The Capital Hunter Falls
Deep inside the Jefran barony, monsters were tearing into the corpses that carpeted the ground.
They were the ones who hadn't made it over the walls in time — people trapped inside and slaughtered where they stood. Their bodies had stacked into mountains.
For the monsters, there had never been a finer feast. They didn't so much as glance at their surroundings, too busy ripping into the dead to know what was coming for them.
Above the head of a beast still chewing on a man, a greatsword came down in a blur and pulverized its skull.
"Twelve small monsters nearby!"
Jeina's shout — she had arrived first — snapped the beasts awake. Soaked to the last hair in blood, they roared as one and charged her.
Their fangs and claws never reached her. Others moved first.
A man gliding without a sound — Ban's blade painted a form through the empty air. The sword that split the space punched through a monster's skull in a single breath.
"Thirty more coming up behind us."
"Then let's just mow the whole damn lot down!"
Ilekdra appeared next, a mountain of a man swinging that vicious battle axe of his. The thirty small monsters died without ever getting close.
And I was there among them.
From a gap in the piled human corpses, a monster shoved its head out. Its cheeks were puffed wide, a violet venom dripping between its lips.
I moved before it could spit. My fist came down on its skull and sealed its snout shut. At the same time, I closed my hand around its life flame.
"Kieek!"
A small monster's flame was far tinier than a medium one's. The moment I gripped it, the fire guttered out. The creature's life went with it, and it slumped limp to the stones. The venom that spilled from its mouth ate straight through the floor. Nothing that should ever touch human skin.
"Whatever that secret art of yours is called — I like it!"
Ilekdra must have been watching; his voice boomed across the field.
There was nothing to like about it. Ilekdra was butchering small monsters with nothing but the raw power of his body. I'd gotten stronger in my own way, but I wasn't anywhere near that level.
That's not a man. That's a cavalry charge.
Every time he ran, battle axe whirling, small monsters simply came apart. The breakthrough power of a mounted charge, no less.
"Hey, tattooed pig! Don't waste your strength on the small fry! We've got plenty of mediums too!"
"Three large monsters and a mass wave. You don't see a swarm this size every day."
Ban was right. Monster packs of this scale were rare. There was a reason the Jefran barony had fallen.
"Skull-face! You think there are any survivors?!"
"No idea. More of these buildings are wrecked than standing. Stay sharp. I can feel monsters inside the structures too."
Ban's senses were exceptional. I wasn't his equal, but I could feel them as well. Monsters in every direction. The entire place was crawling with them.
"Evacuating civilians comes later! Our job right now is killing monsters first!"
Ilekdra smashed a small monster that came bursting out of a building. He was right. There was no room to think about civilians in this. The other teams would be in the same position by now. We had to clear as much as we could so the capital hunters could take down the large monsters without interference.
"Ilekdra — medium monster, three hundred meters ahead. Two of them."
"Here they come."
The three of them reset their stances. The moment I saw it, I stepped forward quietly.
"I'll take one."
I raised my shield as I said it, and Ilekdra's eyes found me. He was silent for a beat, then nodded.
"Don't push it, Junior. We've still got mediums stacked to the ceiling."
"Yes, sir. Once you've finished yours, I'd appreciate the help."
I would do my part. Nothing more. I had no intention of being reckless beyond what I could handle.
Then the outer wall of a building exploded inward, and two medium monsters came through.
A pair of twins, massive even for their class. They wore thick pelts and carried horns like rhinoceroses.
A medium monster that showed up from time to time even in the northern reaches of Laoren.
"Junior, we'll take the right!"
"I'll handle the left."
I split off from the three of them and launched forward, drawing up the power in my legs. Maybe it was all the small monsters and variants I'd killed on the way in, but my body felt faster than before. Even now, my flesh was steadily growing stronger.
The Brumharn right in front of me swept a heavy foreleg. The motion was big enough to see coming. I threw my waist back hard and dropped to the ground, sliding under the blow.
It had already committed to the swing. Its body opened wide, leaving a gap. The instant I saw it I snapped my hips, kicked off the floor, and rose — then drove straight into its chest without a shred of hesitation.
My fist sank deep into the pelt. Of course the Brumharn didn't so much as blink. I didn't have anywhere near the strength to hurt it with a blow like that. It knew that too — that was why it had given me the distance so freely. Once you were inside its reach, you were a rat in a jar.
The Brumharn's eyes rolled wide as it prepared to crush me.
Sorry, but I wasn't here to win a slugging match. What I was after was its life.
I closed my hand around the life force I'd confirmed through the Third Eye.
I pulled hard on the violet-burning flame and crushed it out.
The Brumharn locked up, caught by a blow it had never imagined. And in the instant I was about to extinguish its flame—
A sound came from inside its body. The Third Eye flared.
Other flames. Several of them, burning from within.
"Shit."
I yanked my arm back with a curse and threw myself away.
The Brumharn's belly split open, and worm-monsters came boiling out.
"Kieeeeeeek!"
Eyeless things, baring their teeth, thrusting their long bodies into the open. These were the real parasitic monsters. They'd sensed their host was about to die and torn their way out through its gut.
In that same breath the Brumharn heaved its bulk backward. It snorted, fear plain on its face. It had realized I'd been a heartbeat from taking its life. With death staring it down, it didn't even care that parasites had punched through its own stomach.
Monsters were creatures of instinct far more than people were. And that instinct had just told it exactly how dangerous I was.
I rolled my fingers until the joints popped and let my own killing intent roll off me in a thick wave.
"Well. Looks like you're smarter than that bastard Trenba, at least."
Trenba had been the kind of idiot who charged in even after he'd already nearly died. The monster had a better head on its shoulders than he did.
The Brumharn knew I could take its life. It wouldn't give me that distance again so easily. I was frustrated I hadn't finished the job — I'd had to pull back for the parasites — but I'd still taken half its life with that one grab.
Sure enough, one of the Brumharn's legs buckled. Its body wasn't right anymore. But the will to fight was still burning in both eyes.
A cornered rat bites. A cornered monster is worse. Far more savage.
"On any other day I'd finish this myself."
Didn't seem like I'd need to.
The Brumharn came back to its senses a second too late.
Behind it, the three delinquents appeared as one. They'd already turned the other twin Brumharn into paste and come straight over.
The Brumharn was too slow to react.
A greatsword, a blade, and a battle axe punched into its body. Blows meant to sever a life, no question.
The Brumharn gushed blood and went down. The flame that had been burning inside it went out.
"Ugly little hitchhikers!"
Ilekdra ground the parasitic monsters to scrap on the spot. There didn't seem to be anything that axe of his couldn't mince.
"Nice work, Junior. Fa Jin? Ma Jin? Whatever it is, that thing's incredible. No wonder you can take a medium monster by yourself."
"Ilekdra, don't talk nonsense. It's called Fa Jin."
"Same difference."
Ban's brow furrowed; Ilekdra just snorted.
Meanwhile Jeina had torn into the medium monster's carcass and plucked out the magic stone with ease.
"I don't care about the rest, but we take the medium stones."
Then she tilted her head.
"The hell? What's wrong with this magic stone?"
Well. I'd eaten half of it.
"With that many parasites packed inside, they probably chewed through it."
"Ah, dammit. We won't even get half price for this."
Jeina clicked her tongue and tossed the stone. A magic stone in that condition was just dead weight.
Watching that reaction, I was more sure than ever that joining a team wasn't going to work. I'd be hunting monsters alone more often than not from here on.
Less risk and more freedom, sure. But still.
When I left the magic stones — a hunter's main source of income — in that state, there wasn't much to be done about it.
"More coming. Get ready."
"Hah! They just don't quit, do they!"
Ilekdra's face was flushed with heat. There was a reason people called him an even worse delinquent than Trenba.
"Hey, Jeina! Bet on who bags more!"
"What's the tattooed pig yapping about? Don't come crying when you lose."
Jeina's fighting spirit flared just as hot. Ban paid neither of them any attention.
What a team. In every possible sense.
Then the entire ground began to shake. Buildings lurched and swayed on their own. I dropped my stance so I wouldn't fall, and the other three did the same.
"Ban!"
The senses I'd sharpened after devouring half a medium monster caught something. Through the Third Eye, beyond the wall — a presence so overwhelming that no human should have been able to do a thing about it was moving its body.
Past the buildings, a monster of far greater size came into view. A massive horn jutted from its mouth. A muscular frame wrapped in pitch-black fur, hide scored with scars.
A large monster.
"It's started."
The moment Ban spoke, something streaked past like a meteor. It crashed down onto the monster in an instant and raced across its back.
The large monster's thick hide tore open, blood spraying in sheets.
"KUEEEEEEEEGH!"
The wound wasn't deep, but the large monster loosed a roar thick with rage. The meteor never stopped moving, carving wound after wound across the creature's body.
I finally realized it was a person.
Blinding light bursting from every inch of their body, a sword in each hand. The way they tore across the battlefield didn't look human at all.
"Is that a capital hunter?"
"It is."
"That's what they mean by the gear doing the work?"
"The equipment helps, but their own skill matters just as much. Don't bother watching. It won't do you any good."
He was right. That wasn't something you could copy just by looking. So this was the gap between us and a capital hunter. The capital really was a different world.
That was when the Third Eye caught something.
In the gaps of the enormous life flame roaring off the large monster, another flame was rising.
Black?
The thought had barely formed when something punched up through the hide the capital hunter had just sliced open.
A humanoid shape, dyed pitch black. The moment dozens of eyes opened across its head, my own eyes went wide.
They were red. The same red as the Third Eye.
"That thing—"
I was about to shout a warning when its silhouette vanished — and something crashed down right beside us.
A deafening roar of impact rolled out across the ruins.
"What the hell?!"
"What just fell?!"
Ilekdra and Jeina shouted in shock.
Through the slowly rising smoke, my eyes found it. Then the three of us, myself included, went rigid at the same time.
A person lay there, half their body torn away.
The one who had been flying through the sky like a meteor only moments ago.
The capital hunter was lying there, already dead.