Monster Hunt NYC: A Fantasy Harem Adventure Read online

  Aya understood what I meant when I careened my head towards the possessed Lich, who was charging up a fireball to finish off Altsoba.

  Her ghost limbs like a slingshot, the half-dragon half-human warrior shot into the air and landed behind Ophelia, beheading her with a quick swipe of her buster sword.

  From there, she moved over to Altsoba, helped her to her feet, and returned to the battle, this time focusing on the necromancer, who now wielded a heavy staff decorated with skulls.

  My attention shifted back to Rose.

  The feathered serpent had wrapped herself around Rose’s body, and was starting to squeeze the life out of her.

  “Magnus! Help Rose!”

  Magnus was just about to engage the devil man with another series of thrusts, but hearing my command, he immediately struck a graceful defensive pose, blocked a strike from the devil man’s trident, and was cut to the ground by a bird made of glass.

  Where the hell did that come from? I thought, as the bird made of glass began tearing at Magnus with its talons. He tried to get out from under the bird, tried desperately to block its attacks, but his struggle ultimately failed.

  The witch’s glass terror bird tore Magnus’ torso into two pieces, his entrails spilling out and blood pooling around his body.

  I was in shock; the battle looked as if it were only going to get worse, an intuition come to fruition when the feathered serpent killed Rose, snapping the bearadillo’s spine.

  Three of my Fighting Party were down.

  “We’re fucked,” I whispered as the necromancer blasted Aya away, turned to Rose, and raised the towering bearadillo from the dead.

  Undead Rose slobbered and hacked as her eyes turned white and she got to her feet. She turned to Altsoba, who immediately tried to change forms to somehow intimidate Rose.

  This ended poorly.

  I watched with my hand over my mouth as our own bearadillo took Altsoba down and swiftly mauled her to death.

  “Four down, fuck!” I shouted.

  This left Fujin, Lady Cassandra, and Aya still alive.

  Aya, a look of utter fury and terror on her face, cried “Aye!” as she tossed three throwing stars at the necromancer, going for her Lonely Guy attack.

  The daggers pierced his chest; Aya went up and over. The tip of her buster sword bloomed from his chest. The necromancer was down.

  Iris whooped; I shouted for Fujin to concentrate his Winter Gust attack on the banshee, who was seconds away from blasting our three fighters with a Spector-esque Wall of Sound.

  The Japanese wind god sucked in a huge cloud of air, and baring his fangs, he exhaled the cloud in the direction of the banshee.

  “Fuck yes!” I clapped my hands together as the banshee froze; she fell to the ground, shattering into hunks of frozen flesh.

  “She had a weakness to Glacio magic,” Iris said with excitement. “We can do this, Chase, I really think we can win this one!”

  Our hopes were shattered when one of the fire zombies finally made contact with Lady C.

  The Infectious fire swiftly spread up her arm, moved to her shoulder, and from there to the rest of the Metican warrior’s body.

  Screaming in terror, she fell to the ground as the wicked flames engulfed her.

  “Cassandra!” I cried.

  I gasped as she stood back up, fire consuming her body as she turned to Aya.

  The Thulean narrowed her eyes at Lady C. She ignored the fact that the feathered serpent was approaching her from behind, that the devil man was only a few feet away.

  Aya raised her sword and the two Huntresses charged each other, the possessed Lady C. wildly swinging her two flaming blades.

  Their swords connected; Aya quickly overpowered Lady C. I hated to shout it, but I knew that having a possessed Lady C. would be one surefire way to end this match in our opponent’s favor.

  “Aya,” I cried out, “Duchig Destroyer!”

  Even though they were a good thirty feet away, I could still see the smile spread across her face as she cut Lady C. down from the neck to the side of her torso.

  Aya’s smile remained on her face as a bolt of sharpened glass decapitated her.

  “No!” Iris cried as the headless Thulean warrior fell to her knees, and from there, to the soil.

  “Only Fujin’s left,” I said, shaking my head, barely able to control my angst. I kicked at the dirt, looked back at the crowd to see they were eating this up. I hated them. “Fuck, we’re not going to win this one. Fuck!” I slammed my fist into my other hand.

  “Focus everything on the witch,” Iris said suddenly, her eyes filling with light. “The others may not be able to touch Fujin.”

  “The witch! Fujin, the witch!”

  The Japanese wind god zipped in and out of reality as he hustled over to the witch sailing around in her mortar.

  Just as he neared her, Fujin was struck by a blast from the devil man’s trident, a blast which caused his body to bloat, pulsate, and ultimately brought him to the ground, where the feathered serpent finished him off.

  Chapter Thirteen: Floral Cheer and the Brawl Add-On

  Iris and I spawned back in the field in front of the Dojo. My initial assumption was that Aya was the one who was going to be angry about losing the fight. Instead, it was Lady C., who kept her fists at her sides as she paced back and forth.

  “They had the afflicted. I died as one of the afflicted!” She turned to me, tears of anger starting to form in her eyes, her hands on the hilts of her swords.

  “Let’s just relax,” I told them all. Magnus consoled Ophelia; Rose lay with her head on the ground, a solemn look on her face as Gobi ran over to her; Fujin couldn’t stop bowing to me; and Altsoba sat on the ground with her hands placed on her knees.

  “We didn’t do so badly,” Iris said. “Seriously, everyone, we did well. Two matches, and that second match wasn’t easy. This was our first tournament. There will be more, and now we have some funds to work with.”

  The 7,500 Proxima dollars. I knew instantly what to do, and while I would have rather cashed it out on the exchange, my Fighting Party’s morale was equally important.

  “Altsoba, mirrors.”

  Saying the words caused a carousel of room options to appear in the air before us. I found the option I’d looked at earlier and quickly purchased them.

  “You ...bought them?” she asked as she stood. A look of joy spread across her face as she turned to the main quarters. “You won’t be disappointed, Chase,” she said over her shoulder.

  “Everyone is getting something,” I said as I rubbed my hands together, “because seriously, people, we did well. Iris and I…” I smiled at her as I started telling them some of the terrible gigs we’d played.

  “You played for free?” Aya laughed. “How pathetic.”

  “That’s just part of the process,” I told her, “and this was also part of the process. We learned a ton, and we can get a few things to make us more comfortable here. So, what do you want? If it is within budget, we’ll get it. Rose? What would you like?”

  Gobi the cub climbed up his mother’s side and tumbled back down.

  We would like animals here to hunt, she said inside my head.

  “Animals to ...hunt?” I considered this for a moment.

  I was just about to ask Iris if that was even an option when I decided to take a look for myself. As I went through lists of options for my Dojo, I came across a portion called ‘Wildlife’ and clicked on it.

  The options available at my current budget – hopefully around the thousand Proxima dollar range – weren’t too shabby. There were your typical woodland animals, as well as options for fish and other water wildlife.

  We had the pond, so that could be a good option, but I wanted to run it by Rose first.

  Woodland animals, for now, she said after I’d asked her what she preferred.

  “We can get more later,” I promised her.

  Selecting ‘Woodland Creatures’ for a thousand bucks gave me the bon
us option of ‘breeding’. Upon further investigation, I found that paying a measly two hundred PD more would allow the woodland creatures to procreate on their own.

  Considering this a no-brainer, I immediately selected this option as well.

  Gobi’s ears perked up as he heard something in the grass near the meadow. He turned to it, and with his mother’s encouragement, he began stalking his way over to the meadow. Retail therapy was working.

  Iris laughed. “That’s adorable.”

  “Magnus and Ophelia, what would you like?”

  The Fext and the Lich turned to one another and he nodded, suggesting that she tell me.

  Ophelia cleared her throat. “We were discussing how nice it would be to have a larger bed, and possibly a tub.”

  “What exactly is in the guild quarters?” I wondered aloud.

  “Care to see?” she asked.

  “Let’s.”

  It only took us about two minutes to reach the back door of the guild quarters. The door opened into a large space that was separated by the stairwell which went to the higher floors.

  I gulped.

  It was completely bare, almost uncomfortably so; the fact that there was no furniture to absorb sound only made the patter of our footsteps that much louder.

  “I had no idea…” I said as we took the stairs.

  “Now do you see why we want our own cabins?” Aya asked.

  “If I remember correctly, you wanted those before I built this building.”

  “That’s true, but now we really want them.”

  “In due time,” I said as we reached Magnus and Ophelia’s room. It was lit by a lamp in the corner, and the center wall had been removed. They’d pushed two single beds next to each other, and other than that, the space was bare.

  “Done,” I said as a carousel of housing items appeared before me.

  I went through a few lists and finally arrived at the bedding section. I selected a queen size bed, at the cost of nine hundred dollars, and it materialized where the single beds used to be.

  It came with a frame and a headboard, and looked pretty damn comfy, much better than the bed I had back in New York. From there I scrolled back out of the bedroom sublist and found the bath department.

  “And there are actual baths in the quarters, right?” I asked them.

  “Showers in the basement,” Aya said. She still wore the hat she’d taken off the steampunk woman, and as she caught me looking at it, she tipped the bill at me.

  “Okay, everyone will eventually get something like this.”

  I selected a model I thought they would like, and it wasn’t cheap either. A Japanese bathtub appeared in the corner of the room near the window. It was round, and it provided a nice view of the field outside and the meadow beyond that. It cost eleven hundred dollars.

  “That’s so nice,” Lady C. said. I could tell it was taking all of her willpower not to hop in.

  “It is wonderful,” said Magnus. He turned to Ophelia and she moved into his arms. “Would you mind leaving us?” he asked without taking his eyes off her.

  “Will do. Let’s move back down to the main living room area.”

  “Oh, you mean the living room area without a couch,” Aya reminded me. Iris chuckled at this as we walked down the stairs. So far, of the 7,500 Proxima dollars, I’d spent just over four thousand. A quick glance to my viewing pane bank and I saw where I stood.

  Proxima Dollars: $2,850

  Spent: $14,050

  Loan: 0

  “Fujin.” I turned to the Japanese wind god and approached him cautiously. Something moved behind his eyes, an intense energy I hadn’t seen before. “Would you like anything?”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “Okay, moving along…”

  Iris pulled me aside just as we reached the bottom of the stairs. “Buy Lady C. a bookcase. This will allow her to learn new spells,” she whispered quickly.

  “Damn, good call.” I glanced to a small room off the main room. It looked like a perfect place for a study, and while I didn’t have enough to really make it nice, I could at least put a bookshelf in there.

  I selected an affordable bookshelf at $200 and found a nice leather sofa chair to go along with it. The sofa chair came with an ottoman for a grand total of $850.

  “For me?” Lady C. asked as soon as the items solidified in the study. She ran up and hugged me, a close hug too, one that lasted a few seconds longer than it should have. The Metican warrior pressed her forehead into mine and looked at me eye to eye. “Thank you.”

  Proxima Dollars: $2,000

  Spent: $14,900

  Loan: 0

  “I will get a nice, big wraparound couch later, and your cabins, of course. We can move the bookshelf to your cabin, Lady C., once we’ve built it.”

  Aya smirked.

  “You want something too?”

  “I’m fine, do what you will with the rest of the funds.”

  I’d received one hundred real world dollars from the second battle, and to see just how lucrative battles could be, I selected the money icon at the top of my viewing pane.

  “Just give me a second,” I told them as Lady C. went to her library. Dozens of books had appeared on the shelves, books likely stored in her inventory list.

  “Checking the exchange?” Iris asked me.

  “Thinking about it. Hmmm…”

  “It’s currently 12.3 PD to 1 USD,” she said.

  “So if I cashed out a thousand Proxima dollars it would put me at …”

  “Yeah, that’s not great.”

  “A little over eighty real dollars. Okay, so not at lucrative as I would have liked, but still, we only won two matches. Just think if we’d won more.”

  “Exactly,” Iris said. “And also, the exchange rate fluctuates. From a quick search, I see that it’s been as low as 8.9 PD to 1 USD. I say hold it for a bit. Besides, most of the bigger tournaments require either an access code or a fee to enter.”

  “I want something,” Aya said suddenly.

  “Sure, anything.”

  She nodded to the far corner, away from Iris, Fujin who just seemed to follow us around, and Lady C., who was looking through a book.

  “Okay,” I said after we stepped a few feet away. “What is it?”

  “Flowers. I want flowers everywhere.”

  “You mean like potted plants or outside?”

  “Outside.”

  “Why is this a secret?”

  “I don’t want the others to think I’m weak. Thuleans consider those who like flowers to be weak.”

  “Got it, I’ll make it seem like it was my idea.” I turned to the others. “Sorry, Aya,” I said loudly. “We just don’t have the budget for, um, a theater. But we do have some money for flowers. Let’s go outside, everyone, and see if we can’t bring a little floral cheer to this place.”

  “Floral cheer?” Iris said.

  “Just come outside with me.”

  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  I waited for the NV Visor to power off. I was on Iris’ bed, and she was next to me, also waiting for her visor to power down. It was a quick process, but the Proxima Company suggested that you wait thirty seconds to a minute before removing the visor.

  “Those flowers were gorgeous,” Iris said, her visor still over her eyes.

  “They were, and they only cost six hundred Proxima dollars.”

  I recalled what it looked like to have hundreds upon hundreds of flowers bloom all at the same time. It was something else, and the fact that these particular flowers, called broken blooms, mirrored the dark purple and blue sky only made them more surreal.

  “Tell me the truth,” she said as she removed her visor, “that was Aya’s request, right?”

  “I plead the fifth.” I stood and stretched my arms over my head. It was late, and I was tired and slightly delirious from the tournament. That’s something I hadn’t expected: it felt as if I’d had an actual adrenaline rush and was coming down from it.

&nbs
p; “So, let's talk about the tournament a little more,” Iris said.

  “Yeah, I figured now that we have a little peace and quiet, we'd be able to discuss what happened.”

  I sat down on her floor, my knees tucked under my body.

  After getting a glass of water and drinking it, she joined me. Her hair was a little messy from the NV Visor, and her cheeks were flushed, but she was as beautiful as ever, and when she put her glasses on, I was reminded of the way she looked in the Proxima Galaxy.

  “We could have done a lot better,” she said, which came as a surprise to me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We were able to take out two of them, and if we had taken one more, I think it would have been the tipping point in our favor.”

  “What could I have done differently?” I wasn’t defensive in the least bit. Iris was very good at being critical in a way that shared blame and didn’t point fingers.

  “I think…” She bit her lip. “I think a couple of things, really. First off, the Fighting Party needs to get better at working together. They could have taken the necromancer out early on, and then focused on the witch. But that’s just my first impression. You may just need to be at a bit higher level, and you may need to replace a member or two of the party.”

  “Who do you think I should replace?”

  “Possibly Rose, although she’s good at just being a big force to be reckoned with. Actually, I like your party for now, they just need to be higher levels.”

  “And I need to participate in more tournaments to level them, right?”

  “Exactly. That said, you can continue to level up Aya and Lady Cassandra by capturing more mythcrea. You can also level up your mythcrea individually through brawling. How many tokens do you need to get to the next level? Do you remember?”

  “Fourteen tokens to the next level.”

  “So fourteen to the next level, and at the moment, you’re only able to capture lower level mythcrea, which will give you one to four points at best. Fine. So let’s get brawling. At least you can level up a little that way by bringing your mythcrea along. Definitely, it’s time to brawl.”

  I put my fists up playfully.