Metamorphosis: Seven Sins IV - Many Mysteries

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Chapter 4 - Many Mysteries

Phisto couldn’t get the image of the beast out of his mind as he left the bone-chilling cold of the caves and trekked back through the main body of the Swamp – a dark, dingy pesthole choked with weeds, mud, and unpleasant monsters. But none of those monsters, he figured, would ever strike so much terror in his heart again.

Not when he had something much worse to compare them to.

“What in the name of Fatalis was that?” the researcher muttered to himself. “A new species, perhaps. This is definitely going to impress the Guild, a lot more than the report on the differences between Herbs and Antidote Herbs they requested, good gods…”

Athena clucked with amusement. Her master never enjoyed the “boring” assignments he frequently got from the Guild, most of which were more in the botany field of biological studies. The Guild was still extremely cautious of the monsters, even though the war had been over for five years.

The war had been ended by a remarkable individual known only as “the Hero”. He had not been seen since ending the Human-Monster War, it was said, but it was also said that he was native to the vast, largely uninhabited wilderness known as the Central World, where only a few small, pioneering villages existed.

The Docks boy had become inspired to come to Mezeporta and become a monster researcher when he had first heard of the Hero’s remarkable feats. This had been several years ago, around the same time the Age of Knowledge had begun. The people of Moga, Minegarde, the Frontier, and the Nameless all burned to learn more about their former enemies, and the monster researcher business had entered a dramatic boom as a result.

And now, Phisto finally had a major discovery to claim credit for – not just the little things like breakthroughs in wyvern genetics or Blue Mushroom diversity. How many researchers out there were encountering brand-new species?

None, as it were. The last major discovery made by the Hunter’s Guild had been made shortly after the war ended – the existence of a mysterious island dominated by a tower called the Sky Corridor. Rumor had it that a plan to fly to the Sky Corridor and explore its ancient halls was currently in the works. Aside from that, though, there had been no real discoveries made by monster researchers in the past five years. That made Phisto feel like he had accomplished something.

Although, he thought, it almost would have been worth staying in the plant research field if I didn’t have to discover that monster.

He shuddered involuntarily. He didn’t have any trouble admitting that he was curious about that leviathan – he was already asking himself questions like, ''Was it always here? Why haven’t they been seen before now?''

But there was one thing that was clear to him. Phisto couldn’t help but imagine that he would feel much more comfortable if he never had to think about that beast again.

He spent another day walking through the Swamp. And then, when the terrain changed from mud to grass, he was home at last.

Since the Human-Monster War had started a thousand years ago, there had always been a central hub for the hunters of the Frontier region to gather in huge numbers. Here in Mezeporta Square, they would swap stories, laugh and socialize over mugs of ale, and get themselves ready for their next hunt.

The history of Mezeporta Square was a little bit confusing to those who weren’t from the Frontier. During the war, it had been connected to a larger city called Dondruma, which had been constantly plagued with monster attacks as the years passed. Shortly before the attacks stopped, it had been visited by the most powerful elder dragon yet, and was promptly razed to the ground. The city had been rebuilt under the name of Mezeporta – while it could have easily been renamed Dondruma II, the mayor of the faraway Dundorma City had requested that they went with another name, on the grounds that ‘Dondruma’ was too similar to the name of his own city.

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