An Unexpected Gift
Crunch, crunch—
Thud, thud—
Crunch, crunch—
Thud, thud—
…
Footsteps that weren't ours kept overlapping with our own.
Pina suddenly turned to me.
"Alice-nim."
"Yeah."
"I'm not the only one hearing that, right?"
"I hear it too."
I walked three or four more steps, then stopped where I stood. Pina halted behind me.
Clack—
The sound of a stone being kicked, tumbling end over end across the ground. I turned my head.
In the distance, Neveterde came into view. She was peeking out from behind a tree, only her head visible, blinking those blue eyes.
Flinch—
The moment our gazes met, she yanked her head back behind the trunk and vanished completely.
Pina, who had been watching alongside me, looked distinctly uncomfortable.
"…It's following us, isn't it?"
"What the hell."
I tilted my head. In the game, Neveterde had never once behaved like this.
It wasn't doing any harm, so I was content to leave it alone for now…
"…Guess it's curious."
I shrugged. Going after it while it was this wary would only send it bolting away. And whatever it tried, I was confident I could answer it on the spot.
Peek—
Neveterde poked her head out again. Realizing we were still looking, she scrambled back into hiding.
What is with this thing.
I started to scratch my head, then remembered my hands were filthy and awkwardly lowered my arm.
"Let's just keep moving. Don't drop your guard."
"Yes."
I gave the tree where Neveterde was hiding one last sidelong glance, then turned my back on it.
And so we gained an unexpected traveling companion.
Neveterde was far quieter than I'd expected. She truly did nothing but follow — not a sound, trailing us on soft, careful feet.
We didn't make it back to the Lacrima Outpost in a single day. Night fell quickly, and we needed rest of our own.
I melted snow with Thermal Powder and used the water to roughly scrub the blood from our bodies. It wasn't fussiness. Leave blood on yourself long enough and you'll invent illnesses you never had. With no way of knowing when the next monster fight would come, you had to keep your body careful.
I stripped off the last of the bloodstained clothes and changed into a spare set, then sat down in front of the campfire feeling considerably cleaner.
A dark night sky. Only the fire lit us up.
Pina sat quietly before the flames, chewing on jerky. I dropped down heavily beside her.
"You're here?"
"Yeah."
"Have some. Tonight's dinner."
She pulled more jerky from her pack. I took a strip of the dry meat and chewed it with a stubborn grind. It felt like gnawing rubber that occasionally produced juice.
Pina suddenly raised a hand and pointed off into the darkness.
"It's over there."
"What is?"
"That monster."
I followed her finger. Faintly, a pair of blue eyes shimmered in the dark.
It really had followed us all the way here.
Is this what having a stalker feels like? The thought of a monster trailing me left a strange taste in my mouth — mostly because of everything I'd done to monsters over the years. In a way, maybe I had it coming.
I looked away from Neveterde and let out a sigh.
"Guess we have no choice but to keep watch. We'll need to keep an eye on it."
"Night watch… I hate it…"
Pina lowered her eyes and curled in on herself, her expression sour.
"Ugh, it's a little scary. Spending a whole night this close to a monster…"
"It's left us alone so far. It'll probably be fine through the night too."
It was a guess with thin evidence, but looking at how passive Neveterde had been, I couldn't picture it attacking. Was it following us because it wanted something?
But we had nothing Neveterde needed.
…Don't tell me it thinks of me as a guardian?
I opened my mouth to say something, then swallowed the words. No. No way. I finished the thought alone and shook my head. A monster treating a human as its guardian? That would mean the monster had completely lost its mind.
Still, it wasn't entirely without logic. The Neveumano that had always stood at Neveterde's side was gone now. Maybe Neveterde had chosen me as its replacement — after all, I'd shown it no interest at all, and I'd even taken down the monster that had been its partner.
I looked back into the darkness where Neveterde had been. The blue eyes were gone.
Where had it gone?
I scanned the surroundings, but there was no sign of Neveterde anywhere — not a trace, not a silhouette.
"…Pina."
"Yes?"
"I think it's gone."
"Really?"
She looked around with me.
"Not even a hair of it. You're right."
"…Hiding, maybe?"
"Who knows… Still, not seeing it is a little better."
Pina exhaled in relief. But the fact that we couldn't see it was exactly why we couldn't lower our guard. Who knew what Neveterde might try.
Even so, no matter how carefully we watched—
"…Should we just sleep?"
"Yeah. We've been walking all day. I'm so sleepy."
Pina yawned, mouth stretched wide. The dazed way she smacked her lips afterward was almost cute. I offered the half-asleep girl a choice.
"Want to go first, then?"
"Ah — is that really okay?"
"Yeah. I can still hold out."
On a normal night we both would have just slept. We'd marked our territory with dried monster droppings to keep other creatures away. But tonight, because of Neveterde, that wasn't an option. Whether we did that or not, Neveterde clearly didn't care in the slightest.
"I'll wake you later."
"Okaaay—"
Pina fumbled her sleeping bag open, spread it over the waterproof tarp so the melting snow wouldn't soak through, and wriggled inside. Once she'd fastened the buttons, she looked like a caterpillar as she turned her face toward me.
"Then I'll sleep first…"
"Night."
"Yeees. I'm counting on you, Alice-nim."
With that, she flopped sideways onto the tarp. For a second I thought she'd died. I snorted at the sight of her, already out cold as if she'd fainted on the spot.
Even her voice was gone now. All that remained was the crackle of the fire and the thin chirping of insects.
I unstrapped the dual blades from my waist and leaned them against a tree. Then I stretched hard, rolling my waist left and right to work the stiffness out of my body.
Where was Neveterde?
I looked around once more, hoping for another glimpse, but the creature was nowhere to be found. Had it left for good?
I eased off a little of the tension and rested my back against the trunk. The sky framed between the conifers was beautiful. I gazed up at that night sky for a while, and without meaning to, the night sky of the old city rose in my mind.
There had been nothing beautiful about it — you could barely find a single star — and yet, for reasons I couldn't name, the memory of that view made me think it hadn't been so bad after all.
Nothing special had ever happened under that sky. I'd sit for hours in front of a computer, every door shut inside a concrete prison, playing games. Late at night, when my eyes needed a break, I'd look out the window at the sky. High buildings and the dark above them, garish neon and glowing crosses, the headlights of cars still moving at that hour — I'd stare at all of it for minutes at a time, feeling nothing.
That was my night. Just that. Neither sad nor happy — only a listless memory.
From where I stood now, it was almost unimaginable.
One memory tugged another along, chaining this to that. The me inside those memories was almost always nothing like the person I was now — dim, drained, empty of strength. Coming here had made me considerably brighter. It was a genuinely good change.
I stood there blankly for a long time. The hours slipped past, and Neveterde still didn't appear. Pure gut feeling, but I was fairly sure I didn't need to wake the sleeping Pina. Tonight would be fine. There wasn't a single sign of trouble — only quiet.
When the moon had tilted a little further, I was certain.
"Alright."
Without hesitation I climbed into my own sleeping bag. I fastened the buttons over the waterproof tarp, wrapped myself tight, and let sleep take me.
"…lice-nim. Alice-nim."
"…Uh. Yeah."
Pina was shaking me awake in a hurry. I answered in a cracked voice and sat bolt upright. My body was still snug inside the bag.
I looked around to get my bearings. Daylight. And for someone who'd woken me so urgently, Pina looked remarkably ordinary. No monsters in sight — just another morning like any other.
She asked me, sounding genuinely put out.
"Why didn't you wake me? Honestly."
"I figured it'd be fine."
My gut had been right. Relieved, I flopped back down. Pina flailed her hands at the sight of me.
"Eh — you can't go back to sleep! It's morning!"
"Nothing happened. Just a little longer…"
I'd gone to bed late, after all. I stubbornly rolled onto my side and curled up like a banana. Pina poked at my sleeping bag.
"We're in a bit of a situation here."
"…Something wrong?"
"If this counts as something, then yes…"
I had no choice. I sat up again, undid the buttons, climbed out of the bag, and stretched my arms and legs long. Sleeping on the ground had left me sore in more places than one. Working the kinks out, I asked her,
"Nnngh… what is it?"
"Over there. Next to your dual blades."
I looked where she pointed.
"…There's a bone."
She was right. A bone that definitely hadn't been there yesterday. I crouched in front of it. One piece, about the size of a human forearm — unmistakably a monster bone. Bone alone made it hard to tell which kind…
Wait. Was this Pina's handiwork? I never thought I'd live to see the day she hunted a monster on her own. Moved, I looked up at her.
"Pina. Did you finally make a kill?"
"Ah — no. That wasn't me."
"Huh."
She shattered my hopes in one stroke. Then who had left it?
I lifted my head and scanned the area. My eyes met the prime suspect's almost immediately.
"…Ah."
Neveterde, who had been gone all night, was standing far off behind a tree. Still half-hidden, she watched me with those blue eyes.
"I think that monster did it…"
"Yeah."
Don't tell me it left this as a gift.
I snorted, half in disbelief. Pina looked at me and asked,
"What should we do?"
"What else."
I gathered up the monster bone without ceremony. This kind of thing, I never turn down.