Chapter 1

  Kelix despised the monsters that caused trouble for people. The world deserved fewer of them, and he would see it done.

  His resentment, or at least part of it, was complicated. Even so, his classmate Dariel had somehow convinced him to take on the task of walking his Soulbound partner, a Fenrir-type beast.

  It stood twice his height, wild fur shimmering with a gorgeous gray sheen. Bands of metal and chain coiled around its limbs in a way that looked undeniably sick, in the best sense of the word. A Fenrir through and through: massive, quadrupedal, unmistakably wolfish. As if that were not enough, it wore a scabbard at its hip.

  Kelix had seen Finn draw the weapon with its jaws and use it to carve a statue with more patience and precision than most craftsmen he knew. Though he did not care much for the proper name of Finn's species, or for thinking of Finn as anything more than a monster.

  All he knew was that Finn was his problem today. Unfortunately for him, monsters were common in his world, and few people were capable of taming them.

  Fortunately for him, that made his side gig as a monster hunter easier. He may or may not have been using his time with Finn by having the beast sniff out a couple of crocoraptors rumored to be roaming near the now-restricted amusement park.

  He took in his surroundings. The park was worn down and unkempt, scattered with debris and decaying structures. It reminded him of the days he procrastinated on cleaning his room after an unplanned, overly long gaming session.

  The sun was setting, blue light spilling across the gloomy field and lending the place an ominous air, like something out of a horror movie.

  He couldn't help but crack a modest yet eager smile. The spacious environment and the still, crisp air was a perfect setting for a fight.

  "Finn, have you caught anything foul?" he asked.

  His hand tightened around the ice-cold leash, trembling slightly. He wanted to exclaim, Yeesh. He wondered why the creature's presence always had to be so cold, though he knew the answer, of course.

  Rigid government regulations and rules from the Chimeron Association required all monsters to be leashed or, at the very least, properly contained. Even the humanoid ones needed their hands held when taken into public, and Kelix felt sorry for the owners, who were followed by rumors wherever they went.

  Finn knew this and loved messing with him. The habit started ever since he grew past being a pup.

  Kelix regretted wearing fingerless gloves for the outing and wished he had brought a thicker, sleeved pair instead. With his expression mild, Kelix glared ahead at the voice that replied. It rumbled deep but was surprisingly smooth.

  "Nah. Nothing here that I'd lose sleep over."

  Nothing he'd be concerned about. Kelix sighed. He should've expected the reply from Finn.

  The Fenrir turned its head and looked over its shoulder, baring its teeth in something that might have passed for a grin. "You know I'll have to mention this to Dariel once we head back. Just doing my civic duty."

  "Don't care," Kelix said. He gave the leash a few firm tugs, urging the beast forward until it lurched into motion. "Where are they?"

  Finn stiffened for a moment, clearly caught off guard by the strength behind the pull. For a human to move him like that was unexpected.

  His teeth showed again in that unmistakable canine smile, sharp and pleased in a way that felt almost challenging.

  His gaze never left Kelix's eyes. It was a quiet reminder of where Kelix stood, at least in Finn's mind.

  A moment later, his ears twitched as he caught something on the air, and the tension eased from his frame, as if he had decided not to press the issue.

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  "I heard something," Finn said, his tone dropping into something sharper and more serious. "Guard up, Kelix."

  Heeding the warning, Kelix stepped forward just as the monster emerged from the alley ahead.

  The crocodilian creature leaped, landing on the roof of a concession stand. The lean, bipedal beast spread its long, voracious jaws, which reeked of rancid fish left to rot in the sun for weeks, and flashed its curved claws.

  Dark blue aura surged from its frame. Kelix recognized it as an F-Rank monster, though near the upper limit.

  He adjusted his stance as his heart raced.

  He could handle this one, and that belief steadied him despite the thrill. It meant being one step closer to paying for his sister's injuries.

  The creature hissed and lunged, launching itself in a blur of fury. Kelix reacted on instinct, lurching sideways as its claws tore through the space he had occupied a moment before.

  "Don't interfere, Finn!" he called.

  Finn licked his paw. "Just leave me a leg, if you manage to come out of this intact."

  "I'm not allowed to feed you bad meat," Kelix said.

  The remark irked him. Finn would clearly allow him to be torn apart without a second thought. Still, Kelix kept his breathing steady and his emotions controlled as he weaved through the crocoraptor's furious swipes.

  It zigzagged as it pursued him, moving with startling speed. Its eyes gleamed with feral delight as its head snapped forward again and again, its breath reeking of ammonia and decay at close range. Razor-edged claws slashed in relentless arcs, but Kelix remained untouched.

  When he saw an opening, he struck. His palm shot forward with explosive force, and the air cracked as the blow slammed into the creature's chest.

  The monster flew backward, crashed into the stand, twitched once, then went still. A moment later, its body dissolved into blue particles. Left behind was a {Dark Blue Core}.

  Kelix approached, picked it up, and stowed it in his backpack.

  "That's one," he glanced over his shoulder.

  Finn didn't respond, only licking his hind leg in slow, deliberate strokes. The motion was unhurried, almost pointed, like Finn had decided Kelix was not worth the effort of a comment.

  Kelix shrugged and flexed his right hand. Blue heat crawled over his skin, bright and thin like fire that refused to burn. It clung to his knuckles and the lines of his palm, casting a glow over the dirt and the scraps of litter at his feet.

  He gave his hand a firm shake, and the heat dispersed as if it had never been there. Sometimes that happened.

  Curious about the condition of the core, as damage would impact its price, he reached into his backpack again and pulled the core back out.

  The {Dark Blue Core} was heavier than it looked, cool at first, then quickly turning cold enough to sting through the fabric of his glove. He turned it in his fingers, watching the blue light ripple within it like a trapped current.

  Perfectly intact, shiny and polished like a pearl.

  He should have been satisfied. One clean kill. One more step toward the bills that never stopped coming. He should have pocketed the core and moved on.

  Instead, the core pulsed.

  It was small, almost imperceptible, but the moment it happened, the blue heat snapped back onto his hand. It rushed from his fingertips up his wrist in a quick, hungry surge. Kelix froze, breath catching in his throat.

  A thin sheen of frost crept across the core's surface.

  Then the world around him blurred, not like he was fainting, but like something had slid over his vision, a layer that did not belong there.

  Text flickered into existence. Not on the air, not on his eyes, not anywhere he could point to, but directly in the act of seeing itself, as if someone had pressed a foreign label onto the moment and expected him to accept it.

  Creature: {Crocoraptor}

  Core: {Dark Blue}

  Rank: {F}

  Evolution Stage: {Fledgling}

  The words held for a heartbeat. Clean and certain like the one thrumming in his chest. Wrong in the way certainty was wrong when it had not been earned.

  Kelix's stomach tightened. He did not blink. He was afraid that if he did, it would settle into place and become real.

  More lines tried to form beneath it. They came in fragments, as if the core could not decide how much it was allowed to show.

  EX = [0%] AP = [0%] MP = [0%]

  Numbers followed. Too many. Too sharp.

  STR: 33 END: 28 AUR: 30

  RES: 20 SPD: 33 TEQ: 20

  Kelix stared at the letters, at the neat brackets, at the zeros that looked almost mocking. The acronyms meant nothing to him. They were not from any guild ledger, any Association report, any training manual he had ever read.

  He could not translate them into strength or weakness, only into the unsettling awareness that he was looking at something structured, something measured, something that had been watching the world in columns and categories while everyone else fought in blood and instinct.

  A last line attempted to appear. It wavered, broke, and returned, weaker.

  [Passive] LMT: 3 · INS: 33 · CTRL: 3

  He did not know what those were either. He did not want to know. The line felt closer than the others, like it had been meant to attach to him, not to the dead thing in his hand.

  The text stuttered. The edges of the letters fuzzed. For a brief moment, the words smeared into something that looked like a silhouette.

  A low roof. A dark alley. The crocoraptor's lean body hunched with coiled aggression. Its lungs dragging in rancid air. Its intent sharp and simple, a hunger that did not care about laws or leashes or debt. Behind that hunger was a smaller sensation, almost pathetic in its clarity.

  Fear.

  It was gone before he could decide if it was real.