What Bound Her
The poachers fired first.
An arrow came flying. Deflecting it was simple enough.
That was why she'd brought a sword and shield for situations like this.
The moment the shield was in her hands, she could go on the offensive even against archers.
Ting—!
The arrow struck the shield and bounced weakly aside.
"Eek!"
The man who'd loosed the bow recoiled in terror. The archer was Pina's father.
Even an arrow fired from this close, she could turn aside.
This body was incredible. The flesh of a hunter who'd trained with death on the line just to overcome a single monster was something no poacher could ever hope to match.
"Scatter and run!"
So he'd thought of something after all.
Drawing her attention with the arrow, the archer shouted.
The poachers scattered just as he ordered.
All that remained were the campfire they'd been using, their base, and their packs, left sitting there alone.
This was monster-infested land anyway. They couldn't survive without supplies.
Those of us familiar with this place had the advantage. And they'd even left all their gear behind.
Before chasing them, I looked at Pina.
I crouched slightly, meeting her eyes.
"Pina, you okay?"
"Ah, Alice-nim. I'm... fine."
Pina touched the corner of her eye.
Her tone said she was anything but fine. I brushed her cheek.
Her pale cheek was soft in my hand.
You've been through so much until now.
"...They ran. You know what to do, right?"
"Yes, I know."
Pina raised her repeating crossbow.
The finger inside the trigger guard trembled slightly.
"I just have to pull it, right?"
"...Yeah."
If the suffering had gone on this long, if it still hurt this much, then wasn't it time to break that chain?
One way or another.
Without a map, dying or getting stranded in the forest meant no one would ever find you.
Monsters lurked in every direction, and screaming only gave away your position to them—it never helped.
Corpses became monster food and vanished. A terrible disappearance that left only a name behind. Rotting away alone, slowly, in a forest where no human would ever find you.
I could have just waited here, but I decided not to.
I intended to hunt them to the end.
I wasn't exactly the nice type, after all.
Poachers never accounted for running into hunters.
To ordinary people, the hunters who killed monsters were monsters themselves.
When they faced a hunter, they ran if they could, and fought if they had to.
The moment you got caught, it was over.
You had to run for your life and survive somehow.
"Haa, of all people, of all people..."
The man who'd barely escaped braced his hands on his knees and gasped for breath.
He'd thought a single ambush would handle any hunter, but he never expected to run into the White Butcher who'd recently become famous in Antico.
Now even an ambush was impossible. They were the ones being hunted.
The man, Nyx, was a friend of Pina's father Net. Pina had seen him often when she was little.
He was the same kind of man—the one who never stopped Net from blowing money and partying, and joined right in beside him.
Still, he thought, would Pina really kill them?
It wasn't like they'd done anything that bad. They were just trying to make a living together.
Even Net, with his temper, probably didn't mean it deep down. He just got angry at his daughter because he didn't want to look weak in front of his friends.
"...But where is this?"
Nyx wandered through the utterly silent forest.
Having fled without even the map, the path ahead was hopeless.
———!!
A monster's cry echoed from far away.
The autumn wind that usually felt refreshing now pressed in cold and sharp.
The atmosphere of the forest felt alien.
He was afraid. At this rate, he might die to a monster instead of a hunter.
There was more than one thing to watch out for.
Not knowing where something might appear was enough to drive a man mad.
Nyx tightened his grip on his sword.
Rustle—.
From somewhere, the sound of footsteps on fallen leaves.
It was getting closer.
Nyx raised his bristling senses and scanned his surroundings.
"Sssss, haah..."
He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly.
And the moment he turned around, he met a pair of peach-pink eyes.
Thud—.
"Ah..."
The blade pierced through Nyx's stomach.
Alice gently caught Nyx's hand as he tried belatedly to swing his sword.
She slowly lowered the captured hand, opened his fingers, and made him drop the blade.
Then she carefully supported Nyx's collapsing body and sat him against a tree.
Nyx could do nothing but sit there, breathing raggedly.
As Alice stood, the sword that had pierced Nyx's belly slid free of his body.
His clothes grew steadily redder. Blood gushed from the hole in his stomach.
Cold sweat poured down Nyx's forehead.
"Ugh... hhk..."
"...Uncle Nyx."
Nyx lifted his head.
Pina stood behind Alice, looking down at him with her repeating crossbow in hand.
"P-Pina..."
"Uncle, you always dragged Father to the gambling dens. I... I know everything. Every time he met you, Father came home reeking of alcohol, furious, without a single coin. So every time, I ate just one small meal a day so I could feed my siblings with money we didn't have."
"P-please spare me, I-I'll pay back all that money..."
"...No. No, I can't. Because of you people, my family suffered so much. I... I want to be free now too. I... because of you, I really..."
Pina spoke in a slightly trembling voice.
She poured out things she'd never told Alice, spilling the filthy history that bound her to them. Nyx's face grew paler and paler as he listened—because blood kept flowing from the hole in his belly.
"...Pina."
"A-A-Alice-nim..."
"He's already out cold."
Pina only closed her mouth after Alice spoke to her.
So she'd been holding a lot in. Alice stroked Pina's hair.
"We should go. There's still more left."
"...Yes."
Pina nodded.
Watching someone die right in front of her was terrifying, but because it was someone she hated, that feeling shrank quickly.
If they left Nyx like this, he'd clearly die to a monster drawn by the smell of blood.
But Pina didn't particularly want to help him.
She glanced back for a moment with a flicker of lingering attachment, then shook her head and walked forward.
"Fuck, a daughter... trying to kill her own father... Crazy bitch, I raised her wrong..."
Net muttered curses as he leaned against a tree.
He had no idea where he was running.
"Goddammit."
He soon gave up on fleeing and slumped down beside the tree.
Then he gulped down the liquor he'd grabbed while running.
He wasn't thinking.
He'd always been that kind of man, and the idea that things would work out somehow was still lodged in his head.
If he thought about what had gone wrong in this whole mess, it was that he hadn't educated Pina properly when she was still at home.
What kind of daughter in this world would talk back to her father like this and try to kill him?
Parents might abandon their children, but children couldn't abandon their parents—that was how Net saw it.
"Found you."
And at last, the reaper arrived.
She appeared here to punish Net's sins.
Net lifted his head and looked at the hunter gazing down at him.
White hair, pink eyes. She was pretty enough, standing there with her hands covered in blood.
"Did you catch my friends?"
"What if I did?"
"Haha, you, you're a real piece of shit. The Association's dog. Huh? Me, I live by my principles. Rather than becoming some Association dog, I thought it was better to feed my family through poaching. Yeah, I may have been a bad father, but I never did bad things for no reason. It was all~ to feed my family."
"...Do you really think that?"
That question wasn't the hunter's.
Net turned toward the familiar voice. Pina—his daughter's voice.
"Oh, Pina... I thought you were too much of a coward for something like this. So you were the same kind of bitch. You never understood your father's intentions, just thought I was doing bad things for the hell of it."
"......"
Pina didn't answer.
Instead she looked at Net as if he were absurd.
Net saw that face and snickered.
"Yeah, looking at that expression, are you finally getting a sense of your father's meaning? Your discipline wasn't just so I could make things easy for myself. I couldn't just love you kids either, you know. It hurt me too when I hit you. What kind of father enjoys beating his family? What's that called again... a necessary evil, I think. Pina, I thought you'd understand once you grew up a bit, and now you finally have."
"...What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm saying everything I did was centered on our family. Pina, once you become a parent yourself, you'll understand. Why I did things this way."
Net stood up.
The smell of alcohol rolled off him as he rose.
Alice stepped back for a moment.
Net, who wasn't even holding a bow, didn't seem to have any hostility.
And punishing Net wasn't Alice's job.
"You going to shoot me with that, my daughter?"
Net stood in front of Pina and pointed at the repeating crossbow she held.
"Pina, if you understand my thinking too, won't you look the other way just this once? Your mother and the kids are waiting for us. Huh? You know, the kids can't manage without me."
What followed was a pathetic plea for his life.
"Hey, say something to the hunter too. Pina, she's the hunter you serve, right? You've already caught two, so tell her to wrap up the poachers there. Ask her to look the other way for your dad. I'll swear I won't do it again. Okay?"
Net spoke as if he were scolding Pina instead.
Whether he was drunk or whether he'd always been this kind of person.
Standing off to the side watching, Alice's head spun.
"Net—"
"...Pina?"
Pina raised the repeating crossbow.
"You've never been a dad to me, not since forever. You piece of trash!"
And without hesitation, she pulled the trigger.
The plain, needle-shaped bolt shot forward.
As it scraped past the scale-hairs at the muzzle of the repeating crossbow, white powder coated its entire body.
The arrowhead pressed into Net's greed-filled belly.
At the same time, the powder detonated.
BOOM—!
"A-AAAAAAGH!"
Net's clothes tore away, and his belly was cooked by the explosion.
Ekriki powder produced scenes this horrific.
A scream of agony tore from Net's throat and spread across the entire forest.
———AAaaawWWOOO!!
As if answering, a monster's roar echoed from far away.
"Haa... ha..."
Pina exhaled roughly.
Turning a weapon on a person consumed an enormous amount of mental strength all by itself.
The hand gripping the crossbow trembled violently. Sweat soaked the back of her neck, and her clothes felt clammy.
She wanted to cry right then and there.
Alice firmly took her trembling hand.
Then gently gripped her shoulder and shook her to bring her back to her senses.
"...Pina, a Luga-lac is going to show up soon."
"B-but he's still..."
"He's going to die anyway."
Alice met Pina's eyes and nodded.
There was no need to face a monster that wasn't even part of the commission. And there was no need to personally kill someone in a way that left a bad taste either.
"This is enough. You did well."
Alice said quietly.
At Alice's words, Pina glanced down at Net.
"I-it hurts, s-save me...! Please..."
Net rolling on the ground, clutching his torn and blackened belly, looked utterly pathetic—nothing like the man who'd tormented them at home all this time.
Had she really lived in fear of someone like this?
Pina exhaled calmly. There was no fear left now.
"...Net, goodbye."
"P-Pina, please! Don't leave me!"
"Without you, our family will be happier."
"P-Pinaaa!!"
Pina and Alice left Net behind.
What had bound Pina finally let her go.
"P-please......"
———Grrrrr!
In the hands of the monster she once feared, the thing she once feared was torn away and vanished.