Ironhide Behemoth
The sharp, imposing woman glanced Jack up and down, her tone flat as a cracked stone. "Scavenger kid, you don’t belong here. With your sorry strength, you’re not even fit to sort scrap out in the Wasteland, let alone hang around this spot."
Jack just smiled, jerking his chin at the oozing cuts on her arm. "Funny coming from you. Last I checked, the Southern Marshland’s only supposed to be crawling with low-tier mobs. You look like you got run over by a freight train out there."
The leather-clad woman’s jaw tightened, a flash of embarrassment crossing her face before she schooled her expression back to neutral. "I underestimated the target. Didn’t take the Venom Centipede’s neurotoxin seriously enough, that’s all."
"You’re poisoned?" Jack blinked, surprise bleeding into his voice. "You need a hand with that? I might not be much, but I can pull my weight."
Yeah, their only prior interaction had been a quick, no-frills trade. But swapping a random beat-up automotive core for a D-rank weapon like the Blood Talons? No matter how he crunched the numbers, he’d come out way ahead on that deal. The least he could do was offer a hand if she was in a bind.
"I’m serious, you should turn around and leave. You’re just a Scavenger. One wrong step out here and you’ll end up as Wasteland fertilizer before you even know what hit you."
"I’m NOT a Scavenger. I’m a Wasteland Hunter."
Jack had heard enough. He yanked the Blood Talons from his belt, his voice sharp and dead serious. "Did you ever stop to think why I traded you for hunting claws instead of, I dunno
, a heavy-duty trash bag?"
That finally made the woman stop and look at him properly, her gaze sharpening as she took in the weapon in his hand, the steady set of his shoulders.
In the Link Kingdom—hell, across the whole of this post-rift Earth—impersonating a higher-tier professional was a capital offense, punishable by public execution. Jack didn’t strike her as the type with a death wish. So… could he actually be telling the truth?
"You’re really a Wasteland Hunter?" The leather-clad woman leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping to a low, serious rumble. "If you’re not lying through your teeth, then we’ve got room to work together. Short-term, for now."
Jack tilted his head in a small, polite nod. "At your service."
He wasn’t an idiot. He’d picked up on the clues the second he’d met her. Casual as you please pulling out a D-rank weapon, that storage ring on her finger that only the top 1% of elite hunters and nobles could afford? Every little sign screamed that she was way more important than she was letting on. Allying with someone like that? It was a win for him, no two ways about it.
"Good." She nodded, grabbing his wrist and yanking him deeper into the cave they’d been standing at the mouth of.
The first thing Jack saw when they stepped into the inner chamber was the massive, oozing corpse of a Venom Centipede splayed across the stone floor. The thing was huge—easily as long as two grown men lying head to toe, its dozens of legs still twitching faintly.
"This is a low-tier mob?" Jack pointed at the carcass, disbelief thick in his voice.
The woman’s expression flickered, just for a second. She cleared her throat lightly, dodging the question entirely. "The centipede’s toxin is in my system. It’s gimping my strength bad, and the only antidote requires ten tip shavings from
Ironhide Behemoth horns."
She paused, her gaze locking onto his, sharp and unblinking. "If you can get me those ten horn tips, I’ll hand you a reward so generous you’ll be thanking me for months."
" Ironhide Behemoth…" The name dragged up a flood of memories from the old Wasteland survival textbooks he’d pored over as a kid.
They were river-dwelling monsters, shaped like rhinos but packing enough strength to flip a fully armored supply truck with a single headbutt. The sharp keratin horn on their forehead? Deadly enough to impale three men straight through in one charge, and hard enough to deflect most E-rank weapon fire.
Hunting one carried real, tangible risk, but Jack wasn’t about to pass up this opportunity. This wasn’t like the Gale Ape hunt he’d been planning for weeks. With his current stats and the gear he already had, taking down an
Ironhide Behemoth wasn’t some impossible pipe dream. And next to the payout the woman was promising? The risk was practically negligible.
"Fine. I’m in." Jack nodded decisively, taking the quest without a second thought.
"Not bad. Kid’s got guts." The woman huffed a small, dry laugh. Then she flicked her wrist, and a pile of armor and weapons materialized out of thin air from her storage ring, clattering onto the stone ground between them.
"All of this is E and D-rank gear. Put it on. It’ll stop you from getting turned into paste if one of the Behemoths so much as glances at you wrong."
She paused, tapping a finger against her chin. "If you pull this off, all of this gear is yours to keep. On top of the other reward I promised. No shortcuts, no fine print."
"Hell yes!" Jack’s face lit up, and he immediately started strapping the reinforced leather bracers and chest plate onto his arms and torso.
At the same time, he couldn’t help silently gawking at his own luck. Running into some random hidden powerhouse in the middle of nowhere? This was the kind of OP drop you only heard about in other hunters’ campfire stories.
"Wait, I never got your name—" Jack started, right before he turned to leave the cave.
The woman leaned back against the cold stone wall, her expression unreadable. "If you come back with those horn tips, then we can get to the 'exchanging names' part of this arrangement."
Jack blinked, then snorted a laugh and nodded. Fair enough.
He slipped out of the cave and immediately set a course for Silent Lake, the only known gathering spot for Ironhide Behemoths in the region.
The place lived up to its name. Most days, the whole area was wrapped in total, eerie stillness. And right now, with every adventurer and hunter within a hundred miles flocking to the Bramble Thicket to hunt the newly spawned Gale Ape, Silent Lake was quieter than a grave.
Dozens of
Ironhide Behemoths lined the lake shore, their bodies as massive as adult elephants, standing so perfectly still they might have been carved from gray stone. If Jack hadn’t been squinting, he would have mistaken the whole herd for a field of weathered statues.
That was the scariest part about
Ironhide Behemoths. They’d stand motionless by the water for hours, not even twitching a muscle. But the second you made a wrong move, the whole herd would come stampeding at you, all hooves and horns and unbridled rage. It was why the lake was so quiet in the first place—most travelers and even other monsters didn’t dare make a sound within a mile of the place, terrified of triggering a stampede.
Jack stared at the dozens of enormous beasts, drew a deep, steadying breath, and slowly pulled out the E-rank weapon the woman had given him: a curved, sharpened Crescent Moon Blade.
Lucky for him,
Ironhide Behemoth horns weren’t connected to their sensory nervous system. In theory, he could saw the tips off right under their noses without waking them or setting off the herd.
"Don’t mess this up, don’t mess this up," he muttered under his breath.
He took another deep breath, then crept slowly up to the closest Behemoth. In one quick, silent leap, he landed on the base of its horn, grabbed the blade with both hands, and started carefully, meticulously sawing at the hard keratin tip.
A minute later, a sharp, awl-sized chunk of horn clattered into his palm.
"First one down."
Jack exhaled slowly, already moving toward the next Behemoth in line.
…
Time dragged on, and Jack successfully harvested nine horn tips. By now, he was dead on his feet—his arms burning, his head throbbing, every nerve in his body fried from staying perfectly silent and focused for hours. But he only needed one more tip to wrap up the quest.
"Just one more. Let’s get this over with without a hitch," he prayed silently. But the universe had other plans, and the exact thing he’d been dreading happened.
Just as he sawed through the tenth and final horn tip, an enraged, thunderous roar ripped out of the distant Bramble Thicket. The sound was so loud it shook the ground under Jack’s feet, and he winced as the shockwave made his eardrums throb in pain.
"Damn it, what the hell set the Gale Ape off?" Jack cursed under his breath. Then his blood ran cold. That roar was deafening—there was no way the
Ironhide Behemoths hadn’t heard it too.
He looked up, and sure enough, dozens of pairs of sharp, glowing red eyes were now wide open, every single one locked directly onto him. At least ten of the Behemoths were huffing, thick clouds of steam pouring out of their nostrils, radiating pure, unadulterated rage. Clearly, they’d figured out someone had been stealing their horn tips, and they knew exactly who the culprit was.
"Fuck."
Jack sucked in a sharp breath, his stomach dropping like a lead weight.