The Eternal Pair
I took Pina and headed back to the snowfield where we had fought.
“Hey, why am I coming along at all?! You said we were just going to look!”
“It’d be boring if I went alone.”
“Rest! Give me rest!”
But since I’d handed her so much money, Pina followed without another word of complaint.
Money really is the best. If money can’t solve something, it just means you don’t have enough money.
“Ah, I thought I’d finally get to loaf around for once…”
“Weren’t you doing that while I was laid up?”
“N-No, I wasn’t! I organized the luggage, polished Alice-nim’s armor, maintained the weapons…”
She’d done more than I expected.
While I wasn’t looking, Pina had been working hard too. Looks really aren’t everything.
“Does Alice-nim just see me as someone who always wants to rest?”
“In your eyes I look like someone who always wants to kill monsters, don’t I?”
“……”
Couldn’t you deny it?
I felt a little hurt by Pina’s silence.
As I’d said, I simply wanted to see the final moments of Neveterde and Neveumano. I avoided any unnecessary fights along the way. Having already taken those two down, I didn’t want to see any more blood here.
The distance was far enough that it took a full day, but the weather was good and previous hunters had packed the path, so we reached the snowfield quickly enough.
And there I saw a familiar face again.
Peto, the hunter who had helped us when we first arrived at Lacrima.
“…Huh, Alice?”
“Hey.”
I’d actually forgotten about him, but seeing him after so long felt nice. That was the feeling, anyway.
“So you really did take down a Supreme-grade monster. I thought it was just the usual hunter bragging…”
“What?”
I frowned and glared at him, full of dissatisfaction.
Peto flustered and turned his head as he replied.
“We’d just met for the first time. Who’d believe someone who blurts out something like that right away?”
“Yeah, fair enough.”
I couldn’t really argue and just nodded.
Peto let out a sigh of relief. He seemed to know that getting hit by the fist of someone who’d killed a Supreme-grade monster would be the end of him.
“Anyway, it’s really amazing. How did you beat that monster? I guess… Master Hunters really are different. I’m starting to doubt you’re even the same kind of human as us. Is it because you’re from the future?”
Apparently, thanks to Miteraos, the story that I’d come from the future while I was down had already spread all over Lacrima.
Peto joked.
“Beating Disastro was all thanks to your efforts too, right? Investigating you would be fun. How about it?”
“No thanks, that’s creepy.”
Peto slumped his shoulders as if wronged by my flat rejection.
Still, he seemed a lot more lively than when I’d first met him.
“So, what brings you all the way out here?”
“I wanted to take a look at those two.”
“Ah, right. Go ahead and check. We’re recording their appearances right now.”
We followed Peto’s lead.
Neveumano and Neveterde were still right where we’d fought them, in the same state.
Hunters were still sketching their outer appearances by hand. Thankfully they hadn’t skinned them into something grotesque.
“They seemed to have been close. They died like this. Yeti and Snow Woman—Neveumano and Neveterde. The names might have been really well chosen.”
“……”
Only then did I confirm their final forms with my own eyes.
What I took in was Neveterde sitting leaned against the fallen Neveumano’s shoulder, dead.
Neveumano was a wreck. Wounds covered his side and legs, and especially the wrists and ankles were completely shredded. Looking at the cross-section of a giant monster’s flesh and muscle was thoroughly nauseating.
Unlike Neveumano, Neveterde looked peacefully asleep. As if she might wake if you touched her. But the deep gashes on her waist and arms said otherwise.
“Looks like she’s still alive.”
Peto said dryly, without a shred of sentiment.
“With the weather here, the bodies preserve well. They don’t even rot much.”
That’s not the kind of obvious thing I meant.
I knelt and checked Neveterde’s bowed face.
Neveterde was smiling at the end.
Leaning against Neveumano’s shoulder, Neveterde had been a truly living being. She had communed with Neveumano to the very last, and that was how she faded.
Eternal partners, was it?
I briefly lowered my eyes in a silent prayer at the pitiful sight. I knew it couldn’t be helped, but I still felt sorry.
Then Pina spoke.
“…Alice-nim.”
“Yeah.”
“Once the time anomalies end, everything will go back to normal, right?”
“Probably.”
After killing Miteraos, if the flow of time returned…
Then maybe all these anomalies would become as if they never happened.
Disastro, Neveterde and Neveumano might live again in the lands they once called home. People swept away by the anomalies might come back to life.
Then what about me?
All of this is speculation. The ending is only decided when it ends. Thinking about it now was pure fantasy.
I don’t know this world’s ending either.
What kind of ending will I face after killing Miteraos?
“They were monsters, but it’s pitiful. Once everything’s over, they’ll come back to life, right? Even if we can’t meet them again…”
Pina dreamed of a beautiful ending.
“Yeah, they will. For sure.”
I also thought our ending would be beautiful.
But it might be a bit early to be thinking like this already.
We’ve only finished two. Too hasty.
I stood up.
Now for the main point.
“Peto.”
“Yeah, what?”
“How are you dividing the materials?”
“Eh—.”
Pina looked at me with eyes that said she’d snapped wide awake.
“A-Alice-nim. Are you serious right now?”
“Pina, calm down.”
I conveyed my thoughts to Pina.
“I’m just borrowing them for a while, to kill that dragon. I know from fighting them. You can’t win with ordinary weapons. And since Neveumano and Neveterde’s materials are rare…”
“……”
“You know how I feel, right?”
I awkwardly sought her agreement. Pina stared at me steadily.
Even I thought it was a bit trashy. Someone who’d been mourning just a moment ago suddenly changing their eyes and mentioning materials—yeah, that’d give anyone the creeps.
The fact that that someone was me was scary.
“Alice-nim isn’t even human. You’re a steel human, a steel human. How can a person not change their expression at all…”
Still, being treated as human was a relief.
But I wasn’t joking—Supreme-grade monster materials were extremely important to me. To face Miteraos, I had to equip myself with the absolute maximum I could.
Given that Supreme-grade monsters were already extremely few in number, and the reality that once you kill one you can’t farm it repeatedly, I couldn’t afford to miss this chance.
“Give me priority.”
“Alice-nim, you’re actually a monster, aren’t you?”
I was no longer even human.
A monster that kills monsters—that’s me.
I lay still looking up at the inn ceiling, thinking of Miteraos.
The fact that Miteraos appeared to stop me meant that what I was doing now was right.
He’d shown up too early. His impatience was showing.
But at the end, he’d said this.
That there was no way for me to return to the future. And if I kept struggling anyway, I would pay the appropriate price.
What did that mean, exactly?
Was there truly no way back to the future?
And what was the price?
While he just lay there recharging his strength, I kept pushing things forward, so maybe he was getting nervous?
But Miteraos wouldn’t have appeared for no reason and said something like that.
Calling it a bluff didn’t fit—a dragon wouldn’t think that way. He wouldn’t bluff.
I’d have to be careful for a while.
The materials talk ended simply and clearly.
It was certain that I would get Neveumano and Neveterde’s materials.
Of course—I’d basically taken them down alone, so who else would take them?
But I couldn’t take everything. That would be wasteful, and if the materials were sold and leaked to civilians it would be extremely dangerous, so the Association’s policy was to take only what was needed.
However, the essences were impossible. They said they were essential for the investigation and would give them later, so please wait for now.
With Supreme-grade monsters appearing one after another, and even the Crossing Dragon Miteraos showing up, there might be some connection between them.
The Association seemed to think that secret might be hidden inside the essences. Essences were like a monster’s treasure trove, after all.
Since it was work this world needed, I stepped back one pace.
I hadn’t planned to take everything from the start. That was a kind of consideration toward them.
What I wanted to make was dual blades.
A pair of couple swords made from Neveterde and Neveumano.
Of course there were plenty of other things I could make, but for a Yeti and Snow Woman, couple swords were a must.
Couple swords, Amico and Apeto. Not Gan Jiang and Mo Ye.
There was only one person who would take this request.
“Alright, I’ll ask Matillo.”
“Aren’t you bullying Grandpa Matillo too much? He’s already struggling because of his age…”
“He’ll like it. It’s rare stuff to work with.”
I’m not the only one who thinks that, right?
Anyway, the materials weren’t in my hands yet. Once the investigation of Neveumano and Neveterde finished, they’d naturally come to me, so there was no rush.
The Lacrima Outpost was over like this. I had no more reason to stay.
I could leave the rest to the kingdom’s army and the hunters, so farewell to the cold country.
But the atmosphere was still too chaotic to return to Antico, so the carriages couldn’t move yet.
In the meantime, it would be right to do the maintenance I hadn’t been able to.