The Human Hunt
Looking for monsters without a hunting request was something I hadn't done in a long time.
Once, I'd taken a job that required nothing more than quietly observing a monster's ecology. All day, every day, I stayed out of sight and simply watched. We ate near each other. We slept near each other. I noted everything the creature did and wrote it down in a notebook.
Somewhere along the way, I even grew a little fond of it. Like we'd shared the same hardships, the same days.
And at the end of it all, I killed that monster.
The next time we met, it was nothing more than a cull target to me.
…Did that make me a little unhinged?
Anyway. This time, I decided to put that experience to use.
What we were looking for was a person.
People were different from monsters. Sharper. More vicious. There was a reason the tools and techniques of this era were called the malice of humanity. How many of them had been invented for the sole purpose of killing monsters?
And a poacher would use those same tools on people without a second thought.
I didn't assume the poachers would come quietly. If they were the type to surrender, they wouldn't be poachers in the first place. Decent people like that would get their hunter licenses and take civilian jobs.
The moment someone turned to poaching, they became a threat. Uncontrollable humans.
I spent a long time thinking about how and where to find them.
Setting up checkpoints at the city gates wasn't practical—there were too many entrances, and too many people coming and going. This had to be handled quietly. To ordinary eyes, a poacher and a hunter wouldn't look all that different.
What Pina and I settled on, in the end, was waiting.
The fact that the poachers had only been hunting low-grade monsters was a solid lead. It narrowed the range far better than waiting around blindly. From there, we figured out what they had in common—what they actually went after.
They never touched Pienos—ignored even here, which was a little sad—and only occasionally took birds like Galori.
Their main targets were beast-type monsters.
The monkey monster Takabibi. The wild dog Kuchiorak. The weasel Kodadonora…
Fur, I figured. They were interested in pelts.
Winter was coming on, after all. The poachers seemed to have their own kind of sense about it. Knew how to make money, if nothing else.
"We'll be camping as a matter of course, then."
"Could take a month."
If we were lucky, we'd run into them right away. If we weren't, I might not cross paths with them at all during my suspension. That much of this job came down to chance.
The only real lead I had was that they were after the pelts of low-grade monsters.
"This is going to be exhausting."
I lay back on the bed and let out a sigh.
Autumn nights weren't hot the way summer ones were. A cool breeze drifted through the room and cooled it clean. I pulled the blanket up to my chin and ran my fingers over the soft cover.
On the bed beside mine, Pina shifted around, then turned to face me.
"Um, Alice-nim."
She started carefully.
"This time… we're going after people. It feels… a lot different from hunting monsters."
"Different how?"
"The feeling of it, I guess. The mood… People say humans are scarier than monsters, right? Monsters are frightening because they're unknown, these strange creatures you don't understand. But people… people are everywhere. You run into them all the time. So it doesn't feel real. Though when I think about my father, I get a rough idea of what they mean."
"Your father?"
"He wasn't a very good one."
Pina let out a quiet breath and fell silent for a moment. I stared at the ceiling and thought about family.
"He only knew how to spend money, never how to work. No real skills. Just liked drinking with his friends… I stopped by home recently, remember? It was the same that day. He said he'd spent everything. When I asked on what, he said 'investment.' An investment with no end in sight. So we fought again."
"I see."
"It's so frustrating I could die. He doesn't even know what our family actually needs right now—and he's supposed to be a father."
Pina clenched the blanket in her fists. Her eyes, faintly damp, turned toward me.
"There used to be times when I felt like I couldn't breathe. Really, it was that stifling. The way things were at home. But lately, being with you, Alice-nim… it's been okay. And catching people… if it's you, Alice-nim, I'm sure you'll get through it fine."
"Probably."
"Aren't you scared, Alice-nim? Having to go after people like us?"
"I'm worried. But… in the end, someone has to do it."
"I can't stay as calm as you do, Alice-nim. I try, I really do… That part of you always amazes me. And it makes me a little sad, too."
"Me?"
"Well—you look at even yourself so coldly."
"…Do I?"
"You still do. You say someone has to do it, and then you try to take the whole thing on yourself."
That was just because the poachers were delaying my hunting, though… The kind of frustration that makes you get up and go yourself. You know the feeling.
"Doesn't it wear on you, Alice-nim? You never say you're tired. Never say it hurts. Not once."
Me?
I thought about Pina's question.
I had plenty of hard things. Most of them just weren't about this place. They were worries pointed at the world I'd come from.
It would be a lie to say I didn't worry about my family. But I knew my worry couldn't reach them. I had no way of knowing what they were doing over there. Just as I had no way of telling them what was happening to me.
So while we remained unknown to each other, we simply lived as hard as we could, waiting for the day we'd meet again.
That was what it meant to be a hunter.
"I'm… fine."
"…Really?"
"Yeah."
Once I finished this story, I would be able to go back.
I believed that without a shred of doubt.
When morning came, Pina packed our gear and got ready to leave while I went straight to wash up. I splashed water over my face, shook off the last of the sleep, and breathed out a long sigh.
Human hunting, was it.
Not exactly a welcome task.
I stepped out of the bathroom and looked at Pina. She was packing in silence, lips pressed tight. She was just as tense as I was.
I couldn't afford to get tense too.
No mistakes. Because these weren't monsters—they were people—I had to be even more careful.
I thought about what weapons to bring and settled on two: a repeating crossbow, and a sword and shield.
Against people, the crossbow seemed like the right choice. Unlike a bow, where you had to nock each arrow and draw the string yourself, a repeating crossbow just needed a pull of the trigger—bolts came out in rapid succession. Convenient. Weaker, sure, but against people it would be more than enough.
The sword and shield were for anything unexpected. If a monster showed up, a crossbow alone wouldn't cut it.
This job was different from usual, so Pina needed a way to protect herself too. I'd take the sword and shield; the crossbow would go to her for self-defense.
"…You want me to use the crossbow?"
"We have to be thorough. Poachers aren't like monsters."
"R-right. But… do you think I can actually shoot it?"
"You just pull the trigger and the bolt—"
"Th-that's not what I mean. Crossbows are easy to handle. I know how to use one. But… I don't know if I can really point it at a person and shoot."
"If you can't shoot, you might die."
I didn't want to blame her for being afraid. Pina's reaction was normal. I was the strange one.
I'd never killed a person either. Of course I was scared. And yet even in a situation like this, I was calm. That calm wasn't my own will.
It was her influence—the one who seemed to be merging with me more and more.
"…Right."
Pina murmured it under her breath and fretted at her hands.
Anxiety and fear would have to wait. It was time to go.
This was an unofficial request from the Association. Not a monster cull—the capture, or elimination, of poachers. The atmosphere was heavier than usual. Completely different from when we hunted monsters. Not the kind of mood where you laughed and made small talk.
After a generous breakfast, we left Antico.
Autumn had come to the Forest of Illusion. Sunlight turned the golden woods even brighter. Unlike the muggy heat of summer, the autumn forest left a scatter of fallen leaves across the ground. Every time the wind stirred, leaves slipped free of their branches with soft little taps. Fluttering down, they looked almost like butterflies on a spring day.
The scenery felt almost unreal. I couldn't help but marvel at it.
"It's beautiful."
"Yeah."
I walked the path with Pina through the middle of it all. We weren't in any hurry. Our pace was almost leisurely as we wandered the forest, taking in the view and simply waiting for poachers who might appear at any time.
No need to lock in and grind. We left everything to our guesswork.
Pina and I decided to keep a close watch on the low-grade monsters that were the poachers' main targets—Kuchiorak, Takabibi, and Kodadonora. The problem was that all three had different territories and different patterns of movement, so we couldn't check them all at once. Instead, we marked their locations on a map and checked them several times a day, moving around in leaf-patterned ghillie suits so the monsters wouldn't notice us.
The first bite came on the third day.
Of the three, Kodadonora was no longer visible in its territory. More precisely—it had been hunted.
Wondering if an Association hunter might have done it, we checked the area for a carcass. Association rules required hunters to leave the body behind. But we found no body anywhere.
"…Alice-nim. There's a broken arrow here. Spit, bloodstains—things like that, too."
There were traces of a hunt, though.
The sharp fur of the long-tailed weasel Kodadonora. Blood it must have shed. A torn scrap of cloth. A broken arrow. And footprints that weren't a monster's—human footprints.
…The range had narrowed.
We tried to follow the tracks, but past a certain point they simply vanished. Careful evidence disposal to avoid being followed—or just leaves covering everything? I couldn't tell.
We tightened the search area a little more. We'd stick to the area around where Kodadonora had been taken, wherever the footprints still remained.
We moved our safe zone, packed up again, and set up camp somewhere new. One set of poachers, and we were already worn out in every direction.
"…This is somehow more tiring than actual hunting."
Pina muttered, staring into the campfire. In her leaf ghillie suit, she looked exactly like an autumn fairy. A slightly peevish one, maybe.
It was bound to be boring. All we did all day was walk around. But we were definitely getting closer to the poachers.
"Hang in there a little longer."
"…Okay. We—we can catch them, right?"
"Yeah."
Pina fretted at the crossbow in her hands. Ekriki scale-fur stirred softly along the muzzle. The crossbow, improved with Ekriki materials, dusted its bolts with powder that triggered a small explosion on impact. The moment it hit a person, the damage would be severe. No need to spell out what that meant.
I set my hand over hers, holding the crossbow with her, wrapping myself around her tension.
"…Don't tense up so much. You're a hunter too. We're just doing our job."
"A hunter… Right. I'm a hunter too. So I follow a hunter's code."
Pina repeated it quietly, as if trying to shake something free of her chest. But the tension didn't leave easily. Her restlessness remained. The faint sound of her breathing told me fear was still sitting somewhere in her heart.
I'd said it before—overcoming this was ultimately her own work. I didn't say anything more.
Narrowing the range had been the right call.
A week in, we found new traces of the poachers. Footprints on the ground, and drag marks of something being hauled. Out of boredom, or spite, they'd even left knife cuts in the trees as they passed.
The same way you close in on a monster, we slowly tightened the circle. Knowing the target was more dangerous than any monster, we never let our guard down.
And then—traces made relatively recently.
"…This is—"
"Urine."
A wet, acrid smell among the leaves. It wasn't warm anymore, but the dampness still clinging to it meant they weren't far.
As we'd agreed, we kept our mouths shut and moved carefully, step by step. A little farther on, we heard laughter.
Hunters, maybe? Had we followed the wrong trail?
Even with those thoughts, I didn't drop my suspicion. We never showed ourselves first.
When the voices finally drew close enough, we eased our bodies down among the leaves and peeked out.
Three men sat around a campfire. All of them a little older, wearing shabby leather armor, each with a weapon at his side. From gear alone, there was no way to tell hunter from poacher. Acting rashly was out of the question.
I calmly took in their faces and filed them away.
"…Huh?"
Beside me, Pina made a dazed little sound.
"Wh-why is my father… over there…"