"Seems like you have a pretty good relationship with that novice," a woman wearing jeans and a white shirt, with medium-length hair and a tattoo of an eye on her earlobe, approached the bartender not long after Zheng Yichen had left. "Do you think highly of him?"
"I should say I have a good relationship with every novice," the bartender replied with a faint smile on his face.
Ahn Seven didn’t make a clear response to the bartender’s answer. Among the hunters who frequented the Night Banquet Bar, at least one-third had been taken care of by him, so Zheng Yichen was not much of an exception.
"What? Miss Seven, are you looking to find new teammates again?"
"That’s right, I’ve had quite a few losses recently and need to bring in some new people. Do you have any good recommendations?" Ahn Seven’s arm was resting on the bar, propping up her chin.
"No," the bartender replied with an unchanged smile, yet his answer was very straightforward.
"Come on, you can’t decide those hunters’ choices for them. Recommend me a few of good quality," Ahn Seven wasn’t about to give up so easily. The bartender had a very good reputation among the hunter circles and naturally encountered many novice hunters.
With his recommendation, she could save herself a lot of trouble.
"No way," the bartender still refused. He never helped recommend novices to join any teams; of course, if those novice hunters chose themselves, it wasn’t his business – this exception he also planned to break with the woman in front of him.
The woman in front of him was named Ahn Seven... of course, that wasn’t her real name, and her occupation was also that of a hunter, but her background was from a major family in Hazy City, where she was the seventh child. In the hunter circles, she had always used the name Ahn Seven. Her main focus in the hunter circles was on anomalies rather than other extraordinary creatures.
Most anomalies in Hazy City were managed by the Countermeasure Bureau, but here money could do a lot of things, let alone Ahn Seven’s family, which not only had wealth but also influence. Her access to anomalies naturally wasn’t difficult or limited.
At the same time, Ahn Seven’s team had always had the highest casualty and missing rates. However, the ’salary’ she offered had always been quite high, and the logistical support was excellent. Even when short of people, it wasn’t difficult to find replacements.
It was the frequency of replacing teammates that raised suspicions; had there not been a special investigation, people might have thought this woman specialized in betraying her teammates, sending all the new members to some dark research facility.
However, her team genuinely consisted of Fog Travelers, specializing in... exploring anomalies.
The bartender knew a bit about the exploration of anomalies, and most of those matters were not suitable for novice hunters. While it’s true that novices had the highest potential for growth, exploring anomalies could also affect them, and a portion of those recruited novices would be expelled from the team for not fitting in.
Overall, what Ahn Seven wanted were novice hunters, not seasoned and mature ones, as novices were still green, had higher malleability, and were easier to control than their seasoned counterparts.
Exploration of anomalies did not necessarily require powerful hunters.
"Those hunters wouldn’t necessarily be grateful to you if they knew about this," seeing the bartender unwilling to give in, Ahn Seven left these words behind. She had no intention of threatening him, easy as it would have been with her status.
But in the hunter community, the backing of her family could bring great convenience, yet it didn’t mean she could do whatever she wanted in this circle. The more one knew, the more cautious they would seem, not reckless.
"I don’t need that one."
"This one will do," Zheng Yichen said as he looked at the portable camera in front of him. It didn’t need to be held; it could just be worn on the body. It wasn’t cheap either, almost thirty thousand for one. Its advantages were impressive anti-shake and battery life features; it offered decent resolution and resistance to electromagnetic interference, and it even had a good thermal imaging function.
However, as a portable device, it had a very small built-in screen. To use it comfortably, it still needed to be paired with an additional screen, a smartphone would suffice.
When he bought it, he was somewhat concerned about the money he spent, but it was all part of the job. A good camera could be very useful in many situations. His main objective was to find extraordinary creatures, particularly powerful ones that had hurt people before.
That way, when he confronted them, he would have no psychological burden and could casually document some photos while dealing with those creatures.
He wondered if he could be an amateur UP host in Hazy City. He had indeed seen some videos shot by lethal hunters on some websites; some were very popular. But most of those videos were about the hunters’ daily training, their basic social circles. Even if parts of the videos included combat, many were edited.
In the past, when he had watched such videos, he often viewed them in the same way people watch firearm reviews, as many of the well-known hunters’ training sessions included advertisements for weapon dealers.
Making easy money in one’s spare time, Zheng Yichen was envious. If he could reach that stage, he wondered how many freebies sellers would offer him to advertise their goods...
With this camera, it would be convenient to operate in the deeper areas of the southern forest. The fog in the forest was thick, but it didn’t really affect the heat signatures of the wildlife. With the camera’s help, he could at least spot more extraordinary or normal creatures.
Drones... he’d rather not consider that. The southern forest wasn’t suitable for that kind of equipment; the interference was too great. Sending up a drone was like giving it away for free.
If he was lucky, he might get it back, but if not... well, if really necessary, he would just buy a new one.
This time, Zheng Yichen had also prepared plenty of emergency medicines. Last time, not expecting to get hurt and lacking experience, he had suffered quite a bit. If he’d had hemostatic medicine and the like, it wouldn’t have been so awkward en route.
"Has Arno not come back yet?" he asked Prioress Tia at Dusk Cathedral as he retrieved the weapons he had stored there.
The nuns here had very good memories. The last time he had accessed his storage, he had casually inquired about Hunter Arno, and they had given him quite a precise response, accurate down to the hour.
"No," Tia said in her usual calm tone. "If you leave a message, I can pass it on. That’s also part of the ’storage’ service."
The storage service at Dusk Cathedral wasn’t free. For items within a certain size, the cost was six hundred and sixty per month. Items exceeding the specified size cost much more. Allegedly, items stored here were very safe; there had never been any incidents of loss.
Whether any ’brave’ thief had heard this rumor and decided to take up the challenge, and what would happen to those bold enough to try and fail, whether they would have their legs broken and be thrown out or be hung up and whipped—Zheng Yichen was quite curious about that.
"No, just asking," he shook his head. He had no message to leave; besides, he was preparing to head back to the southern forest. This time, he planned to stay there longer. Making such a decision and then leaving a message at the cathedral... it seemed like leaving a will.