Born to Kill Monsters
The soldiers ringing the area watched the hunter at work.
And not once did a situation arise that called for them to step in.
Alice's hunt was that flawlessly perfect.
The monster sprang and struck with the full flexibility and elasticity of its body, but none of it touched her. At first Melchior thought it was luck — until the creature's attacks kept missing, and even he found himself impressed.
"Ooh…"
What tremendous concentration.
Was there anyone among the kingdom's soldiers and royal knights who could do that? Even the knight-born 10-captains couldn't manage it right now.
Melchior called to the 10-captain standing beside him with arms crossed — one of the five present.
"Lucas."
"Ah, yes, Your Highness."
"Could you have done that?"
"…Honestly speaking, I don't think it would be possible."
Lucas was a royal knight before he was a 10-captain, and even so he couldn't begin to imagine it. Taking down a monster alone was strange to begin with. These weren't creatures designed to be easily killed by humans.
Alice's assault was, in truth, a process of attrition. This was no fight that ended in a single blow. It was a battle of shaving away tough, resilient hide and digging into what lay beneath until the thing died. It took a long time by nature — and through all of it, she couldn't afford a single wound from a monster whose every strike was lethal.
Tedious, exacting work. Without tenacity, experience, skill, and confidence, you could spend days at it and never succeed.
"It's as if she was born to kill monsters," Lucas said.
Melchior had no argument with that. Beside them, the royal scribe Biopia agreed.
"Right? She's incredible… Even if you told me she already knows everything the monster is going to do, I'd believe you."
Biopia's observation was sharp. Alice really did seem to see through every move the Skiagua made.
Biopia twirled her pen.
"Don't tell me she can see the future?"
"No. It looks like pure physical reflex. And humans can't see the future."
"It's a figure of speech. I can't even joke when Your Highness is around."
"Are you joking with a prince right now?"
Biopia pressed her lips shut, tucked a strand of hair neatly behind her ear, and laughed softly.
"Your Highness, if you keep this up, I'll strike candy off the list at the next supply report."
"Scribe, even if that hunter could see the future, it wouldn't be an overstatement. You're right."
The prince changed his tune without missing a beat.
Pina stood awkwardly between the two of them, never quite sure whether they were close or not. Melchior noticed her fidgeting with her hands and spoke to her.
"Pina."
"Ah, yes, Your Highness? What is it?"
The prince pointed at the sword strapped across her back.
"Is that greatsword your weapon? Tougher than I expected. Swinging something your own size, are you?"
"Uh — ah, no! This is Alice-nim's weapon too."
"…That hunter's weapon?"
Melchior tilted his head.
"Then what's the bow she's using now? Is that not her main weapon?"
"W-well, she said she wanted to kill that monster painfully with the bow… And that having arrow shafts stuck in it makes it much easier to track in the dark, so that was good too…"
"Hmm."
Wanting to make it suffer was probably the main reason. Melchior nodded, understanding Alice's thinking. One way or another, she was angry about the deaths of fellow hunters. And she could handle a secondary weapon this well?
Watching Alice dance past the monster's attacks and loose arrow after arrow, Melchior asked,
"Are other hunters like that?"
"Hardly, Your Highness. If they were, the Anomalies would already be over."
It was Lucas who answered. He added,
"Having a hunter like her here is — though I hate to admit it — a comfort. I think I understand why Her Highness the Princess is so fond of her. We might get out of this wretched place sooner."
"Is that so."
All the more reason Melchior wanted hunters in the army. Their experience, their skill, their power would clearly be a tremendous asset to the kingdom. If a controllable hunter unit could be formed, it would be on an entirely different level from ordinary soldiers.
As he was thinking of the future, Melchior assessed the battle and muttered,
"She's starting to look short on arrows…"
At his words, Pina's eyes flicked sideways. As far as she knew, Alice usually recovered and reused arrows that missed, so running dry was rare. But if the arrows were gone…
Whatever the reason, Pina was already moving.
Melchior, who had been standing still, started in surprise and reached out.
"Pina!"
But she was already sprinting into the battlefield.
The Skiagua was no ordinary monster. Mid-tier though it was, its powers of observation and learning were exceptional. Now it did something Alice had never seen before.
It deliberately stomped the intact arrows lying on the ground and crushed them.
That was the problem with reality. Unlike in a game, an archer was heavily constrained by actual remaining ammunition — and monsters sometimes broke from fixed patterns, growing craftier still.
Alice exhaled, counting what little she had left.
Six arrows, maybe.
She wasn't some amateur making careless mistakes, and no one was breathing down her neck to finish it faster… so she wasn't anxious at all. Running out of arrows didn't mean she couldn't kill it. That was why she'd prepared the greatsword.
No need to let the monster set the pace. Hold the rhythm.
Alice drew the string.
Not one arrow nocked against the bow — two. She loosed both at a single target.
The arrows wavered as they flew.
Having already taken a shaft through one eye, the creature was wary of them now. The Skiagua ducked its head and covered its eyes with a foreleg. It would not expose its face easily.
Thud—.
The arrows struck the tough hide of its foreleg and fell away. They still looked mostly intact — until the monster's foot came down and snapped them.
Having crushed the arrows, the Skiagua studied Alice, cocking its head with a creaking motion. At a glance, it almost looked like it was smiling. As if to say she was no longer a threat.
Alice felt her blood pressure climb.
A monster — and it was laughing at her.
Time to switch to the greatsword.
Alice scanned her surroundings.
"…"
Fortunately, the soldiers had ringed the area in time. Torch-bearers were spaced evenly so no pocket of darkness remained. That sealed off the creature's specialty — melting into shadow for successive ambushes.
———Keerr.
It noticed too, eyes rolling. Alice hoped the soldiers would hold the line well enough… but she didn't expect much. Stopping a monster that was truly determined to flee was nearly impossible. How were you supposed to block a creature several times stronger than a human when it put everything into escape?
She just needed them to buy time. A little unfair, maybe — but that was how they'd take it down today.
The Skiagua edged backward. Pierced and riddled with arrows, it was in pain. Even a shadowy hunter like this acted, ultimately, for one reason: survival. It had to live. Only then could it take revenge, or do anything else at all.
Uncharacteristically, the Skiagua roared.
———KRRAaAaaaa!!
Its cross-slit maw flexed and heaved; its elongated tongue thrashed. Spittle sprayed in every direction. The booming roar left Alice's ears ringing.
It wasn't anger. It was a bluff — meant to frighten its enemies while it ran.
The roar finished, and the creature spun and bolted. Its pitch-black body undulated as it ran, a grotesque living battering ram.
And for this moment, the soldiers had gathered.
"Move!"
The instant it began its escape, Melchior stepped forward and shouted.
"Those closest to it — drop your torches and form up! Stop it from getting away! Those who can't join the block — hold your torches and form a corridor so it can't slip down another path! Disrupt its charge! It hates the light — pass the order and confirm!"
Melchior's judgment was exact. The Skiagua had a habit of avoiding light, so using torches to funnel its retreat was an excellent choice.
Alice was impressed. So this was a prince of a nation. His insight and decisiveness were no joke.
Which meant she couldn't just stand there either.
Alice looked around for Pina.
…There she was.
Pina was closer than Alice had expected — because she'd run toward Alice while the fight with the Skiagua was still going. Seeing the arrows running low, she had abandoned the safety the army guaranteed without a second thought. That cut the time short.
"Alice-nim~! Catch!"
Alice nodded.
Pina unfastened the buckle holding the greatsword. Gripping the hilt with both hands, she hurled it with everything she had. The greatsword spun through the air and slammed point-first into the ground. The Luga-lac essence set in its center waited for Alice's hand.
Alice set down her bow and quiver, seized the hilt of the greatsword buried in the sand, and lifted it free. She buckled the loosened strap around herself. A familiar weight settled over her entire body.
Greatsword on her back, Alice stepped forward.
The soldiers moved on Melchior's orders. At the end of the corridor of torchlight stood a wall of shields — planted firm across the Skiagua's path of flight.
Melchior watched the creature's escape route and clenched his fist. His judgment had been right. Avoiding the fire, it was charging in a straight line toward the shield line.
Biopia gripped her pen tight.
"Your Highness — they're about to collide!"
"…Yes. Let's see it, then."
Two forces were about to meet.
The shield line swallowed hard. Stopping a monster charging at that speed with shields alone was absurd. But no further orders came. There was already a plan.
Resolve settled in the eyes of the soldiers holding the shields.
Then, mixed among the torch-bearers, soldiers carrying neither torch nor shield drew grappling-hook launchers from their coats — modified repeating crossbows fitted with barbed hooks and coiled rope.
A 10-captain in the center shouted,
"Hook its body!"
Gas burst from the launchers. Sharply angled hooks flew, bristling with dense, jagged barbs designed to catch and hold. They snagged in the Skiagua's hide, legs, and head.
The soldiers seized the ropes. Some wound them around their arms; others clung on with raw desperation. Spreading out with everything they had, they dragged at its speed.
KRAAANG—!
The Skiagua's body slammed into the shields.
Ordinarily, no one could have withstood the mass and velocity of that charge.
"Ghh…"
"We can hold!"
The soldiers who took the impact groaned under their shields. Brought up short against the wall, the Skiagua jerked and snarled as the hooked ropes hauled at it.
"Target the wounds with spears!"
Spears thrust through the gaps between shields, stabbing into the Skiagua. Each thrust and withdrawal tore the wounds on its head wider. But the soldiers' spears lacked the force to drive deep into its hide — and aiming for the thrashing creature's injuries was brutally hard.
"Shit…!"
"J-just hold a little longer…!"
The soldiers strained with everything they had, but one by one the hooks snapped or tore free under the monster's thrashing. Exhausted from wrestling the ropes, others finally let go.
Only then did the drag on the Skiagua vanish.
———KYAAAaaa!!
Furious now, the Skiagua abandoned escape and shook its body violently. The shield-bearers were swept aside. Then it turned on a soldier who had fallen nearby and opened its jaws — that cross-slit maw straining to kill whatever had dared obstruct it.
The soldier stared wide-eyed into that mouth. Teeth grew in grotesque ranks along the cross-shaped gape. A wet, rotting stench rolled from within.
At this rate, he was dead.
"Close it."
A low voice — and in the same instant the Skiagua's back buckled, its head snapping upward. The soldier came to his senses as the creature's tongue whipped past his face.
He turned his eyes.
Standing beside the Skiagua was a white-haired hunter with a massive sword — Alice. She had driven her greatsword down into its back and saved him.
———KEEEe….
The accumulated shocks finally caught up with the Skiagua. The residual impacts of the arrows, compounded by the crushing force of the greatsword, had driven it into a groggy state.
But it wasn't dead yet. Only down.
Alice raised the greatsword and set her stance. If it stayed down and didn't move, finishing it was simple.
The greatsword smashed into the Skiagua's head. Already riddled with arrow wounds and explosive damage, its hide further torn from the clash with the soldiers, the full force of the blade went straight through. The blood-soaked Bloodhorn Blade grew sharper still, shredding the mid-tier monster's flesh without mercy.
Crunch—. Crack—. Grind—.
Alice kept targeting its head with relentless precision until it no longer moved. Only when she saw the creature reduced to a ruined, lifeless pulp did she finally stop.
"…You okay?"
Soaked in the blood spattered in every direction, she still found the breath to check on the fallen soldier.