Abyssal Awakening

"Don\'t get me wrong, these gloves are good. They help me parry attacks and control my lightning when I\'m fighting up close. But the issues appear once I try to use long distanced attacks. I noticed it a while back but I thought it was just me.

"Turns out it was these gloves hindering me from gathering power to launch a long ranged attack since it passively stores some of my lightning to be used for parrying." Ria explained.

She couldn\'t exactly demonstrate it in the middle of the city unless she wanted to get into some trouble with the guards.

"So… You\'re looking to replace them with more offensive options?"

"That\'s the idea. I want something that doesn\'t hinder me when I try to go for the long ranged option. You know how surprised I was when my attack wasn\'t as powerful as expected? I still killed the beast but I expected half of his body to get blown off and not just his head ya know?" Ria lamented.

In her own words, the restriction caused by the gloves was one that completely sacrificed ranged for close quarter supremacy.

Of course, with her abnormal attack power, she was able to ignore this restriction to a certain extent. But that extent was roughly 20% of her original power.

Being restricted to 20% of her power when using long ranged attacks was a no go for her.

However, the more they browsed the Blacksmithing district, the more disappointed they became as the weapons available were either not up to par or far too expensive for their current funds.

To combat this, Ria had an idea of trading in her current gloves to try to bridge the missing funds but it was still not enough.

In the end, she could only settle for a pair of subpar gloves that simply enhanced her lightning attacks slightly.

The boost was small but it was still better than not being able to use her long ranged attacks effectively.

Looking at their coin pouch that had 219 gold pieces, including Alice\'s reward from her hunt, the two couldn\'t help but sigh once again when faced with money troubles.

"We can slaughter four star beasts yet we\'re still plagued with money issues." Ria lamented.

It felt as though no matter how many beasts they killed, money flew out faster than they could earn.

Travel funds, equipment funds, blood funds and so on. Try as they may, all they could do was amass 219 gold. More than enough for a small family but they\'re not the standard family. They were two Hunters.

"I\'m starting to think that being a Hunter is not as profitable as I had initially expected." Alice smiled bitterly while scratching her cheek.

Currently, she had her hood over her head to cover the floating crown.

"Tell me about it. *Sigh… You know what we must do."

"Get more commissions?" Alice tilted her head.

"No! We must journey to the gambling arena! Only through blood sweat and lots of fighting can we earn the coin we need to fund our expenditures!" Ria shook her head as a fire burned in her eyes.

"Ahaha… You know we should probably cut down on that right?"

"Ehh? But why? It\'s not like I\'m losing in there hehe~" Ria stuck out her tongue, feeling excited about going back to the arena.

"I\'m not saying I think you\'d lose. But what would we do if someone you can\'t handle appears? What then?" Alice asked, wondering if Ria had a backup plan.

"Erm… We run."

". . . But we\'re going to be studying here?" Alice raised an eyebrow.

"That\'s true… Alright fine. Unless we have no other options, I won\'t use this method okay?" Ria sighed.

She knew that Alice was just worried and it was justified. Now that they were at a more populated city, one that was rather famous at that, the level of combatants will naturally increase. This meant the Gambling Arenas would be harder to defeat if they tried to rig things as per usual.

"How do you think Allura and Gin earned money when they were on the road? Or do they not need to bother considering their connections and so on." Alice asked curiously, wondering if Ria had an idea of how they did it.

"Honestly, I think they just robbed whoever they killed. If their corpse is still intact. If anything, we could try our hand in hunting down some wanted people for their bounties." Ria shrugged.

"If their names are on the wanted list, wouldn\'t they prepare some guards to protect them?" Alice furrowed her brows as Ria\'s second plan sounded far more dangerous than the first. If anything, she would prefer Ria to gamble rather than taking on wanted bounties right now.

"Urg… Also true."

With no other choice, Ria relented to doing normal commissions within the city. That was if they could find any.

Upon returning to the Hunter\'s Guild, most of the commissions within the city were taken the moment they were put up on the board. It was only when trying to get the commission themselves, did Alice and Ria noticed that there was always a group of people, eyeing the board for the moment these commissions appeared.

With them around, it felt impossible for the two of them to get the commission they wanted.

"Is this a challenge? I feel like this is a f*cking challenge. All they do is sit around until the commissions are up then f*cking run up and grab them! Do they have nothing better to do?!" Ria complained, slamming her drink down in annoyance.

She had wanted to use her lightning powers to teach them a lesson by being faster but with how many people were crowded around, it was hard to use it without bumping into people and becoming public enemy number 1.

"Pft ahaha seems like you\'re having difficulty getting commissions." The bartender laughed, handing Alice her mead while taking away the empty cups.

"Of course! I mean they\'re practically hunting these commissions. If they got so much time and effort they might as well go out and kill a damn beast." Ria clicked her tongue, glaring at the group of Hunters who were waiting around but they only gave her a provocative grin in response.

*PUCHI!

Feeling as though a vein was about to burst, Ria could only chug her drink in one go to try and soothe the anger within.

"You\'ll get used to it. These kinds of people are known as Vultures. People who wait around for the easiest tasks within the city and don\'t let the others get it. While it\'s a competitive environment within the group, they make sure \'outsiders\' don\'t get a chance to grab the commissions."

"Oh? Seems like they got quite the background." Alice muttered in surprise as she hadn\'t noticed them before.

"Well, they\'re everywhere. The Guild\'s tried to deal with them before but you can\'t really stop people from getting commissions otherwise it\'ll cause all kinds of other issues. So they could only leave them be. And to be fair, it\'s not really accurate to call them a group as they\'re just regulars who recognize one another and stop others." The bartender shrugged.

"All in all it\'s just a matter of being faster and more perceptive against them."

Hearing this, Alice nodded her head as she glanced over at the board.

So far it\'s just been Ria who\'s trying to get her hands on the commissions since she was the faster one out of the two. But Alice had an idea on how to potentially be faster than them.

This wasn\'t a matter of speed but rather perception and reaction. Both of which she has an edge over due to the existence of Cayla.

Finishing her drink, Alice stood up.

"I\'ll be right back." Alice smiled as Ria nodded her head.

"Good luck~ Hope you can bring one back."

Nodding her head, Alice narrowed her eyes and walked towards the commission board.

Naturally, the Vultures kept their eye on her as Ria had made herself known and as her friend, she became a target as well.

\'I need to be subtle about it. Manifest only the metal. A small piece will do, as long as I can see the reflection.\' Alice thought to herself as small fragments of metal appeared beneath her shoes.

Controlling them to move through the blind spots and hover in the air above, she sat down on an empty table and waited patiently.

She needed to set up her hunting ground before making her move. The basics of being a Hunter.

\'I have four points of reflection. It doesn\'t seem like anyone has noticed. Refine their surfaces so I can see the reflections. If the metal isn\'t enough, I can use blood as a replacement.\' Closing her eyes for now, she focused her mind on adjusting the properties of her metal.

After a moment of silence, she opened her right eye and focused on the pieces of metal above. It was rough but enough to make out a few words. All that\'s left now is to make her move when the opportunity presents itself.

Thankfully, she didn\'t have to wait long as a Guild Staff made her way to the board with a stack of papers in her hand.

Alice had seen a few of the commissions she had shuffled into the stack and knew this was her time to shine.

Standing up, she and several Vultures made their move. While she walked at a brisk pace, the Vultures were already there.

But this wasn\'t a race of speed. No, this was her hunting ground. Speed will not avail you in this place.

Curling her lips into a grin, she waited for the Staff to pin the commissions on the board since they needed to wait.

Once she was done with the final sheet, Alice struck!

A faint trail of blood mist diffused through the crowd as Alice\'s first Sigil lit up. She didn\'t need to make a big illusion since that would be too obvious. Just a momentary lapse in concentration as though they aimed for the wrong commission.

That hesitation was all the Hunter needed.

And in that moment, Alice snatched two commissions away from the hands of the Vultures before they could react.