Depthless Hunger

Chapter 75: Hangover of Loot

In the morning, Kai didn't feel like discussing anything that had happened the night before. He saw Zae Zin Nim wrapped up in all her blankets, so she must have returned at some point during the night. Since she seemed to be sleeping soundly, he crept out of the room for his usual morning training, breakfast, then second training.

When he returned, it seemed Zae Zin Nim had been cultivating for some time. Her eyes flickered open and this time she was all business. The previous awkward moment might as well have not existed.

"We cannot meet with Razzagah Lantrian today." She placed her hands on her knees firmly. "I would like to discuss our future cultivation."

"Sure, but I still don't know if we succeeded last night." Kai sat down on his own bed and leaned back propped up by his arms. "You did get everything, right?"

"The financial records are beneath the bed for now. I believe they include what our ally wanted, but I cannot say for certain. In any case, only he can tell you how successful such political matters were."

"Fair enough. But when you say cultivation, you do mean your Class, right?"

"To start." Zae Zin Nim raised a hand in front of her face and blue flames began to flow over it. Her shroud rose enough for him to get a strong sense for the symbols representing it, but even his base instincts told him that she had awakened something useful. "Initially, it was going to destroy my cultivation base, but all of your training allowed me to adapt it. However, I am unsure of its new form."

"Hmm... 'Novice Coldfire Corona' sounds nice, at least." Kai stroked his chin as he wracked his memory of Hunters Guild records. "The Coldfire part sounds like the sort of rare Class that occasionally appears, though I haven't met anyone with it. I'm not sure why it's called a Corona, but if you're already able to manifest a visible ability, it can't be too broken."

"But why is it 'Novice?' Have I acquired an inferior version of a stronger ability?"

In all their training, had he never explained that aspect to her? No doubt she had been worrying about it ever since. Kai quickly leaned forward to clarify. "No, think of it like a preparatory cultivation stage. It will improve as you discover the basic extent of your abilities, then it will advance to its true state."

"This is good. I do not yet fully understand, but I am pleased." She clenched her fist and the flames vanished, then her eyes fixed on him. "This is what I need to break through, Kai. You have saved my life, and all I have given you in return are the rudest arts of cultivation, barely usable in this barren land."

"Hey, you almost killed yourself fighting the elites. I couldn't have expected more fro-"

"No. What I have given you is not a fair exchange."

"Uh, we don't need to-"

"I will not rest until I have helped you through the barriers you face." Though Zae Zin Nim stared at him intensely, her back slowly sagged. "I fear that may be difficult. As I told you, I am not well-suited to discovering new paths. However, I do have a number of observations about your progress so far that I hope will be helpful."

"Then I'd be grateful for whatever you can suggest." He tried to bring down her intensity a notch with a smile. "Can you tell me about what else you saw in the vault first? I'm honestly curious what kinds of things they keep there."

"It seems that their wealth is largely financial, because I found very little. I am keeping everything except the records and one other item on my person in case we are searched, which is another reason to hand off the record book soon. Anyway, some of these are known to me while one is less clear."

As she started removing items from her robe, Kai's eyebrows rose. He suddenly got the feeling that Zae Zin Nim would have been happy to clean out the entire vault, and potentially the pockets of everyone in her path. She might not even view it as theft.

"Uh..." He hesitated as he recognized some of the items. "Maybe we should test some of this outside the city? We've already done enough damage to this room."

"For some we could, but there is one remaining thing." She left the items behind on the bed and slowly walked around to the other side. After bending down, she rose with something roughly spherical, so large that it required both hands to carry it.

Once she set it down, the odd canvas wrapped around it unrolled, revealing an enormous throbbing monster core. He had no idea what it was from... except that the world immediately began shivering in a way he'd only felt twice before. Kai automatically wrapped the core back up in the canvas, but it vibrated straight through. Only after Zae Zin Nim wrapped a thin layer of qi around it did the sensation fade.

"This thing..." Kai took a moment to catch his breath, because his heart was racing as if ready for a fight. "I don't suppose these things are sold on every street corner in Cloudspire?"

"No, I have not seen its like before and don't know what it is." She looked down at the package soberly. "However, I think you should eat it."

"What?"

"I suggest you consume it immediately. Not only could it potentially draw undue attention or identify us as the thieves, I believe its condition has been slowly deteriorating ever since I removed it. It would likely be most potent if you ate it soon."

His first instinct had been disbelief, but he had to admit it wasn't so crazy. Eating monsters had done him no harm so far, despite the increasing levels of toxicity he'd ingested. If he was really using their strength in some way, then the very source of their power might work for him as well. It was an experiment worth trying.

Maybe the giant world-distorting core wasn't the best place to start, though.

"You might be on to something," Kai said, "but I feel like it would be a bad idea to try it here. Let's get out of the city so we can test everything. We need space, even for your Class training, and I don't trust any of the training grounds here."

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"That is acceptable." Zae Zin Nim glanced over the huge collection of random items and tilted her head to the side. "I think it was already a risk taking them here in the dead of night. How do we remove them now?"

Ten minutes later, they left Rayakan pushing their ill-gotten gains in a cart of vegetables. The innkeeper had been willing to help without asking questions and the guards didn't care about anyone heading out. It wasn't exactly an elaborate heist, but Kai was done with those for a long while.

It was more difficult to find empty space, as the region around Rayakan was filled with farmland and small settlements. Eventually they found an area too rocky for farming, with a few boulders littered about as if a giant had dropped pebbles. Once they were fully out of sight, they could finally look over everything they had discovered.

First, Zae Zin Nim demonstrated two small stones that were apparently familiar to her. One could generate a large fire at a single strike, like a perfect flint. The second stone was a little smaller, but produced a steady stream of water if either mana or qi was forced into it. Not items of power, yet far more useful than half the potions he'd ever carried around.

Next she showed him a wedge in the shape of a half-circle, which apparently puzzled her. Here, Kai could help. He took the wedge, oriented it properly, and sent mana flowing into the appropriate notch on the bottom. It immediately leapt from his hands, expanding into a fully sized tent.

"And it can return to its other form?" Zae Zin Nim stood with her hands on her hips, observing it curiously.

"Of course it can. What good would it be otherwise?"

"I thought I should ask. It would be just like Deadwaste to create an item that only half-worked."

She might not have been impressed, but Kai was still trying to come to grips with how much they had stolen. The elemental stones were useful, likely worth several hundred Eagles each. But this tent was much larger and nicer than the ones he had seen in the market, even before he considered the fact that it could be compressed. It was probably worth thousands, more than everything else he'd owned combined.

Just as he was reeling from that, Zae Zin Nim opened one of her bags and poured hundreds of Krysali crystals onto the ground.

"You even took those?" Kai bent down to examine them, since this was the first time he'd seen such crystals that weren't being used to attack him. They immediately reminded him of the overdrive pill he'd once taken, even if these had a different sheen. Every time he moved his head, they seemed to shift color.

"They are an essential part of my plan going forward." She picked up one herself and held it before an eye. "It's qi-like, but not qi. Ordinarily, I would not suggest using it for anything other than their specific brand of cultivation. However, you have shown an extraordinary ability to... digest any energy you encounter. I believe you may be able to cultivate with these, far faster than you could with the thin qi here."

"I'd have to trust you to check if it's causing one of those deviation problems, but sure."

"You seem somewhat uncertain."

"It's just..." Kai stared over everything they'd taken and shook his head. "Maybe we stole too much? I mean, all of this was taken from someone, and we..." But a moment later he thought about the Corinin clan pissing away hundreds of potions that could have saved the lives of so many hunters in the north. "No, never mind, I'm being stupid. Let's take everything we can get away with."

"This is reasonable." Zae Zin Nim watched him, her face utterly inscrutable until she spoke again. "Don't think that I would steal from you, even if our alliance ceased to be beneficial. I may not have your moral hangups, but it is reasonable to treat fairly with those who are fair with you."

"Then there's something we can agree on. What I don't want us to do is steal from people who are just weaker than us, especially if they're struggling to get by with what they have. But if we take from people who are wasting their resources anyway, I'm not going to weep for them."

"Hmph, if you insist."

Honestly, Kai wasn't really thinking about the moral aspect of things anymore. Despite the fact that Zae Zin Nim said that she owed him, he felt the opposite way. He thought she was telling the truth when she said she wouldn't turn on him, but it was hard to read anything in her dark eyes. In any case, it was time to show her something he'd been holding on to for a long time.

"I have something else for you." He reached into one of the least-opened pouches on his belt and pulled out his third and final scroll of enhancement. "These are given to hunters with newly awakened Classes, to strengthen them. It was completely useless to me, given my Class, but maybe you can make better use of it."

"Thank you. I will use it wisely." She shifted backward, possibly uncomfortable with another gift when she was trying to even the scales. "Can we experiment with this monster core? I cannot be certain, but I truly believe that it would be beneficial for you."

"I like your idea, but I think it would be good to start small."

He began with a monster core they'd had crystallized but hadn't yet sold. After cracking the simple preservation crystal, he popped it into his mouth... and it was fine. Unpleasantly chewy, but it didn't drip any hideous juices into his mouth or anything. No harm done as far as he could tell.

Still not ready for the ominous core, Kai decided that they should test a fresh core. It took them almost an hour to find a single rabbit-like monster, given how close they were to the city. Once it was dead, he carved out the monster's bloody core and forced it into his mouth.

His teeth tore through the flesh surprisingly easily, he tasted the flavors of the monster... and the terrifying thing was that he didn't hate it. He'd been telling himself that monsters no longer tasted so horrible because he was hungry, or some other excuse, but now he couldn't hide behind any of those. He was chewing on a raw monster core and it actually tasted good. A bit like beef except the juices were acidic, yet somehow he liked the kick.

"That is repulsive, but encouraging." Zae Zin Nim pored over him yet again with her spiritual sight. "I had hoped they would work like qi pills for you. No such luck. However, it does seem like you are absorbing something from them with no ill effects. Do you feel any stronger?"

"I doubt a core this small would even be noticeable." And thinking about how it might work just left him with endless questions. Would monster cores from Aquagorgons increase his equivalent attribute? Would only new monsters make any difference? He had absolutely no way of getting answers to any of those questions aside from experimenting.

"The large one now, unless you have a concrete reason against it."

"No, I think... I'd better try it."

He wasn't going to just bite into the thing, though, since that would cover his face in monster goo. Kai decided to compromise by using a knife to cut off pieces. The cut oozed blue bile and the world stopped vibrating so nauseatingly.

When the first shred of the core touched his tongue, Kai gasped. It tasted amazing. He swallowed the entire piece almost without chewing, then regretted it. Now the vibrations were inside his skull, shaking the world from within.

Yet the flavor... he rushed to cut another piece and swallowed it as well. Just as good as the first. By the third bite, reality was twisting even worse inside his head. He started to take a break, then realized that the sensation was getting worse even if he waited. Instead Kai threw himself at the monster core and devoured it as rapidly as possible.

His vision was getting so blurry that Zae Zin Nim became nothing but a fuzzy line. Soon he barely even thought about her, consumed by the hunger. He dropped his knife and picked up the rest, tearing into the delicious core and eating as if his life depended on it.

When he swallowed the last bite, the world stopped threatening to shake itself apart. Yet he was somehow on his feet, everything reeling around him. The hunger hadn't gone away, and as it intensified he felt a deep hatred surging within him. Anything was a target... anything was food... he smelled something nearby and turned toward it with a snarl.

As he took his first step, his vision dissolved into a haze of red.