1% Lifesteal

After watching his one-night stand march out of his apartment, Freddy looked around his apartment.

The small living room was illuminated by the late spring early afternoon sun, and the world was his oyster.

His mood had been fouled, but alas, he had made a decision. Today, he would rest.

It took him roughly thirty minutes to get bored. Eventually, he stopped lying on the bed and staring at the ceiling.

He didn’t feel all that tired. If anything, he felt restless.

There was no rush per se, but Theodore’s warning weighed on his mind.

The main issue with delving was that there was always risk involved. Even when overqualified, the danger was there. He had heard stories of the Crimson Twilight—the event that happened every once in a while in that realm. Not once had it gone without casualties.

If he was taking risks, it must be for enough profit. He was safe enough doing ordinary delving in this realm for a while longer. But what if he got restricted? Hell, what if he was forced to take on a more difficult realm instead?

If that happened, he needed to get strong enough to handle it.

Taking a seated position in the middle of the living room, he did some breathing exercises to calm himself. He had been studying how to best create tempering techniques, and now, he was putting his knowledge into practice.

First, he took his time. He focused on his breaths. Inevitably, his mind wandered. As it did, he acknowledged the distraction and let it go, bringing himself back to the present.

Growing distracted when making a tempering technique slowed progress drastically, so it was advised to do some meditation before beginning.

When he felt focused enough, he dove into his ethercosm. The first step to making a tempering technique was to permit the tiniest of trickles of essence into the body part one was trying to temper. In this case, he allowed the essence to flow into his blood.

He gradually started reabsorbing it, taking some of it back while replacing it with fresh essence. Then, he simply observed. Listened to what the essence was telling him. It was a mess. It told him stories of how the blood flowed, how thick it was, how much there was, where it went, where it was created, what it was made of, and what purpose it served.

He kept listening, focusing on the information he wanted to discover. Eventually, he heard it. The story of a metal. It was jumbled and indistinct—for now, but he released that piece of essence back into his blood and listened again. Through numerous cycles, he heard enough.

Iron coursed through his veins, carried in red cells that helped transport oxygen around his body. Then, by mimicking the flow of essence he observed, he primed those cells to take on even more iron.

It was an exhausting process that required far more focus than Pool of Blood. Eventually, he decided to take a break and realized that he was quite hungry. That was right—he hadn’t eaten anything that day.

Then, he looked up, facing the clock on the wall.

His eyes widened slightly. It was already 9 p.m.? He’d been sitting there for so long without noticing…

He chuckled, getting up. He prepared himself to make his dinner as he failed to notice the ether shell for Crimson Mercury in his soul, already formed enough to be crystallized, and Bloodshed, staring at its master’s work with reverence.

***

“I don’t believe such a rule exists,” the woman told him.

It was the day after, and Freddy stood in the hub, fully armored and talking to a receptionist. He had just asked her if there were any rules about overhunting.

“However,” the woman continued, “there are cases where the owner manually stepped in to prevent certain people from delving when their styles were too destructive.”

“… Go on,” he urged.

“A poison expert and a certain fire caster are the two primary culprits as to why gorels are the only remaining living species of monster in the realm. And there have been cases where severely overqualified parties were banned from entering because they were chasing the other delvers away. As for you… sir…” she said hesitantly, “you are at the beginning of the second star. As long as you’re in the recommended range of power, and you don’t destroy the bodies you collect, you will not have any limits imposed on your delving,” she assured him.

He hummed at that. “Thank you for the information,” he said, then turned around and walked to one of the empty couches in the lobby.

Well then. That complicated things.

He fished the letter out of his pocket and opened it. He hadn’t read the whole thing yet. This time, rather than just skimming the contents, he took his time and read through everything.

The letter was a formal invitation from a man named Jacob Santorio. The text stank of corporate copywriting, so full of platitudes and humblebrags that it made him feel sick reading it.

To sum it up—Jacob, the son of Leonard Santorio, was creating a new party. Leonard, as was mentioned at least thrice in the text, owned the entirety of the gorel hub, which he just learned was actually called the Santorio Hub…

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he remembered the name of the biggest nearby training center. So these bastards pretty much owned this entire district, didn’t they?

The letter continued into a politely phrased invitation to participate in an interview that would take place in a week. There were no threats or warnings or any sign that he couldn’t just refuse to show up.

But he knew better than to lower his guard. It would be bizarre for Theodore to warn him like that without proper cause. He was likely “instructed” to “subtly hint” at “restrictions” if Freddy “failed to show up.”

So, in summary, he was being softly coerced into joining a newly formed party through threats of petty retaliation if he didn’t. As for why they wanted him, Theodore had likely shared pretty much everything he knew about Freddy. Based on how he had presented himself and how he had acted, it was evident that he was powerful, cautious, and hard-working.

Tough, too, which was desirable for a close-range brawler.

Although he would usually get angry at such bullying and power abuse, he had to admit it was hard to get mad at such a damn good offer.

Life in a penthouse with all living expenses covered, full access to their training facilities, which he already knew were immensely pricy if he wanted to pay for access himself, and a fair, merit-based share of profits which would now be free from the insane 50% fee that everyone else suffered under.

Naturally, this didn’t come for free. He wasn’t being offered a place in this party—he was being invited to an interview. He still had to pass to join.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself, he pondered his options. While joining the party was tempting, it wasn’t a good idea. His unique affinity, Blood Sacrifice, and Leviathan’s Fury were all something that shouldn’t be revealed willy-nilly.

Something like an ice affinity would be easy to blow off since it's common enough for water archs to get it after ascending, but this perished water business was obviously more complicated than that.

The two special abilities were even more bizarre, and their discovery could invite unwanted curiosity.

There was always the possibility of just keeping them a secret—but how viable was that? Were there methods they could use to check his soul? He didn’t know enough about the subject to take the chance.

He almost missed the Freddy of old, that naive little dumbass that didn’t think for even a moment before rushing into stupid decisions. As much as actually using his brain improved his quality of life, it was also pretty damn tiring at times.

For now, he decided to ignore the threat. There was no reason to limit himself while he still had the opportunity to maximize his profits. As for whether he would take the interview… he’d decide by next week.

He subtly made the letter vanish into his dimension ring, where it wouldn’t rustle and cause noise and headed down into the basement.

“Oh, boy,” he sighed as he made his way down.

The lobby was crowded as all hell, and numerous less-experienced parties were sitting around and waiting. A glance at the large passage confirmed it. It was nighttime in the realm.

While more experienced parties didn’t care, newbies tended to retreat when the night fell. Although it was hazardous, he didn’t hesitate to push past the crowds and walk out through the passage.

Nighttime was too frequent for him to sit around and wait for it to pass. Not to mention that even when it was day, it could flip to night whenever. Avoiding it made people less prepared to face it at an inopportune time.

The glow of the lobby lights shone through the passage, illuminating the surrounding area like the light coming out of a garage in the dead of the night. In contrast, the realm was like a moonless night with stormy clouds in the distance; pure darkness—barring the intermittent flashes of colorful light coming from the many spots where the delvers were fighting.

Sighing deeply, he started walking, taking his flashlight out and turning it on.

He had already taken one of the perception-boosting pills. It felt stronger for some reason, as if the lack of light made his body compensate by boosting his hearing. The soft rustling of leaves and the distant, muffled echoes of combat filled his ears, giving the realm an eerie backdrop that lingered along the length of his spine, preparing him for danger at any moment.

Twisting a part of the flashlight, he turned the light down to the minimum. He could see well enough with just a bit of light, and the weaker he kept it, the lower the odds of a monster spotting him and rushing him before he was ready to face it.

Hunting at night was a lot less convenient than during the day. Even with enhanced perception, it was near-impossible to see the monsters in the dark, even if he could hear them.

After a while, he heard the sounds of distant rustling. He climbed a rock and tried looking in their general direction. They were around fifty meters away. During the day, he could easily identify the number of gorels and their types, even from that distance.

But at night? Their dark furs blended into the shadows almost seamlessly, and he could barely even catch a glimpse of movement. If he shone the flashlight, they’d see him and rush him. Without knowing what he was getting into, attacking was stupid.

What if one of them was a deviant? He’d been rather lucky the day before as he hadn’t encountered any deviants, but they were an ever-present danger. Sighing, he climbed down from the rock.

He’d keep heading out, and eventually, he would hopefully find a group where he could reliably identify that there were one or two through hearing alone.

His steps carried him forward, and as time passed, he became more and more anxious.

A bad feeling bubbled in his gut, as if his intuition was trying to tell him something.

But he heard nothing. He saw nothing. Yet, he listened to his guts.

He stopped, taking a moment to check his surroundings with the flashlight. The light shone across the nearby rocks, but he found nothing there. Still, he decided to oblige his instincts and changed course, backtracking slightly to take a turn down a safer path.

But the feeling didn’t go away. If anything, it grew more intense. Something was deeply wrong. As if on cue, just as he had the thought, his surroundings lit up as day overtook night. He couldn’t help but sigh in relief, but a moment later, that proved to be premature.

A misplaced foot knocked a stone over behind him. Freddy whirled, turning around to see what it was. Not even three meters away from him, standing on the top of a rock, was a small, blood-red gorel with nearly half-meter-long claws of blood, looming over him and preparing to strike.

“Son of a—” he screamed as the gorel lunged at him, and he raised his guard, blocking the swing of its claws with his bracers, but like a knife through warm butter, the attack shredded his armor and dug deep into his right arm, drawing blood and causing him to partially lose feeling in his fingers.

He groaned as he dodged another swing, and just as it was about to take a third, he kicked with a Flowing Strike, but the gorel dodged and pulled back, making some space between them.

The absolute greatest priority in dealing with a deviant was determining their talent. But in this case, the answer was readily apparent—this thing could conceal its presence, which was why he had failed to hear it as it was stalking him.

Its blood affinity seemed to be founded upon Crimson Mercury, as was evident by the long, metal-like claws.

And there was a tremendous problem. This thing was powerful. It was a worker by nature, it seemed, as could be seen by its small form. The claws were produced by an ability, and its spoon-like fingers could be seen beneath, curled into tight fists.

This thing was trouble. Big trouble. It didn’t move like the other dull, clumsy gorels. It had finesse and was clearly an experienced hunter. Judging by its power, which was at the second star, he was far from its first victim.

It didn’t growl or posture needlessly, simply evaluating him with the cold, merciless gaze of a killer.

Too bad, however. He knew its talent, and as he had been studying the Crimson Mercury path, he knew damn well what tricks it could pull.

But it had no idea what he was capable of.

“You’ll pay for wrecking my armor, you little shit,” he declared as he started moving forward.

It swiftly dodged to the side and lunged at him, using its long claws to get a swing in on his vulnerable legs. It clearly didn’t expect to suddenly find itself enveloped in a large bubble of dark water.

A gurgle escaped its lips as a massive, ghastly stinger plunged into its eye, sharp phantom jaws bit its leg, and a massive shadowy claw tore its back apart. As the essence behind the attack ran out and the water vanished, leaving the bewildered creature momentarily stunned, it was warmly welcomed by a punch straight to its face, one that blew half its head off and killed it instantly.

A rush of lifesteal filled his body, and he let out a breath, feeling a sharp sense of relief as the wounds on his forearm closed and stopped bleeding.

That had been enough to trigger almost natural-quality healing, which meant that his wounds wouldn’t suddenly open back up any time soon. But he still had to recover further. It could wait, though. He had to bring this thing back to the hub before any of its comrades smelled its blood.

Just as he was hooking the creature on the rack, he heard the rolling of stones behind his back and a surprised, girly yelp. He turned around, spotting a barely-armored—no, barely clothed—woman tripping over the rock formation and barely regaining her balance before she followed the stones on their way down to the ground below. She was dressed in more or less ordinary clothing, wearing a filthy, torn white T-shirt and sporty black sweatpants. Her hair was a bright shade of blonde, and her eyes were a piercing purple.

There were strange spots on her skin, and she generally gave off the impression that she had some form of nasty illness. Her cheeks were puffed—her left eye had a dark patch in a corner.

For a long moment, Freddy got the impression that this was someone who needed rescuing. However, her tone and behavior didn’t match that assumption.

She blew air out of her lips and groaned. “That was close…”

His eyes closed into slits as he watched the arch make her way down the formation. As far as he could tell, she was weak. Pathetically so. Pretty much at the beginning of the first star.

This was incredibly suspicious. Purple eyes were uncommon, making them a feature one usually got due to an ascension. Not to mention that her’s almost seemed to glow slightly. But this woman, at least from what he could tell, hadn’t ascended yet. Either that, or she was hiding it.

Shifting the gorel corpse behind his back, he called, “Who are you?”

“Oh, crap!” she cursed, “You already killed it!” she spat without any shame.

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind,” she said, sighing despondently. “I’ll be on my way. Sorry for bothering you,” she said.

Then, she started walking past him. He moved the gorel corpse again and made space for her to pass.

“What!?” she asked angrily. “I’m not here to rob you! Some people…” she spat indignantly as she shook her head. But then, just as she was about to walk past him, she stopped and took a long breath through her nose.

For a brief moment, her eyes flicked to the gorel corpse he was hiding behind his back, opening wide in surprise, “Wait a minute,” she said, and then she looked at him. Her purple eyes had a radiance behind them, a sort of gluttony that put him on edge. “It’s you.”

He reflexively took a step back and raised his guard with one arm. Did this woman recognize him?

The woman moved, and he prepared to defend himself, but…

“Please!” she begged, prostrating herself on the ground before him. “Give me one of your arms!”