Sleep Well
The fallen Metakentos could not recover its senses so easily.
Its claws were shattered, its antennae severed. The carapace on its legs had been torn open, exposing raw flesh. Pain was a stimulant that could drive a monster into a frenzy, yet once it crossed a certain threshold it did the opposite—it quieted them. This was resignation in the face of death.
—Kirr….
Metakentos let out a faint cry. Agony threaded through the sound of its suffering. This was the fate of a monster that had been reduced to prey before a hunter.
It stopped swinging its claws, fluttered its wings weakly, and let its body droop. With no strength left in its legs, its posture collapsed. Exhaustion had clearly set in; it was nearly time to take it alive.
Just a little more. Alice pressed in with her tachi, forcing the creature to wear itself out completely. She deliberately opened distance, baiting it into large, sweeping motions. There was no chance she would simply stand there and take an attack from an already spent Metakentos.
The beast labored to raise a claw, spun in a great circle, and charged. A sweeping strike. It never connected. Her afterimage slipped cleanly through the gap of the broken claw.
When it uprooted a tree and rolled it across the ground, she leapt, planted a foot on the trunk mid-air, and landed lightly. When it hurled stones, she ghosted out of the way before they could ever arrive.
—Kiii….
Metakentos’s body sagged. Drool spilled in thick strands from its vertically split mouth. Only one step remained: put the exhausted creature to sleep.
She drew a paralysis mine from her secondary pack. Careful placement was unnecessary. She considered its escape route—the same path it had taken from the swamp to reach this place—and casually tossed the mine into that stretch of ground. It would trigger the moment a monster stepped on it; a rough throw was good enough.
Exactly as predicted, the weary, suffering Metakentos dragged itself away in a desperate attempt to flee, trying to retrace the path they had first used. And then it stepped on the mine.
Zap—!
—KIIIRRRRR!!!
A surge of electricity flooded its body in an instant. The creature toppled sideways. Its legs twitched now and then; its layered wings quivered from the shock. Metakentos watched the hunter approach. She stood before its face, something held in her hand.
“Sleep well.”
A sharp needle forced its way between the shattered plates of carapace. Concentrated anesthetic flooded through its body. Endless drowsiness seized the Metakentos. Its compound eyes slowly lost their light. The tingling paralysis faded, yet the monster no longer moved.
Alice tossed the empty anesthetic vial beside the sleeping Metakentos and pulled out a signal flare.
Bang—.
A pillar of red smoke climbed straight into the sky above the marsh. She discarded the spent casing as well, adjusted her grip on the tachi, and looked down at the creature.
…The feel of the fight is a little unsatisfying.
A duel left unfinished always left lingering regret. Even if she had taken it all the way, the outcome would have been the same—yet still.
“Alice-nim!”
Pina, who had been watching from a safe distance, came scrambling over in a fluster. With the hunt over, Alice’s face settled back into its usual listless, weary expression.
“Thanks to you.”
The vial of venom that had enraged the beast and drawn it after them. The paralysis mine that flooded a body with high-voltage current. The precisely measured dose of concentrated anesthetic capable of putting it under. Every tool Alice had used had been prepared and carried by Pina.
Pina smiled faintly at the words and shook her head.
“Alice-nim did all of it.”
There was no point claiming credit. They had simply combined their strength.
Alice watched Fiore approach at a measured pace from farther back. Fiore felt as though her head might split open. It was the vertigo of confronting something she could not fully comprehend. Alice’s command of the tachi was easily on the level of a Master. And that weapon itself had been custom-forged merely so she could demonstrate it to Fiore. A hunter of mere Rank 20 had thrown the thoughts of a Master into complete disarray.
“…You okay?”
“Ah—yes. I am fine.”
Jealousy? What Fiore felt was nothing so petty. As one who already stood at the peak, she understood a hunter’s honor too well for jealousy to take root. This was pure awe. Alice might truly surpass Master, or rise even higher. No—Fiore was certain of it. Alice was not a hunter who would ever remain stalled at a low rank. Right now she was witnessing a hunter who had never existed before and would never exist again—unprecedented, one of a kind.
What worried her was the sheer abnormality of that strength.
“I never imagined you would handle a weapon this well. Is there some secret to it?”
“Uh, well… I practiced like I was going to die. That’s all.”
“…I see.”
Fiore did not believe for a second that mere practice could produce such results. Nor had she forgotten the scars that still marked Alice’s body, or the fact that she had no family. The complete indifference toward worldly affairs, the absolute devotion reserved solely for the hunt. The way her entire presence shifted the moment she faced a monster, the open murderous intent she never bothered to hide. Linking those brief fragments of the past together, Fiore arrived at a single conclusion: the driving force behind Alice was hatred—hatred for the sole purpose of killing monsters.
“Then if I raise my rank, would I be allowed to join the Anomaly expedition?”
That was not the voice of a hunter. In Fiore’s eyes, Alice was nothing more than an avenger.
“Yes. More than enough. You possess qualifications greater than anyone’s.”
Still, Fiore did not try to stop her. Above all, she had no right to stand in the way of Alice’s revenge. Tragedies born of monsters were, in the end, a hunter’s responsibility. Perhaps Alice was burning herself away so that no other victim like herself would ever appear. Fiore could only pray that the light named Alice would not collapse at the end of her journey.
Well, the process of hauling the monster away was none of my concern. I wasn’t the one moving it, Pina and Fiore weren’t the ones sweating over it, and the survey hunters who had been resting comfortably in the safe zone were simply doing their assigned work.
Only after I fired the flare did they come scrambling over with a cart. The moment they arrived and laid eyes on the anesthetized Metakentos, they let out hopeless sighs. Yet once they actually got to work, they handled the transfer with practiced efficiency. Thick ropes lashed the creature tight; they dragged it, rolled it up onto the cart, carefully centered the weight, then all heaved together. Watching a cart that looked utterly immovable begin to creep forward, I couldn’t help thinking they looked a little like ants.
The cart advanced slowly. Branches scraped against one another, leaves stirred, small wild monsters skittered through the undergrowth. Mingled with those sounds came the creak and rumble of our own cart.
With our part finished, we crossed the marsh at an unhurried pace and headed back toward Antico. The return journey was dull. Whenever monsters appeared along the route we simply threatened them or drew weapons long enough to drive them off. Mid-grade monsters were hardly common; every creature we happened to meet was a low-grade specimen that had wandered into our path by chance.
Those moments did give me a brief look at Fiore’s skill, and a Master Hunter was unmistakably a Master Hunter. The sheer specs of her weapon already belonged to a different realm from mine. Using a blade forged from upper-grade materials against low-grade monsters was exactly like slaughtering chickens with a butcher’s cleaver meant for cattle. Her tachi parted hide with almost casual ease, and the startled monsters scrambling away in panic looked frankly ridiculous.
I really needed to forge some new weapons soon. …Can I even make a greatsword out of Ekriki materials? Because I had turned that Ekriki into absolute paste, the usable materials were pitifully few compared to everything else. I’d have to hunt another one sometime. Until then I would probably keep using the tachi made from Kometras parts.
Matillo’s craftsmanship carried even more weight here than it ever had in the game. Back then I had just thought of it as “a weapon,” but the Comet Blade I was using now made it painfully clear what happened when a Master Hunter devoted himself entirely to blacksmithing. I had expected the edge to dull almost immediately against Metakentos carapace, yet the blade showed no intention of dying whatsoever. Choosing Matillo as my blacksmith really had been the right call. At this rate, even if I traveled to other regions I would end up seeking him out anyway.
The return trip took a full four days. That was the real problem with capture missions. Hauling a heavy monster forced the hunters to rest frequently, which meant constantly relocating the safe zones, and the whole process was exhausting. On top of that, someone always had to monitor the monster’s condition in case the anesthesia started to wear off.
When we finally reached the village, the ecologist greeted us with open delight.
“You brought a Metakentos! As expected of a party with a Master Hunter, eh? That was fast! The monster’s condition… well, it isn’t exactly pristine, but it will serve for research just fine. Truly, thank you! Fiore, and you as well, New Light and companion!”
Honestly, the Metakentos was hovering near death’s door. I might have beaten it a little too close to the edge. Still, the fact that it hadn’t died on the spot suggested its life force still had some stretch left in it.
We handed the Metakentos over to the ecologist, and then Pina and I settled in for a leisurely meal. The restaurant was still my number-one pick: Porona’s.
“…Mmm.”
I was carrying a small dissatisfaction. It had nothing to do with the food. The feeling was minor, almost trivial, yet it wrapped around me in a strangely persistent way and refused to leave my thoughts.
“Alice, I will speak favorably to the Association on your behalf.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I gave Fiore a half-hearted reply and took a sip of pineberry juice. Right now I felt as though I had done the work, only to have the ending snatched away by someone else right before I could see it through.
But that was exactly my situation, wasn’t it? The story had been about to end when I was dragged into this world…
Huh? Now I’m getting pissed?
Of course that wasn’t the real reason. It was simply because I hadn’t been able to fight all the way to the finish. Anyway, that tiny residual unease remained as stress. Was I always this much of a battle maniac? Honestly, am I just a Luga-lac wearing human skin?
I wanted to deny it, yet the images that kept rising in my mind were always landscapes of fighting monsters—on wastelands, in deserts, across lands where lava boiled, among ruins, through marshes, along shorelines, in flower fields…
Perhaps none of these feelings were even mine to begin with. The first possibility that came to mind was that the source of this emotion was “her”—the one who had called me into this world. The thought that followed immediately after was the certainty that it could not be only because of her. I had no choice but to admit it. Somewhere along the way I had become addicted to toppling opponents stronger than myself.
“Alice-nim, what are you thinking about so hard?”
“Uhm, just…”
I mumbled a vague answer to Pina’s question. Maybe I should go kill another Ekriki? Getting soaked was a bit of a hassle, but dodging the powder felt like a mini-game, so it was kind of fun too…
I chewed blankly on my Mudridon steak, my head already busy deciding the next request.