Chapter 37
Chapter 037. Wanted (2)
“Practitioner Killer?”
The bounty hunter whose legs were both broken lay collapsed on the ground.
Anagin looked down at him and murmured.
A Practitioner Killer, huh…
“Ugh….”
“It hurts….”
“Guh… urk….”
Anagin looked over the other bounty hunters scattered around.
All of them were groaning in pain.
“You’re all too loud. You want to hurt quietly in your heads? Or should I help you?”
They immediately shut their mouths tight, because he really looked like he would “help.”
It hurt, and it was humiliating, but what could they do? If they didn’t like it, they shouldn’t have fired arrows out of nowhere.
He already hated being watched from a distance, and they even shot arrows right when he was about to eat.
They should be grateful he didn’t kill them.
Once things grew quiet again, Anagin fell back into thought.
A Practitioner Killer…
A cool title, sure, but he couldn’t understand why it was attached to him.
“You smashed up a perfectly normal practitioner family and expected nothing to happen?”
When the bounty hunters suddenly attacked them with arrows, Sphinx disappeared like wind, then reappeared like wind to scold him.
“I knew something would happen. What I find weird is the title ‘Practitioner Killer.’ Sure, I cracked jaws, smashed faces, and broke their treasured weapon, but I didn’t kill anyone.”
“…Isn’t that kinda worse, though?”
She said it like that, but Sphinx also found it strange.
Wrecking a practitioner's family—of course, a bounty would be placed.
Not just by the one who suffered damage, but other practitioner families would want to make an example too.
'Even if they fight amongst themselves, they wouldn't want the concept of a practitioner family itself to be ridiculed...'
What Sphinx found odd was the title itself—Practitioner Killer.
If you wanted to catch someone, you normally just put up a bounty. You didn’t attach a grand title like that.
'Moreover, 'Practitioner Killer'... is too strange. It sounds ominous, but it's also quite grandiose, isn't it?'
Names carried power. Sphinx felt a strange sense of incongruity and rummaged through the bounty hunters' belongings.
Meanwhile, after thinking it over, Anagin reached a conclusion.
"Well, is 'Practitioner Destroyer' better? The nuance..."
“Mister. Stop saying weird stuff and look at this.”
“What is it, Pinku-Pinku?”
“Don’t call me Pinku-Pinku.”
“Nope. Pinku-Pinku.”
Grinding her teeth, Sphinx handed Anagin a bundle of papers she’d found in the bounty hunters’ bags.
“What’s that?”
“A newspaper.”
“Newspaper?”
“It’s a collection of various news from the world. Talaria Weekly publishes it every week.”
“Talaria Weekly… I’ve heard of it. Someone told me once that I might end up in it.”
“Good intuition. Whoever said that was right. Look.”
Anagin did as told.
【Local News Section】
‘Breaking: A Practitioner Killer Appears!’
On the back page was the local news section—a short but eye-catching, sensational headline, and beneath it a portrait.
“Oh, whoever that is, he’s handsome.”
“…Whether he’s handsome or not, what matters is that Talaria Weekly ran an article on you. Even if it’s the local section.”
“I don’t really know what Talaria Weekly is, but is being in there that big a deal?”
“Depends. How Talaria writes about you can make the world see you as a villain or as a hero.”
“So it’s nothing special, then.”
Anagin reacted casually.
He didn’t care how the world saw him.
“The problem isn’t the title, it’s the trouble that comes with it. Most practitioners want to catch villains to build fame, and once money’s involved, idiots like these guys show up.”
At the word “idiots,” the leader of the bounty hunters, the ‘Seven Hunters’, ground his teeth.
Back in Anapik, which still had many lawless zones, they were fairly well-known. Sphinx’s words were a deep humiliation to them.
But none of them dared show it.
Because there was a monster here who had pinpointed their exact hidden location—the moment they fired a fatal surprise attack—and then ripped a tree out of the ground and hurled it.
They knew Gigants were strong, but not like that.
And he had good instincts, too.
Because of that, the bounty hunters were crushed in the opening moments and had all ended up with broken legs before they could carry out their plan.
“I don’t care. I lived in the forest. I’ve dealt with plenty of flies.”
Contrary to Sphinx’s concern, Anagin maintained the same laid-back attitude.
It wasn’t apathy or recklessness.
He had already accepted this would happen, so his reaction was simply acceptance.
He still didn’t fully understand what practitioners were, but he did expect plenty of conflict along the way.
Practitioners were beings who accumulated deeds to rise to higher ranks, weren’t they?
It would be stranger not to have conflict.
That was why Anagin had no intention of being shaken by this or running around nervously.
If they came, he would face them. If he couldn’t overcome them, he would fall.
That would only mean he was never strong enough to begin with.
More importantly…
“Having guys like this show up isn’t entirely bad.”
“Why?”
“Because I can pick up free food, clothes, shoes, blankets, pots, stuff like that.”
Anagin pointed at the bounty hunters’ belongings.
After rummaging through them, they found luxury sausages, a blanket enchanted with warmth magic, leather shoes, belts, daggers, a crossbow with magic-infused bolts, a waterskin that kept water chilled—it was practically a treasure chest.
“Oh, Pinku-Pinku. Here. A gift.”
“…Haah, what is it?”
Sphinx no longer denied the new name.
She had accepted it. She had accepted Pinku-Pinku.
Anagin handed her pots, knives, cutting boards, ladles—all in excellent condition.
“…This is what you call a gift.”
“It’s better than the stuff you had. You can cook even better with these.”
“I don’t like cooking.”
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You do.”
“I said I don’t.”
“You do. I can do this all night. Do you like cooking or not?"
“Aaargh! Fine! Yes! I like cooking! Happy now?!”
“Very!”
Anagin answered loudly.
Food tasted better when the cook was happy.
Anagin fully believed that.
And the fact that he’d get tastier meals made him extremely satisfied.
“Anyway, let’s eat. The stew’s done, right?”
“No, we can’t eat it.”
“Why?”
Anagin asked, surprised.
She had been preparing it for a while, and it only needed to simmer, so why couldn’t they eat?
Instead of answering, Sphinx pointed at the pot that had been knocked over by the arrows.
It had fallen when the bounty hunters attacked.
Anagin stared in despair at the overturned pot.
The bounty hunters felt sudden, inexplicable fear.
Even Sphinx began to worry when Anagin opened his mouth.
“…I’ve been too careless.”
"Don't talk in such a serious voice in a situation like this."
“It’d be one thing if I were alone, but I have party members now. I can’t let this happen.”
“Stew is not a party member. Are you saying I’m worth less than stew?”
“I need to solve the root of the problem.”
“Now I’m scared.”
“I need whoever put the bounty on me to remove it.”
“And how would you know who it is?”
It was probably one of the practitioner families in the region. Still, she wanted to hear what he planned to do.
“I’ll find out starting now.”
Anagin picked up the crossbow he’d taken earlier.
He didn’t like it and planned to sell it, but he changed his mind.
He loaded a bolt, then asked one of the fallen bounty hunters.
“Who’s the leader?”
Silence.
Anagin placed his foot on the bounty hunter’s head and pressed down.
Crunch…!
“AAAAH! H-him! It’s him!!”
Feeling the ominous pressure on his skull, the bounty hunter pointed.
It was the one leaning against the tree with two broken legs, the only one who had held out even a little longer.
The pointed-out leader panicked.
“W-wait! We don’t know who put up the bounty! We’re bounty hunters, not hired assassins! Most bounties are anonymous! We don’t know who it is!”
“Then tell me where your buddies are hiding. They might know.”
“…?!”
All the bounty hunters were stunned.
Recently, they had grown tired of Anapik’s power struggles and joined a rising new organization.
It wasn’t a secret, but not many knew.
So how did he know?
The bounty hunter leader stammered.
“H-how did you—?”
“I saw the Communication Conch.”
Anagin pointed at the magical tool he found among their gear.
The bounty hunter looked confused.
It made sense.
The Communication Conch was a newly developed magic tool. In Hellas, people might know it, but in Anapik, almost no one has recognized it yet. That was why they carried it openly.
“I’ve seen something similar before. But there’s only one here. Which means there must be another somewhere else to communicate with.”
When luck is bad, even falling backward breaks your nose—the bounty hunters were living proof.
To be exposed like this…
Their secret was out, and they exchanged uneasy looks.
Loyalty in this line of work wasn’t deep, but even shallow loyalty had limits.
They had been crushed, stripped of their gear, most of their assets gone—to sell out their last refuge…
—thwack!
Anagin fired the crossbow at the bounty hunter leader.
The bolt struck right next to his head.
“Ah, it missed. First time using this weapon. Hold on.”
Calmly, Anagin reloaded.
“If you don’t want to talk, don’t. I’ll just do whatever I want.”
He aimed again.
“You’ve still got six other mouths anyway.”
“…!”
“I’ll count to three. If you don’t want to talk, don’t. One, two, thr—”
“W-wait!!”
Right as Anagin said “three,”
The bounty hunters’ leader surrendered.
* * *
“Here’s the rib stew.”
The vast land of Anapik.
Inside an old, half-ruined fortress.
A man who looked like a cook brought out a pot of stew simmered with beef ribs.
“Oh, that smell!”
A huge man—big enough to be compared to an ox—leaned forward at the intense aroma.
The chair creaked under him.
“I put more care into this one than the others’. It’s for the leader.”
The cook rested his large ladle across his shoulder and gestured outside. There, the rest of their comrades were eating.
They had 25 people on-site. Including the ones who had gone out, the total was 32.
“That’s why I like you. You’re the best cook.”
“Sometimes I wonder how I ended up a cook. Should’ve won the draw on the first day.”
“Hahaha!”
The leader laughed loudly and tore into the ribs. The thick meat was incredibly tender.
He looked quite satisfied.
The cook quietly sat down beside him.
“Leader. Are we really leaving here?”
“That again? Are you that sad about leaving?”
“Of course I’m sad. Do you know how hard it was for us to settle here?”
Anapik was wide, and though most places were chaotic rather than orderly, that wasn’t always a bad thing.
Because some people thrived in the chaos.
Like “The Old Fortress Hunters,” the group the leader and the cook belonged to.
On the scale of this vast land, even towns and cities were nothing but dots.
Everything else was unclaimed territory. Lawless lands.
And in such places lived numerous debtors, runaway slaves, and wanted criminals.
People that turned into money when you caught them…
Anapik had a lot of trash that had fled from Hellas, so there were even more such “profitable” targets.
The Old Fortress Hunters took advantage of this environment. What started as three men had now grown to just over thirty.
A combination of skill and luck.
At first, they captured weak runaway slaves and debtors. Later, they took down more dangerous wanted criminals.
Among them had even been a Gigant.
It wasn’t easy, but with planning, equipment, numbers, and strong members, it wasn’t impossible either.
If Gigants were impossible to catch, the world would be ruled by Gigants—so it was natural.
And that was how the Watchers spent their days.
Not bad days at all.
Steady growth fattened both body and spirit.
But now they felt their limits. They had to take a step forward.
Muscles only grew when given stronger stimulation—so they needed a bigger challenge.
And that was when a problem arose.
“Of all the people to mess with, why did it have to be them?”
The leader, Kigos, sighed.
The cook protested.
“Come on, wasn’t it them who messed with us? They were originally Hellas folk!”
“That’s not what matters. What matters is who wins the fight.”
Kigos stated the harsh truth of the world. But the cook didn't give up.
“They’re still new to Anapik. If we fight with the neighboring gangs, maybe we can drive them out?”
“No, no. There’s too big a gap in class to test the waters. Besides, the rumors are bad. Word is their officers are coming too. It’s too early.”
“Damn it… a rolling stone kicking out a settled stone…”
“Still, we’ve secured good business stock. Let that be our consolation.”
“You think we’ll ever get to unload it?”
The cook gestured toward the goods stored under the fortress.
“There are plenty of places to sell. Worst case, we’ll sell it to the Barbaroi over there…. More importantly, have those guys contacted us yet?”
“They should’ve by now.”
“Don’t tell me… those bastards hit without orders again?”
“Impossible, right? We’re talking about the guy they’re calling the Practitioner Killer.”
“You never know. The forest is their backyard, and they’ve taken down a Gigant once. Their guts might’ve gotten too big. No choice, we should contact them first—”
—BOOM!!
The old fortress shook violently with a thunderous crash.
A terrible feeling arose—immediate, instinctive.
The cook and Kigos both stood and looked out the window.
A massive log was flying toward them.
And only one word came to mind.
“The Practitioner Killer…”