At that very moment, watching the situation unfold, Zheng Yichen thought that if someone started calling out offers like "Bring a newbie along for a fee! Experienced support ready, need a damage dealer ASAP!" he wouldn't find it strange at all.
"You're on your own? Want to join our team?" someone asked when they saw Zheng Yichen standing there, bewildered. But after they caught sight of his license, their expressions changed. "Sorry to bother you."
They were looking for teammates, not new hunters to babysit. They couldn't afford to take on someone who hadn't even been a hunter for a month.
Zheng Yichen was also very curious about the strange creatures appearing in the Southern Forest. Judging by the brief information in the request, the creature that had shown up in the forest this time was probably... a unicorn?
At least, that was what the blurry photograph seemed to show. Zheng Yichen was eager to go see for himself, but after what had just happened, he'd lost interest.
Still, he'd come all this way, so it didn't feel right to turn around and head straight home. He checked his equipment, especially the few guns he'd bought but hadn't fired even once, then walked into the Southern Forest. Plenty of people saw him go in alone, but none of them paid him any mind.
If the strange creatures in the forest were easy to find, there wouldn't be so many people here, nor would anyone have posted a request for hunters to search for them. Of course, once the news got out, hunters would come looking for the strange creature even without a request.
Profit didn't always require a bounty.
Once he reached the forest, Zheng Yichen took out his phone and checked it. Even in the outskirts, the signal was already affected. That was one of the reasons few people ventured into the depths of the Southern Forest.
Zheng Yichen had never considered risking his life by entering the depths of the forest before. But with a gun in his hands, he felt confident. Though he hadn't tested his marksmanship, his weapons should be fairly... useful in a place like this, right?
Probably.
Along the way, Zheng Yichen spotted traces of activity left by other people. There were even clear scratches on some of the trees. Before his phone signal completely died, Zheng Yichen wisely decided to turn back. He went to the Twilight Chapel.
The hunter Arno was there today, so the drinks Zheng Yichen had brought came in handy. As for anything else, he'd wanted to make Mahjong and playing cards, but there hadn't been enough time. Maybe next time.
"The Southern Forest? That's a place where anomalies occur frequently, too. The anomalies there are harder to deal with than the ones inside the city." Arno gave Zheng Yichen a rundown of the situation. The Southern Forest had a powerful Magnetic Field that severely interfered with all kinds of signals.
The signal interference, combined with the dense fog, made the place seem dangerous even when nothing abnormal was around.
After anomalies appeared in the depths of the Southern Forest, they could sometimes be difficult to detect. The Countermeasures Bureau couldn't deal with every anomaly that appeared there, which had turned the forest's depths into an extremely dangerous place. Aside from getting lost, the biggest threat was the Abnormal Creatures that filled the area.
Anomalies affected their surroundings, causing some creatures to mutate. Humans weren't within the range of high-probability mutations, but there was still a chance it could happen. High Intelligence, High Physique, and High Will combined to make creatures more likely to avoid mutation when exposed to an anomalous environment.
Of course, humans already had a low chance of mutating in anomalous environments. Lowering that probability even further didn't make much difference. Either way, it was negligible.
Besides, mutation that turned someone into an Abnormal wasn't necessarily a good thing. Chaotic Mutation had a low chance of being beneficial or completely free of side effects.
"I don't know whether Abnormals can undergo new changes on top of what they already are. But the depths of the Southern Forest are absolutely full of all kinds of Abnormal Creatures. They aren't necessarily creatures from the forest that mutated. Some of them came out of anomalies and couldn't get back in."
Zheng Yichen felt like he'd learned something new. He was already an Abnormal himself, and according to Arno, he didn't need to worry too much about the effects of anomalies. So many ordinary people were fine. What were the odds he'd be the one to have a problem?
And then there was the Southern Forest. Back when he was an ordinary person, he'd never been able to get information like this. That left him with a new question. "If there are so many Abnormal Creatures in the Southern Forest, why is there a request like this? No, I mean, are there actually a lot of requests of this kind?"
He had a feeling he'd misunderstood something...
"Of course," the hunter Arno replied matter-of-factly. "The depths of the Southern Forest are too dangerous. I don't even want to go there, and most other hunters feel the same. Nobody knows whether there are dangerous Abnormal Creatures in there that could kill most hunters in an instant."
"If we don't go in, that's one thing. But if some special Abnormal Creatures come out, that's another..." He glanced at Zheng Yichen, who was rubbing his forehead. "What's wrong?"
"I've just realized I was thinking about some things too much from my own point of view." Zheng Yichen couldn't help twitching the corners of his mouth. When he'd gone to the Southern Forest, he'd assumed the hunters there were all working on the same request as him. Now that Arno had explained things, he understood.
He'd assumed all those hunters were on the same job as him simply because he wanted to. There might have been others with the same request, but definitely not all of them. No wonder the bartender had told Zheng Yichen to take a look at the other requests, too.
"Hahaha. Once you get a license and become a hunter, you'll always feel like you're different from ordinary people. You'll get used to it in time. Want to play cards?" Arno laughed. He didn't know what Zheng Yichen had run into, but it was good that he'd recognized a few things.
Arno had taught Zheng Yichen something new, so he didn't refuse. Looking at the Beast Card Arno had brought out, Zheng Yichen wondered what would happen if he recommended some other card games. Would this hunter turn into a seasoned card enthusiast?
But Zheng Yichen's memories of other card games were hazy. Apart from playing cards and Mahjong, he'd only learned about the rest from his childhood and online. Unfortunately, he hadn't kept up his childhood hobbies. Though he sometimes followed related news as an adult, he was the sort of player who only watched from the sidelines.
As they played, Zheng Yichen asked Arno what he thought. Since there were so many anomalies in the Southern Forest, could he go there and get closer to anomalies without being disturbed?
Arno advised Zheng Yichen not to do anything reckless just because he was young. It was a nice idea, but if he entered the depths of the forest without knowing which way to go, what would he encounter first: an anomaly or one of the powerful Abnormal Creatures living there?
Anomalies appeared and disappeared on their own, while those Abnormal Creatures were the forest's natives. There still wasn't a complete Creature Compendium for them—not because they couldn't be recorded, but because they changed too much.
Anomalies in the depths of the forest could bring in new Abnormal Creatures, and they could take some away, too. The Creature Compendium updated today might already be partly out of date tomorrow.
Given all that, if you were wandering through the depths of the forest, what would you encounter first: an Abnormal Creature or an anomaly?
Before you continue