Salem's POV

It's been a year and since I the whole Ouroboros incident and Morrigan took me on the little getaway to help me feel better of the whole scenario. It took me about a little while but we spent a day at the spa and went back to anomaly hunting gig which helped but really needed to go back to it as I noticed more were appearing and even stronger ones appeared as well. I even got a call from Morpheus telling me if I don't take care of them and more will keep coming, weakening the dimensional barrier of the current Earthland universe will rip, basically opening a gateway to another mess.

So yeah, the freaked me out a bit as I noticed I was slacking off so I decided to get back to it as four appeared in the eastern continents. I had fought a Zinogre from monster hunter though it had been a tough fight as it was mid B-class and I mostly used my Rathalos form for the fight and we destroyed a good chunk of the area we fought in. Morrigan stepped in a little and I used my take-over magic on it. I had bandages and a cast on my left arm a little after that.

I asked Morrigan for help in helping take down the Quetzalcoatl but she said not until I was at least A-class material. Though some of the anomalies disappear then reappear again on my map, probably some other mages did take care of them but since it's not me they appear again and some or most don't remain in one place as they like to move about. I know some of them must be causing havoc out there as the Zinogre was terrorizing some local settlements. All the more reason to get rid of them fast.

After I took down a guardian stalker from the legend of Zelda game which was a low B-class but still gave me one hell of a fight but I still pulled through but luckily, I had fought a stronger creature before. I had asked Morrigan what level of a mage I was. She said to estimate a B-class mage which was good. Speaking of Morrigan five months ago she said she had a favor to do for a woman she knows in Bellum and she couldn't take me with me so we went our separate ways for now.

I was a little sad because despite her weirdly teasing nature she did teach me a lot especially when it came to developing my own physical states, not just relying on my monster transformations. It got me thinking so I went back to the Dreoon town to ask the Saberwolves to help train me a little which they gladly did as long as I helped them with some missions. I don't know why they just did it. Marron helped me improve my hand to hand abilities, Leonardo helped me in muscle training, and Whisper helped me in practicing with the gun she gave me.

Speaking of the Saber wolves they have been doing okay as Maroon became one of the only 18 people to become an s-class mage, Leonardo is said he would train hard to enter next year and Whisper has been working on new forms of gun magic. The guild master Elizabeth mostly demanded that I transform into a rabbit or cat every time she saw me and snuggle me but her right hand or secretary Frederick always stepped in.

I was going to go to the Ivory desert to face the two anomalies there but they were low A-class and the difference in strength with these anomalies in different classes was very big so I had to focus on others for now. Right now, I am facing a new challenge.

"HOLY SHIT IT'S COLD UP IN THIS BITCH!!" I yelled as I moved through the strong icy wind of the snowy forest mountains of iceberg dressed in a white snow fur coat, buggy pants, gloves and my bandana on my neck. At first when I came to this country, I was excited because being an African guy I had never seen snow before so yes, I was excited as hell. And yes, it was fun messing around in the snow not really caring about the weird looks most people were giving me. But I had remembered that cold weather wasn't my cup of tea.

"Fuck man how far are these bitches." I groaned it was getting colder and I was regretting refusing to pay for the guide at the town. I checked my phone again for them and they seemed to be moving around. Lucky one was a high B-class monster and the other being B-class initially but one more had appeared being low S-class.

I was close to the first B-class anomaly, a snow troll from the elder scroll's games. After ninja jumping around the frosty trees, I finally found the bastard and stopped on a tall tree as I took a picture of course. The thing was a tall 9 feet ape like humanoid with long, muscular arms and claw-tipped fingers. A large moth with jagged teeth, a thick shaggy white coat and a third eye on its forehead. It was also holding a club and sniffed the air before I could use the element of surprise to my advantage.

"ROAR!!" It roared at me and swung its club in great strength and easily sent the tree which I was flying but I flipped off it and landed on the trunk of another tree and requipped my gun and fired some magic bullets at the creature which were basically some green magic blasts. They seemed to have done some effect to it, which was a good sign but it quickly recovered.

I then fired more bullets which hit it but it began running away but it wasn't as fast as I was so I fired some other shots to its leg making it stumble and I knee dived on its back and jumped some distance away and it got up. It looked at me in rage and I just gave it a 'Yo' and peace sign and I went ape shit. It began swinging its claws at me but I was having difficulty. I saw an opening and delivered a hard knee to its stomach making it cough a bit than morphed my arm into that of an ant form increasing my strength and delivering a hard upper cut and it flying a few feet but used its arms and began swing on the trees like fucking Tarzan circling me and diving towards me in high speeds and slammed the club on the ground causing a mini earthquake.

Making me hang on to my balance but I lost my concentration and the troll took it to its advantage and swung it club at me but I turned my arms into that of the Zinogre and lessened the damage of the attack but it still sent me flying smashing through like seven large trees. It wasn't giving time to breath as it attacked me again but I was faster and jumped up the trees which it followed not too far behind. So I used a tree to make my way towards the troll which was about to slash me with its claws but I gave myself a Rathalos tail and smacked it to the ground and it landed on its feet and I landed a few feet from it.

"Beast Soul: Zinogre!" I morphed into my hybrid Zinogre form.

Lightning ran through my thick mane and I charged at the Frost troll at incredible speeds and delivered an electric fist to its stomach making it howl in pain and sending it smashing through a tree. Before it got up, I threw a powerful ball of lightning making a direct hit, paralyzing it. I was just about to slash its head off with my tail but it recovered faster than I expected and dodged my attack and my tail and slammed me on the floor over and over again till I basically hit it with a thunder shock. I then spun on my back making my sharp tail slice about five times than jumped up and channeled a lot of lighting, threw my body and made a ball of it held by my tail and slammed it into the troll causing a shockwave blowing some trees back.

The troll was laying a big crater but it wasn't disappearing yet much to my surprise so my mane charged some lightning again and I was about to strike when out of nowhere it throws its club at me and I just swatted it away destroying it but the troll slashed me across my chest with its claws but it didn't do much thanks to the Zinogre armor. The troll was about to swing its claws again but I intercepted and we got into a strength struggle with our arms so much that the ground trembled and cracked a bit. The troll was incredibly physically strong. I give it that but it was still dumb as I shocked it again and threw it into a bunch of trees smashing past them.

'This thing seriously keeps on spinning the block.' I thought to myself. 'Okay so it has a healing factor but the more it heals the weaker and more tired it gets so that's good. Damn it's been a while since I played elder scrolls.' I so it was slowly getting up be it wobblier. "Howling Thunder!" I fired a strong beam of lighting from my mouth and hit the troll directly and destroyed a little bit of the area. I saw purple particles and so I turned back to normal and took out my home, absorbing them and sending them to Morpheus.

"Phew, mission 50% accomplished. Damn if that thing had long range attacks on top of its regeneration this battle would have been longer and tougher." I then rested on a random try and so my next target. "High B-class Anomaly from Genhisn impact called a frostarm Lawachurl damn never thought I would get a Genshin impact creature."

After I re-quiped some water and rested for about an hour I got up."

"All right breaks over time to get to work."

Hours later

Four days

I was currently in the town of Snowflower which was just a regular snow town here ice Iceberg. I basically used up all my money to book a room with good heaters in there. I had some bandages on my head and arm and was shivering like hell. I had fought that Lawachurl and it was a tough son of a bitch. Even though I had used my Rathalos form it still didn't go down easy even though I had the advantage especially when it had that rage boost.

Now I thought about using my take-over magic on it but was practicing my rage mode in my Rathalos form and the fight went too far with the majority of the area damaged and I killed the creature. But like I said it wasn't an easy fight.

After that I had realized how broke I was so I looked around for any mage job from the closest town I could do. After getting to the snowflower by dogs transport I found a job. It involved me taking care of a few monsters by a snow-covered forest and so I accepted. There were a total of seven monsters and them being ice golems and snow Vulcans and after I was done an uninvited visitor came by a glacier wolf.

From what little I knew they were a special kind of large wolf that only existed in Iceberg due to it having the perfect 24/7 climate for them to inhabit. It had. I think I was trespassing on its territory and so it attacked and I tried speed blitzing it with my were-cheetah form but it seemed to have ice magic and made the ground harder to run on. I had then switched my owl form to give an aerial advantage but it could also make pseudo blizzard winds so yeah fighting it was hard.

I had used my Rathalos form yet again but I had to finish fast as a bad storm was coming so I didn't use it before because I had been a little low on magic but I still used my Take-over magic on it.

So, after the fight I collected my reward money and booked myself this place.

I checked the date and it was August 24 five days Tres Carnavales, a three-day event symbolizing the start of the festive season held in Hercules. This year was going to be bigger due to all the new horsemen attending this time so yeah, I wanted to check it out plus after I am done it will be anomaly hunting in full gear.

Next day

I boarded the train to Pergande due to the fact the nations where very close in geographical positioning and the fact that both countries with the addition of Bellum were close allies with each other. According to the history books I read there was a war which started in X621 and lasted between Pergande versus the combined forces of Sin and Enca backed up by Minstrel which thanks to the help but thanks to the assistance of Iceberg and Bellum it pulled through. But history lessons for another time.

My journey back to Pengrande took two days by the train until I had arrived in a large town called Spirits hand which was the number one tourist site in the country due to it being settled close to the Astral caves and ruins. I had got out of the station and stretched my legs but when I reached into my wallet to get some cash for some grub, I realized that I was flat broke.

"Goddammit!" I yelled in frustration causing some people to look at me weirdly. "Am not a registered mage of the country how the hell am I going to get some spending money for the festival! Fuck I wish Morrigan was here!" I sighed guess i'm going to doing odd jobs for cash for the past two days.

End of POV

HERCULES CITY

Hercules city was the capital of the Pergande kingdom and also its largest city housing a total resident of 1.5 million. The city is divided into roadways in order for citizens and magic-automobiles to get around easily and a large canal also runs diagonally through the city. It was separated into several districts making it one of the most organized cities in Earthland. These districts are the Royal district, Through district, Commerce district, Health district, Restaurant district, Education district, Nature district, Business district, Entertainment district and the Education district.

Tourism is a major source of this large city due to its many landmarks which attracts a lot of people to its grounds. Some of these include the Hercules Tower in the business district, Hercules Magic university in the Education district, Alexandra Park in the Nature district Alexandra theaters found in the entertainment district, The royal ball room in the Royal district and many more in the other districts.

Right now we find ourselves in the Though district which was the neglected part of Hercules city as it contains many illegal activities such as thugs, criminals, underprivileged and poor people overrun the district. Now we find ourselves in a large night club called Violet Scales we're people are dancing, drinking, doing drugs, having 'fun' with the opposite gender in the loud music.

On the top floor of the club in a well decorated office room by a large glass window giving a view stood a woman about 25 years of age with long messy pink hair, orange snake eyes, a leather police hat, a dominatrix-like outfit and red lipstick.

She was smoking as she looked as she looked at the scenery of the many lights dazzling in the city. She blew a smoke and sighed.

"Stop Cowering behind that goddamn door and just come in you fucking coward." She said crudely with a gruff voice and with that a man in a suit came in the room nervously. "This better be good news."

"Y-Yes Mistress." He nodded quickly. "That preparations to capture the second princess during the festival of the Lawe family have been set."

"Good just remember you'll only have her for a little while just to find out if she has the lacrima inside her or not. If not let her go before the king wort case asks one of the horsemen to look for her and if not still let her go and report back." She instructed him and he nodded but before he left, she suddenly appeared in front of him making him jump in fright and flew on hiss.

"One more thing, don't get caught understanding!" She emphasized and he left the room and she took another puff.

"This shit is not even a little high yet!"