The forest whispers as I dash through the underbrush. Behind me, I hear the pounding of my predator's legs crushing the blades of grass in its relentless pursuit. "Gah!" I exclaim as a sharp object narrowly misses me, thrown from the shadows. It reveals itself—a figure with piercing yellow eyes and cat-like pupils. Taking a deep breath, it raises its weapon and whispers,
"Nothing personal."
As the weapon rises, I brace myself for combat, my fists glowing with energy, ready to face this formidable foe.
The figure slashes at me, but I manage to deflect the blade at the last moment, disarming her. With a smirk, I taunt,
"You're not very skilled, are you?"
It snarks at me without a weapon to bare
"I am skilled i just dont want to waste my talents on a nobody with a 5 digit bounty" It says spitting to the ground
I look with a smirk and reaches for my pocket
"Son of a bitch they didnt change my bounty? Geez that was my bounty like ages ago!"
My Predator realizing it might have become the prey looks at me and asks
"Nice bluff kid" And proceeds to stab me with one swift motion right in the heart
It`s hood lowers revealing a woman looking at me in shock as the blade through my heart doesnt affect me
"Told you that bounty was outdated" I say smirking before punching her in the face and making her fly to the nearby tree
"oh uhm i can hit a woman right? just in self defense?"
I look at her as she trembles with fear however still determined to leave she covers the sorrounding area with a cloud of smoke leaving behind a log and she, nowhere to be found amongst the dense forest
The trek back to the inn was long and exhausting(probably because i fought earlier) and i make it back in one piece unsurprisingly and i get a meal fter trading in the piece of wood and the sword that the enemy left behind for another night and some meals
"Ahh nothing like warm soup"
"Are you a bounty hunter sire?" A kind gentleman asks me" I paint a grin on my face and say
"why yes i am actually, Sempiterne i also have a bounty honestly all of us have bounties and our jobs is just to hunt eachother, the A.C.C.(Anti Crime Coalition) just became lazily and just pit all of us in this free for all which to be honest is kinda smart and kinda gives us jobs"
The kind gentlemen looking surprised,shocked,and a little impressed asks
"so why didnt they just catch you criminals and such and put you guys in jail"
I then reply
"well overpopulation increased crime rates and less police force and the prisons cant hold all of us so just make the criminals kill eachother"
The gentleman laughs
"That is the funniest and smartest thing this government has done in the past two millenia!"
We both laugh and share a bottle of whiskey before bed...
I walk up to my room in the inn and lay my belongings on the floor all my power enhancing potions scatter on the floor from my overloaded bag.
I merely look at it and sigh and lay in bed staring at the ceiling before inevitably dozing off...
A ray of sunshine hits my eyes waking me up at just before noon to go out to the A.C.C to take up a bounty, luckily thanks to the lazy bums at the top who still havent changed my bounty or are too stupid to realize my true strength a lot of high value targets dismiss me and i get a shit load of cash,
I walk in the same people greeting me as i look at the bounty wall and see my poster still at 10,000
"Oh for pete's sake really? "
A familiar face walks over to me and pats me in the shoulder
"its ok man atleast you reached the 5th digit" he says with a dissapointed tone
I look at him and puts my shoulder to his
"its okay youll reach the fifth digit someday old pal" I look at mortem with an encouraging face making him look away at his 5 thousand value bounty
"Ill never reacht the 5th digit or the 6th or anything above ever my ability is that garbage" Mortem says in a loud and dissapointed tone
I look at him with a sigh knowing what his ability can really do but i want him to figure it out on his own
"Garbage? Your abilities?" i say and he replies with a nod
"think about it i can summon these bones out of the ground or whatever and telepathically control them how i like in a certain way but they act weirdly? I dont know it pisses me off"He says dissapointingly as if hes been cursed rather than blessed
"I believe there's no such thing as a bad ability; all abilities are powerful if used correctly." He doesn't know it yet, but my friend suggests he might possess a necromancer-type ability. The key is for him to discover it on his own; if we point it out, it could manifest as a fake awakening—sloppy, hard to control, and delaying his true awakening. So now, I wait for this absolute imbecile, who holds the most powerful ability among everyone I know, to realize his potential.
"really? well i mean you did turn your healing skill into one of the greatest abilities i know so yeah"
"only one of the greatest? Not THE greatest?"I say wit ha smirk expecting his answer to not be me but curious as to what his reply is
"Well, you'd be in my top four. Number one would be Furari, number two Exspiravit, and number three Alter—those guys are insanely powerful."
I look unsurprised; they do have incredibly high bounties—well into the 10-digit range. No one's dared to claim them, and for good reason.
"Well cant deny that list..." I then open my phone to recieve a text message saying my credit cards have declined and i am now in billions in credit card debt...it is true i have been just buying credit cards using credit cards and stacking them...
I look at mortem with a broken face of despair
"H-hey man uhm... can you help me with something..."
"Yeah sure what is it" He replies confused
"And we might need to bring back the squad"
"No...Dont tell me..."
"Yes im broke and dont have money anymore..."
"You actual..." He takes a deep breath before calmly responding
"How deep in debt are you?" he asks before I look up at him with puppy eyes
"well...billions..." As he listens he bites his lip holding in a laugh
"I see you trying not to laugh you a-hat" He laughs loudly before saying
"So? ready for another big adventure?"
"More than ready" I say with a big determined smile as i pull up my phone to check on our old pals
Mortem daps up my hand and grips it tightly
"Things just went from 0 - 100 real quick"
"Say Mortem why are you so eager to do this anyway?"Mortem replies
"Its about time i reach the 5th digit dont you think?"I chuckle at his response then i reply
"well power isnt all about bounties you know?" Mortem raises his eyebrow and scoffs
"well which bounty you gonna take hm?" I think long and hard before replying to him
"Alter...we can take him right?" Mortem gives a worried laugh then responding
"Can 100 men take down a gorilla?" I reply with a snarky grin
"Thats the kind of attitude i like" Mortem replies
We both go up to the high value posters and rip out Alter's poster and saving it,as we embark our journey to reassemble our band of outlaws,hooligans and dumbasses to take this bounty and well repay my debt