I Wanted to Eat With You
"Indeed…."
Alice drove her greatsword into the ground.
She smoothed back her wind-tossed hair and turned away.
Beneath the moonlight, the victor of the battlefield was human.
Aaron let go of his hammer. It hit the earth with a heavy thud, tipped sideways, and toppled over.
The sight before him was nothing short of staggering.
A delicacy of control that defied the sheer bulk of the greatsword she carried. A meticulousness that refused to tolerate even a single mistake. The concentration to seize the perfect instant.
All of it had come together to forge the hunter known as Alice.
She was a woman he simply could not figure out.
She spoke little, and a smile was a rare sight on her face. Her white hair and those listless eyes made her look fragile. How good could a girl like that really be with a greatsword? That was what Aaron had thought. He had taken the rumors about her with a grain of salt.
And he had been wrong.
From the moment the hunt began, she had been different.
Relentless successive strikes, and a tenacity that never let her pull away from the monster — that was what had led them to victory.
And the decision to smash the helmet rather than any other part of its body… that had been enough to send a chill down his spine.
She must have calculated from the start that the Kometras would try to burrow at the end.
A monster of a woman.
Aaron clenched his fist. Alice did not belong at a rank like this. She was headed somewhere far higher.
Suddenly, he found himself curious about her.
What kind of life did a person have to live to gain that kind of strength at her age?
According to the rumors, Alice was a girl who had been rescued from the flooded forest.
Did that mean she had been hunting monsters in this forest all that time?
How many monsters would you have to fight to reach a level like that? Aaron dared to guess.
At the very least, you would have to build a tower out of their corpses.
"Alice!!"
Chloe ran toward Alice, who was catching her breath in front of the fallen Kometras.
Then she threw herself into Alice's arms.
Alice's body swayed hard under the impact. Barely managing to keep her balance, she grabbed Chloe's arms and let out a strained groan. Even so, she did not push Chloe away — as if she did not entirely mind.
"How did you do that?! I was really worried about you~."
"Let go…."
Looking at her like that, she really did seem like a girl her age.
Aaron let out a short laugh at a reality he still could not quite believe.
"Leo."
"Yeah?"
"When we get back, how about we all grab a drink?"
"Works for me."
Leo, who had been watching quietly from the side, smiled.
He had been thinking much the same thing as Aaron.
He had no doubt that Alice could become the greatest hunter of their generation.
Even if they themselves were still rookies who had only just taken down their first mid-grade monster, they could feel the difference in class.
The gap between Alice and the rest of them. It was beyond words.
And so, the commission was finished.
The four hunters had cut the seed short before the beast could call down calamity.
Perhaps they had treated a monster that had done nothing wrong as a feared disaster. But it had been far too great a threat to humanity, and so it had been rightfully culled.
Alice looked down at the motionless Kometras.
She felt no pity for it.
Even if an Ironclad Dragon had appeared clad in steel armor, it would have met the same fate.
Crack, crack—.
The hour when the moon was sinking low.
The campfire, which had long since lost its strength, flared back to life as it consumed fresh wood. Embers leapt beautifully from its heart. In the dark of the flooded forest, those rising sparks made for a truly lovely sight.
Unlike the sweltering day, a gentle breeze was blowing and the air had turned cool. For now, at least, there was no need for Cooling Powder. The chill of night had swallowed the forest's heat whole. Chloe rubbed her arms against the cool wind and savored the weather, knowing it would turn hot again the moment the sun rose.
The flooded forest was unusually quiet that night. No howls of Luga-lac, no unpleasant animal footsteps — nothing. The only sound that reached them now and then was the chirping of insects. With nothing to torment the ears, the peace was absolute.
And of everything present, what stole every gaze without fail was the meat.
A great cut of it was skewered over the campfire, turning slowly on its spit.
Aaron rotated the wood at a careful pace so the meat would cook evenly.
It was late, but everyone had gathered in a circle around the fire to fill their empty stomachs.
Gulp.
The sound of someone swallowing hard rose from time to time.
Hunting the Kometras had left them with a belated dinner. With the commission finished, they could afford a little leisure like this.
The smell of well-roasting meat drifted gently through the air.
In the overly quiet atmosphere, Leo felt a touch of awkwardness. Nights were always like this, but tonight of all nights, he thought, it would not hurt to talk a little.
Leo was the first to break the silence.
"Good work, everyone."
"…You too."
"Heh heh, Alice worked especially hard, though~."
"Still, Aaron smashed that helmet open with his hammer. He put in a lot too."
"Ahem. Leo, even so, you did more than I did, holding the line and blocking every attack in front of me…."
"Come on, if we start that we'll never stop. We all did well. You, me — all of us worked hard. And Chloe, you dodged those fire blasts really well. Do you know how many times I nearly jumped out of my skin every time it lifted its head and shot fire at you?"
"I dodged every one~. Honestly thought I was going to die, though. And me? My hands were shaking every single time I loosed an arrow. It took serious concentration not to hit any of you. My fingertips were trembling for real."
"Still, those explosive arrows saved us. Going to cost us again when we get back. We're completely out."
"…You think I planned on emptying my entire stock?"
The three of them spoke in low voices, turning toward one another.
All of them seemed steeped in the sweet, bone-deep weariness that settles in once a commission is done.
Alice, who had been watching in silence, let out a quiet snort of laughter.
She rather liked this atmosphere.
Even when she and Noah took commissions together, it never quite felt like this. More often than not they would trade a few idle words and fall asleep.
Was this the true charm of party play that Noah had wanted to teach me?
If I had been alone… I would have been happy with the sense of accomplishment, but it would not have been like this.
Being alone is comfortable enough — but four isn't so bad either.
Having people to share it with… that is a happiness all its own.
"Ah, Alice."
"…Yeah?"
"We're going to grab a drink after this. What do you say?"
Alice tilted her head.
"A drink?"
"Yeah. Commission went well, and it'd be good to get closer."
"Hmm…."
Alice was a person of few words. Of everyone Noah had met so far, she was unusually quiet.
Noah did not know why. From the start, she had known almost nothing detailed about Alice. So she had simply assumed that, for some reason or other, Alice had become a person of few words.
And with that Alice gone from the house, something felt lonely. She barely spoke to begin with — so what was this stillness that lingered through the rooms without her? Noah touched the corner of her mouth.
It was not as if she had done nothing in the meantime. While Alice was out on her commission, Noah had been doing work suited to a hunter as well.
Hunting was not a profession of hunting alone. The majority of hunters spent their time after easy herbivorous monsters or out on gathering runs. Most people who passed the Hunter Association's exam by taking down a Pienos, then felt the wall standing between humans and monsters, ended up that way.
Noah, too, had freely taken gathering commissions for the first time in a while, and had hunted herbivorous monsters to deliver the meat. Working alone was familiar to her. So out in the field, she did not particularly miss Alice's absence. But the moment she returned to the lodging, being by herself felt somehow dull.
Having the place to herself meant she could use the rooms more spaciously, which was freeing in its own way. Then the thought that Alice was not there would rise again, and it all felt hollow once more.
We've grown a lot closer over this time, haven't we, she thought.
It was not usually like this. Yes — it reminded her of her early days as a hunter. When she had first left her family's care and begun the hunter's life, she had felt something similar.
Alice had gone to the flooded forest for the commission, and this was already the third day Noah had the room to herself. Only a few days had passed, but once she finished her own work and came back to the lodging, there was nothing to do.
Hunters lived a wandering life from place to place anyway, so she had never grown particularly close to many people. Attachments dulled when you could not meet for long stretches. The hunters she had teamed with on previous commissions had been nothing more than hastily assembled parties.
The only person she had truly formed a bond with was Alice.
She'll be fine, right?
Noah rolled around on the bed and let out a sigh.
Just one person missing, and the house felt cold. Lifeless, maybe. Noah herself felt drained. It had been a long time since she had felt this way. She was a little upset, too, that Alice had slipped away without a word. If she had known it would be like this, she would not have slept in — a regret that came far too late.
…Am I the only one who thinks of us as friends?
Noah furrowed her brow. Somehow, it felt like that might be true.
Alice barely reacted, barely spoke, and rarely smiled. Sometimes her manner was so businesslike it felt stiff. Did Alice really only want to kill monsters? Did people not matter to her at all…?
Noah lay in the middle of the soft blankets and fretted. Her thoughts were a tangle.
Knock, knock—.
Just then, someone rapped on the door.
"Ugh, what a pain…."
Noah rolled off the bed, planted her feet firmly on the floor, and stood.
Then she trudged over to the door.
"Who is iiit~."
Noah drawled the words out.
She did not think it would be Alice.
She was surely still hard at work on the commission. Kometras were not that easy to find. Noah had figured she would be struggling for a while yet.
"It's me."
But at the voice that followed, Noah blinked.
She opened the door at once.
There stood the friend she had been waiting for. There stood Alice.
"Oh — you're back."
Noah was so glad to see her that the words came out more casually than she intended.
She had never imagined it would actually be Alice, and she had no idea how to react. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she managed to speak.
"…Have you eaten?"
From the whirl of things she might say, she picked what seemed the safest.
"Uh… no?"
"You didn't eat with the people you were with?"
"Mm…."
Alice touched the corner of her mouth as she answered.
"I wanted to eat with you."
"What is that supposed to mean."
Noah let out a short laugh.
She had been a little upset for a moment — but the instant Alice returned, it felt as if life flooded back into everything.
Her heart eased at once. More than the fact that Alice had been gone for a while, she was simply happy that Alice had been thinking of her. So she was not the only one who thought of them as friends after all.