Dungeon Raider System

Living with Luna and Nika ended up being more awkward than Uriel expected. While Nika by herself wasn't problematic as she usually minded her own business, she became quite attached and protective towards Luna which caused some issues.

The common areas started looking slightly more feminine every passing day, a couple dolls here, some colored cushions there, and suddenly Uriel couldn't recognize the place anymore.

He was accustomed to living with other male students and, before that, he lived with his uncle. It was the first time he had female roommates and so far, he wasn't thrilled about the experience.

"What happened to the bathroom?" Uriel asked when he joined the girls for breakfast.

"Nothing, I just bought some cute things I thought Luna would like." Nika said dismissively, without even trying to explain the reason why now the only bathroom was completely decorated in pink.

"Uhm... It looks the same to me." Luna continued eating her cereal while holding the strange horned rabbit plushie Uriel gave her when she moved in.

"You know you don't need to carry that thing all the time, right?" Uriel lifted a brow.

"Geez! Someone got up with the left foot it seems." Nika remarked.

Uriel got so angry he felt as though a vein almost popped on his forehead, but before he could tell Nika a few choice words, Luna asked him a question.

"Uhm... where did you get Mister Wabbit?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes, that is his name. He looks just like the horned rabbits we saw when we got our traits, he's perfect. Did you make it? Can you make more?"

"No." Uriel curtly replied as he feared Luna's obsession was getting out of hand.

"Can't you really? You still owe her a lot of money." Nika added.

"Stop barging into other people's conversations and get a job already." Uriel scolded Nika forcing her to retreat to the couch pouting.

"So... Can you get me another? I could write some of the debt off."

"Sorry, you'll have to think of some other way for me to repay you." Even if Luna was willing to forgive a part of the debt, he doubted it would be cost effective since the plushies were obscenely expensive.

"Then, help me with my research."

"If I do that, how am I going to get any money? Even if Medusa and Sam are out of touch for the time being, I still owe them their shares."

"Uhm... help me with my research anyway."

Luna had been badgering Uriel to get him to help her in her research. Even though Uriel felt inclined to do it because that would help him to learn more about cryptids, he was more worried about getting enough credits to pay his debt.

Truth be told, he hadn't been idle, since Luna moved in he had been seeking for jobs and even attempted to join incursion, but the Mapple corp. had paid for the rights to the whole lost city of San Antonio in what could be considered the largest incursion ever performed in the megacity of Texas.

The local government officials were overjoyed because of the presence of the Mapple corporation combat division as it made the city safer, but independent hunters found themselves on a tough spot. It wasn't that cryptids were difficult to find out in the wilderness, but the lost city was by far the easiest and most profitable POI for beginners.

Having the Mapple corp. monopolizing the lost city, meant they needed to hunt in more difficult areas. There were two possible solutions, they could either form a bigger party and risk it or they could join the army.

"... Please?" Luna begged.

"Ow! How could you say no to that face?" Nika was overloaded with Luna's cuteness.

"Fine." Uriel sighed. "What do you need?"

"I want to make a bestiary that links different cryptids to the creatures from the lore. There are lots of similarities, but there's a generalized lack of information about cryptids. They're too varied and gathering data about them is impossible with modern technology because of their FOD." Luna explained.

"So... do you want to hunt?"

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"No." Luna said shaking her head. "I want you to come with me outside during curfew hours."

"Are you crazy? The curfew isn't law enforced, but it's on people's best interests. Even hunters go missing all the time when they break the curfew." Uriel was beyond stupefied by Luna's request.

"I've heard that too. The slums are dangerous places in all cities I've visited. In old times people would be way of thugs, but that was before traits even existed. Now that criminals can possess traits going out in a dangerous part of the city at night is almost like a death sentence. Whenever something bad happens, even the authorities can't do anything about it.

They never even find the culprits." Nika said after jumping out from the couch.

"I must agree with the freeloader. I'd face cryptids over criminals any day." Uriel shrugged. Nika didn't appreciate being called a freeloader, but couldn't refute it. Instead of arguing, she decided to take a nap inside Uriel's shadow.

"You don't understand. The reason why I want to go out at night is because I think cryptids are involved in people's disappearance. Think about it, there's power outages all the time in the slums which can be caused by cryptids FOD, people disappear all the time in the slums and the authorities always ignore it claiming they broke the curfew, but did they?"

Luna's words made sense, but at the same time Uriel wondered about the implications of her theory. Luna was certain that cryptids had always been present alongside humans while remaining mostly unnoticed, only they weren't truly unnoticed.

There were several recounts of encounters with all sorts of cryptids before the so called 'arrival' and the only reason the general population didn't believe in their existence was because they couldn't provide any proof.

But the lack of proof may as well be considered evidence, as cryptids won't appear in photographs, videos or even thermal scanning thanks to their field of disruption. Not only that, they disappear upon death leaving nothing but a flux orb behind.

"Even if that were the case, what makes you think we'll make it alive when even heavenly rank hunters have gone missing." Uriel was finally starting to take Luna more seriously.

"For starters, they didn't know what to expect. Besides, I'm not saying we should wander around, there's a place I want to investigate." Noticing Uriel wasn't yet convinced, Luna decided to land the finishing blow. "If we kill any cryptids, you get to keep the flux orbs for yourself. All I want is the data."

"When are we leaving?"