The Domains of Knight and Hunter
Guido was, by every measure including his own, a rising star.
His skill was formidable, and he knew it well.
Lucas watched Guido's sword from a distance, and the last conversation he'd had with the Knight Commander before coming here rose unbidden in his mind.
"Look after Guido for me, Lucas."
"Guido, sir?"
"He's still a hot-blooded kid. A veteran like you needs to keep an eye on him. I hope he learns a great deal out there."
At first, Lucas hadn't understood what the Commander was getting at. After all, Guido had faced down monsters without flinching. So he'd watched him, just as ordered—but there had been nothing for Lucas to step in for. A few scrapes, maybe, but Guido had driven the monsters off splendidly.
That time and this one, however, were nothing alike.
Those monsters had merely been wandering the land. Dropped without warning into a place they didn't know, they hadn't even had time to adapt. The Acanthodis that had claimed this territory, fully settled into the ground beneath its feet, would not yield. It would not turn its back on Guido. It fought with everything it had.
Because this land was its home.
The Acanthodis had been still. The ones who had invaded its territory and attacked were the humans. And so the Acanthodis thrashed—clawing for survival, pouring every ounce of spite into keeping its domain from being taken.
—SHhrrrr!!!
The Acanthodis slammed a foreleg down. Guido dodged the strike cleanly enough, but the spines jutting from its hide raked across him. His stamina was flagging, his body growing dull, and his distance control had failed.
"Kh—!"
The Commander was right.
Lucas frowned and shook his head. It was still too much. No matter how brilliantly Guido flew and danced with that sword of his, he was a complete outsider when it came to knowledge of monsters. Hunting monsters was a hunter's domain, after all.
Even so, Guido did not fall. He kept his grip on the sword.
What angle is it coming from next?
Guido's eyes worked furiously. Against a human, you could read the eyes, the shoulders, the expression, the atmosphere. But his opponent was a monster—too massive to watch the eyes, and focusing on one arm only left him open to the next attack.
The thing swung its arm. Guido sprang back and released an essence. Kakari's essence bloomed in a wash of crimson power, wrapping his blade.
Blade Aura.
Kakari's signature flames coiled along the steel.
I can do this.
Guido felt a bead of sweat roll down his jaw and exhaled. He stamped the ground hard, slipped past the Acanthodis's attack, and cut to the right—raking the blade along its leg as he passed. Scorching heat sheared through the spined hide.
—!!
The Acanthodis's roar tore through the air. That meant it was working. Guido found his confidence and settled into stance.
But he was rushing. His narrowed field of vision never registered the Acanthodis's tail. The tail that had been sweeping left and right snapped toward him in a sudden whip.
Paat—!
"Kh—!"
Duck under the gap beneath it—
"Don't."
A hand seized Guido by the scruff of the neck and wrecked his posture.
"Wh—?"
Guido turned his head. Alice had closed the distance without him noticing, and before he could get a word out she hurled him bodily backward.
Chwaaak—!
Guido went airborne and skidded across the sand. The longsword that had been channeling essence lost its crimson glow and tumbled to the ground.
Without so much as a glance at the flying knight, Alice drew her greatsword.
You don't go under the tail from there.
It hadn't been swinging the tail alone—it had been winding up to roll its entire body. The Acanthodis swept the ground with its tail and tumbled sideways in a grinding roll. If he'd gone between its legs, he would have been crushed flat and taken a fatal wound.
Alice skimmed the sand in a soft blur of afterimages. The Acanthodis's crushing roll left nothing but spine-tracks in empty dirt.
Only after catching her breath did Alice look back at Guido. His face was hidden behind the helmet's visor, but he was staring at her blankly. Alice turned away from that burning gaze and faced the Acanthodis again.
It was too dangerous—I just threw him without thinking. I meant to shove him back, but I botched the strength control.
Still, it wasn't a bad outcome. She'd put enough distance between them. Now the Acanthodis's attention was locked on her alone.
Alice flicked a glance toward Lucas. He was already hurrying over to collect Guido. That settled it—she could fight without holding back.
Alice raised her greatsword. Looking at Guido had stirred an old memory.
Yeah… this was the feeling. The way it felt the first time I played Hunter Land.
She hadn't been the one fighting, but watching Guido had left her steeped in nostalgia. A smile tugged at the corner of Alice's mouth.
Failing to read the monster's patterns, scrambling just to dodge, burning out mid-combo and dying. Trying to muscle through on reaction speed alone—impossible if you haven't properly learned the patterns.
In Alice's estimation, Guido was already better than she had been back then. Take a few hits, die a few times, and he would absolutely be able to kill the thing. But learning a hunt by taking hits and dying was impossible in this world.
And so Alice had saved him—and taken up her weapon in his place.
A murderous killing intent flooded the field. It did not belong to the monster. It was Alice's genuine will, aimed squarely at the beast.
Kwaak—!
Alice left faint afterimages as she slipped past an attack and cut in the same motion. From that point on, the stage was hers alone.
The soldiers watching from afar, and both knights, found themselves utterly absorbed in that astonishing performance.
Lucas spoke to Guido, who still looked faintly dazed.
"Guido. You all right?"
"…Yeah. I'm fine."
Lucas had expected Guido to rage, or at least badmouth Alice. Instead, Guido answered with unexpected calm—and he still couldn't tear his eyes from Alice's fight.
Then Guido shook off Lucas's supporting hand.
"Just a second, Lucas."
"What is it?"
"I'm fine. Let me watch for a bit."
Guido pulled off his stifling helmet. Short brown hair clung damp with sweat. Between those blue eyes, his brow was finely creased, his gaze sharp—but there was no hostility in it. Right now, Guido was straining to burn every detail of Alice's fight into his sight.
A greatsword—heavy, long, and unwieldy. Alice wielded that blade and fought better than Guido himself had managed. Her movements seemed to see through everything the monster was. As if she were reading its mind, she made the optimal choice at every instant and drove the Acanthodis into a corner.
Then her white hair rippled. She slid the greatsword back into its scabbard and released the essence's power. A heavy force seemed to bloom outward—then gathered entirely into the sheath. Alice, body tilted to the side, twisted her waist and drew the blade in a slow, deliberate pull.
True Iai Slash.
Chwaat—!
Alice poured every last drop of the essence's power into a single stroke, carving through the Acanthodis's hide and splitting its head clean across. Monster blood and flesh sprayed into the air.
Watching it, Guido rapidly parsed the hunter's way of fighting. Hunters did not scatter essence across a prolonged duel the way knights did. They crumpled the strongest possible blow into a single strike. Against a monster, a quiet accumulation of damage was inferior to simply landing one massive hit.
Guido found himself thinking that the domains of knight and hunter truly were different. As he could see, the method of facing a human and the method of facing a monster were starkly distinct. But once you reached a certain height—didn't those domains eventually lose all meaning?
Guido murmured under his breath.
"…So this is the hunter who has the royal family's favor."
Guido acknowledged Alice. Because she had executed, with perfect completeness, what he himself had failed to do. Excuses about a difference in experience meant nothing to him. For a knight, there were only two outcomes: failure, or success.
Guido had failed. Alice had succeeded.
He couldn't even begin to guess how long Alice had spent becoming what she was. Guido had worked himself half to death as well—ambition and effort had carried him this far as a knight. He figured Alice must have been much the same.
A rumor surfaced in his mind—famous enough among the soldiers to have made the rounds. Alice's epithet: the Slaughterer. Something about monsters being the enemies of her family; the story had drifted through camp gossip into the soldiers' mouths, so the details were hazy. He did know the men were terrified of her. The killing intent she radiated when hunting monsters was that vicious.
Perhaps she had carried vengeance in her chest, thrown everything she had against the monsters, and climbed to this place on nothing but her own strength. If so, there was nothing left but to acknowledge her in full.
Alice turned her back on the unmoving Acanthodis, flicked the blood from her greatsword once, and sheathed it. Then she looked at Guido, Lucas, and the soldiers. Her eyes were still tired, but a faint smile touched her face. Those eyes lingered on Guido for a long moment. Meeting that gaze, Guido realized it held no mockery—only a welcome, extended to someone newly set upon the hunter's path.
Alice's expression firmed. She pointed at the Acanthodis.
"We're taking materials from this one too."
The hunt was fine, but materials came first.
Lucas, who had been staring at Alice the whole time, finally snapped out of it and got the soldiers moving. Guido put his helmet back on and took up his sword. The thrill of combat still lingered in his hands. After gripping the blade a long while, he shook off the monster blood and sand and slid it into its scabbard.
Lucas approached Alice with the soldiers in tow.
"How should we handle the spoils?"
"Check for an essence, then roughly strip the spined hide and bring it."
"All of it?"
Alice shook her head at Lucas's question.
"Six pieces about the size of a human torso should do."
"Six pieces? We're not stripping the whole thing?"
Alice nodded and pointed at Guido.
"What belongs to nature returns to nature. Leaving a monster's corpse behind is a hunter's virtue. And three of those pieces are his."
Guido tilted his head at Alice's words.
"What?"
"You fought hard too."
If you'd raised a weapon and contributed even a little, you were entitled to take something. Alice meant it as a gift for Guido, who had finished his first hunt in his own way.
"It's not even an essence. What am I supposed to do with that…?"
"Find a craftsman. You can process it into weapons or armor. Arrows, even—there's plenty of use for it."
Alice was surprised by how much she'd said. Talking about hunter business seemed to loosen her tongue considerably. Selling someone on something you loved was, after all, a genuine pleasure. And to Alice's eye, Guido had the makings of an excellent hunter.
She asked him,
"So? How was it?"
"…How was what?"
"Fighting a monster. How did it feel?"
Guido rubbed the corner of his mouth, then answered.
"Not great."
"Eh… seriously?"
"The blade barely bites, and the damn things are ridiculously tanky. It's unfair."
Guido's harsh review left Alice visibly disappointed. She couldn't argue, though—every word was true. A monster's durability and hide hardness were nowhere near ordinary levels. Plenty of newbies had been ground to dust on that point alone. In Alice's eyes, Guido had been one of them.
How dare it crush a newbie like that… Killing the Acanthodis that easily wasn't right. I should have made it suffer more on the way out.
Guido, flustered by Alice's sudden gloom, hastily added,
"Still. There's a thrill to the challenge. And things worth learning."
He dressed it up after the fact. Only then did Alice's expression brighten.
I thought she was just blunt, but her face shows more than I expected.
That was Guido's assessment of Alice.
Then Lucas came over.
"No essence. We should move out."
The soldiers' load had grown by one. The Acanthodis hide dragged along the ground. Alice paid it little mind—as long as it was kept dry, the condition would be fine. It wasn't a material that would scar from a little dragging, and it would be reborn under a craftsman's hands anyway. Besides, there was far more cargo still waiting to be moved.
Watching the soldiers haul the hide, Guido asked,
"That already looks pretty heavy. Just how much have you piled up at the destination?"
"…You'll see when we get there."
Alice saw no need to answer in detail. She didn't want to demoralize everyone before they'd even started.
Everyone's going to have a rough time of it.
The soldiers' suffering faces were already vivid in her mind's eye.