picked up the man and slammed his body onto the sharp railings, seeing as he hadn't stopped struggling I stomped on his head, decapitation. Dusting my hands off I looted the two vials from the corpse next to the lever.

Murder wasn't something of significance for me at this point, it was just habit now.

Something of note though is that I found 6 Molotov cocktails.

/Drink it/

Why?

/You gotta/

Deciding against arguing with myself about the logistics of consuming liquid incendiary I pulled off the oil-soaked rag and downed the alcohol. It tasted like shit but at least now the number of cocktails I had were divisible by 5. Sadly the Molotov cocktails were more Molotov and less cocktail.

Chucking the empty bottle off the balcony I looked at the lever. From what I could see it would drop the ladder from up there. But I refused to do that for a simple and childish reason.

Every single step I took in this world that isn't permitted or allowed fills me with validation.

Call me petty if you want. It will just make me stronger.

Disregarding the lever completely, I used my Miyazaki given right to the acrobatics skill I used to have and started parkouring my way up the decorated wall, thankfully there were a lot of edges to latch onto and grip. It took me less than a minute to rapidly scale the wall.

<You have acquired the skill {Parkour lv.1}>

And up there I came across a curious little thing. A lantern, one that felt awfully similar to the bonfires I was familiar with. I walked up to it. Circling around it not having an idea how to light it. Not in the mood to humor games, I just kicked it lightly and it seemed to do the trick.

Looking at it I felt a slight tugging notion coming over me, that with the slightest intent felt like it would send me somewhere. Finding no reason not to I let the feeling take me as the ground became blackened and liquidlike and the space around me distorted before everything went black.

....

I woke up in a haze, slowly my dazed mind started adjusting to the new world around me. And as the world around me got clearer, I saw what I could only describe as ethereal.

The most beautiful and out-of-world sight I ever saw. Almost like a dream.

Living plants that harmonized with the surroundings. Lively yet not overgrown, like paradise. Flowers everywhere, it was almost like this place was a meticulously crafted garden that even the giant building in the middle was made to fit in. A beautiful giant full moon hung over the sky unobstructed.

Even the smell was that of a floral garden. Being here almost made me forget about the world I was in. Yet all good things had to come to an end so I got up from my position and noticed some things in front of me.

As if the ground was liquid, some malformed sickly, and thin-looking baby-like creatures crawled out from the spatial disturbance. Although their appearances unnerved me somewhat I still knelt down, sensing no hostile intent.

Even without words, I could still comprehend what they tried to convey, maybe because of my former affinity. They seemed to want to offer me weapons to protect myself with. To which I obliged, yes I could hunt without weapons but why should I?

Although out of the weapons presented I really only had one choice. I picked up the {Hunter's Axe} and the {Hunter's Pistol}. I wasn't picking the sawblade because I was slaying beasts not cutting wood and the came was just too light for my liking. The blunderbuss was just too unwieldy as a ranged weapon for me to use in actual combat.

After taking the weapons I did not know how to really treat the messengers so I just stroked their heads as a form of thanks. At least they seemed to enjoy that. Vanishing the items to my inventory I walked forward and encountered her. And when I came face to face with her time seemed like it had frozen.

.

.

.

.

"Hello, good hunter."

❕Drop me some stones if you liked the chapter.

---------------------------------------------------------

❕Check out my other work: Fate/Beyond.

You can go 10 chapters ahead on this story and others on my p*treon at: p*treon.com/BronzDeck

Replace the * with an a

-------------------------------------------------------