Sitting on a bench facing the Hunter’s Guild, the twins marveled at the speed and resourcefulness of Anxia’s residents. It had been, what, four days? And already, they couldn’t see any signs of the Elite’s breakout despite a good portion of the city being wrecked back then.
“I wonder what kind of decks the repair crew has.”
“Very different from us, that’s for sure.”
“Not like we ever had a conventional deck.”
“Well, let’s change that then!”
With a duo of grins, they pulled out all the essences they had purchased earlier and the other necessary ones.
“Which one are we starting with?”
“The lowest rarity one.”
Out came ◆Weapon◆, ◆Mace◆, and ◆Chain◆. Without any preamble, Dusk grabbed the three and fused the latter two into ◆Weapon◆.
They barely felt a thing this time. Between one blink and the next, the three essences merged into [Steel Flail].
Dusk immediately hopped off the bench and activated his new skill. As expected, it turned into a spiky metallic ball, attached to a long chain coiling around his hand. He heaved the surprisingly light thing and spun it in place, making swishing sounds.
Some passersby turned their heads at the random in-city skill use, then continued walking while rolling their eyes.
“…Maybe not the best place to test new skills.”
“Yeah, let’s do this later, I guess.”
Focusing on his flail, Dusk willed it to turn back into a card. Then vanished it into his soul pocket.
“Hold on though! I want one new skill too! To make it fair!”
“Yeah, yeah.” Dusk rolled his eyes.
Then they realized he had reacted with exasperation to his other self as if they were normal siblings.
…They ignored it.
“Anyway! Here we go! This is the real expensive one.”
Using ◆Form◆ as the base, Dawn slammed ◆Leap◆ and ◆Glide◆ into it and immediately groaned as a fully-body shudder rippled through her entire body and she slumped onto the bench.
“Ugh, forgot how unpleasant passives are…” Dusk muttered, feeling the phantom sensations.
“Tell me about it… But whatever! I got it! Just like they said!” Dawn said with a grin as she marveled at her new passive skill – [Feather’s Grace]. It had a picture of a featureless person with tiny wings on their feet, jumping amidst tree branches.
“Oh this feels weird!”
Dawn lightly hopped in place… which launched her high enough to jump over her twin.
“Whoa!”
Then she slowly floated back down on the ground as her grin grew.
“Oh, this is awesome! It’s perfect!”
“Hell yeah! I’m glad we listened to the old tree!”
Since they didn’t want to crash out after crafting too many skills again, they decided to wrap it up for now and leave the upgrades for later. Now? Time to get registered at the Hunter’s Guild. Again.
Unlike the last time they had visited, no long line with a Kenn at its end greeted them when they entered the imposing building. Though the place still seemed livelier than they would have expected.
Challengers sat around the central area studying schematics, Dreamwalkers pranced around in their inscribed pajamas, Cullwrights polished their armor and sharpened their weapons.
Seeing all this brought back memories of their childhood. And despite not having a dedicated minder controlling their every move anymore, they still couldn’t help but feel discomfort.
They shook it off and headed toward the General section of the guild. A large open room greeted them with several counters on each side, elevated wooden platforms perfect for sitting in the middle, and a door leading outside at the far end. Like the rest of the guild, ambient chatter filled the room as people lounged on the wooden seats or stood by the counters.
Luckily for the twins, a counter seemed to be open, so they grabbed the opportunity and slid in front of it.
“Hi!” Dawn said to the avian lady working there.
“Welcome, how can I help you?” she asked with a professional smile plastered on her face.
“We would like to register as rift hunters.”
“Both of you?”
“Yes.”
“What’s your party?”
“Just the two of us.”
“I see. Then that will be four hundred Gil for two registrations.”
The twins winced, having forgotten that this would cost them as well.
“Uh… We’re kind of… short on money.”
The lady’s professional smile never faltered but somehow they felt like it had gotten colder.
“I see. Do you have any achievements then? Helping with the Bellowing jungle rift? Carrying luggage for rift hunters? Providing healing?”
“Yes! Uh, I mean we helped with the rift.”
“And we’ve been stuck helping with triage underground these past few days.”
The lady hummed. “Do you have the medic’s card and the subjugation helper note?”
“We threw out the note…”
“We have these though.” They pulled out the ‘Minor injury’ cards Alice had given them.
The lady nodded and scanned the cards with a strange device.
“Good, I’ve confirmed it. Since you helped with healing, the guild can waive the registration cost.”
They let out a sigh of relief.
“Now then. What kind of specialization are you aiming for as rift hunters?” the lady asked as she began rustling through more papers.
“Umm… Probably Cullwrights?”
“Maybe Challengers? How do they work anyway? Do they start at monster rifts too?”
“Yes. Everyone usually starts out in conquered monster rifts as an E-rank rookie hunter. Challengers are then required to pass a written and a physical test to become D rank specialists, while aspiring Cullwrights need to either practically contribute to a fresh rift being conquered or obtain a total of twenty Rare essences from any rifts. It’s more complicated for Dreamwalkers and Inter-envoys.”
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Uh… So if we wanted to be Cullwrights…”
“The simplest way to rank up would be to help with the Saltglass fortress rift.”
“Right. Okay. We can do that.”
The lady finally found the papers she had been looking for and handed them two registration forms.
“Keep in mind that as total rookies, you will be required to join an established party at first. Both for safety reasons and to have someone else witness your achievements.”
Right. They had been told something similar when they’d rushed in here wanting to help when the rifts had first appeared.
“Oh… Does it matter which party?” They took the forms and the pens on the counter and idly began filling them up.
“Not necessarily. Any party with at least one member of rank C or higher will do. They’ll just need to sign a document listing your achievements.”
“Okay… We don’t have anyone like that right now.”
That human hunter had seen them take down an Epic-tier monster, but they doubted he would have liked to act as their witness. And more importantly, they didn’t want to interact with him again.
Maybe they could ask Elis since he had seen them beat some Rare and Very Rare-tier monsters?
“That’s fine. You don’t need to rush the rank up.”
“But we already have experience with rifts… And we have Very Rare skills! Shouldn’t we try to aim for C-rank at least?”
“Hmm, it’s true that Very Rare skills are in the C-rank range, but skill rarity isn’t everything. Even someone with a Legendary skill can be killed by a Rare-tier monster if they aren’t careful.”
“That’s true, I guess…” Dawn muttered petulantly.
Dusk’s eyes narrowed as he reached the ‘Special skills’ section of the form. The simple ‘Negative skills:’ and ‘Prime skills:’ made him pause, but rather than making him confused like the first time they had registered, he now considered whether they should be truthful here…
They ended up skipping these sections along with the other ones. It wasn’t worth revealing [Soul Split].
“Ah, right. We bought some essences this morning and were making new skills. Is there a place where we can test them?” Dawn asked as she filled in the final part of the form.
“Yes. You can head to the guild’s courtyard over there for free–” She pointed at a large passageway leading outside. “–or you can rent one of the guild’s gym halls for bigger skills.”
“How much is that?”
“Depends on which one you are renting. The cheapest ones are one hundred Gil per hour.”
The twins winced as they handed back the forms.
“Uh, yeah. We’ll go with the courtyard, thanks.”
“Fair enough.” She gave them a wry smile. “Please take a seat for now. I’ll call you when your hunter badges are done.”
“Alright!”
“Thank you!”
The twins scampered to the middle of the hall and found some empty seats to sit on.
They patiently waited a few minutes, twiddling their thumbs, before deciding to do something more exciting. Namely, making more skills!
“Let’s upgrade our heals!”
“Yeah!”
They better do it right now rather than when they are bleeding out.
Out came their [Healing Light] skills as well as ◆Restore◆, ◆Snipe◆, and… the two ◆Compassion◆ cards. Nothing for it. They would honor the dead by having their essence help with their healing.
With how many skills they had crafted these past few days, making these two ended up being a lot tamer than expected, especially considering they resulted in Very Rare skills. Two rounds of only mild headaches later, they admired their upgraded healing skills.
[Heartseeker]
Dawn’s skill featured a picture of a featureless figure standing in a combat stance with a brilliant pink glow surrounding them. Behind them in the distance, another figure stood with their arm aimed at the first one. A curved line of pink light connected their palm with the first figure.
[Hallowed Embrace]
Dusk’s skill had two figures embracing each other and glowing in golden light.
“…Why is mine weird?” Dawn eventually asked.
Dusk sniggered.
“Is it? It homes in on injured allies, right?”
“Yeah, but why does it need to be pink now? It’s just weird.”
Dusk shrugged.
“Ask the gods.”
“Gods…” Dawn grimaced, which Dusk quickly mimicked. “Yours is about gods, isn’t it? Hallowed? Eww…”
“Ugh, right. But it’s mostly just a stronger heal. And it gets even stronger if I like the person I’m using it on. Actually, I don’t think it has anything to do with gods.”
“Hmm…”
They paused, unease crawling into their minds. Something about that conversation felt off… Why did it feel like a conversation between two different people when–
“Dusk? Dawn? Your badges are ready!”
““Coming!””
The twins instantly discarded the disconcerting train of thought and rushed back to the counter with the avian lady.
“Here your badges. Don’t lose them.”
A pair of simple metallic plates painted dull green like Uncommon cards greeted them. The giant letter ‘E’ on one side made its purpose quite obvious. The other side featured some basic info about them such as their names, race, and age.
“Thank you, ma’am!”
“Thanks!”
“Now, can I assume that you know the basics of hunter’s obligations or should we go over it?”
“Don’t attack fellow hunters. Always try to save fellow hunters. Don’t attack Shepherds…” Dawn listed off.
“Help with fresh rifts.” A beat of hesitation. “Surrender any corrupted essences to the guild.”
“Hmm, well you know some basics. That’s good. But there’s a lot more you need to remember before stepping near a rift.”
The twins winced and prepared for a long lecture as the lady began fishing something out from her papers. Instead of pulling out the blunt weapon sometimes called the rift hunter’s guidebook, she grabbed two sheets of paper and handed them to the twins.
They idly grabbed it, noting their inflexibility, and quickly realized what these were.
“Oh! A list of rules!”
“Nice!”
“Of course. Because we all know rift hunters are an impatient lot and hate reading, so we condensed the most important rules right here. Make sure you read at least this much before entering a rift, alright?”
“Got it! Thank you!”
“My pleasure. Was there anything else?”
“No, we’re good!”
“We’re gonna go test our skills now!”
“Good luck then. See you later, miss Dawn, mister Dusk.”
““Bye!””
After shoving the rule sheet into Dusk’s cloak pockets, they headed straight for the door at the end of the big hall. They carefully opened it and were greeted by the sight of an expansive grassy courtyard surrounded by stone walls. Dozens of people peppered the place, firing arrows at targets, punching dummies, doing push-ups, and… levitating random fruit over their palms.
Huh.
The twins quickly located an empty spot in all the chaos and made their way over there, intent on trying out their newest skills.
Unfortunately, before they could reach their destination, a voice called out to them, making them freeze in place.
“Dawn! Is that you?! Oh, dear Nix! We thought you died in there!”
Shit.
They carefully turned around and eyed the young avian with silver hair and feathers, as well as the rest of his party – two wolfkin girls with light blue coloring and a kobold boy.
Or in other words, the party they had entered the first rift before the terrain shifting had separated them.
The same party they had told they didn’t have any siblings.
