PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

481 Chapter 481 One Misfortune After Another

Estella was a very unique life form; she did not have the necessities that other life forms usually had, such as eating or sleeping. Most of the time, Estella was in a sort of dormant state at night when she wasn’t needed; but there was one task she regularly performed late at night.

Sensing some sort of mental command, Estella snapped out of her dormant state and made her way to Desmond’s room. Opening the door with her small, delicate hands, Estella watched curiously as Desmond and Claire finished entering the side bathroom.

Paying no more attention to the antics of her Master, Estella did the same as always, removing the blanket and sheets from the bed before replacing them with a clean and fresh set. When finished, Estella’s black skirt shined, and she created a portable zero gravity micro field with which she collected all the dirty fabrics and made her way to leave them in the washing machine.

Even without an in-depth understanding of the technology employed, Estella programmed the washing machine as she was taught by her master. Upon completion, she headed to her sleeping area before entering her dormant state again.

As for who was to blame for little Estella having to work so late at night? Well, the carefree and spoiled couple was now in the shower. This was perhaps one of the parts many people didn’t think about; when all the love and passion were gone, there was a lot to clean up. In Desmond and Claire’s case, they at least had little Estella, who cleaned up the mess they left in the room.

With the room fixed, Desmond and Claire only had to worry about cleaning their bodies of sweat and other fluids. As exhausting as their earlier interaction in bed had been, Desmond and Claire were still quite affectionate in the shower, albeit with a lot more thoughtfulness and less wild passion.

As Desmond gently cleaned Claire’s skin with a soft sponge and soap, Claire took an interest in asking Desmond about his recent adventures. Truth be told, even though Claire knew she was wrong, Desmond’s horrible experience in that spider world still caused her quite a bit of laughter, and now she wanted to hear more about it.

Desmond was quite helpless; he genuinely would rather just forget everything that happened on those last two trips. As simple as his missions had been, he was still very miserable during them.

As the couple rested in the tub, letting the warm water relax them, Claire didn’t hesitate to use her soft, vibrating breasts to press down on Desmond’s back as she insisted on hearing his stories. In the end, under Claire’s insistence and seduction, Desmond relented.

.....

The second mission Desmond took during these three months was actually quite interesting. It turned out that an arcanist’s assistant quite adept at creating arcane technology was kidnapped while she was visiting a reasonably technologically advanced world. The arcanist had enough resources but not the means to do anything; that’s where the mission for the association was generated.

The reward for rescuing the arcanist’s assistant was, at least from the client’s point of view, pathetic, implying that the arcanist was more concerned with his reputation than the recovery of a mere assistant. However, from Desmond and Elaisa’s point of view, the arcanist was basically giving away money in the form of equipment.

Different perspectives aside, Desmond willingly accepted the mission with Elaisa’s approval. This time, having learned from his earlier mistake, Desmond listened carefully to Elaisa’s description of the world he would go to.

Leaving the code name extraordinarily elaborate and difficult to pronounce, there were two critical things to note about the world Desmond would go to, the first was the tech level, and the second was that this was a world where arcana predominated.

After Elaisa’s explanation, Desmond understood that these two things would bring him a lot of trouble during his mission, but he didn’t understand the extent of this until he was in that world.

Until then, Desmond had only visited worlds where mana or aura was dominant; he had no experience with worlds where arcana was the uppermost force. Even having met some arcanists on earth, Desmond was unprepared for what happened during his mission.

If Desmond had a word to describe a society full of arcanists, it would be “Advanced,” although another good word for it would be “Boring.” The term advanced went beyond the technological gap he was warned about beforehand. It was just that, unlike the worlds Desmond visited before, where the impact of aura and mana was only on military strength, the arcana had completely molded society in that world.

On the other hand, in the same way, that aura and mana had specific effects on people’s personalities and worldviews, arcana had a similar effect. For Desmond, it was like visiting a world where 60% of the population are some kind of scholar, and 30% admire and envy those scholars.

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To Desmond, who found the competitive and energetic environment of the sovereign martial world quite enjoyable, the world he visited this time seemed endlessly dull.

Just looking for information and asking a few questions was hell for Desmond. It was like entering a gigantic battlefield, where every person present was your enemy. Instead of wanting to kill you, these people tried to debate you; as if that weren’t bad enough, Desmond was in trouble with the authorities just hours after his arrival.

As expected of a technologically advanced society, monitoring systems around the city caught Desmond doing things he shouldn’t.

It was quite a headache for Desmond. Unlike other situations in the past, it wasn’t like he could just kill whoever got in his way; the people trying to stop him were cops doing their job. As if that were not enough, despite their patient and cordial disposition, the policemen of that world could be described in two ways: Inflexible and dangerous.

Desmond could still remember how he had a more challenging time dealing with the police and their relentless pursuit by the end of his mission than the people who had kidnapped the arcanist’s assistant.

Speaking of the rescued assistant, in the end, after some twists and turns, Desmond managed to access police records after stealing a patrol car. To the exasperation of the young hunter, the police of this world were surprisingly efficient. In their database, he found information about the kidnapping that occurred two days ago and the subsequent series of arrests.

To put it simply, it would take the police another day at most to find the missing assistant; Desmond basically came to steal the achievement from them. Desmond almost wanted to curse the stupid arcanist who issued the mission. If the damned idiot had even bothered to investigate a little more, he would know that everything would take care of itself.

Upset and with the police of this world still after him, Desmond used the information he obtained and found the missing assistant a couple of hours later. To the surprise of Desmond, who only had a photo and basic description of the assistant, she turned out to be a highly advanced android.

It was there that Desmond understood why the arcanist paid so much, but at the same time, he didn’t seem genuinely worried about what might happen to the assistant. Just for all the technology and resources used in its creation, the attendant must be worth a lot, but as an artificial life form, the arcanist would consider it replaceable.

His encounter with the female android followed a high-speed chase, with the android riding an anti-gravity bike while Desmond fired back with two high-powered arcane pistols.

The chase was a challenge in its own right; Desmond hated admitting it, but dealing with arcanists was hell itself. Gravity amplification, time slowing, telekinesis, pulses of paralyzing psychic energy, Desmond had seen and suffered from a variety of attacks never seen before.

Desmond could deal with many things, but he was at a considerable disadvantage against enemies that could turn invisible, read minds, see the future, and the like. The variety of laws an arcanist could practice made them incredibly unpredictable. Even if traditionally arcanists were not good fighters, in a highly technologically advanced world, weapons using arcane forces were quite a threat to Desmond.

After an explosion-filled movie ending, Desmond managed to escape and be teleported back to the association in the company of the assistant. Much to the young hunter’s sadness, he failed to bring anything back from that world.

As soon as the technology was thrown into the mix, the transport value restrictions for the hunter’s book became practically impossible to overcome. Just one of Desmond’s arcane pistols during the chase was worth more than he had earned as a hunter to date.

Desmond’s only consolation was that the arcanist kept his end of the bargain and paid with the requested devices and a little extra after much prodding from the assistant. Who knew that the android had such strong notions of being indebted to someone within her linear and semi-programmed mentality.

When Desmond finished telling the story, he and Claire had changed into their pajamas and were getting ready for bed. This time, Claire was filled with endless interest in this strange and advanced world and Desmond’s adventures. Although Desmond described it as torture filled with persistent problems, Claire found it fascinating.

Full of excitement but also a little tired, Claire insisted that Desmond tell her about his third trip, but all she got was, “It’s not worth it; you better go to sleep.”

Claire was disappointed, but in her exhaustion, she agreed and went to sleep while she hugged Desmond like an octopus. Seeing Claire’s satisfied but exhausted expression, Desmond smirked; he had at least managed to avoid telling Claire about his third trip.

The truth was that Desmond’s third trip wasn’t particularly complicated; it could be summed up in the following words: Found an egg, then escaped from giant beasts for three days straight. Desmond didn’t want to talk about it because as soon as he got to that world, he was attacked by a reptilian-shaped beast that was spitting some kind of strange acid. As a result of the acid and his carelessness in not wearing extra clothing, Desmond spent three days running around naked while a bunch of giant beasts tried to eat him. One could imagine why Desmond didn’t want to tell the story.