An Arcanist in Karakura Town 25: Fishing (Patreon)

An Arcanist in Karakura Town
Chapter 25: Fishing

-VB-

Hide left. Again. This time, he told me what he was doing.

That was, he was contacting different institutions that had ties to other non-mundane aspects of the world in an effort to create an even bigger coalition, now that he had some members of the Western European magicals involved in the shenanigans of the Japanese afterlife.

No one would have gotten involved if the Japanese weren’t so obstinate about solving their problems by themselves. Maybe it had something to do with the “honor” thing that demands one on one fights, but I wasn’t into that bullshit.

Hide was doing a wonderful job.

As for myself, I think I needed to think beyond just me and mine.

That was, I think I needed to think beyond just protection for my home and my woman.

I needed to plan and act on the city itself. It was rude to do it but I don’t think that seeding spiritual landmines around the city for the coming fights would be adverse to people’s health.

Keeping people in my warehouse and experimenting on them was not going to work out for me. Orihime wouldn’t accept it, no matter what or how I worded it. She was a normal girl like that. Horrible things were horrible and thus should not happen.

So what can I do?

…Well, I supposed that I could make a bloody contract that results in any volunteers getting magical artifacts or powers.

Could I get away with that, though?

Probably not.

So what could I do?

…

Oh.

Right.

Hollows.

-VB-

I hummed as I waited outside my warehouse, pinging my own spiritual pressure at a lower frequency and quality. This would act like a Hollow bait, though limited in range. Waiting quietly with barely any of my topnotch gears, I wondered what kind of Hollows would come and find me.

Hollows all varied in their characteristics. Some were stronger, some had better abilities, and some possessed tougher bodies. Of course, hierro, one of the advanced Hollow techniques, was one such ability I was looking for as well as innately tougher Hollows.

After all, I wanted to test how best to kill them and other spiritual beings without bodies, and as much as Hollows and Shinigamis existed on different “spectrum” of spirituality and spiritual make-up, they were still spiritual beings.

There was a ping.

There was one coming.

I opened my eyes and smiled as I casually began making invisible mana chains.

In the moon-lit night, a white Hollow was easy to spot. It came for me, bounding across rooftops that belied its size. Bigger than four bulls put together, it was easily one of the larger Hollows I’ve seen.

But merely feeling its spiritual pressure and essence was enough for me to quickly analyze why it was: it was bluffing.

It was weaker than the average Hollow, so to make up for the difference in strength, it puffed itself up like a pufferfish would except it used its size as intimidation against its target. Maybe to get them to run away from whatever kills they had made so it could consume it?

Or so I thought about it as it jumped me.

Even as it grew ever so closer, I felt nothing significant from it.

Sighing at the bad catch, I cracked the invisible mana chain like a whip, and the bullish Hollow squealed like a pig as the chains wrapped all around it, binding its limbs to its body. With mana-boosted strength provided by the strength-boosting golden wristlets, I snapped the chain down, and the Hollow plummeted with the chain. It slammed into the roof of the warehouse…

And died?

“Huh?!” I uttered out of complete shock as the Hollow squealed one more time before passing out in death. I hurriedly gathered its essence.

And then I had an idea.

Instead of forming the essence into another mask, why not make it into a bait?

I grinned as slowly but surely let the essence drift not unlike a wounded Hollow often did. With a small push of my mana and spiritual pressure, the essence in the aether blew away.

And I waited again.

… Hey, was this Hollow-fishing? I mean, I did have a line and a bait… It was Hollow-fishing!

Humming at the discovery of a new hobby and sport, I waited like how I used to wait fishes back before this life.

Patiently.

-VB-

Guerantil sniffed the air.

They were close.

Whoever got into a fight, they came out of it for the worse, and leaking so much essence into the air that it was a wonder to Guerantil that they haven’t died yet.

He skittered low to the ground, using his many insectoid legs to scour the place of anything else he might pick up on his way to devour the wounded Hollow.

When he first became a Hollow, he thought the idea of eating another Hollow to be monstrous, but after seeing it happen time and time again, and more than once forced to do so when an area ran out of Pluses and spiritually strong humans, he grew used to it.

This too was one of those times. This area was just devoid of other Hollows and Pluses. Other areas outside of this city were even scarcer.

This was a meal he could not give up on, not without risking his own survival.

At the very least, Guerantil observed his gentleman past and made sure to thank the Hollow.

He found them. They were just around the corn-.

He stared at the dimly-lit floating ball.

The hell? This was a Hollow?

He looked around. He didn’t see anyone else, and it was quivering.

Shrugging, he turned to it.

“Sorry,” he spoke up. “I really do need to eat, so thank you for being my food. No hard feelings, eh?”

He opened his four sets of mandibles-.

And choked.

He gagged as something tightened around his neck, and tightened even further when he struggled. He was a Hollow; he didn’t need air.

So why did it burn?!

His neck carapace cracked under the tension of whatever was gripping him. Was this a trap?!

And then he saw him.

His eyes widened in fear.

Holding a shimmering fishing rod, the human looked at him like he just caught the biggest fish of the pond.

Guerantil crackled in fear.