A Hunter's Reason
The rock-armored beast known as Kometras lives by eating stone.
It is smaller than one might expect, and its temperament is mild. But it guards its own body with fierce care, and against an unknown enemy it can turn surprisingly aggressive.
Even among medium-grade monsters, Kometras ranks on the weaker side. Its hide is hard, yet any part not armored in rock is soft flesh. Because it is so docile, its attacks are rarely savage. Even so, a large monster is still a large monster—its raw power does not simply vanish. Structurally, bladed weapons are a little awkward to use against it.
No matter how cute the creature might look from the outside, a human standing before a Kometras is a frail and powerless thing. That is true of every monster, of course. But for people who have never met one, the truth never quite sinks in.
"What's a Kometras like?"
"I hear its eyes are round."
Leo gave Chloe a rough answer to her question.
We were moving through the Forest of Illusion. The client had spotted the Kometras on a plain deeper inside the forest, and the path was dangerous enough that none of us let our guard down. Running into a monster by chance was something you had to watch for at every moment. There was only one quest target—but the forest held plenty of other monsters besides.
We did not chatter. Noise is the easiest way to draw a monster's attention. Everyone kept their mouths shut and maintained a tight perimeter of vigilance.
The weather stayed hot the entire walk. Now and then I would lift my head and catch a clear sky and the soft sway of branches overhead. Sweat ran freely in the forest's characteristic muggy heat; a breeze would slip past us and cool the skin for a moment. The Forest of Illusion was always like this.
On top of that, hunters carried heavy packs by trade, so you never got far in the forest in a single stretch. Before setting out we had sprayed ourselves with a mist that kept the body cool. It helped at first, but as time wore on, sweat pooled inside the armor we wore for protection, and our clothes sagged, soaked through against our skin. The rests in the shade grew shorter and more frequent; the time spent sitting grew longer.
Meals came from the wild herbivore monsters that lived in the forest. I used the field-dressing methods Noah had taught me, sorting out what was edible and bringing it back. My quick feet and unhesitating hands left the others staring in open surprise.
"You're fast…"
"I was taught."
I had learned from a proper veteran, after all. They were all still green, so the shock was fair enough. But someday they would have to do the same thing as a matter of course.
"That's our Alice! What would we have done without you?"
I had tensed, half-expecting Chloe to glue herself to my side—but in heat like this, even she held off. Small mercies.
After we ate we kept walking the forest, but nothing of note turned up. All we found were monster carcasses and wild animals grazing on the grass. Not meeting any other monsters was pure luck. Better still than failing to find the Kometras was the fact that time had passed without a single crisis or fight.
The sun dropped fast. Once it was gone, the air cooled compared to the day. But wandering the forest after dark was dangerous. Late at night, Luga-lac often prowled these woods.
Aawwooo!!
A Luga-lac's howl rolled in from far away.
"…Should we set up a base first?"
"Yeah. We should."
Making a base was simple enough. You took a powder ground from monster secretions—dung, basically—and scattered it in a wide ring around the camp. Other monsters caught the scent and rarely stepped inside. They had a habit of not trespassing on one another's territory, and you used that. The result was a safe zone most monsters would not enter.
We set our heavy packs down against a tree and peeled off our armor for a moment. The muggy heat trapped inside billowed out. Everyone's faces finally said they might live.
"I thought my shoulders were going to fall off. I'm dying of heat."
"The forest's always like that."
Leo shrugged at Chloe's grumbling. The Forest of Illusion never changed.
"Still, we've got a water source over that way, so we can head over later and use some."
Leo said it with a smile.
Dinner was the same as lunch. There was nothing else to eat out here but meat. Fine the first day—after a few more, the menu would wear thin fast—but there was no helping it. I had no desire to start roasting bugs.
After the meal we decided to wash up in pairs, two men and two women. Even inside a safe zone, water drew monsters more often than not. We could not drop our guard, so we put the armor back on.
Leo and Aaron went first. That left Chloe and me at the base.
Alone with me, Chloe seemed suddenly awkward—fidgeting, twiddling her fingers. It was so different from the way she had been clinging earlier that I was a little surprised myself.
"Alice, how did you end up a hunter?"
She brought out a surprisingly serious question. We had gotten friendly enough that this kind of talk came out at night. I watched the campfire burn.
"No reason."
I had no reason for being a hunter. This was the world of Hunter Land, so I hunted—that was all. If this had been an FPS world, I would have picked up a gun. Same logic. I was simply doing the work of this world in order to live in it.
Besides, when I fought monsters without thinking, I could feel that I was alive in this world, right now. Spoken aloud, it might have sounded a little bleak. I kept that part to myself and looked at Chloe.
"What about you, Chloe?"
"Me?"
She tilted her head.
"I don't have any big meaning either. Honestly? I just wanted to make money."
Chloe said it without a shred of pretense. I liked that about her. She was open and easy, no polish at all. There was a reason she never shrank around the two men.
"I could've just gotten a regular job, but money was tight at home. I send most of what I earn back, when I can."
She shrugged.
"And if I'm going to do something, being a hunter's better, right? Sitting around a fire like this, talking—there's a kind of romance to it…"
Chloe's voice dropped low.
The night was cool. The campfire swayed again and again in the wind. We talked while we watched it flicker. Our only real common ground was being hunters, so most of the conversation was about hunting. I did not mind talk like that.
"Alice, is there anyone you like?"
That kind of question, though, was deeply inconvenient.
"…No?"
"Really? Well, someone like you probably doesn't need to sit around fretting over a crush."
I figured the same went for her.
I blinked and looked at Chloe. Her purple hair twisted around her fingers. She chewed her lip a couple of times, then opened her mouth again.
"For me it's less like and more like a fan, I guess? You know—among the Master Hunters, there's this guy called Kyle."
"…Don't know him."
"You don't? He's super famous. You're weirdly clueless about this stuff. You handle every bit of actual hunter work like it's nothing, and then—born hunter. You're a born hunter."
Well, I had staked my life on the hunt.
I had never had much interest in other people's business. I was busy enough looking after myself; I had no room for that. Her words left me with nothing to say, so I scratched my cheek.
Chloe looked at me and laughed softly—huhuhu.
"A while back, a Corasius showed up near our village."
Corasius.
Called the Great Flame Dragon, it ranked among the strongest of the high-grade monsters. A creature I could not even dream of facing now. Even in the game it only appeared in the late stages. Alone, it could threaten an entire ecosystem; other monsters fled its presence in a hurry.
"Master Hunters came to help, and I saw Kyle. He was cool."
"…Did they take the Corasius down?"
"Yeah. Somehow they managed it. Isn't that amazing? Master Hunters feel like a completely different breed from hunters like us."
Chloe said so—but I was not so sure.
What was the point of sorting strong humans from weak ones in front of a monster?
I figured Master Hunters were not all that different. Maybe that was only because I had never seen one up close. Matillo was a blacksmith now, after all.
In my view, Masters were simply people with more talent than most for killing monsters—the sort who handled weapons well and read monsters well.
If that was all it took, I was the same. It had been a game, yes—but ranking up to 999 had not been empty grinding. I had killed countless monsters and cleared every challenge the game offered, save one.
That last one I never finished, because on the day of the update I fell into this world.
"Someday I want to meet Kyle again. If I keep being a hunter, maybe I'll run into him once?"
"…What's he doing now?"
"Most of what Master-rank people do is kept quiet, so I don't know."
Chloe touched the corner of her mouth.
"The rumor is he's investigating Anomalies somewhere nearby?"
"…I see."
Anomalies.
I touched the corner of my own mouth.
Anomalies meant the story. Hunter Land's main story.
It was not that I had never thought about the main story. But the story was already moving—without me, the player…
The thought left a strange bitterness in my chest. I opened my hand and looked at my palm. Calluses from gripping a greatsword. What was I, in this world?
"Chloe, Alice. You can wash up now."
"Oh—any monsters?"
"Nope. Quiet the whole time Aaron and I were washing."
"No weird presence either."
"That's a relief. Alice… Alice?"
I had sunk into the thought for a moment, then snapped back at Chloe calling my name. I pressed my cheek hard and let out a breath. If I was going to waste time on useless thoughts, better to bring down one more monster. I needed to raise my rank fast and show this world what I was worth.
There was no time for this.
"Yeah. Let's go."
I would dump some water over my head and cool the clutter in my skull.