A Hollow Victory
The Luga-lac meant business from the very start.
The scars covering its entire body flushed a deep red, venting crimson steam. The vapor dissolved almost at once against the bitter cold of the snowfield, but that alone did nothing to check the beast's rage.
————KRRRRAAAaaa!!
The Luga-lac howled and drove its bladed bone forward.
Krrrk-!
An ominous screech rang from the clashing edges. The creature was fully intent on cutting me down, sword and all. Its jaws snapped and clacked as it snapped at the air toward me.
Swift.
I slipped smoothly low, letting the bone-blade skim past. Then I carved open its flank and crossed past its body.
At once its tail stiffened and whipped around—a violent half-turn meant to smash anything caught in its arc. There was no gap to exploit, so I simply fell back and steadied my breathing.
I checked the edges of my dual blades where they had met the bone, then settled into stance again.
No matter how the Luga-lac flew or crawled—
I would not allow it a single clean hit.
I had the confidence for that. I had the will.
I raised the dual blades.
Around us lay the corpses of the monsters the Luga-lac had shattered. Some with heads sheared clean off, others crushed beneath trees or impaled where they had been driven into the ground. Even in this extreme cold, the reek of blood was unmistakable.
It only wound our fight tighter.
It also made my stomach turn a little. Looking at the scenery was doing nothing for my appetite.
I forced my focus back onto the Luga-lac. This incarnation of violence fully intended to turn me into one of those corpses.
Chaaak-!
The Luga-lac's jaws yawned wide as it leapt. A sudden strike aimed dead at my throat. I slid sideways and drew my right hand back to my hip.
Fatal Stinger.
I drove the essence-charged blade in my right hand straight forward.
Thuk-!
The tip of the short blade punched a deep dent into the Luga-lac's hide. Startled, the beast jerked its body back with a snarl.
Getting spooked by a single stab is a little disappointing.
If anyone had seen my face just then, I imagine I would have looked almost happy. Sharing this space with the Luga-lac was pure joy—like running into an old friend. That was why I could swing my weapons so freely.
The Luga-lac shuddered again. Then it flooded the air with blood-steam. A demonic power rolled off its body.
But that was all it was. Useless if it never touched me.
————KRRrrr…….
Irritation clouded the Luga-lac's eye. Missing its attacks was making it restless. Had it finally grasped its situation and recovered a scrap of reason?
I scraped the edges of my dual blades together. Frost from the Saber Tiger's essence coated them, and I thrust the newly honed edges forward. Then I drove both of my claws toward the gap of the One-Eyed.
It was nothing new, but Pina had always been faint of heart.
Because of that, she could rarely bring herself to watch Alice clash with a monster properly. Hideous possibilities kept rising unbidden in her mind—the fearful imaginings of a timid girl that had followed her for years.
And yet Alice always came through fine. No matter what she faced, she rose cleanly and put the monster down.
This time was no different.
Kagagagak-!!
The Luga-lac's claws met the dual blades. Pina's brow furrowed as she watched. Pure strength always favored the monster. Alice answered that strength with technique.
The frost-wreathed dual blades casually turned the claws aside and raked the foreleg. There was scarcely an unmarred patch left on the Luga-lac's limbs. Every surface was cut somewhere, and the wounds tore wider with every violent motion. For a battle-scarred One-Eyed Luga-lac already covered in old marks, the fresh damage was beginning to weigh on it.
"Hoo… hoo…"
Alice, by contrast, kept her breathing measured and held the initiative. She never pushed hard enough to risk dizziness. Most of her work was receiving the Luga-lac's attacks and waiting for openings.
Pina wanted nothing more than to shout encouragement, but that would only interfere with the hunt, so she kept her mouth shut. As always, she simply cheered herself hoarse on the inside.
What kept catching her eye, though, was Neveterde—still lingering, unwilling to leave the scene. The snow woman simply watched Alice, who stood between them, even though Neveterde had set this whole situation in motion.
Was she waiting to strike from behind?
Pina studied her carefully, but Neveterde did not look ready to do anything. No matter how much more approachable she seemed than other monsters, she was still a monster. Leaving her free like that couldn't be safe.
Pina swallowed hard and carefully drew her repeating crossbow from her coat. If it came to it, she would step in herself.
She was still watching for her chance when the Luga-lac's scream changed her mind at once.
————KYAAAaaaa!!
"Hiiik-!"
Startled into a sharp intake of breath, Pina ducked behind a tree, hugged the crossbow tight, and clamped her hands over her ears. A monster's roar carried something that made the ears go numb. The moment you heard it, a terrifying killing intent drained the strength from your limbs—the feeling of prey standing before a predator.
Even in the middle of that, Pina found it strange how Alice always stood firm. Was it because she had fought countless times in the future as well?
Alice paid no mind to whether the Luga-lac roared or not. If anything, the beast buying time that way worked in her favor. Keeping her breathing steady so she wouldn't wind herself mid-fight was the higher priority.
The Luga-lac cut off its howl, stamped its forelegs into the ground with heavy thuds, and drew its body back.
Ddudududuk-!
Claw-raked earth heaved up. The stretched muscles of its arms swelled.
Tukwang!
Its body shoved off the ground and shot forward like a cannonball. The distance between the Luga-lac and Alice closed in an instant.
A heavy, full-body charge. Alice did not refuse the thing flying at her. Mindless straight-line attacks were always welcome. As the beast lunged, she flung herself sideways and, in that opening, reversed her grip on a short blade and skimmed it across the Luga-lac's hide.
The Luga-lac landed, slid through a half-turn, and faced her again. Alice huffed out a breath like a snort of laughter.
The thrashing of a creature that had grown impatient.
Alice tipped her head back and rolled her neck. The Luga-lac charged again, but it never quite reached her.
Through fight after fight the One-Eyed had tempered its body into something formidable—and now it could feel that body coming apart piece by piece.
Chwaak-!
Alice's dual blades tore the hide open and laid bare the flesh beneath. Extreme pain lanced through the Luga-lac. Exposed skin meeting the cold felt like it was on fire.
Alice, by contrast, had not taken a single wound. A little sweat was the worst of it.
For the One-Eyed Luga-lac, which had always won, this was not supposed to be possible. Until now, every scar earned in battle had been a mark of victory—like the empty socket of its own eye. Those scars were never meant to become a road toward defeat and death.
The Luga-lac stretched a foreleg toward Alice.
Hwik-!
But the limb only brushed her hair. Alice did not miss the opening. She poured strength into the hands gripping her dual blades.
Nando.
Chijijijik-!
Borrowing the power of an essence, Alice carved with a speed no human should have been able to produce. The frost-edged blades made the damage all the more lethal.
The Luga-lac shuddered at the thought of losing to something smaller and weaker than itself.
Then its eye turned toward the monster that still had not left—Neveterde, watching the fight from the sidelines. Convinced this was all that creature's fault, the Luga-lac gathered the last of its fury. Essence power goaded its heart, heated its blood, and drove its whole body to the limit. Crimson steam hissed up from its scars.
But there were far too many holes in its body besides the old scars. Blood burst from the wounds Alice had opened. The sudden spray of gore struck her without warning.
"Ah…!"
Alice blocked the blood flying at her face with her arm and scowled. A filthy pattern she had never seen in the game. For a moment she wondered if the beast would use the opening to rush her—
But she saw the Luga-lac turn not toward her, but toward Neveterde.
Alice clicked her tongue and let the tension drain out of her shoulders.
"Tsk……."
It was over.
The Luga-lac had changed targets at the end, but there was no way Neveterde would fail to brush off a Luga-lac already in tatters.
————KRRRAAAAAaa!!
That final cry was the howl of a monster standing before death. The Luga-lac stretched out a foreleg, thrashing to take at least one companion with it.
But Neveterde had more than a voice. Ice veils formed along her arms and lifted her like a bird's wings, letting her take to the air. She slipped the Luga-lac's attack with ease and drove her sharp talons down into it.
Kwajik-!
That was enough. Even its last thrashing had failed. The Luga-lac's body collapsed under Neveterde's feet and did not move again. There was venom in her talons. It spread through the Luga-lac's body and stole what little strength remained.
Alice glanced at the blood on herself.
"……Anticlimactic."
So the end had come by someone else's hand after all. She let out a sigh at the thoroughly unsatisfying finish. Truth be told, the One-Eyed Luga-lac had not been that entertaining an opponent to begin with—just a trash mob that kept running around and getting on her nerves.
"Mm."
Alice looked at Neveterde. The snow woman's blue eyes were looking right back at her. If she wanted a fight, Alice would not refuse—but as far as Alice could tell, there was not a scrap of hostility in Neveterde.
That was when Pina, who had been quietly hiding, appeared with her crossbow raised.
"Alice-nim!"
————!!
Startled by Pina's entrance, Neveterde hopped back and bared her teeth. Pina, equally wary of the snow woman, hurried to Alice's side.
"Are you all right? At the end the Luga-lac sprayed blood everywhere… W-what if there's poison or something?"
"Nah, I think I'm fine. Just in a bad mood, that's all."
"Thank goodness…. Then what do we do about that monster?"
Alice looked at Neveterde. The snow woman's eyes were flashing toward Pina—the crossbow seemed to bother her. Alice reached out, took hold of the weapon, and gently pressed it down. At that, Neveterde's wariness slowly eased.
"Just leave it."
Pina looked thoroughly flustered. Leaving a monster alive was something she had never heard in all their time traveling together. Sparing a monster did not suit Alice at all.
"…L-let it go? You're not going to kill it?"
"Yeah."
Alice was thinking of the future. If Neveumano decided to run in earnest, chasing it would be hard enough. And to find Neveumano, they needed Neveterde. Killing her could wait for any time.
"…And right now I feel too gross."
Besides, she was covered in Luga-lac blood and not exactly in the mood.
Pina, who had been listening in silence, spoke up.
"I never thought the day would come when Alice-nim would spare a monster."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You always just kill everything."
Alice sheathed her dual blades and thought back over the monsters she had taken down in the past. If our eyes met, I killed them… yeah, I did do that. She felt the weight of her own actions with fresh clarity. To anyone watching, she would have looked like a proper butcher.
"Ah—no, I don't."
"You sure about that……?"
Alice did not answer. Staying quiet was the best option. Then her mouth started to itch, and she added one more line.
"…And that one, I'm going to kill later anyway."
"I knew it. That's so like you, Alice-nim."
Pina let out a breath of relief.
"When people start doing things they never do, someone ends up dying…. I'm glad."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means you're fulfilling your role properly."
"Uuung…."
Alice made a vague, complaining sound, as if she did not quite follow.
"Whatever. Time to butcher this thing."
And she promptly changed the subject. She drew a flaying knife from her coat and walked toward Neveterde. The snow woman puffed her body slightly with ice veils at Alice's approach—but Neveterde was secondary. Alice only had eyes for the Luga-lac's corpse.
She slit the hide open and peeled it back. The thought that an essence was waiting for her inside was enough to lift her spirits on its own.
"Found it."
Alice pried free the round essence embedded in the Luga-lac's body. Her hands were soaked in blood, but gaining the Luga-lac's essence was still a major haul. She held it up for Pina as if showing off a prize.
"Pretty, right?"
Pina quietly questioned Alice's sense of aesthetics. Showing off an essence still caked in blood and calling it that…
"Huh? Y-yes, it's pretty. Congratulations, anyway."
Alice gazed at the essence with a satisfied face. Like the base Luga-lac strain, this one carried a berserk effect. But essences were precious—the more, the better. She wiped the blood clean with a cloth and tucked the essence into the secondary pouch at her hip. Only after taking the bones and the hide as well did she finally release the Luga-lac's remains.
Neveterde stared at Alice the way one might stare at a beggar.
————?
Even to a monster, what Alice was doing apparently looked a little strange.
"Alice-nim, she's looking at you like you're the weirdest thing she's ever seen."
"…Ordinary monsters don't usually do this kind of thing."
Alice turned her back, vaguely embarrassed.
"Let's head back."
She walked off without a shred of lingering attachment. Pina glanced back at Neveterde, then hurried after Alice.
————….
Only Neveterde remained, quietly watching the two of them go. Before long she stepped lightly over and took a handful of the Luga-lac meat Alice had left behind after the butchering.
Why take only those scraps and leave the meat?
Chomp, chomp. Neveterde chewed thoughtfully, blinking. Gulp—. After swallowing the raw flesh, she looked around, then set off again.
Her feet followed two sets of footprints far smaller than her own.
It was a choice made for her own safety.