Morning Resolve
After eating my fill for the first time in ages, warm and full, I fell asleep early.
I was probably the first one out. Passing out ahead of your guests — what kind of host does that? I felt a little ashamed.
Still, I was also the first to wake. Normally I would have lazed around a while longer, but I had no intention of doing that today.
I rolled my eyes toward the faint warmth pressed against my body. I wasn't sleeping alone.
Noah was stuck right up against me, breathing soft and even. She wasn't reaching for me or holding me, but her face was close enough that I could feel her breath.
What? Why is she here?
I studied her face in silence. I had never looked at her from this close before.
Her lashes trembled with every exhale, long and fine. Her hair was a mess, and yet it did nothing to hide how pretty she was. Her skin was so clear, so free of blemish, that I almost wanted to touch it just to see.
Thinking I might have been staring too hard, I edged back a little — and found a blanket over me that I had never pulled up myself. That was when I understood why Noah was there.
She had pressed in close so we could share it. Her consideration settled warm in my chest.
I had slept warmly for the first time in a long while. My back still ached, though.
I lifted the blanket carefully, tucked it properly over Noah, and rose from the floor. Moving as quietly as I could, I picked my way through the hunters sprawled every which way in sleep.
I eased aside the cloth covering the cave mouth and stepped outside.
The forest was greeting a new morning.
As the sun climbed, light filtered in sparse shafts through the tall, dense trees. Forest mornings were always like this — the sun seeming to come and go until, sometime past noon, you realized the light was already pouring straight down onto the crown of your head.
I stretched into the crisp morning air.
Watching the rising sun always brought back old memories. Back when I was deep into Hunter Land, I used to stay awake until the sun came up.
I cut my sleep however I could to pour more hours into the game, and only after watching the sky brighten outside my window would I finally go to bed.
Then I'd wake, eat something half-hearted, and dive straight back into Hunter Land.
I didn't regret any of it.
Even now, dropped into the world of Hunter Land itself, I could still call up those feelings with perfect clarity.
On days with no plans, I would sit in front of my computer from morning to night, playing on a current of tension and excitement.
The beautiful nature graphics. Vast, mysterious wilderness you could never see from a bleak city. Exploring those places and hunting monsters — it had been an absolute joy.
I had thought the same thing while fighting the Luga-lac.
Matching strength with that thing, fighting for my life — there had been plenty of moments when I nearly died.
This place was not a game. It was not a world where only a health bar took the hit. Reality was a place where a single mistake carried a terrifying penalty.
And yet it was not only frightening. The rising challenge, the hunger to win — those were what pulled me forward.
Resistance against monsters larger and stronger than any human. Resistance against the order of nature itself.
The desire to seize victory with my own two hands had flared to life.
I remembered the days of leveling alts. Whenever Hunter Land started to feel stale, I would do every ridiculous thing I could think of on a side character just to rediscover that beginner's spark.
With no content left, I had gone so far as to invent my own. Even that had lost its air pretty quickly, though.
This time was similar, and completely different. Starting the game over on a new character was the same.
Except I wasn't sitting in a chair. I had to move my own body. There were no three lives. A single fight decided life or death.
It was a far harder, far steeper road.
And I liked that better. Where was the fun in a challenge that wasn't?
A laugh slipped out of me. This was content I hadn't had in a long time. Real-time content, and I didn't even have to split my sleep for it anymore.
Today I would leave this forest with those hunters. I would get out of this irritating cave.
And then I would take it step by step, from the beginning.
Thinking of it as a fresh start, I would live among people and enjoy myself. I would walk the world of Hunter Land that I had loved so much with my own feet, and see it with my own two eyes.
And I would head for the final update waiting at the end. That way, I would finally see the edge of this world that I had never managed to reach.
"Alright."
I clenched my fist. Looking down at that fist full of resolve, I nodded.
When Noah opened her eyes, Alice was already gone from her place.
Still half-asleep, Noah sat up and looked around, but Alice was nowhere to be found.
Her greatsword was missing too. Where could she have gone so early, weapon in hand?
Noah squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, and pushed herself to her feet. She started for the exit on unsteady legs, then stopped short.
I'm thirsty…
Thirst rooted her in place. She rummaged through the bag she had left on the hammock, pulled out her waterskin, took a swallow, and stepped out of the cave.
Alice had not gone far.
"…You're up?"
She was sitting in front of the cave, sharpening her greatsword in the breeze.
Her white hair stirred in the wind. Bright peach-pink eyes turned toward Noah.
"Yeah. When did you get up, Alice?"
"A while ago."
"You could've woken us."
"Everyone was sleeping so well…"
Noah strode over and crouched down beside her.
Alice paid no attention to whether Noah came close or not. She kept her focus entirely on honing the edge of her blade.
She looks like a small, cute rabbit, Noah thought.
The lips she had pushed out in concentration had color in them, red as cherries. Her skin, by contrast, was pale as a wax doll, and her soft pink eyes, faintly shadowed, were elegant and a little melancholy all at once.
At a glance she was sensual enough to turn heads without trying — and at the same time, she looked as if she had already seen through the world.
Her face invited too many thoughts at once.
"We're leaving today, right?"
Alice, still working the blade, spoke first without warning.
It was the first time she had started a conversation, and Noah, caught off guard, nodded a beat late.
"Yeah, that's right."
"…I want to come with you."
That only surprised Noah more.
Had she overheard the quiet talk they had shared among themselves yesterday? They had never so much as hinted at the idea, and yet Alice was the one proposing they travel together.
Noah decided Alice must have been pretending to sleep the night before.
She had heard what they said, and spent the night settling her own thoughts.
Noah looked at her with quiet pride.
"You do?"
"Yeah."
"You sure you'll be okay?"
Alice nodded.
"This place is… boring now."
It was a short line that held a great deal.
It sounded like she was saying she would stop hating monsters.
How hard must it have been to reach that decision? Noah stroked Alice's hair. Her hand had moved before she could think. The moment her fingers touched Alice's head, Alice startled and looked up at her.
It would have been a lie to say those eyes, wide with bewilderment, weren't adorable.
"Ah — sorry."
She hadn't expected Alice to react like that. Noah pulled her hand back and apologized with a smile.
"No, it's fine."
"Then can I keep going?"
"…Do what you want."
Alice's tone was blunt, but she didn't seem to mind. Noah chuckled and reached out again. Her hand slipped into Alice's hair, and the strands, a little dry but soft, slid between her fingers.
Maybe it was the touch, but Alice's eyes grew heavy-lidded. She was still working the whetstone along her greatsword, but Noah barely registered it.
"Then this too."
Having already gone for the hair, Noah tried Alice's cheek as well.
She had wanted to. Just as she expected, Alice's skin was springy and full of elasticity.
"Mmh — mph…"
Alice's face tilted with the pull on her cheek. Noah let go and stood.
"I'll go get breakfast ready. Take your time."
"…Fine."
Alice sounded more sulky than before. It was so much like a little sister's pout that Noah could only laugh.
For all her joking around, Noah was still the party's leader. She had reason to check on everyone's condition, and she was the one who had to take responsibility and get them all out together.
First she woke Cheiler and started on breakfast. There were leftovers from the night before, so she planned to warm them up and pair them with whatever else they had.
Next she checked on Nab, unwrapping his bandages to make sure the wound was healing cleanly. The recovery potion had done its job — Nab's condition had improved remarkably fast.
Still, just to be safe, she made him take a tonic as well.
Lastly she packed up with Scudo and got everything ready to leave.
"Good thing you're the party leader, Noah."
"Hm?"
"I could never move this sharp. Not with my personality."
Scudo said it while wiping down his armor with a cloth. He was so taciturn by nature that looking after people always felt awkward for him in one way or another.
"Sometimes I wonder if I'm even doing it right."
"You just got better at it from doing it so long. I was the same at first."
"I'd like to take another commission together next time."
"Just looking for an easy ride?"
"That too."
Laughter rolled through the cave.
Cheiler, who had been laughing freely, suddenly realized Alice wasn't there and looked around.
"Where's Alice?"
"Outside, sharpening her blade."
"Right — she fell asleep last night before she finished."
"…She wasn't asleep, actually."
"Huh?"
Noah gave a wry smile.
"I think she heard everything yesterday."
"…Really?"
"She didn't show it, but she was the one who said she wanted to leave with us — and I never even brought it up."
"Th-then she heard everything I said last night?"
Embarrassment was written all over Nab's face.
"I said a lot of cringey stuff…"
"What was it again? 'We can't just leave a sweet kid like that to die in a place like this'?"
"Aaaagh!"
Nab's wound was already healed, but he still clutched at himself like he was in pain. More accurately, it hurt to hear.
Cheiler snickered and dug through a bundle, setting out well-tied meat and fruit on a clean board.
"Eh, she'll pretend she didn't hear."
"Yeah. Don't worry about it too much. You weren't saying anything bad. You were worried about her."
Scudo chuckled under his breath. Even so, Nab's embarrassment refused to fade.
"Instead of fretting, focus on the shortest route home, Nab."
"…Yeah, yeah."
Either way, the commission ended today.
They had failed the job — but they had made a new connection. That was no small harvest.