9: First Ordeal (II)
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Overload69
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"Brandon Haskins, D-Rank Hunter from Wild Dog Guild." A Hunter Association employee slid the Hunter ID through the glass window of her counter.
"Yes, that's me." Brandon took the ID with snark, rubbing the dust off it with his fingerless gloves. The air here was especially dry.
"Thank you for your visit to the E-Rank Rift, Ka'har Mines. We look forward to your next…"
Brandon had already started for the door of the office without letting the young woman finish. Swaggering past the others in line, he went out the side door and found others from his team. Everyone still caked in red dust, coughing away their week-long dive in the rift that stared them down from the cave a little distance away.
"This is only 1,500, we agreed on 3,000!" A boy with dirty brown hair shouted. He was pretty lanky, a bit of acne, and a lot of energy, maybe a high school student. But Brandon didn't care; he only sniggered as the hunched-over old man Yorn turned red.
"Look at this pickaxe!" He started, waving around an iron pickaxe too fast for the human eye to see. "It is specially made to mine the ore here, but you handled it so roughly that cracks have appeared. Do you know how much this thing costs?!"
"I didn't even d-!" The boy tried, but Yorn clicked his tongue.
"The youngsters have become really shameless. Back in my day, we would have to forfeit the entire pay and reimburse the employer." The ten people listening to Yorn's ramblings, including Brandon, knew that the man had hands as soft as a woman's. He had never held a pickaxe in his life. The pickaxe? He purposefully gave out old ones on their last legs.
"Be grateful that I am only docking half your pay." Yorn snorted.
"Old Yorn sure is nasty today. Did he fight with his missus again?" Azek, vice captain of the raid team, came out, taking a drag of his cigarette.
"She made him sleep on the floor before he came; bet he's been waiting to do this all week," Brandon smirked.
"Don't doubt that, he found an easy target, after all." Azek gestured with his chin as the boy, too overwhelmed by the rapid fire of words and spit, rooted in his place. In the end, he walked away with only 1,000.
"Big bro, have we divvied up the money?" Brandon asked.
"You know how slow those employees are; makes you wonder how they end up hired. But we have a number on our hands." Azek stomped out the cigarette bud, blowing out smoke from his nostrils. "You landed a new girl or some?" He smiled, poking at Brandon.
"You'd know if I did." Brandon smiled. "It's just a toy."
"A toy, eh? New?" Azek lit another cigarette, eyes narrowing.
"Nah, an old one. It's a toy I wanted for a while."
"Well, don't go too overboard. It cost a fortune to get you out of the lockup last time." Azek patted his shoulder. "Your pay for the week is 50k, after the guild's cut, that'll be 35k. Take it from Anna when you come by the building later."
"Thank you, big bro," Brandon said as Azek walked back into the small Association Office, waving.
Without wasting a second, Brandon took his car from the parking lot nearby and started down the mountain. His toy awaited him after all. This toy that used to be a pain in the ass; it cost him a good amount to find him again. But Brandon was glad he spent it.
For as long as he could remember, people either avoided him or feared him. This was especially true in school. However, one stuck-up punk dared to go against him. A scrawny kid, all bones and sneaky. A useless thing, really.
But aside from Brandon, everyone liked him. Teachers, principal, students, janitors, and even guards. Johan this, Johan that, they yapped all day long, making him the model student. Parading him in front of other parents, cause the fucker didn't have his own. Of course, he didn't.
He hated the fact that this kid was off limits, all because of another stuck-up brat who shadowed him. However, that shadow had long left him. Now, he was alone and weak. No teachers, no friends to protect him either. No one cared for that nobody now.
"I wonder what type of face he'll make this time." Brandon stepped on the gas of his Benz, gliding down the road.
Other drivers honked at his reckless turns, but he didn't care. He ran a red light; the fine was only 300 anyway. Like a ball of enthusiasm, he rolled into 11th Parkview Street, the tires halting to a screech in front of Morgan Hunter Mart.
However, he tilted his head at the current state of the street. The formerly quiet road had dozens of cars and a long line of Hunters that circled the block twice. Why would this many hunters show up at one place on a weekday?
"Did Lucas White show up or something?" Brandon stepped out of his car, leaving it awkwardly parked in the handicap space.
The reason for these Hunter gathering up? Irrelevant. Brandon threw his shades on, walking towards his target. Johan, still unaware of his presence, walked along the line with a pen and paper for some odd reason. But that didn't matter either.
Reaching the classless trash, he placed a hand on the latter's shoulder, squeezing the little muscle he had.
"Hey now sunshine, no need to get handsy, at least ask me out first—." His oddly friendly chatter stopped the moment he turned around. "It's you, wait… Who are you?" Johan rubbed his eyes, trying to mock him.
"You think that will work on me now?" Brandon scoffed.
"That tone…" Johan's fist hit his palm. "Haskins Jr, why are you here again? I know your father is rich, but you shouldn't be that free, right?"
"This bastard is rather talkative today." Brandon ground his teeth; that nickname brought unpleasant memories. But that was good; he needed some fresh rage to hit Johan with.
"Excuse me, what is going on?" Someone spoke from behind.
"Nothing to worry about, I'll open the mart in a bit." Johan turned to Brandon, writing a number on the notepad and handing him a piece of paper that read 345. "The line starts near that red tree, Haskins Jr, no, hmm…" He rubbed his eyes and looked back, pointing in the opposite direction, "Oh my bad, it's that way. You don't mind, right?"
"You are crossing the line now, fucker." The thick paper crumbled in Brandon's palm. His magik flared, and all he saw was red.
"Hey, man, what do you think you are doing?" A voice came from behind again.
"Who is this bastard yapping?" Brandon turned around, his hands clenched. However, all he saw was a head full of curly black hair.
"Did you just say bastard?"
Brandon looked down, a dark-skinned man a head shorter than him glared back, his lips quivering. But it wasn't fear in his sharp brown eyes that he saw.
"I've been in this damn line for two days, two fucking days, and I arrived early today for the potions." Eli, a famous solo B-Ranker called the Bulldozer, stood before him with bloodshot eyes. "What I didn't come here for is your lousy ass running around like a wet muppet!"
"No… It's because of this bastard here…" Brandon shrank back in the face of the expanding yellow aura, and not just him; other hunters also sensed the danger.
"Say Bastard again, say it one more time. I dare ya, I double dare ya!"
Brandon's body refused to move once Eli's eyes locked onto him. Sweat dripped down his brow like he stood under the sweltering heat.
The only one who could stop Eli was someone stronger than him, and that seemed impossible as the Hunters moved away. But someone slipped past the frozen Brandon.
"Sorry about the commotion, Mr. Myers." Johan slithered in with his smile. "I am sorry you had to wait for so long. Do you have the waiting line number for the past two days?"
"I have one, lost the other," Eli showed the crumpled paper with the number 450 on it, fist clenched but tone polite.
"I have confirmed it. As an apology for the inconvenience, I would like to give you two extra potions when you enter." Johan said, marking the note and handing it back.
"Thank you for that." Eli broke into a smile, his previous anger vanishing like mist.
"No, sir, thank you for thinking so highly of our product. I look forward to your continued patronage." He looked towards the other Hunters and spoke again, his confident voice echoing in the now silent street. "If anyone else has previous waiting line tickets, keep them in hand; each ticket is one extra potion."
Finishing his piece, Johan faced him, leaving the scrambling hunters behind. Brandon couldn't believe the calm face this bastard had; he was almost, no, definitely smirking.
"As you see, Haskins Jr, I have work to do. So, you'd better run along and wait in the line if you want to." He smiled, stepping close and whispering. "Or I can run a little discount offer and have these Hunters chase you off. You of all people should know how lenient the police are with small skirmishes between Hunters."
"Well then, Bye-bye. Hope I don't see you again~." Johan walked away, not even waiting for a reply.
"This bas—!" Brandon shut his mouth and escaped from Eli's piercing gaze.
Back in his car, he finally saw the reason for the commotion and the reason these Hunters protected a weakling like Johan.
"Special potions that you can only buy here, huh?" He read the articles, a smirk marring his face as the phone became a ball of scrap in his hand. "Enjoy your fucking time while you can. No one will care if the cashier changes."
Brandon vowed to pay back the humiliation a hundredfold. However, as he planned his revenge, someone knocked on his window.
He saw a behemoth of a man in a black suit, his gaze burning through the black glasses. When Brandon lowered the window, the man spoke in a calm, gravelly tone.
"Step out of the vehicle, please. I'd like to have a word with you." The words were polite, but this wasn't a request. It was an order.
The man's posture allowed no refusal. His magik aura did the rest.
What the hell is even going on today? Brandon wondered why the world hated him today.
***
"Two middle-grade healing potions and one Magik recovery potion. Here's your receipt, miss." Johan handed the bag to the last customer of the day, his practiced smile turning weary, but he pushed through.
"Thank you." The brown-haired woman smiled before leaning in to hand him a napkin. "If someone stirs up trouble, don't hesitate to call me. I'll come running."
"I can't thank you enough for the thought." Johan bowed. "I look forward to your next visit."
As the last customer left, Johan turned the shop's sign to 'closed'. The napkin went into the drawer next to the cash register, where a lot of these napkins with contact details had gathered.
Was it a new trend? Johan couldn't wrap his head around it, and honestly, he didn't want to. Maybe they wanted to get close to him because he was the only worker in the mart?
If so, they'd better stop dreaming about discounts and deals from him. So far, no one knew the connection between Johan and the potions. He liked it that way; who knew when someone with less restraint than Lucas would pop up. The thought alone made him shudder.
He turned his attention to the sales to get his dopamine hit. The trembling legs barely held him up. The situation had gotten worse because of the ever-increasing Hunters that wanted his potions; the line increased by tens every day.
But Johan didn't want them to stand in line for hours and go back empty-handed. These were Hunters after all, humans with the strength of elephants and much more. It would only take a cough from someone like Eli to make Johan vanish.
"That part timer better arrive fast, or the Hunter society will lose its most precious gem." He yawned, fixing himself lunch by reheating soup from two days ago.
Even after two days, the soup hadn't lost its essence. The sweet carrots and tangy tomato packed the chicken with so much flavour, not to mention the potato, honestly, the star of the show.
After supper, he jumped back into the potion lab, but not to work. Instead, he sorted the boxes of brand-new apparatus that had arrived that morning. With sips of magik recovery potion, he moved the twenty boxes along with two large tents into Phantasia within an hour.
Building a storage unit for the potions in Phantasia was the original plan, but a tent would do for now. He couldn't sleep well out of fear that some thief would break in and steal his product. Johan didn't want to lose a single penny.
Well, first, he needed to gather strength to make the storage unit, but that would come after he could catch his breath. All of that hitched on the part-timer. Johan planned on stepping down from manning the register and leaving the miscellaneous tasks that he had done alone.
The part timer, one with experience around Marts, could handle them easily. Even if they sold a lot of items, Johan's potions accounted for 99.59% of the sales done in the past week. They didn't have to care about other things, as long as the part timer handed the register, Johan could get proper sleep for once.
Just as Johan drooled over comfortable sleep, the electronic chime entered his ear. Standing by the door was a young man with blue hair, wearing a navy-blue blazer emblazoned with the crest of elite S.M. high school, his spotless, pressed white shirt and fitted navy pants to match the Oxford shoes. Just the cloth alone screamed 'Money', not to mention the boy's pearl-like skin and silky hair.
"Sorry, kid, we are already closed." Johan pointed at the sign, wondering if it had shut down.
"I am not here to buy anything, sir." The boy said, polite enough to bow in apology.
Why else would one enter a store? Was he lost? Since S.M. Academy was a long way from here, Johan thought the boy must be visiting a friend nearby. This area wasn't any less than a maze to navigate.
"Well, what can I help you with?" Johan tried to hide his tiredness behind the work smile.
"I am here for the part-time job." The boy smiled; a pleasant smile only a young boy could have. But Johan didn't have the leeway to read more into it.
"A job here?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever done something like this before?" Johan prayed but…
"No." His prayers weren't answered.
Boss… what is the meaning of this?! He regretted trusting that unreliable woman.
"Yes, that's me." Brandon took the ID with snark, rubbing the dust off it with his fingerless gloves. The air here was especially dry.
"Thank you for your visit to the E-Rank Rift, Ka'har Mines. We look forward to your next…"
Brandon had already started for the door of the office without letting the young woman finish. Swaggering past the others in line, he went out the side door and found others from his team. Everyone still caked in red dust, coughing away their week-long dive in the rift that stared them down from the cave a little distance away.
"This is only 1,500, we agreed on 3,000!" A boy with dirty brown hair shouted. He was pretty lanky, a bit of acne, and a lot of energy, maybe a high school student. But Brandon didn't care; he only sniggered as the hunched-over old man Yorn turned red.
"Look at this pickaxe!" He started, waving around an iron pickaxe too fast for the human eye to see. "It is specially made to mine the ore here, but you handled it so roughly that cracks have appeared. Do you know how much this thing costs?!"
"I didn't even d-!" The boy tried, but Yorn clicked his tongue.
"The youngsters have become really shameless. Back in my day, we would have to forfeit the entire pay and reimburse the employer." The ten people listening to Yorn's ramblings, including Brandon, knew that the man had hands as soft as a woman's. He had never held a pickaxe in his life. The pickaxe? He purposefully gave out old ones on their last legs.
"Be grateful that I am only docking half your pay." Yorn snorted.
"Old Yorn sure is nasty today. Did he fight with his missus again?" Azek, vice captain of the raid team, came out, taking a drag of his cigarette.
"She made him sleep on the floor before he came; bet he's been waiting to do this all week," Brandon smirked.
"Don't doubt that, he found an easy target, after all." Azek gestured with his chin as the boy, too overwhelmed by the rapid fire of words and spit, rooted in his place. In the end, he walked away with only 1,000.
"Big bro, have we divvied up the money?" Brandon asked.
"You know how slow those employees are; makes you wonder how they end up hired. But we have a number on our hands." Azek stomped out the cigarette bud, blowing out smoke from his nostrils. "You landed a new girl or some?" He smiled, poking at Brandon.
"You'd know if I did." Brandon smiled. "It's just a toy."
"A toy, eh? New?" Azek lit another cigarette, eyes narrowing.
"Nah, an old one. It's a toy I wanted for a while."
"Well, don't go too overboard. It cost a fortune to get you out of the lockup last time." Azek patted his shoulder. "Your pay for the week is 50k, after the guild's cut, that'll be 35k. Take it from Anna when you come by the building later."
"Thank you, big bro," Brandon said as Azek walked back into the small Association Office, waving.
Without wasting a second, Brandon took his car from the parking lot nearby and started down the mountain. His toy awaited him after all. This toy that used to be a pain in the ass; it cost him a good amount to find him again. But Brandon was glad he spent it.
For as long as he could remember, people either avoided him or feared him. This was especially true in school. However, one stuck-up punk dared to go against him. A scrawny kid, all bones and sneaky. A useless thing, really.
But aside from Brandon, everyone liked him. Teachers, principal, students, janitors, and even guards. Johan this, Johan that, they yapped all day long, making him the model student. Parading him in front of other parents, cause the fucker didn't have his own. Of course, he didn't.
He hated the fact that this kid was off limits, all because of another stuck-up brat who shadowed him. However, that shadow had long left him. Now, he was alone and weak. No teachers, no friends to protect him either. No one cared for that nobody now.
"I wonder what type of face he'll make this time." Brandon stepped on the gas of his Benz, gliding down the road.
Other drivers honked at his reckless turns, but he didn't care. He ran a red light; the fine was only 300 anyway. Like a ball of enthusiasm, he rolled into 11th Parkview Street, the tires halting to a screech in front of Morgan Hunter Mart.
However, he tilted his head at the current state of the street. The formerly quiet road had dozens of cars and a long line of Hunters that circled the block twice. Why would this many hunters show up at one place on a weekday?
"Did Lucas White show up or something?" Brandon stepped out of his car, leaving it awkwardly parked in the handicap space.
The reason for these Hunter gathering up? Irrelevant. Brandon threw his shades on, walking towards his target. Johan, still unaware of his presence, walked along the line with a pen and paper for some odd reason. But that didn't matter either.
Reaching the classless trash, he placed a hand on the latter's shoulder, squeezing the little muscle he had.
"Hey now sunshine, no need to get handsy, at least ask me out first—." His oddly friendly chatter stopped the moment he turned around. "It's you, wait… Who are you?" Johan rubbed his eyes, trying to mock him.
"You think that will work on me now?" Brandon scoffed.
"That tone…" Johan's fist hit his palm. "Haskins Jr, why are you here again? I know your father is rich, but you shouldn't be that free, right?"
"This bastard is rather talkative today." Brandon ground his teeth; that nickname brought unpleasant memories. But that was good; he needed some fresh rage to hit Johan with.
"Excuse me, what is going on?" Someone spoke from behind.
"Nothing to worry about, I'll open the mart in a bit." Johan turned to Brandon, writing a number on the notepad and handing him a piece of paper that read 345. "The line starts near that red tree, Haskins Jr, no, hmm…" He rubbed his eyes and looked back, pointing in the opposite direction, "Oh my bad, it's that way. You don't mind, right?"
"You are crossing the line now, fucker." The thick paper crumbled in Brandon's palm. His magik flared, and all he saw was red.
"Hey, man, what do you think you are doing?" A voice came from behind again.
"Who is this bastard yapping?" Brandon turned around, his hands clenched. However, all he saw was a head full of curly black hair.
"Did you just say bastard?"
Brandon looked down, a dark-skinned man a head shorter than him glared back, his lips quivering. But it wasn't fear in his sharp brown eyes that he saw.
"I've been in this damn line for two days, two fucking days, and I arrived early today for the potions." Eli, a famous solo B-Ranker called the Bulldozer, stood before him with bloodshot eyes. "What I didn't come here for is your lousy ass running around like a wet muppet!"
"No… It's because of this bastard here…" Brandon shrank back in the face of the expanding yellow aura, and not just him; other hunters also sensed the danger.
"Say Bastard again, say it one more time. I dare ya, I double dare ya!"
Brandon's body refused to move once Eli's eyes locked onto him. Sweat dripped down his brow like he stood under the sweltering heat.
The only one who could stop Eli was someone stronger than him, and that seemed impossible as the Hunters moved away. But someone slipped past the frozen Brandon.
"Sorry about the commotion, Mr. Myers." Johan slithered in with his smile. "I am sorry you had to wait for so long. Do you have the waiting line number for the past two days?"
"I have one, lost the other," Eli showed the crumpled paper with the number 450 on it, fist clenched but tone polite.
"I have confirmed it. As an apology for the inconvenience, I would like to give you two extra potions when you enter." Johan said, marking the note and handing it back.
"Thank you for that." Eli broke into a smile, his previous anger vanishing like mist.
"No, sir, thank you for thinking so highly of our product. I look forward to your continued patronage." He looked towards the other Hunters and spoke again, his confident voice echoing in the now silent street. "If anyone else has previous waiting line tickets, keep them in hand; each ticket is one extra potion."
Finishing his piece, Johan faced him, leaving the scrambling hunters behind. Brandon couldn't believe the calm face this bastard had; he was almost, no, definitely smirking.
"As you see, Haskins Jr, I have work to do. So, you'd better run along and wait in the line if you want to." He smiled, stepping close and whispering. "Or I can run a little discount offer and have these Hunters chase you off. You of all people should know how lenient the police are with small skirmishes between Hunters."
"Well then, Bye-bye. Hope I don't see you again~." Johan walked away, not even waiting for a reply.
"This bas—!" Brandon shut his mouth and escaped from Eli's piercing gaze.
Back in his car, he finally saw the reason for the commotion and the reason these Hunters protected a weakling like Johan.
"Special potions that you can only buy here, huh?" He read the articles, a smirk marring his face as the phone became a ball of scrap in his hand. "Enjoy your fucking time while you can. No one will care if the cashier changes."
Brandon vowed to pay back the humiliation a hundredfold. However, as he planned his revenge, someone knocked on his window.
He saw a behemoth of a man in a black suit, his gaze burning through the black glasses. When Brandon lowered the window, the man spoke in a calm, gravelly tone.
"Step out of the vehicle, please. I'd like to have a word with you." The words were polite, but this wasn't a request. It was an order.
The man's posture allowed no refusal. His magik aura did the rest.
What the hell is even going on today? Brandon wondered why the world hated him today.
***
"Two middle-grade healing potions and one Magik recovery potion. Here's your receipt, miss." Johan handed the bag to the last customer of the day, his practiced smile turning weary, but he pushed through.
"Thank you." The brown-haired woman smiled before leaning in to hand him a napkin. "If someone stirs up trouble, don't hesitate to call me. I'll come running."
"I can't thank you enough for the thought." Johan bowed. "I look forward to your next visit."
As the last customer left, Johan turned the shop's sign to 'closed'. The napkin went into the drawer next to the cash register, where a lot of these napkins with contact details had gathered.
Was it a new trend? Johan couldn't wrap his head around it, and honestly, he didn't want to. Maybe they wanted to get close to him because he was the only worker in the mart?
If so, they'd better stop dreaming about discounts and deals from him. So far, no one knew the connection between Johan and the potions. He liked it that way; who knew when someone with less restraint than Lucas would pop up. The thought alone made him shudder.
He turned his attention to the sales to get his dopamine hit. The trembling legs barely held him up. The situation had gotten worse because of the ever-increasing Hunters that wanted his potions; the line increased by tens every day.
But Johan didn't want them to stand in line for hours and go back empty-handed. These were Hunters after all, humans with the strength of elephants and much more. It would only take a cough from someone like Eli to make Johan vanish.
"That part timer better arrive fast, or the Hunter society will lose its most precious gem." He yawned, fixing himself lunch by reheating soup from two days ago.
Even after two days, the soup hadn't lost its essence. The sweet carrots and tangy tomato packed the chicken with so much flavour, not to mention the potato, honestly, the star of the show.
After supper, he jumped back into the potion lab, but not to work. Instead, he sorted the boxes of brand-new apparatus that had arrived that morning. With sips of magik recovery potion, he moved the twenty boxes along with two large tents into Phantasia within an hour.
Building a storage unit for the potions in Phantasia was the original plan, but a tent would do for now. He couldn't sleep well out of fear that some thief would break in and steal his product. Johan didn't want to lose a single penny.
Well, first, he needed to gather strength to make the storage unit, but that would come after he could catch his breath. All of that hitched on the part-timer. Johan planned on stepping down from manning the register and leaving the miscellaneous tasks that he had done alone.
The part timer, one with experience around Marts, could handle them easily. Even if they sold a lot of items, Johan's potions accounted for 99.59% of the sales done in the past week. They didn't have to care about other things, as long as the part timer handed the register, Johan could get proper sleep for once.
Just as Johan drooled over comfortable sleep, the electronic chime entered his ear. Standing by the door was a young man with blue hair, wearing a navy-blue blazer emblazoned with the crest of elite S.M. high school, his spotless, pressed white shirt and fitted navy pants to match the Oxford shoes. Just the cloth alone screamed 'Money', not to mention the boy's pearl-like skin and silky hair.
"Sorry, kid, we are already closed." Johan pointed at the sign, wondering if it had shut down.
"I am not here to buy anything, sir." The boy said, polite enough to bow in apology.
Why else would one enter a store? Was he lost? Since S.M. Academy was a long way from here, Johan thought the boy must be visiting a friend nearby. This area wasn't any less than a maze to navigate.
"Well, what can I help you with?" Johan tried to hide his tiredness behind the work smile.
"I am here for the part-time job." The boy smiled; a pleasant smile only a young boy could have. But Johan didn't have the leeway to read more into it.
"A job here?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever done something like this before?" Johan prayed but…
"No." His prayers weren't answered.
Boss… what is the meaning of this?! He regretted trusting that unreliable woman.
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