The Primal Hunter

The people in the room stared at Jake, who inhabited the body of the guard, seemingly wanting him to elaborate. Something he gladly did.

Whenever Jake took control and spoke, his body morphed into his own, but nobody around seemed to notice at all. That made things much easier as he shared his thoughts on the matter, with everyone thinking it was the guard talking.

Jake began to explain his plan of attacking the Beast King with a squad of elites before it could get the chance to attack the city to not allow it to build up power.

Based on everything Jake had heard, this Beast King was just a newly evolved D-grade. Sure, it was stronger than everyone in the city individually… but it was just one D-grade. The gap between E-grades and D-grades was pretty big but far from as prominent as, say, the difference between a D and a C-grade.

The true danger lay in a Beast King’s ability to unite other beasts under its banner. As a being of a higher grade, other monsters would instinctually want to follow it and be submissive, allowing a single D-grade to create an army that could easily take the Beast King down several times over if they turned on it.

So, with that in mind, if this Beast King was allowed to gather an army, the city would truly be in trouble. Moreover, if they attacked the beast within its own domain, there was a good chance they wouldn’t even have to battle the army at all. It was the same concept as how armies of beasts would not interfere if two Beast Kings battled to become the new leader; as a general rule, they just often didn’t interfere if the Beast King was fighting. Its death would only mean a stronger alpha would take the position of leader, after all. At least, this non-interference of the army was what Jake gambled on.

Finally, if they managed to defeat the beast, there was a chance someone like the guard captain could finally overcome his limits and become a D-grade himself. If that happened, the city would be a lot safer in the future.

This was all sound logic that Jake shared with the room.

There was a lot of opposition, but Jake pointed out how shitty all the other plans were. Evacuation would result in most dying anyway, as why wouldn’t this army just chase them down? Moreover, the majority of the beast army was of horse-like beasts who could move far faster than a bunch of humans trying to run away. Defending meant facing the entire army, so that was definitely out of the question. What was also dumb was evacuating the elite, as that was just the strategy of a bunch of cowards and something Jake could never get behind.

In the end, the group relented. Jake did think everything went a bit too smoothly when it came to getting approval, but he chalked that up to the Challenge Dungeon mechanics helping him out. It reminded him a bit of how, for some reason, the opinion of the main character in a game would always dictate the plot. With everyone in agreement, plans were quickly made.

The operation included fourteen late E-grades between levels 70 and 95, one guard captain at level 99, and finally, the personal bodyguard of the governor, who was also level 99. Moreover, they made many preparations and prepared tools to make the fight easier. Casters got catalysts that would help amplify the power of their spells, and the best equipment was given out to everyone in the group.

With conviction, they moved out to strike down the threat before it had a chance to destroy their home.

The sixteen humans successfully snuck into its domain using magic to hide them before they got close enough. The D-grade beast in question looked like a large, nearly five-meter-long, six-legged horse with scales covering many parts of its body. Jake quickly confirmed it was indeed a pretty weak variant, and it didn’t even look like it was level 110 yet. Moreover, there were no other beasts close to it, as the beast lay resting on the ground, fully exposed.

Going along with their plan, the bodyguard and guard captain would make the first move. Both of them attacked simultaneously, startling the Beast King. The rest of the group followed up rapidly after a solid blow was landed by the two of them as they joined the fight, and… well…

Everyone kind of died?

While it was true the D-grade was a shitty variant, the humans were also just shit. Even the two “strongest” humans in the group sucked ass, and not just stat and skill-wise. Their movements were also beyond horrible, and Jake was pretty damn sure he could have killed the two of them together when he was only level 60 or something.

But it wasn’t all bad. Sure, the guard captain was trampled, but he managed to cut off a leg in the process, and while it was true the horse bit off the bodyguard’s head, he managed to blow up the inside of the Beast King’s mouth right before he died.

Jake’s character was the final person to die as he was trampled too, but he managed to penetrate his spear deep into the Beast King’s body before death. As the final human died, it was also clear the Beast King would die, and as predicted, it soon succumbed to its wounds.

So… the city was saved in the end at great cost. After Jake’s character died, he had expected the story to end immediately, but instead, he saw what reminded him of an epilogue that displayed a scout who had seen the battle from afar run back to report to the city. At the same time, all the beasts that had gathered in the area slowly spread out again, no longer having a Beast King to gather around.

There had still been guards left in the city who managed to pick up the slack, and a grand funeral was held for the fallen. As time fast-forwarded, the city thrived for a while before it was eventually abandoned as an unknown faction invaded the land, and everyone chose to relocate.

With that, the first story came to an end… and Jake honestly wasn’t sure what to think or what to conclude based on how everything had gone.

Could Jake just have taken control of the body and killed the D-grade by just looking at it? Sure, but what would the point of that be? This wasn’t his fight anyway. During these nine days of “living” in this story, Jake came to the conclusion that the way he wanted to guide these stories was to influence his character to do what he would have done if he were in their situation. If he genuinely didn’t know what to do, he would just let the characters decide themselves. It was a simple approach, but honestly, considering he had no fucking idea what he was supposed to do in this dungeon, it had to be good enough.

With the story over, his vision turned dark as he still wondered how his “character” was assessed based on this first story, just as a system prompt appeared before him.

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You have completed the first story.

Second story initiating.

In the second story, Jake took the form of an advisor to a local warlord who controlled a massive area with several cities. Okay, Jake called it massive, but in actuality, it was only considered massive by E-grade standards. The Warlord himself was an early D-grade, with Jake’s body, in this case, a peak E-grade.

The central conflict in this story revolved around deciding the allocation of resources to different craftsman guilds. All of them had sent their representatives to speak their case, and Jake, as the advisor, was brought along to each guild to see how much they contributed to the budding kingdom.

While it was kind of interesting learning about a bunch of different crafters, Jake spent most of his time in this six-day-long story just focusing on his recovery as his senses still improved by the day. By the end of the tour of the different guilds, and when the Warlord called Jake in to give his advice on which guild to support the most… Jake did nothing.

What the fuck did he know about managing a city or allocating funds? He had purposefully offloaded everything to Miranda in his own city, and he honestly believed his opinion didn’t matter for shit in this situation. That is why he let the character he was inhabiting decide entirely on his own.

After the final choice, where a masonry guild had been selected based on Jake’s character’s decision, an epilogue played that seemed as neutral as could get. The masonry guild was happy and began a lot more construction with their new resources, even erecting a large statue in honor of the Warlord, making the advisor even more well-liked. As for any wider impact, Jake never really saw anything special happen as things just seemed to proceed as normal as the story came to an uneventful end.

You have completed the second story.

Third story initiating.

In this story, Jake took the form of a young man who was to be "married" to some old duke or something. The duke apparently liked younger men and women, and while Jake’s character’s family felt terrible about the whole ordeal as they knew they were throwing their family member to the wolves, they also knew opposing the duke would be to oppose the royal family, which would cause severe problems for the entire family.

Jake never even got to the final choice on this one, as he ended up ripping off the head of the duke after a particularly nasty scene was about to play out. From there, Jake was forced to take some actions of his own and ended up just acting like his character had actually been temporarily possessed by a divine being and was now an apostle or some shit. Jake was winging it hard and fully improvising at that point. Seeing as the strongest people in the kingdom were early D-grades, a mid-tier C-grade with Jake’s Bloodline-empowered presence was more than enough to convince them.

The third story ended with Jake’s character being recognized as a semi-divine being and his entire family uplifted by the royal family, who ended up purging the duke-faction entirely, using the young man’s emergence as an excuse to wipe out political opponents. In the final part of the epilogue it showed the young man going on a journey to explore the world, with the words that even now, he felt the presence of the god who had used his vessel.

So, yeah, in this story, Jake learned that the actions he took molded the personality of the character he was inhabiting, even after he relented control. The young man truly believed he had been possessed by a god. Though remembering the first story, the guard had also fully tried to carry out Jake’s plan, even after he gave up control, so it probably shouldn’t have come as news. Just confirmation.

You have completed the third story.

Fourth story initiating.

In the fourth story, Jake was a squad captain on an ongoing battlefield, leading a group of around a dozen soldiers. This one ended with their side winning through Jake doing nothing but giving some advice on how to attack to increase the chance of victory for their squad, which ultimately resulted in them successfully sneaking around the enemy rear and killing the enemy army’s tactician, throwing them into a state of panic.

The fifth one revolved around solving an internal conflict in the character’s family. Jake’s character had suddenly gained a lot of money through securing rights to a new trade route, and now everyone was scrambling to get a piece of the pie. In this story, the final choice was Jake – taking the form of the old Patriarch who would soon retire – choosing who would take over the budding business empire. Jake had no idea who to pick but did contribute by having the people who tried to assassinate his character killed, even if they were family. Whether the killed people were better or worse at running the company didn’t really matter to Jake; he just didn’t like people trying to kill him in such cowardly ways, such as trying to poison him. Based on the epilogue, the non-killed guy Jake’s character ended up picking didn’t do all that badly, though, so it was probably fine.

The sixth and seventh stories were both kind of boring, with Jake having no real input in either. He only took control once in each during the final choices portion and shared his thoughts, and that was it. As a general rule, he still just didn’t see any need to decide the lives of others, especially not strangers. Something all these people ultimately still were, even if he did inhabit a character.

Well, he said that, but then there was the next story.

In the eighth story, Jake’s character was a slaver and had to decide to whom he would sell his merchandise. There were a bunch of options. One wanted to use them as soldiers, one wanted them as human experiments, one simply wanted more workers, and there was even someone who wanted to buy them to free them all.

Anyway, Jake freed all the slaves and killed himself, as well as all the other slavers who had come to buy them. Well, besides the one who wanted to free them, he seemed decent enough. The epilogue showed the slaves all escaping and running wherever, with some finding true freedom, some getting recaptured, and some dying, unaware of how to live, though the majority were picked up and saved by the guy who wanted to free them all to begin with.

In the eighth story, Jake had thrown his non-interference stance to the wind and done as he wanted, having control pretty much all the time. If that had been the right choice or not for this “test,” he wasn’t sure, but honestly, who knew at this point?

The more stories passed, the more confused Jake got as to what the hell he was actually doing. Why was he doing this Challenge Dungeon? What the hell was it measuring? He was just making decisions for random people. The dungeon or system gave no feedback at all. No scores, no comments, no nothing. He was just doing story after story with no feedback.

He did take note of how the dungeon liked for him to spend some time in the story before presenting him with the final choice. Even in the war story, Jake’s character had spent a few days bonding with the soldiers he was leading. Perhaps it wanted him to have time to get emotionally invested in them as people? Or maybe it just wanted to give him more data to base his final choice on?

Ultimately, Jake decided to just not think too much about it. He just went with his guts and stuck to his own, albeit flimsy, personal beliefs. He had never really cared if people called him a hypocrite or not when he decided to get involved in some matters while taking a stance of non-interference in others. Jake was Jake, and trying to find the “best” ending in all of these stories frankly didn’t matter much to him. If this was the right approach to get a high score in the Challenge Dungeon, he seriously doubted, but if Jake had to effectively act like someone he wasn’t, he didn’t want to go for a high score. He would just take whatever evaluation the system and Wyrmgod gave him, and if it sucked… well, fuck em.

But, hey, this Challenge Dungeon where he had no idea what the fuck he was doing, things weren’t all bad. All this time had brought one good thing with it, as after about four months inside the Test of Character dungeon, something seemed to finally click back into place.

On this day, Jake’s vision cleared up, and his senses all returned to normal as his Sphere of Perception became as clear as ever.

That’s right, Jake was back.

Back to doing more stories filled with E-grades where being recovered didn’t matter, except for watching everything happening in the stories through his sphere was now more entertaining. Also… seeing as how he was now back in good condition, it was time to also consider working on something else:

Consolidating his gains from the Colosseum of Mortals by getting some sweet skill upgrades under his belt.

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