The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

Deciding to play Redlands again, to take a second chance on a life in a different world, was one thing. Executing said decision was another.

Even before the starting gate, there were some not so little roadblocks.

First, his present body was weak.

Used to an active, highly-athletic life in Zushkenar, Eli couldn't help being disappointed.

He panted for breath, bent over, bracing against the handholds of the exercise machine, the wheezing of his labored breathing humiliatingly loud in the morning air.

A passer-by on the jogging path of the outside park gym stopped to run in place when he saw Eli. "Are you alright?"

Eli lifted a hand from the machine without lifting his head to see the speaker and gave a silent thumbs-up.

The jogger chuckled. "It's only painful at first. But you started already. From here, it's just one step at a time. Keep on!"

Eli looked up, and breathed out a word painfully. "Thanks."

A familiar-looking middle-aged man grinned at him and jogged away. Wearing a singlet and stretchy pants, Eli could see the jogger's lithe and lean muscles rippling.

Tsk. Eli felt a resentful envy suddenly. His former body had been like that too.

Wait, wasn't that one of the people who lived in his building? Jogger neighbor, you don't mind if I use your body as motivation, right? We're good neighbors, after all.

…that sounded wrong didn't it.

Well, it wasn't as if he'd said it out loud.

He glared at the stalled one-hour beginner routine that was paused on the visual display visor that covered one eye. The virtual instructor mimicking the positions he needed to copy was paused in a comical pose.

There were still just thirty minutes into the routine, and his muscles felt like they were rebelling with pitchforks.

He paced his breathing, restarted the music, and started to move, the machine adding resistances and weights. He thought a two-hour routine would be easy, since in the first months after the Quake, he'd been able to walk between towns days apart without problem.

Apparently game stats made a difference after the transmigration.

Eli was determined to finish the routine.

A VRMMORPG wasn't just a game; at the topmost levels it was a high-intensity extreme sport where the fitness of the player was one more advantage to in-game success. It was a social and competitive experience that increasing numbers of corporate leaders were turning to in order to promote cohesiveness and teamwork in their employees.

It wasn't just business people.

Human beings thrive in conflict; push themselves to attain greater and greater heights with competition.

Virtual reality provided an almost unlimited sky for that particularly human drive.

Especially since in the last century, the sports and travel industries had changed.

Environmental preservation concerns meant that certain extreme outdoor sports and tourism activities were banned because they damaged the sustainability of the natural world.

Because of the population booming to nine billion people, spectator sports had to change to accommodate the increase in creative ways as stadiums and sports centers were low on the infrastructure priorities. Popular travel spots had to limit visitors for the safety of both the people and the sites.

Virtual reality gave the world an answer.

VR gaming was now the arena for those humans who laughed on the edge of danger, who flung themselves at new horizons, for there was a new world where they could place their life on the line again and again; high stakes and high rewards, an exhilarating existence.

VR worlds started to become more and more complex, with increasing effort and resources spent on aesthetics and atmosphere.

Redlands, supported by the tech giant RSI, was not the most popular game in the beginning, but it was one of the most balanced and detailed worlds in the virtual sphere.

It was a work of art, one that commentators would soon describe as an obra maestro of the virtual industry.

The creator of Redlands was meticulous.

Orven Norge was the son of a traditional woodcarver, enamored with old crafts, regretting the loss of ancient skills so much that he placed all the data and knowledge he could gather into a learning fantasy-based crafting game named Redlands Craftmasters where different races held different crafting skills.

It debuted in November of 2091.

This was the foundation for the incredible detail of the Redlands game, where realworld skills and knowledge were an edge that couldn't be bought.

And when the game was acquired by RSI in 2093, the company retained Orven Norge and his vision, even as they added warcraft to the generally peaceful world of Craftmasters.

That was why every good Redlands player cleaved to the ancient wisdom of a healthy body supporting a healthy mind. Peak physical skills gave the character avatar added benefits in the game.

The art and multifaceted game mechanics was one reason for the game's popularity. The other was that it was possible to earn real money playing Redlands.

Other VR games did have in-game currency to cash transactions, but RSI took a step further and announced that they had registered the in-game coinage, the golden drax, as a cryptocurrency and it passed the Interpol IAFFS tests designed to combat digital fraud.

That was something that no game had ever done before.

It conveyed RSI's almost arrogant assurance in the success and continued operation of Redlands.

It meant that the underlying mechanics of the game were detailed more extremely than anyone expected.

It meant that the artificial intelligences used to manage the game were the best in the world.

It meant tons of gold was tossed almost negligently into a niche fantasy game.

The combination of reckless corporate power and artistic stubbornness created a game world that at its peak had attracted over 1 billion active players.

Compared to augmented reality games and the still thriving mobile console games, the number of Redlands players was indeed low. But the full gear for augmented reality games cost ten times less than a single neuro-virtual headset.

And that was number two of Eli's problems.

The total balance of all his bank accounts, investments, and insurance accounts came to just 8136 in cash. That was enough to pay the basic rent and utilities for 8 months – if food and various small purchases were added, then it wouldn't last four months.

More relevantly, it was barely enough to cover the cost of buying a Redlands game account subscription for one year, and definitely not nearly enough to buy a decent NV headgear.

Eli staggered off the exercise machine and took in great gasps of the fresh air in the park. The open-air park gym was located not five minutes from the apartment building. He'd never used it before.

Hindsight, he cursed as he stood there with trembling limbs and dripping with sweat, was a rotting cackling hag.

He tapped the display to his schedule, which optimistically set his morning exercise plan to 'daily', and removed a few slots to leave alternate days highlighted.

He wasn't doing this again tomorrow.

Maybe alternate the exercise with a sword-wielding class or some other weapon. Historical reenactment was always popular. Knowing weapons was a long-term investment that will pay off both in Redlands and Zushkenar.

Wasn't Zee's friend Jori a sword nut? He accessed the Internet to look for a studio nearby.

He paused.

Did he really want to be a Swordbearer again?

He remembered the feel of knives digging into his flesh.

Eli's hand trembled and his heartbeat, already pumping madly, threatened to choke him. He clenched his fist and forcibly got himself under control.

Maybe not a Swordbearer.

He closed off the search.

It wasn't like he had been a very good one anyway.

Maybe something with more range? A mage class of some kind.

He started a stretching cooldown.

What to choose?

The third problem was that, unfortunately, Eli really hadn't been a true player. He'd only been playing a week before the Quake struck. He'd barely cleared Lvl 10.

That meant he didn't have the advantage of in-depth game knowledge and experience. The last time, he hadn't even touched the forums apart from checking which player class was the easiest to level. It wasn't like he knew he'd travel back in time and need all that information!

As for why he was back in time in the first place…Eli didn't want to think too hard about it.

The facts were that he was here, back in time or in a dimension that approximated his Earth. There was only one choice: will you live or will you die?

He had chosen the path of life, the path that would lead him back to Zushkenar.

And on that path, the many concerns boiled down to one consideration: money.

Walking back to his building, Eli slumped as idea after idea was discarded in his mind.

"This is a bit more difficult than I thought."

After he showered, he wilted on the kitchen counter with a bowl of freeze-packaged beef noodle soup he'd found in the fridge and microwaved.

The news turned on.

"…minor tremors in southern India, Sri Lanka, and Madagascar due to the magnitude 5.2 earthquake in the Indian Ocean. The epicenter –"

Eli turned off the news.

He remembered, abruptly. Not this specific piece of news. He remembered hearing about tremors and minor earthquakes for a year before the Quake struck.

As if the 'small' earthquakes were heralds for the biggest one, the one that killed the world.

"It doesn't change anything."

He wasn't here to save the world.

Despite his optimism of yesterday, he wasn't even sure he could save himself.

The fate of the world was set.

Through the clear glass of the window, he looked up at the sky.

There were colonies in space. On Mars alone, there were one billion people. On the two space station cities hovering above Jupiter and the research station moons, maybe a tenth of that number in total.

All those colonies were rated to be self-sufficient, and a third space station was being built. If Earth was destroyed, humanity would still survive in this universe.

He reached for his phone, tapped open a browser. He searched the price of a ticket to Mars, then twitched at the number of zeroes that appeared.

A round-trip ticket to Mars and back was sold at 100,000 ECRU. One way cost 40,000 ecru. The exchange rate...

It might as well have been a million.

He scrolled down the page, grimaced at what he saw.

The ticket price was not the only cost for a single jaunt into space.

There was a detailed breakdown of space-prep and after-travel care that came to about 15,000 ecru. That was ten times more than he had in his bank account right now, after nearly six months of being jobless.

That didn't even include living expenses for however long the stay on Mars or the space cities was going to be. Cost of living on any Martian biodome was sky high. Not even going to talk about the cost to live in the colonies on the moons of the outer planets. Or the space stations.

He groaned. Unless he could earn at least 250,000 ecru and a job in the space colonies, then immigrating was not for him. He couldn't even find an office job on Earth, dammit, what job would he be qualified for in space?

He knew how to tan ratskin leather, did that count?

He paused, then tapped a search on the browser, a frown on his face.

Stared at the resulting page for the Redlands game.

Regular account: 175 ecru/month or 1759.9 ecru/year

Premium account: 225 ecru/month or 2259.9 ecru/year

He could say this about those prices: compared to going to Mars, it was super-cheap.

Eli had already decided on seeing what he could do in Redlands, anyway. At least there, he knew some of what to expect after the Quake.

The game to Eli was about gathering resources for when Redlands was made real.

Because after the Quake, former players learned that they still held the positions of their game avatars, still had their possessions and properties, and the former NPCs they talked to knew them according to their actions in the game.

Let others save themselves. Eli had enough to worry about. Worrying about others would only compromise his safety.

He needed to grow strong enough and rich enough in Redlands that people would not think of pushing him around after the inevitable transmigration.

Eli sat back in his chair blankly, soup spoon paused.

Wow, he wasn't that a good person, huh?

His lips curved up suddenly, self-deprecating.

He took out the handheld display and tapped to where the news stories on the quakes were archived, then started to type.

>>these are concerning. prelude to a greater disaster? better invest in more spaceships and expand the colonies.<<

His fingers stopped.

That wasn't nearly enough. Eli tapped the counter, thinking. Then he closed the keyboard and opened a website, paid for one year of operation. The only program he added to the website apart from the standard package was a crawler, that searched and collated locations of earthquakes magnitude-7 or greater on a timeline, based on news reports and the sites that monitored the earth crust.

His jaw tightened as the crawler immediately placed six on the timeline, and he'd set the program to initiate from just the last month.

He ignored the particulars, published the site, and put his phone away. Unconsciously, his fingers started tapping on his thigh. He shook his head.

He was only assuaging his conscience, so as to leave this world without regrets.

He won't save the world.

What exactly could he do that the governments of 200 nations and the technologies of their space colonies could not?

He laughed into his soup, suddenly.

Was he, Eli the jobless loser, the great failure who botched over a hundred job interviews in a single year, who allowed himself to be enslaved for over a year, thinking of running against the deadline of the destruction of the world?

Now, now, wasn't he thinking too much of himself?

The corners of his lips lifted higher.

So what? There was something in him that was anticipating the challenge, rising in curiosity. Haaaah, when was the last time he'd ever felt this interested in doing something?

When his mother was alive, likely.

The loss had dulled after years trying to survive in the massive warzone that was Zushkenar, but here, back in the place that he had bought especially because it was near a hospital she could easily walk to and near his father's grave, the ache returned like it had never left.

The furnishing, the décor. His mom had carefully chosen each one when they both moved here. Five years ago in the summer, he'd been promoted. The apartment was on the outskirts of the slums, but it was better than being in the slums themselves, the street the apartment was in even had private security.

The last time he'd anticipated something so excitedly was when he presented her the apartment.

He shook his head from old memories.

He needed to think of the future now.

He had the advantage of a year and four months.

That time given to him, it was dearer than gold or magic.

He could do this.

He started to dig into the Redlands forums for research.

Based on his life in Zushkenar, he started researching advantages: land, trade, social status, moneymakers, skills, and character creation.

Surprisingly, there was too little lore. Even he knew advertisements had limited utility. Dedicated players needed to immerse themselves in the game, needed a hook, a story, a world.

Gazzy once said belief held worlds together.

Eli didn't think it would help this time. Historians said that humans had killed their gods long ago, didn't they? What gods were there now to pray to but empty husks?

The lore of Redlands wasn't his problem.. He ignored it for more useful information.