Chapter 17: Too Easy

            Domonic Wrights is a simple middle ranking mercenary. He and his friends never really took their job all that seriously, they just went out and killed weak monsters to pay for booze in the evening. But now, somehow, he found himself stood in front of a Bovemus with his friends’ body parts scattered around him. Arms, legs, faces with open eyes crying for his help. How did they get here? Whose drunken idea was this? He stood there helplessly in front of the monster as it reared up onto its back legs and raised its fist for a full powered punch that nobody could survive. But snapping bones and splattering blood makes a distinct sound, and on this occasion, it was picked up on quite quickly.

‘Hah… It’s just a Centaur on steroids.’

            The clashing of fists and shattering bones echoed around the frozen cave around 700 meters from the summit of Mount Linkterbors. Its broken bones splintered out its forearm, but before it could even let out a cry of pain, a blur blast past its shoulder and the Bovemus was fired across the cave into the wall with such power that stalactites fell from the ceiling. Domonic fell to the ground and scurried backwards as one of the figures turned to face him. Clad in black and cracking its knuckles the figure took its time walking menacingly towards him.

“Y-y-y-you’re The Aberrants! P-p-please! I haven’t done anything! Don’t hurt me!”

“… SEE! I FUCKING KNEW IT! I told you they had come up with some dumbass nickname for us!! The fucking Aberrants?!?!”

“Shut up Austin, you’re scaring him more!”

“ME?! You’re the one who kicked a, what? Four ton Bovemus across the cave!”

“Well, you’re the one punched over his shoulder the block its attack! You just had to try and be flashy, didn’t you?!”

“Well, I’m not as accurate with my left hand so I might have missed! And then how stupid would we look?!”

“No! How stupid would you look?! Don’t drag me into your inability to use your left arm!”

“Yeah, well… you still would have been my accomplice!”

“Uhhhh… Are you two having a bad day?”

“You know what? Yes. I am. Because we’ve been out here for three weeks… three weeks… and not a single beer… not even a single drop of alcohol… has touched my lips…”

“Oh man… I’m so sorry… I completely understand your pain…”

“YOU SEE!? Even this guy, who’s surrounded by all his dead comrades and two complete strangers with superhuman powers, understands my pain… But you? No. You say we have to stay out here until we find that Vectenix you want to hunt!”

“You’re the one who says we STILL need to get stronger! I just thought hunting a Vectenix would be helpful for us!”

“But now I want a beer! You’re not saying we should go hunt one of those though, are you?!”

“… I just can’t anymore…”

“To be honest… I could use a beer too… you know… after I just watched all my friends die…”

“I don’t blame you. I would want to raise a toast too if I got to watch my colleague die.”

“Well, I guess that makes two of us!”

“… I didn’t mean to raise a toast… I meant to drown my sorrows…”

“Oh, shit dude… You’re kinda killing the mood not gonna lie…”

“AUSTIN!”

“Fine… let’s just walk him to the gates… then I can stare longingly at the bar for a bit, and then we can get back to hunting down this Vectenix…”

“Good.”

‘Pushover.’

‘I swear to God! If you start too, I’m just gonna go to the bar with this guy.’

‘But I am a god.’

‘Exactly, fuck off.’

            The ice planes around Mount Likterbors stayed at a constant -60^oC no matter what time of day or year it was. And there Ellie was, lying in the ground behind a bush wearing nothing but her usual shirt and shorts watching Austin stand in the middle of an open field acting as bait. Vectenix are usually very rare and illusive hunters but this one in particular had grown extremely big and needed more sustenance than usual. It had become a problem for the townsfolk of Calorfons, Austin and Ellie didn’t really care why but they there was a lot of money up for grabs to kill it.

‘It’s so obvious…’

‘I know… does it think it’s being quiet slithering up on us like that?’

‘Let’s make a game out of this!’

‘Go on...’

‘Let’s exert a little bit of my power at a time and see how long it takes for it to realise that we know it’s there.’

‘I like it! Then when’s it’s finished shitting itself I’ll just get Ellie to drag it back to town since I’m pretty sure she hasn’t even noticed it yet.’

*BOOM*

“Hahaha! One shot!”

‘Ah… She may have hit 60% power use by the way.’

‘Are you fucking kidding me?...’

‘…No.’

            It took a white for the powered snow to finally settle on the ground again as Ellie stood proud on the head on the Vectenix with one of her legs covered with blood. The monster was basically a massive king cobra, the only differences being the white colour and for this one in particular, the hole in the top of its head.

“And since you did nothing, you can drag its body back to town!”

“No! I was helpful! I was the bait!”

‘Just give up.’

‘Never!’

“The sooner you drag it back the sooner you can get a beer.”

            Snow was blasted into the air once again and after it settled there was no sign of Austin of the Vectenix. Except for the 30ft long snake looking silhouette flying off into the distance towards the town. Ellie was slightly surprised to see Austin give in so quickly just for the chance to drink a beer, and yet at the same time, it was exactly what she was expecting.

‘Jeez, what’s taking her so long? I she not thirsty?’

‘Not everyone would go this crazy after not drinking for three weeks you know.’

‘Yeah, well… I am an alcoholic.’

‘You sound way to proud of that.’

            Austin walked through the snowy town of Calorfons receiving nothing but weird looks and shocked stares, but he was used to it by now. News travelled quickly about the mercenaries with abnormal powers that killed a Ground Dragon in Claralux, and it had been over a year since then. Walking into the bar only brought about even more looks of dismay.

“One beer please bartender!”

“… Uh, you can’t bring that in here sir…”

“Why not? It’s dead.”

            He turned around and slightly kicked the head of the hulking dead Vectenix he had been dragging through the town as an indication that it was most definitely dead, as if the crater in the top of its head wasn’t enough.

“…That’s not the point sir… it’s scaring away potential customers.”

“Wow! A bartender who’s actually trying to make business. Alright then, I’ll go get rid of this then come back.”

            It wasn’t much longer after that that Austin realised that he had no idea where he was supposed to be taking the body of the Vectenix. He waited around for an hour before Ellie eventually reappeared and then had to wait another ten minutes for her and Ava to stop laughing. After what felt like an eternity, they collected their pay from the contractor and Austin finally let the sweet, refreshing taste of beer touch his lips again.

“We should go home soon.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind what we do next. As long as I can keep drinking beer!”

“I’ll drink to that!... So, what was the Bovemus and Vectenix like? Anything similar like that from your old world?”

“Vaguely. There was a well-known fantasy creature in my old world which is the body of a horse and the body of a human on top. It was called a Centaur. You remember what I told you a horse was, right?”

“Yep. A smaller, weaker and less pretty Gazellion.”

“Exactly, but this was a Centaur on steroids. With the body of some hunked up Gazellion and the body of a massive gorilla.”

“What’s a gorilla?”

“Okay, this one’s really simple now: imagine that top half of the Bovemus, then put a pair of really short, stumpy legs on it.”

“… What the fuck?”

“Yeah.”

“… Okay, well what about the Vectenix?”

“Oh that mother fucker was just a giant King Cobra. But white.”

“What’s a King Cobra?”

“… A Vectenix… but small… and black…”

“Oh.”

“Come on then. I don’t like running with a full stomach of beer sloshing around inside me, so if we’re gonna go home tomorrow, I’m going to bed now.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll join you in that.”