True Charged Slash
The sun was sinking low on the horizon.
In the twilight that blanketed the plain, hunter and monster clashed.
—KyAaaaaa!
The Kometras roared.
A roar thick with pain. Everyone clapped their hands over their ears against the eardrum-splitting cry.
The heat that melted rock inside its mouth occasionally spilled outward.
The first to recover and charge was Alice.
A ringing filled her head, sharp enough to make it ache. But her iron will refused to break.
Frowning, Alice stepped forward.
To bring the Kometras down with her greatsword, she had to close the distance while she still could.
But the Kometras wasn't about to stand still and take it.
Watching Alice approach, it raised a foreleg and swung, aiming to smash her aside.
Bang—!
Chloe's arrow struck first. The explosive charge attached to the shaft detonated, freezing the attack for a crucial instant.
Alice glanced back.
Her eyes met Chloe's.
The archer was smiling.
Alice nodded and dove straight into the Kometras's reach.
At the same time she swept her blade sideways.
Shhhk—.
Hide split open.
The creature's underbelly wasn't rock at all—just ordinary beast hide. Even an iron greatsword could deal plenty of damage there.
Alice wasn't the only one attacking.
Leo and Aaron closed in as well.
Each from a different angle, each with a different role.
Leo stuck close with his steady sword and shield, drawing the Kometras's attention and refusing to let go. Aaron, hammer in hand, smashed at the rock plating.
The Kometras was tough. But when you shattered the shell that no blade could pierce, everything changed. Under the broken rock armor lay soft flesh—and blades sank in just fine. The target area grew wider.
It might have seemed underhanded, but there was nothing underhanded about hunting a monster. It was simply a way to win.
Ting—!
Shell and greatsword met with a clear, ringing note. Alice grimaced, forcing strength into her tingling hands.
She kept up the assault, but every so often her blade struck rock—and that was the problem. It wasn't a careless mistake. The Kometras twisted its body, using its own hardness as a weapon. Attacking only from below ruined her stance and left her open.
Given the size and thickness of a greatsword, the creature's helmet was pure poison. Still, she dodged its strikes, cut from the side, and swung in wide arcs, stacking damage little by little.
The four of them worked together surprisingly well.
Aaron's full-powered hammer blows chewed through the rock armor on the Kometras's left side. Leo blocked the occasional sweeping arm with his shield and linked up with Alice. Even the arrows that flew in at just the right moment to interrupt the beast's movements were perfect.
A stable hunt. At this rate, it would take time—but they would bring it down.
The Kometras, however, had no intention of standing still and taking hits.
It lifted its head once. Scraped the ground twice with a hoof. Then charged forward like a battering ram.
Alice rolled sharply aside and slipped beneath its body, but the others weren't so lucky. Leo caught the sudden charge full-on and was driven backward. Aaron, mid-swing with his hammer, took a leg to the body and went down.
But the Kometras didn't stop.
This time its target was Chloe.
"Tch!"
Chloe clicked her tongue and yanked the arrow from her string. She kicked off the ground and barely cleared the charge.
The Kometras only stopped when it slammed into a massive boulder.
"Guh…"
Leo and Aaron forced their pain-wracked bodies upright. They retrieved the shield and hammer that had gone tumbling across the ground and moved back in. Somehow, they had to hold the formation.
—Kuuu….
The creature let out a low growl. Frustration at attacks that simply wouldn't land was building. The Kometras's neck began to flush red. Heat was gathering.
"Get clear!"
Alice, who had kept her mouth shut until now, shouted.
The Kometras had a heat organ in its throat. Normally it used the heat to melt rock for food—but when its life was on the line, it turned that heat on its enemies.
Leo and Aaron heard her and fell back at once.
In the next instant, a scorching breath erupted from the Kometras's maw. A whistling like a boiling kettle filled the air as heat haze swept the surroundings. Grass on the plain withered and twisted. Rocks caught in the steam glowed red.
The firepower was enormous.
Leo swallowed hard. Without Alice's razor-sharp warning, they never would have gotten clear in time.
Still, the pattern bought them a brief breathing room. Alice looked at Aaron, who stood with his hammer, exhaling hard.
"Aaron."
"…Yeah?"
"The rock on its head. Can you do it? We need that broken."
Alice asked.
Aaron ran the numbers in his head. Could he? Standing in front of the monster meant taking every attack it threw. Enduring the heat was a given. And he didn't have Alice's agility for dodging.
"I'll block the attacks."
Leo spoke up then. He rapped his shield with his sword.
"I'll hold the front. Somehow, we break it. Chloe, back us up!"
"Don't worry—I've got support covered."
Chloe said, pulling powder charges from her bag to fit to her arrows.
Aaron, who had been hesitating, let out a short laugh. He wasn't alone. If the load was heavy, you just shared it with your comrades.
"…All right. Just the rock on its head, right?"
"Yeah."
Alice nodded.
The Kometras's heat blast ended. The air around them shimmered with residual heat. Sweat poured down their faces.
This time they started differently. Centered on Aaron, they would hold until the head rock shattered.
The Kometras's patterns shifted as it poured out heat.
Second phase.
Leo drew the Kometras's aggro and thought hard. To improvise as cleanly as Alice did, you had to stay sensitive to every change in the enemy. Forget attacking. Right now, defense and evasion were everything. If he didn't go down, Aaron could smash the head without worry.
Leo held his shield close to his body. His brown eyes locked sharp on the Kometras.
The creature tried brute force. It stomped and charged. It spat the heat from its neck outright. It gouged the earth with the horns on its helmet and flung dirt everywhere. Those he couldn't block with the shield—he threw his body out of the way.
Suddenly the Kometras lifted a foot slightly.
Leo looked into its eyes. The pupils were pointed elsewhere. This wasn't aimed at him. It was a side swipe meant for Alice, who had been harassing it from the flank.
"Alice!"
Alice had already noticed before Leo even shouted. She dropped so low her body nearly scraped the ground. Then she swung her greatsword as she rolled under the tail.
As the Kometras's torso came around, they crossed. Soft ankle hide parted under the greatsword, and the beast screamed.
Of course.
Leo swallowed. Worrying about her was a waste of time. Better to think about the next attack.
He wasn't sure how to put it, but from that point on Leo felt like he entered a trance. When every scrap of focus locked onto the Kometras, he could sense countless branching possibilities. The beast was slow. Because of that, its actions—its movements—unfolded clearly in his mind.
He deflected attacks with the shield, jabbed with the sword, and kept its gaze fixed on him.
"Leo!"
Whenever Aaron swung his hammer, Leo ducked or sidestepped to open a path. Any move Leo failed to read, Chloe's explosive arrows covered with perfect timing. Blasts going off right in front of its face scrambled the Kometras's senses.
Alice watched Leo handling his role well and gave a small nod. His movements were clean. Almost no wasted motion. He was pouring everything he had into protecting Aaron and Chloe behind him.
No—everyone was making the same effort.
Alice smiled faintly. She kept reading the situation as she carved the hide of the creature's legs with her greatsword. Her eyes waited hungrily for the moment the helmet would break.
Clang—!
And that wish bore fruit.
Aaron's hammer traced a massive arc and smashed into the Kometras's face. The rock finally lost its shape. As the stone helmet crumbled and fell away, the bare face the Kometras had hidden was finally revealed.
A beast's head with two horns.
The impact sent the Kometras rolling sideways and crashing down. The massive shock of its armor shattering left it dazed.
"Yes!"
Aaron clenched his hammer and shouted. The clean impact wiped the fatigue clean away.
"…Nice work."
Alice said quietly, watching the Kometras thrash on the ground.
With the head broken, the restrictions on their attacks were essentially gone.
Alice slammed her greatsword into the rolling body. It wasn't just her—everyone shared the same thought, the same intent. They had to pack in as much damage as possible before it got back up.
The creature rose again.
The end was finally in sight.
Blood dripping, its yellow eyes stripped of fighting spirit still begged to live.
—Koouuu….
It growled low. It didn't charge. It watched the situation, drooling spit and blood.
Alice lifted her head.
Evening had already crossed into night; moonlight flooded the plain. They had run very late.
"Hah… hah…"
Everyone was breathing hard, spent. Monster and hunters alike were utterly exhausted from the long fight.
Alice wasn't at full strength either. Hard use had torn her clothes and coated her in dirt and dust.
If they left it now, the Kometras would run. Then they could catch their breath and track its trail again tomorrow. They weren't in any condition to keep fighting.
Chloe looked at her quiver. She had been scavenging arrows from the ground whenever she ran short, but now they were all broken. She had no means of attack left.
Leo's arms had grown steadily more painful as time passed. He had held on with recovery potions, but constantly blocking with the shield had taken its toll. His arms were trembling; strength wouldn't properly reach the hand gripping the shield.
Aaron was in the best shape of the three, but swinging that heavy hammer at full power over and over to break the rock had left his muscles screaming.
Looking at her teammates, retreat was the right call. Fighting any further would be pure desperation.
But Alice still wanted to fight.
They had driven it this far. She didn't want to let it go now. The thrill of battle hadn't faded yet.
She stoked her fighting spirit. Her eyes, glittering under the moonlight, flashed.
"Everyone, rest."
"…Alice?"
Alice stepped in front of the Kometras.
The beast that had not yet become a knight looked into Alice's eyes. Why won't you just leave me alone?
There was only one reason. Opposing a threat is a living creature's instinct. Simply by existing, the Kometras was a threat to humans—and so it was destined to be hunted down like this.
Alice raised her greatsword. She had not the slightest intention of letting it go. There would be no mercy for a beast. She vowed to execute it here, before it could armor itself in iron again.
The Kometras accepted the final fight. Its neck flushed red once more. The rock-armored beast that threatened them with another blast of heat dragged its body forward and resumed the battle.
A side swipe from the Kometras. But Alice rolled sharply aside and avoided it.
A foreleg swing coming in to smash her. She rolled toward the approaching foreleg, slipped under the attack, and moved naturally back in front of its head.
Clean.
With spare, economical posture and movement, Alice overwhelmed the Kometras. Without its helmet, the creature had no choice but to take every one of her attacks.
Movements like a greatsword textbook. It was a clear demonstration that the crystallization of human knowledge and technique could surpass a monster's raw power.
"That…"
The moonlight seemed to shine on the two of them alone. The fight was so fierce and so beautiful that no one could look away.
In Leo's opinion, the rumors about Alice that had spread through Antico fell short of the real thing. The Alice he saw with his own eyes moved like art. A skill beyond words.
The brief insight Leo had felt while facing the Kometras—the technique of reading a monster's actions—was second nature to Alice. Her eyes saw through every movement. And she already knew what the final thrashing would be.
"Hoo… haah…"
—KUAAaaaaa!!
As Alice steadied her breathing and stepped back slightly, the Kometras roared. It spat heat into the ground and burrowed into the softened earth. Not that it vanished completely from sight.
The problem was that only the Kometras's rock armor was visible. There was nowhere a greatsword could usefully strike.
Crrrk—.
The sound of earth being ground away reached them. It was tunneling toward them with heat, closing the distance. The creature began to swim clumsily across the surface of the ground. Straight at Alice.
Dangerous. Anyone could see it was dangerous. No matter how you attacked, the blade would bounce off rock.
Alice knew that too.
She backstepped twice and took a steadying breath. She counted silently in her mind, then raised the greatsword and gathered her strength.
This charge had one distinctive feature. At the end, it would burst up headfirst and try to bite the enemy in a sudden lunge.
Alice watched the armor undulate. When the head rose, there were two tells. The horns came up first, and the ground turned red under the heat it couldn't contain.
That moment.
Alice's eyes flew wide. She brought the greatsword up over her shoulder. She poured every ounce of strength in her body into the single blade, hopped lightly in place, and yanked the greatsword high overhead.
——!!
At the same instant the Kometras erupted from the earth, jaws wide, blasting heat as it flew at Alice.
But what the Kometras met was a massive blade rushing to meet it. The edge of the greatsword chased the Kometras's head. A head without a helmet was completely exposed.
Crunch—.
True Charged Slash.
The Kometras's body crumpled and fell.