Strange Grief Wants to Retire ~ The Weakest Hunter Dreams of a Hero ~ - Volume 2 - Chapter Pr

Prologue: Lost and Yet to Be Found

The capital city, Zebrudia, bustled constantly with activity. Its wide, well-paved roads crisscrossed the city, hosting a continuous flow of countless pedestrians and carriages. It was so lively that travelers thought festivals were hosted daily at Zebrudia.

With a large population in the capital came more commerce; with more commerce came a more developed capital city. And so, despite its short history, Zebrudia was considered one of the world’s most developed cities in existence.

In this vibrant capital city, you could find all sorts of treasures from powerful weapons and pieces of armor, to delicacies found only by the sea, to rare books with only a few copies in existence, to expensive precious cure-all magical potions, and—most notably—to the enigmatic collection of Relics originating from the nearby treasure vaults.

The region around Zebrudia was blessed with an exceptional number of treasure vaults compared to that of neighboring nations thanks to the several major ley lines that ran through the area. This concentration of vaults had established Zebrudia’s reputation as the holy land for treasure hunting, which had also greatly contributed to the city’s advancement.

Treasure hunters doubled as splendid merchants and superhuman warriors, bringing in magical items that weren’t replicable with modern technology and vanquishing fearsome monsters and phantoms head-on. While the riches they brought back from vaults fueled the city’s expansion, the treasure hunters scared off potential invaders with their prowess at the same time.

All in all, Zebrudia was the epitome of this golden age of treasure hunting. And yet, its growth continued unabated.

We, the Grieving Souls, had moved all the way from our Podunk town to the capital precisely because we’d known the city offered everything we needed to become treasure hunters. Indeed, Zebrudia had exceeded our expectations. While no one could deny my friends’ hard work in the past, the robust inventory and connections to excellent mentors found in the city had skyrocketed their prowess. And so, the Grievers—in high gear—had sprinted up the path to what most people considered the glory of treasure hunters.

Fun fact: in the five years since we had settled in the capital, the Grievers (minus me) had checked off pretty much every vault in the area. Zebrudia still remained our base of operations not only because of the convenience it offered and the friends we’d made in those years but also because of our desire to contribute to the city’s growth. And yet, this capital that we owed our success to was now facing a threat, the likes of which it had never seen before.

I was in my room on the top floor of the clan house with my head buried in my hands. The Sitri Slime was nowhere to be found—nowhere. For the past hour, I had scoured the room, but I had found not even a trace of it. I had looked everywhere from my vast collection of Relics to the space under my bed. There was nothing.

It was a nice, warm afternoon. Under normal circumstances, I would have taken a nap in the clan master’s chair or have scouted out someone random to be my bodyguard as I strolled through town. Instead, I plopped down on my bed and was parched from all the searching.

“Crap. I can’t find it anywhere.” I had only realized that the capsule no longer contained the slime right before chucking it at the phantom in White Wolf’s Den. Luckily, we had made it out of the vault safely thanks to our cute little walking genocide, but I was left with one important question: where in the world was that Sitri Slime?

In my defense, I had never opened the capsule. It’d been locked away in my safe ever since it was given to me. As far as I was concerned, that thing was one slip of the finger away from causing a catastrophe—I always dealt with danger by avoiding it in the first place.

Normally, slimes would be well-known to be the weakest among monsters—they were weak to everything including heat, cold, physical attacks, and even just impact. They were so weak that every kid in the boonies would have stomped on wild slimes for fun at some point. Slimes would, normally, also be famous for the ability to be generated through certain abilities. Along with their high adaptability and capacity to change their nature in reaction to environmental changes, slimes made perfect test subjects for experiments. Of course, there was a limit to a slime’s adaptability, and letting a single slime loose would not have been a big deal normally—if it was a normal slime, that was.

The Sitri Slime was a creation of the Grievers’ Alchemist, Sitri Smart. Sitri had saddled me with a “slightly dangerous” experimental product of hers that could, according to her, reduce the entire capital to ruins. Needless to say, her idea of slightly couldn’t be trusted.

Sitri was brilliant—enough to make up for her (relatively) feeble physicality. In fact, out of all the Grievers’ freaks, she was the one who had grown the most. She had grappled with her own weakness at the beginning of our journey just like I had done, except she had already been much stronger than I had been at the time. Since the other Grievers had all shown signs of exceptional talents off the bat, I had been the only one who had sympathized with her plight. In hindsight, she had just been a late bloomer; now, she was just as strong as any of my other friends in our party. As she’d gained knowledge, experience, and status, Sitri’s abilities had grown dramatically. Regardless, a sense of special camaraderie remained between her and me.

Yet, despite her brilliance, Sitri was lacking in the common-sense department. Because of our bond, she would occasionally gift me fruits of her labor as gestures of pure kindness—I couldn’t just turn them down, mostly because she’d just ditch them on a street corner or somewhere and inevitably wreak havoc on the city. What’s more, she would often neglect to mention key information about her creations, causing me to unknowingly mishandle them: the Sitri Slime was the latest example.

“No, no, no, no, no. This can’t be my fault. I haven’t even opened that safe ever since I put the capsule in.”

Okay, let me think this through rationally: I had handled the slime with the utmost caution, the thing was inside a metallic capsule, and even my dumbass self (who had dropped a Relic sword mid-flight without noticing) couldn’t be that unlucky to have dropped only the contents of a sealed capsule—that’d be impossible even if I tried!

The capsule had been destroyed, so I couldn’t confirm. But there wasn’t any scratch on the thing as far as I remembered, let alone any holes. The contents of the capsule being stolen while it was still in the safe was also very unlikely as the safe was in my secure room. What’s more, the safe itself was a Relic: I couldn’t guarantee that no one could crack the safe, but I would have known if anyone did. Considering all of that, there was only one possible conclusion: the capsule was empty to begin with! It was so obvious!

“Oh, Sitri, what a prankster. Ha ha ha ha...”

Convincing myself to accept that conclusion, I fell back onto my bed. Sitri wasn’t an idiot like me, though it also wasn’t like her to pull a prank like this. But this was the only possibility I could think of. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

Whatever. I didn’t want to think about this anymore; I felt like I was going to barf if I did. It was another peaceful day in the capital, and that’s all that mattered. I should forget about slimes altogether. Besides, be it Sitri’s creation or not, that thing was a slime—the most pathetic monster there ever was. How much damage could a lone slime do to the robust capital, really? Of course, “reducing the entire capital to ruins” was obviously an exaggeration. If anything happened, the city was packed full of skilled hunters who could deal with the problem.

Clutching my stomach, which was in knots, I continued to compel myself to believe that everything would be fine.

***

The crimson wolf knights seemed formidable at first glance. Their full armor sets deflected most attacks, and their different weapons meant that hunters would have to strategize differently to counter each phantom. On top of that, their heavy blows were powerful enough to keep even experienced mid-tier hunters on their toes. However, these wolf knights only posed a serious threat to exploring parties that were oblivious to the wolf knights’ existence: tough armors could be pierced with powerful weapons, and the different weapons could be countered with preparation as long as the hunters knew beforehand which weapon the phantoms wielded. And even if mid-tier hunters couldn’t handle these phantoms, there would always be higher-leveled hunters who could take on the job.

Gathered at the Level 3 White Wolf’s Den in the middle of a dense forest were a dozen hunters, varying in dress and equipment. One was dressed from head to toe in armor like a proper knight, and another one like she had come for a nighttime stroll. But these hunters all had one thing in common: they were all top-tier hunters at Level 5 or higher. This was a team of hunters who were well-known even among the sea of hunters and prospective hunters who called Zebrudia their home.

It was commonly accepted that the average level of treasure hunters was Level 3; achieving higher levels required exceptional talent or luck, or both, on the hunter’s part—high-level hunters were superhuman in one way or another. For starters, having absorbed mana material from numerous treasure vaults, these hunters were physically much stronger than the mid-tier hunters. For those who regularly traversed treasure vaults ranked much higher than Level 3, these wolf knights weren’t a cause for much concern.

“Wasn’t this a Level 3 vault?” asked a young man, staring at his sword. He had just killed a wolf knight guarding the den entrance with a slice through its armor and all.

“Yeah, apparently the phantoms here became much stronger over the past week or two. I heard they got Rudolph the Lancer—what a tough boss,” said a comrade behind the young man, who was fighting off another wolf knight.

“For real?” he said. “Wait, but I saw Rudolph at the Association today.”

“Luckily, the rescue team made it in time.”

“Huh. That’s gotta be a first.”

Even as the hunters engaged in small talk, they fought without pause. Now, a bullet of magic was fired through the wolf knight’s skull, and the towering phantom fell to the ground.

These hunters were gathered to assess the status of White Wolf’s Den. While it was rare for the difficulty of a treasure vault to increase out of the blue like this, it wasn’t unheard of. When something unexpected like this happened, the Association would file a reconnaissance quest to have experienced hunters reassess the level of the treasure vault. Since the government also had a vested interest in keeping tabs on all treasure vaults, these quests were often backed by the Zebrudian Empire with a bountiful reward, making these quests easy money for top-tier hunters.

“Good thing he survived,” said a casual voice with a hint of curiosity.

The reconnaissance quest had only been issued by the Association the previous day, which meant that the rescue party couldn’t have known of the current anomalies in the vault ahead of time. The rescue party should certainly have been on guard, knowing that a Level 5 hunter had gone missing. Regardless, that mission could have easily gone sideways.

“Yeah. The Thousand Tricks took that one,” chimed in another emotionless hunter.

“Jeez, a Level 8? Why would he be there?”

“Who knows why he does anything? He has some hidden agenda, that’s for sure.”

“True.”

And so, they stopped thinking about it.

Among the numerous hunters in the capital, only three had reached Level 8. They’d all earned the accolade through receiving special distinctions from the Association for their extraordinary record of treasure vault conquests or other contributions to the treasure-hunting community.

The Thousand Tricks in particular was a hunter who had delved into every aspect of treasure hunting. He was the leader of the highly talented Grieving Souls, the master of a rapidly growing clan, and a hunter of high ranks through his travels to numerous vaults. Yet, on the other hand, most hunters seldom heard so much as a rumor about his activities, nor had they met the Thousand Tricks—who lived in his clan headquarters and rarely showed himself in public—in person; it had been rumored that his appearance was quite unassuming for his level. Even so, the hunters assumed that these rumors didn’t describe the real Thousand Tricks. That is because, for a hunter to raise their level, they had to accumulate recognition points doled out by the Association and then pass an examination. Although there were plenty of ways to earn points, the examinations were all brutal trials of skill.

“Let’s go in and check up on the higher-level wolf knights and the boss, if possible. Let’s earn that paycheck.”

“Roger that.”

At the team leader’s command, all members of the party looked towards the gloomy opening of the treasure vault; they were ready for combat in a wink.

Icy air flowed from the cave, carrying a howl meant to intimidate the new band of intruders.