Why I Hunt

by Shermaniac

In the plains village of Fernwood, Nathan and his friends find themselves in a sticky situation. In order to save their friend, they must take up hunting. Instead of putting life back to normal, that first hunt will change the course of their lives. Soon, hunting may be more than a way to clean up their friends mess.

4. Chapter 4

4

We had all agreed to meet outside the gates. When I got there, the four had been waiting.

"What took you so long?" Will asks.

"I found a way to save your ass, that's what," I respond. My brother steps out of the gate behind me.

"How does telling more people help my case?"

Now Pete speaks up. "If I'm gonna save you and your family, you're gonna pay me a lil more respect." Silence follows. Pete made his point.

"Now that that's settled," I begin, "I assume you'd like to listen to my plan? Or do you think one of yours is good enough?"

"Well," David begins, "I thought maybe Charlie could sneak some of her Aptonoth into the black market."

Charlie gets up, rushes to David, and slaps him hard across the face, almost knocking him over. "Don't you dare suggest something like that ever again. Leave the Aptonoth out of this!"

"Even if she was ok with it, the black market could get us in more trouble with money-handling mad men," Emily reasons.

"Well sorry, it was just an idea… do you have better?" David questions.

Charlie replies, "David could make and sell things. Haven't you come up with anything useful yet?"

David looks down, "No… I really talk better of my 'inventing' than it deserves. I can never stick with an idea. I give up. I guess I'm just not an inventor."

"That sounds sad, but we can comfort you later," Emily says. "We need a plan."

"Well then, does anyone else have one?" I ask. Silence follows as I had expected. "Then I will tell you mine. We're gonna earn the money together by taking up a quest, all five of us. My brother is gonna teach us what we need to know."

"Don't we have to put money into that?" Will asks. "Like, a quest fee or something?"

"I'm sure we could all pitch in to have enough. We might even get a quest that will get us all the money."

"Pete, do you think you could teach us in under a week?" asks Charlie.

"I'm sure I could. You can get a hefty price for some small monsters, especially if you can capture it, not slay it."

"I don't feel like I'm hunting material," Will says. "Maybe none of us are."

"Well," I say, "if we're gonna get you out of your mess, we're going to have to be."

"I'm in," Charlie voices. I look around. Slowly, the others agree. We will hunt for the 10,000.

"We better start preparing now then," Pete says. "We don't have long, and we don't know if or when I will have to go out on a hunt myself."