The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1376 - Thieves On the Town

Imagine being a law-abiding business owner who just wanted to run a successful store. Life is good. People enjoy your wares, and you get plenty of foot traffic and interested customers. However, one day, as you’re just hanging around, you suddenly notice that a gemstone you’d just shown a customer only half an hour prior was gone. Could it have been replaced? Perhaps, but likely not. Still, concluding it had been stolen was too big a leap in logic, right?

Except minutes later, you notice something else missing. You really start to question whether you’ve gotten sloppy or if something is truly amiss. Still, you keep a calm head, search for the items, and check the inventory. During that, you realize several more things are missing.

By now, the conclusion is clear: there has been a theft. Then, as you go to exit the store and flag down an Officer, you walk by the counter and realize that the centerpiece: a large orb of valuable metal: has disappeared.

No one has entered the store during this time... meaning a thief must have been there. Cold sweat runs down your back, and your single eye darts around the store as you spin around, failing to spot anything or anyone. Feeling truly scared now, you rush out of the store, yelling that someone is stealing from your store, hoping the nearest Officer will rush over and help locate the thief.

Unfortunately for the store owner, the thief was already gone, and all the cyclops could now do was sit down and write up insurance claims, hoping it would be covered despite knowing how shitty insurance companies were. Chances were they would have to enter a long legal dispute that would bankrupt the poor store owner long before the insurance company even started feeling the hurt.

In his final desperation, the cyclops would then go to the media, outing the insurance company for its shady practices. This act would bring more unhappy customers out of the woodwork, as a media storm would ensue, at which point the store’s claim was suddenly offered approval as long as the store owner retracted his story.

Something the store owner would never accept, being too stubborn to allow himself to be pushed around like that. His life was forever changed, and his new mission in life was now to bring down the corrupt insurance company, his dedication to the level where the cyclops considered going into politics.

His life had been significantly altered. All because of one thief who’d stolen most of his valuable merchandise.

At least that was the story Jake was telling himself as he escaped the store after the owner ran out and started yelling to an officer that he’d been robbed. Unfortunately, he didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to see the valiant store owner’s battle with the insurance industry, but had already moved on, aiming to rob another store a few streets over.

The area had gotten a bit too hot after robbing the first store, and two officers were already rushing over and using some pretty damn advanced scouting magic as far as he could tell. Likely not powerful enough to get through Unseen Hunter, but it would still be needlessly risky sticking around. Especially with so many other great places to rob and the way one had to claim loot in this place.

As could only be expected, the wares of giant kilometer-tall monsters were equally huge, and they all had some sort of protection, making it impossible to put them in spatial storage.

Instead, to “steal” an item, one had to make physical contact with it for a set period before the item would magically shrink down to a size more suitable for the thief. At this point, one could also throw it into spatial storage and move on.

The issue was that this claiming period forced one to expend a bit of energy, and the item would also begin emitting a faint light. Claiming an item from under the nose of a C-grade cyclops was still doable, but Jake had no confidence in stealing stuff with a level 410 Cyclops Officer actively investigating the store. That’s why he moved on to the next store that looked like it would be a good hit.

Jake was in a bit of a rush, though. He was one of the first people to enter the Inner City, meaning the cyclops population was still largely unaware of the invaders’ presence. Their guard was down, and things were just business as usual, making this the ideal time to strike and take advantage.

When several hundred people were robbing stores everywhere, Jake reckoned things would get a lot more hectic, so he hoped to get plenty of loot before that happened. The garrison maze was still within his Pulse, and while no one had fully made it through the place yet, a few were getting close to the exit, so his time was tight.

Using stealth, Jake simply ran through the streets using One Step while ignoring all the giants walking around him. Soon, he reached the next store he’d picked out and started his thieving.

The first item in question was a large sword that looked a lot more elegant than the weapon used by the Blademaven. It was on top of a large shelf, and the store owner was looking at the door, unaware that an unwanted visitor had arrived.

It took him around four seconds to fully claim it, which was longer than usual. Still, when he finally got it and used Identify, he believed the result helped more or less confirm another theory.

[Ceremonial Sword of Abundance (Unique)]: A sword made to be a decorative piece using expensive materials. Can be instantly converted into 11000 Prima Credits or used within the Palace of Abundance for even greater rewards.

This one gave 11000 Prima Credits, which was more than most items in the other store. While he still couldn’t say it with utter certainty, the time it took to claim an item seemed to roughly correspond to its value. Perhaps there were also factors, but energy control or anything like that didn’t seem to play a role, as the claiming process was fully automated. Also, if one let go and then touched an item again, the process would reset, requiring persistent physical contact.

Moving on quickly, Jake claimed a small dagger next, a spear, and the head of an axe. If it wasn’t clear already, Jake was robbing a blacksmith currently, or at least someone who sold wares produced by a blacksmith. On that note, Jake hadn’t seen any anvils, forges, large ore deposits, or really anything to facilitate crafting... yeah, still not the most realistic city of giants.

By the time Jake had stolen his fifth item, the store owner finally started to notice something was amiss. He even went so far as to draw a weapon from under the counter and start investigating. Jake kept himself hidden and still managed to steal two more weapons before the store owner also went to alert the local Officers, meaning it was time for Jake to bail. Again, while he believed he could find the time to stand still for a few seconds and keep the process hidden while stealing items from a C-grade, those Officers were on a whole other level.

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The next hour was spent with Jake robbing more of the local populace, moving from store to store like a ghost. He was smart to strike several streets over every time, meaning no one had time to pick up on any pattern. Even by the time he’d robbed his ninth store, the owner didn’t seem aware at all that any kind of thievery was going on in the city.

Alas, Jake’s robbing spree couldn’t continue forever. He was not the only thief on the block, and unlike him, his peers weren’t as good at not attracting attention. Through Pulse, he saw a team of three move about and enter a store, but rather than stay hidden and just rob the place, they sealed the building, killed the C-grade owner, and quickly stole everything before running off.

A couple of minutes later, a potential customer walked in, discovered the dead cyclops, and from there, chaos was back on the menu. While someone had their merchandise stolen and got an Officer involved to investigate, it didn’t do much beyond that. Murder? Now, that was a whole other story.

More than a dozen Officers soon flooded the place and looked everywhere for the potential killers. The perpetrators had already gotten pretty far away at that point, and Jake was fairly confident they were going to get away with what they’d done.

At least he did until a new kind of cyclops entered the picture. This one wore what could only be described as a trench coat with a fedora, and by that alone, Jake knew exactly what kind of variant this was. The cyclops looked around, touched the body of the slain store owner, and after a few more seconds, he suddenly whipped his head around.

He looked straight towards where the three perpetrators were running a few buildings over, definitely having located them. The cyclops spoke and directed ten Officers to follow before they started running down the street. Due to their size, every second they crossed several kilometers, and it didn’t take them long before they reached the trio of Administrators who were about to enter another store, likely planning to pull off the same thing they’d done the first time.

Unfortunately for them, they were caught before they could do so.

The ensuing battle was swift and decisive as the eleven B-grade cyclops descended on the three of them. They tried to flee, but the fedora-wearing cyclops made escape impossible as he could seemingly pierce their stealth. All three of them ended up dead within a minute of being discovered, and seeing this new variant, Jake was extra on guard.

It clearly had some anti-stealth and powerful tracking skills. Which, honestly, only made sense. Perhaps the first thing that made a lot of sense, given the setting.

Law and order were naturally required for any civilization to function properly, and for laws to work, someone had to uphold them. That’s why pretty much every city of any worthwhile size had a police force and individuals capable of investigating crimes. Even Earth had its own police force, usually led by Holstred when he wasn’t busy conquering Territories within a simulated world. Jake wasn’t sure whether Earth had anyone specialized in investigating crimes, though. He assumed they did, but he had never really been super involved in, well, anything related to actually leading the planet he was supposedly the World Leader of.

Anyhow, most factions had investigators available, and even if they didn’t have anyone with such skills living on a planet or in a city already, one would be dispatched to solve the situation. These detectives usually had powerful tracking skills, karmic magic, time magic, or other means of figuring out what had happened in a given situation, along with the ability to find the culprit.

Rarely did these figures spend their time only tracking down criminals. Most of them were elites who only did it as a part-time kind of thing to help their faction out. Someone like Jake himself would actually be a prime candidate to help investigate some crimes here and there, given his tracking skills. Oh, and the absolutely overpowered Bloodline that would likely allow him to intuitively solve most things with little issue.

Jake was forced out of his thoughts when he suddenly spotted something that made him click his tongue. The cyclops detective who had killed the trio of Administrators had continued searching the area, and somehow, he’d reached one of the stores Jake had robbed. Perhaps he was investigating because a crime had been reported. Seeing as they could be related to the trio before, it was only due diligence to investigate. Needless to say, this wasn’t good news for Jake.

He watched with bated breath as the cyclops entered the store and started looking around. Once more, he used his odd magic, searched the display cases where Jake had taken items, and seemed to take several mental notes as he nodded here and there. Finally, he left the store and spoke with the owner. Based on the frustrated look of the owner and the wild waving of his arms, Jake finally let out a sigh of relief.

Okay, so not using system-fuckery cheating, Jake happily concluded. With Shroud of the Primordial and his stealth skills, tracking him down using most forms of magic should be borderline impossible, but it had been entirely possible that these natives of the simulation had the power of system-fuckery on their side. Fortunately, that didn’t seem to be the case, and Jake could happily keep going as he moved to break into another store.

At the same time, the cyclops was investigating the stores Jake had broken into one by one, going on a bit of a tour, tracing his steps. By the time he caught up, Jake had already robbed two more stores, leaving many frustrated store owners who didn’t get any happier when the detective found nothing. Perhaps the detective even suspected that these store owners were all colluding to commit insurance fraud, but hopefully, he wouldn’t allow his own unfounded conspiracy theories to enter the police report.

After robbing his second store, Jake stuck around nearby on a rooftop as he staked out the entrance. After only a few minutes, the cyclops detective arrived, allowing Jake to finally land an Identify and know what he was truly dealing with.

[Abundant Cyclops Investigator: lvl 425]

Okay, so Investigator was the proper term. Also, this one was definitely a stronger variant than the Officers, though compared to the Blademaven, this was still a weakling. What’s more, he was clearly specialized in tracking and solving crimes, making his combat prowess slightly inferior.

Jake watched as the Investigator looked around the store before frustratingly failing to locate the culprit once more. Exiting the store, the cyclops stood there for a little while, scouring the nearby area for any additional clues, perhaps hoping that the thief was still somewhere nearby. A logical thing to do, given that the store had just been robbed a few minutes before he arrived, and he was correct, considering Jake was indeed nearby.

After finding nothing, the Investigator took out a small crystal and seemed to infuse it with energy. Two seconds later, he nodded and started walking down the street towards the garrison maze, making Jake give his well-wishes to those trying to get through if this guy was going to be around.

With the one threat to Jake’s criminal activity gone, he got back to robbing, but once again, it was short-lived as the situation within the Inner City quickly started getting chaotic with the arrival of more and more Administrators. Compared to Jake, they really sucked at staying undetected, and perhaps because most cyclopes were only C-grade, they wantonly killed the local populace if it seemed convenient, provoking more responses from the Inner City police force.

Ultimately, Jake decided he had to abandon the outer edges of the Inner City and venture farther in, away from where all the Administrators were beginning to operate. He looked onward and saw the great Palace of Abundance in the distance, spatial distortion once more making it appear far closer than it actually was as he started making his way towards it.

Robbing plenty on the way, of course.