The Nest Left Behind
Most monsters run when they're exhausted or in danger. Same as any animal.
Even the biggest monsters treat wounds as a serious threat. Monsters are living things, no different from people in that regard. They move to eat and survive. They feel pain. They hate getting hurt, they scare easily, and they know how to look after themselves.
That's why any monster in its right mind never fights to the death. Even if a fight goes all the way, if both sides take fatal wounds, whoever wins still loses big. In the wild, a wound is an irreversible threat. You never know when you might die — and if you're already injured, you can't count on living much longer.
Of course, some monsters are so full of rage that they break the mold — the One-Eyed Luga-lac being a prime example of that kind of savagery — but at the base of it, they're still living creatures.
I'd expected the Kakari to bolt halfway through. Instead it fought to the end, never once turning its back. The reason it refused to give up until the last moment had to be the eggs in that nest. With its clutch right behind it, it simply had no other choice.
"……."
I poked at the Kakari's corpse with my skinning knife.
You don't haul every byproduct of a hunt home. A hunter can only carry so much. The rest goes back to nature.
The talons were smashed to pieces — not worth much. The crest was broken, but I figured I might as well take it. The real prize, though, had to be the oil sac — that red pouch.
Just in case, I skinned the body and checked the insides. No rare materials of any kind. I hadn't expected any, and sure enough, reality didn't disappoint. All I'd gotten for my trouble was blood on my hands.
"Well then…."
I'd taken the Kakari's head. All that was left was to head back.
But was it really all right to leave the eggs like this? I couldn't exactly bring a monster's eggs into the city, either. What were you supposed to do in a situation like this? Leave them, and some other monster would turn them into a free protein meal — that much was obvious. I had a hand in this. I couldn't just walk away.
…Maybe leave it to the Association?
In the end, I brought the eggs myself.
Carrying them one by one was out of the question — they were too big and heavy — so I lashed the whole nest together with cord and dragged it along, careful not to crack the shells. My shoulders ached and my fingers got scraped raw, but it was bearable enough.
By the time I reached Antico, the moon was starting to rise.
As I made my way through the city, people's stares were sharp. Because of the monster eggs, probably. Maybe bringing them had been a mistake. They're not thinking I'm going to fry these up for breakfast, are they?
I hurried along, intending to hand the eggs over to the research director. I'd walked this route with Noah before, so I could manage it alone. An ecologist would know what to do with them.
Association district, second floor.
I left the nest at the foot of the stairs, picked up one of the eggs, and grunted my way up toward the research director's office.
"Ah, you're the one from last time… Oh-ho!"
Thankfully, this had been the right call.
The moment the research director saw the monster egg, his eyes went wide and he came straight over. He turned it this way and that under a magnifying glass, unable to stop himself from marveling.
"This is… judging by the markings and the nest structure, a Kakari egg!"
When I told him I'd brought three, he nearly fell over from the shock.
"With Kakari, it's the males who incubate the eggs, not the females. During the brooding period they become extraordinarily aggressive. And you brought back three of that creature's eggs — remarkable work. This will be a tremendous help to our research."
Hearing him so cheerful and delighted made me feel pretty good myself.
"If you ever find anything like this again, bring it to me! …Though I must say, I don't believe I've seen your face before."
I'd finally offloaded those troublesome eggs!
Only then did I feel at ease.
Do I really have to think about things like this when I hunt monsters? So it's not just a game after all. The thought left me with a complicated feeling.
"Ow…."
My lower back stung. Looking closer, I saw my clothes had burned through and torn, and a burn mark remained on my waist. That last breath the Kakari had fired off had been genuinely dangerous — a pattern I'd never even seen in the game. If I'd just tried to plant my greatsword and block it head-on, I would have been in real trouble.
Had that been a final, desperate thrash to stay alive? Or the face of a father trying to protect his eggs?
Noah was waiting for me at the lodging. It looked like she'd spent the whole day quietly staying put. Luckily, I'd managed the trip in a single day. The Kakari had been fairly close, and it hadn't run, so I'd had enough time. During the fight itself, though, I'd been so winded and exhausted I'd thought I was going to die.
"…I'm back."
"Alice!"
Noah rushed over and hurriedly checked me over. The Association had given me some rough first aid, but the sight of the bandages on my waist and hands still made her look terribly pained.
"Are you okay? It won't get worse, will it?"
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"That old man is too much. What kind of test is that? And you were way too reckless. Who just takes something like that at face value?"
"S-sorry."
"……Right. You must have had your reasons. Yeah."
"I-I'll be more careful next time…."
Noah's mood was frostier than I'd expected, so I did my best to soothe her. It didn't hurt that badly — but still, having someone who worried about me like this made me genuinely grateful.
"Did you get the Kakari?"
"Yeah."
"You made it back safe. Good job. That ought to take that guy down a peg."
Noah chuckled. She clearly wasn't fond of Matillo.
Growl.
My empty stomach sent up a signal. I'd been fighting all day and hadn't eaten a proper meal.
Noah snorted a laugh. The moment she suggested we wash up and go out to eat, I started unbuckling my armor on the spot.
That night, for some reason, sleep wouldn't come no matter how late it got. The heat didn't help, and every time I tried to settle down, stray thoughts kept crowding in until I got irritated. I slipped carefully out of bed. Noah was dead asleep in the next bunk, snoring without a care in the world.
The lodging was fairly spacious, built with two occupants in mind. There was no veranda or balcony, but sitting in the chair by the window and looking at the moon still had a certain atmosphere to it.
I gazed up at the blue moon and sank into thought.
Up until now, maybe I'd just been excited about killing monsters. A faintly melancholy feeling settled over me.
Who asked to be dropped into a world like this?
I'd fallen into this place without a shred of my own will. Was it so much to ask that I at least get to do what I wanted?
Why had I ended up here in the first place?
I was an outsider. Someone who didn't belong to this world. On the surface I lived as if I fit in, but I couldn't find a way home, and I had nowhere to go.
…Still, I didn't want to pour these feelings out to anyone in tedious detail. Sometimes it was enough to sit with them alone like this. It had been the same in the cave, and nothing had changed now.
For a while I wallowed in self-pity. But nothing was resolved, and nothing changed. Staring blankly at the moon, I suddenly felt embarrassed.
I went back to bed and covered my face with my hands.
I didn't care what circumstances a monster had. I just wanted to kill monsters. Until no thoughts came at all.
The next day, Noah and I went to see Matillo.
"……What, you're already back?"
Whether he was glad to see us or not, Matillo reacted even more intensely than yesterday. Not that it amounted to much more than turning his back a little faster.
"Well, showing up this early — that mean you quit? Not that I expected much—"
"I did it."
I held up the bundle in front of Matillo's face. All it held was the crest, the pouch, and the talons, but that was more than enough proof. Nobody would have transferred those materials to me. Doing that kind of thing between hunters was illegal. The materials a hunter held were also a mark of honor — proof that the hunter themselves had brought the monster down. That mattered. To a hunter, honor was everything.
"Gimme."
Matillo snatched the bundle, opened it, checked the contents, and nodded.
"So the rumors were true. You might actually be useful, kid. …Those bandages on your hand and waist — you get hurt?"
"The Kakari used its breath. It was hot."
"Hmm. Nothing too serious, then. Small burns and cuts heal up fine if you put recovery salve on them properly. Still, getting hurt is a problem. Means I can't send you out on other jobs right away."
He talked like that, but the concern was written all over him.
Rumors, though? What rumors? What on earth was going around?
"…Alice, I really don't like that old man."
"I can hear you. Keep it down."
Noah had whispered it to me, but Matillo somehow caught it anyway and waved a hand dismissively.
"You stop by the Association?"
"…No?"
"Go see the attendant. I already put in the request. Without that, this is no different from illegal hunting. You'll need proof you took the job, too, so take this with you."
Matillo handed the bundle back.
Come to think of it, the request had only been made verbally. Reporting it to an Association attendant was the proper way of doing things. Matillo really was something — just tossing out jobs with no follow-through. Was that a former hunter thing?
"Come back after and I'll return your greatsword. That thing was in a real state."
"Want me to give this weapon back too?"
"Keep it. Better off in the hands of someone who can use it."
"Thanks."
"Forget it."
Matillo shrugged and turned his back. Getting all bashful about it.
With nothing left to say, he went back to hammering iron. Blunt, but diligent. If you thought about how every piece he forged day after day was meant to be the finest work possible for hunters, he was pretty cool in his own way. His efforts would shine alongside mine from now on.
As for Noah, who kept grumbling that she didn't like Matillo — all I had to do was keep soothing her.
Still, that "rumor" Matillo had mentioned stuck with me. Had word about me already spread? It wasn't a bad feeling. It was just strange that rumors were circulating when I hadn't even been in Antico that long. Proof of how much interest this world had in hunters, I supposed.
Even so, I didn't feel like I had a reputation worth spreading yet. The only thing people could really talk about was me taking down the One-Eyed Luga-lac… ah, was that actually a big deal? At the One-Eyed level, you could at least rub shoulders with the upper ranks of monsters.
But even a One-Eyed Luga-lac was still a Luga-lac. No matter how much of a battle-scarred veteran it was, the fact that its species got shredded by stronger monsters never changed. So it shouldn't have been the kind of thing that set rumors flying.
And since arriving in Antico, I'd done even less. Aside from taking down a Pienos during the exam and this Kakari, there really wasn't anything, was there? Killing a Pienos wasn't rumor-worthy either — even a newbie could handle one easily if they knew the patterns. The others could have managed it just fine without me. Nothing particularly special had happened during that fight, either.
…Then it had to be because I was pretty!
This face of mine was decent-looking, after all. I'd gritted my teeth and customized it carefully, so of course people would take an interest. Perfect material for weird gossip.
Considering I'd originally been a guy, the whole thing was just ridiculous.