Velik appeared on the roof of a watch tower in a flash of jagged, crimson light. It looked like nothing so much as a crack in reality that unfolded into the shape of a person, one that mirrored the slash through the new moon overhead. Even during the daylight hours, he could sense it. He didn’t even need to look to point directly at the dark moon, not with [Dusk Watcher] on his new skill list.

“Again?” a voice below his feet bellowed. “Quit landing on the damn roof!”

Considering the alternative was to crash through the roof, Velik felt he was being quite considerate. He supposed he could have landed on the ground outside the tower, but that would have necessitated climbing all the way back up to the top. So he just ignored the complaint and slipped over the eaves, one foot pressing against thin air to redirect his momentum. He landed in front of the watch commander without so much as a thunk from the heels of his boots hitting the stone.

The commander was a squat man, red-faced with a bristly mustache and a wide nose. Velik doubted anyone would ever call the man handsome, but it was probably better than being a walking skeleton. He’d have thought these people would have happier dispositions, finally having that particular curse lifted, but it had taken remarkably little time for a variety of less savory personalities to shine through.

“Got it done?” the commander asked gruffly.

Velik produced a pair of severed griffin heads from his Traveler’s Bracelet and dropped them to the floor. They landed with a heavy thump, shaking the tower slightly. Griffins were notoriously heavy, especially for monsters that could fly, and the skulls were four feet across each.

The commander transferred his scowl from Velik to the severed heads and then back to Velik again. “Was that really necessary?”

“You wanted proof,” Velik said, his voice mild.

Still grumbling under his breath, the man lifted the first skull up and chucked it through the opening to land out in the training yard below the watch tower. An exclamation of surprise rang out from a few of the soldiers down there who narrowly avoided being crushed, followed by an explosive string of swearing as the second head sailed out through the open air to join it.

Velik quirked an eyebrow, but the commander just shrugged. “Good training to be wary of danger from above,” the red-faced man explained. “Alright, job’s done. The bounty balance will be added to your account by tomorrow. Thank ya’ for your help, Mister Crimson Hunter.”

How do I keep picking up new nicknames? It’s not like I asked anybody to call me that.

“Any other work?” he asked.

“Not today. Oh, I do have a message from the bean counters. Apparently, they’ve had to redo your paperwork three times now on account of it expiring without you ever showing up to complete it, so they wanted me to tell you it’d be greatly appreciated if you made an effort to stop by New Accelit and take care of that. Guess it’s a load of hassle to keep having to redirect funds and set up new temporary accounts for you.”

Velik didn’t really care about the money. The former undead had a complicated currency system with exchange rates that shifted daily, even between their own coins. It seemed like a needless hassle, especially when decarmas were the only form of money he bothered to use. At some point, he planned on just cashing out the balance and taking the whole thing to Jensen, but there was still work to be done around the new city and he only wanted to do that particular chore once.

“I’ll get there when I get there,” he told the commander, who just started laughing.

“Done my duty passing the message along.”

Velik stepped out into the open sky and, with a flex of [Reality Warp], vanished. The skill didn’t really make him teleport. It just sort of lubricated his path through the essence field stretching across the planet. [Forerunner] did most of the actual transportation work for him, but he was far faster using the two skills in conjunction than with either of them alone.

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There were probably some people with high enough mental stats to notice the streak of red light flashing across the sky, but no one had said anything to him yet. Even some of the higher level monster hunters like Emberson had never commented on Velik appearing in front of him. It wasn’t teleportation, but he moved so fast he was starting to think it might as well be.

He crossed the breadth of Ghestal in a matter of minutes, landing in the middle of a cemetery in Cravel. Velik had found himself feeling more at peace with his decisions here, and the simple headstone with Torwin’s name engraved on reminded him of the consequences of his actions.

Today was not a day for introspection, apparently. Velik had barely arrived when he heard movement behind him. A trio of monster hunters were approaching, probably heading for the same grave Velik himself was standing in front of. All three of them smelled like booze.

One of them must have recognized him, because he immediately pulled his sword and pointed it Velik’s way. “You,” he spat out. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”

“Coming to visit a friend,” Velik told him.

“A friend? You’re the reason Torwin’s dead! Get out of here.”

The other two hunters didn’t appear interested in the outspoken one’s crusade. “Man, just leave him alone,” one of them hissed. “He’s got as much right to be here as anyone else.”

“Besides, he’s the Crimson fucking Hunter,” the other one added, apparently recognizing Velik. “Are you trying to get us killed?”

Velik frowned. He wouldn’t attack some guy who appeared to be slightly drunk just because he was running his mouth. But what really surprised him was the other two sticking up for him, though maybe not the last guy. People being afraid of him was not new. The other hunter, the one who’d defended Velik’s right to visit Torwin’s grave, that was the unexpected response.

In the end, he wasn’t interested in a confrontation. Things were getting better for him, but slowly. He took this encounter as a sign of some positive progress. Rather than stay and argue, he simply reached into that well of power dwelling within him and vanished into the sky. The trio of monster hunters were left, slack-jawed in surprise, to stare at the headstone Velik had been standing next to.

Things weren’t great, but they weren’t terrible. Overall, the world was in better shape now than it had been in years. At least, his corner of it was. He wasn’t sure what was happening out past the boundary. Eslaka might be waking up this very moment, but the gods seemed to think it was unlikely. And if she became a threat when she did wake up, that would land firmly in the category labeled ‘not his problem.’ He was done working for the gods.

“Oh, you’re back early!” Jensen said when Velik appeared right next to him. “We’re not scheduled to leave for another two hours.”

“Finished up quicker than I planned,” Velik explained.

“Huh, well, make yourself at home, I guess. I’ve got some final prep work to take care of before the wagons get moving.”

Velik left Jensen to do his work and walked into the large country estate that had become the home of the [Vault Seeker]. He had his own suite of rooms there, largely unused except to store a bed that he occasionally slept on and a wardrobe full of clothes he’d never touched. Jensen had insisted, though, and Velik hadn’t cared enough to argue with him.

It had been a few days since he’d slept, and though his stats weren’t as high as they’d been when he’d had his own personal system, they were still far, far beyond a normal person’s. An hour-long nap every few days was more than enough to keep him going, so he took advantage of the bed.

Everything’s different now. The system looks the same on the surface, but it’s not. The monsters look the same, but they act different. They’re smarter now, more like animals. I wonder how long it’ll be before we can’t even tell them apart.

More than once, he’d declined to finish a job hunting a monster that was about as dangerous to civilization as a wild bear. Sure, anyone coming across it when it was hungry was in for a bad time, but it wasn’t attacking indiscriminately anymore. Whatever the gods had changed in their second iteration of the system, it had mellowed the monsters out.

He wasn’t sure anyone else had noticed, or, if they had, if they cared. Monsters were a threat to be wiped out indiscriminately, without hesitation or question. And that had been true a year ago, but Velik wasn’t so convinced it was true anymore. He could still remember the civilized monsters on the other side of the desert, and he suspected that someday the monsters here might be similar.

Things were different—not good, perhaps, but better. The world was getting there. Someday, it might truly be good, even if it wasn’t right now. Velik hoped to live long enough to see that, and he was determined to play some small part in shifting things that way.

Good. Not great, not yet. Someday. The sacrifices we all made weren’t in vain.

The End