Master Hunter
I had a dream.
It was a dream of standing alone upon the wasteland.
Disastro was there.
Its head hung limp, run clean through by the Dragon Bane. It did not stir at all — it looked dead.
I laid my hand upon Disastro's corpse. The moment I touched it, the body crumbled into sand. I closed my fingers, then drew my hand back.
With the creature's death, a time of rest had come to the wasteland. At the end of that rest stood a woman.
A woman like a white rabbit.
We met for the first time today.
She opened her mouth.
"Thank you."
I heard a voice spilling from my own lips, and I caught the feelings carried inside it — joy, and apology. She must have been suffering alone for having heaped so many burdens onto me.
Our contract had never been only about killing this hideous worm.
Miteraos.
Only by killing the dragon that walked through time would everything end.
I shook my head. There was no need to thank me until then. The fight was not over yet. If anything, I was the one who should be grateful. In this world, I had found my own worth.
Suddenly the rabbit smiled. It was a smile beautiful enough to lift the spirits of anyone who saw it.
"Please…"
In that final request, I caught a faint scent of madness. It was pitiable.
"Kill that dragon for me."
I nodded.
I opened my eyes.
The uncomfortable press of mask and goggles was gone. Through a haze of half-waking, I found myself staring at a thoroughly unfamiliar ceiling — not the wood of my usual lodgings, but the folded seams of a tent. My back rested on something flat rather than soft; when I felt around, it was a field cot.
Where am I…
"Ah, you're awake."
A woman spoke from beside me. I almost never had reason to go near her, so I knew her only by face — a doctor who had come to provide medical support for Angolo. Only then did I understand that I was in the outpost's makeshift infirmary.
I tried to sit up. A raw, cracked sound slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.
"Aaugh…"
Every muscle in my body felt as if it were being torn apart. I collapsed back onto the cot. The doctor spoke to me gently.
"You shouldn't try to move yet. Your muscles took a great deal of damage. Recovery will take time."
I nodded at her words and lay still. My condition was a mess. Raising my arms above my shoulders was nearly impossible. Trying to lift my upper body made my abdomen and lower back scream at once, and my legs felt so drained of strength they might as well have belonged to someone else.
The doctor punched a hole in a Waterburst Fruit and brought it to my mouth.
"Hold it there."
I became a well-behaved child who did exactly as the doctor said. Lying quietly, I held the Waterburst Fruit between my lips and sucked the water that trickled from the hole. My parched throat grew wet again.
Having checked my condition, the doctor let out a breath of relief and rose from her seat.
"Please rest. I'll go fetch His Highness."
I nodded in place of an answer. The doctor stepped out of the tent.
I was far from the only wounded person here. People struck by Disastro's rock-scattering assault. People sent flying by a tail that had suddenly lashed out. People caught in the aftermath of its sweeping strikes. People whose ears had been ruined by Disastro's roar. So many lay there. This small tent would never have been enough to hold every casualty.
I glanced at the others groaning around me, then turned my gaze blankly back to the ceiling. Sucking on the Waterburst Fruit, I tried to reconstruct the moments before I had lost consciousness.
I had been on top of Disastro, then fallen from the shock of the Dragon Bane. Memory cut off there. I had been lucky. Who would have thought a hit from the Dragon Bane would punch straight through its head and kill it outright? If the shot had missed, or if Disastro had simply endured it, I would have been forced off the stage with nowhere to run.
Well — maybe it was luck that had made me the first among contributors. Same with Alberoelva in Antico, and same this time. I had done something significant in both battles.
The fortunate part was that falling from that height had left me without any special wounds, which meant someone must have caught me. If no one had, I would almost certainly have been left with far worse injuries.
I closed my eyes and let out a breath. It was not a sigh of physical discomfort. The wasteland's business was finally over, and a little of the weight had lifted from my chest.
I thought of everything I had passed through to reach this point. The long effort. The people gathered here. The dead who would never return. I had told myself, deep down, that they could not be saved — and still it had torn me up inside. I wanted to cover my face with both hands, but even that was impossible; my arms hurt too much.
The deaths of the people who had stood there might have been inevitable, in a way. Disastro had simply been that enormous. Holding a monster of that size in place had been no easy task for me either. But that did not mean it could be brushed aside lightly. Those deaths had been sacrifices made in someone else's place — and they had been noble.
The doctor who had left earlier came back into the tent, bringing the prince and the royal scribe with her. The moment Melchior and Biopia appeared, the patients on the cots tried to rise. Melchior held out a hand and stopped them.
"No need to get up. Rest comfortably, each of you. We won't be long."
I took the two of them in for a moment. Melchior's eyes met mine; he approached with a bitter smile.
"…You're awake."
I could not answer him.
"Slurp, slurp, slurp—"
The Waterburst Fruit was still in my mouth. Melchior glanced at the doctor. She covered her mouth with a soft oh and promptly removed the fruit.
"Ah — I'll take that."
She carried the Waterburst Fruit outside, presumably to discard it beyond the wasteland. My mouth felt empty. I let out a short huff of a sigh.
Melchior asked,
"How is your body?"
"Not great."
I told him the truth. It felt as if the kind of stiffness that usually seized only the neck had spread through my entire frame. Melchior lowered his eyes at my answer.
"I have no face to show you. It was my request that put you in this state."
"…It was my plan."
It had not really been because of Melchior's request. I answered him directly.
"Your share of the blame is about fifty percent."
Biopia chimed in from the side.
"She's right. It's Your Highness's fault."
Melchior shot her a look full of displeasure. Under that murderous gaze, Biopia lightly took my hand and changed the subject.
"You truly worked hard, Hunter."
"Yeah."
"Be sure to bill His Highness for this one."
"Got it."
Biopia's advice was excellent. Melchior, who had been listening in silence, answered with lingering resentment.
"Biopia. Don't we have something to bill as well? A promotion, for instance."
Biopia smiled sweetly and withdrew the suggestion at once.
"Hunter, please forget what I said about billing His Highness!"
I gave a rough nod. Compensation hardly mattered to me. Rewards would find their way to me on their own; I had no particular desire to go around filing claims. What mattered was that I had survived this fight.
I was still alive, body intact. My story was not over yet. I was relieved.
Melchior spoke.
"Thanks to you, Disastro is dead."
"The Dragon Bane did most of the work."
Melchior added to my words.
"And landing that weapon on target was also thanks to you, was it not?"
Biopia piled on.
"Exactly. Even so, it was truly dangerous. Watching from the side, my heart was pounding the whole time."
"The fall was razor-close as well. If no one had caught you, you would not be lying here this comfortably."
I looked at Melchior.
"Who caught me?"
"Ah — you mean yourself? Sir Kyle caught you. He leapt high and took the fall. Thanks to that, he cracked a bone in his leg and is currently under treatment."
Even during the fight with Disastro, Kyle had steadily looked after the wounded whenever he found an opening. Without him, far more people would have died or been badly hurt. I would have been badly hurt myself. I was grateful to him.
"You'll be rather busy from here on."
"…Me?"
Melchior nodded.
"Yes. Now that the wasteland's greatest enemy is dead, what remains is exploration. We intend to properly survey this land. This wasteland holds important clues for us."
Did that mean I had to be part of it? I was starting to want to go somewhere other than the wasteland. As if he had read that thought, the prince added,
"We'll handle the rest from here."
Only then did I understand what Melchior meant. He intended to remain here going forward. The fact that this place was the land of the future had been weighing on him. I, on the other hand, had other business.
"You… have somewhere to go for a while."
"Where?"
"The Association President has summoned you."
The Association President, in person? I blinked at Melchior.
"Why?"
"You made the highest contribution to the subjugation of the Supreme-grade monster Disastro. Is that not only natural?"
Melchior gave a short laugh.
"Sir Oflo and Sir Kyle both spoke of you in the highest terms."
Oflo and Kyle had said that. To have made a good impression on two sitting Master Hunters was a relief.
Melchior spoke in an even tone.
"Allow me to congratulate you in advance on becoming a Master Hunter."
Biopia echoed him from the side and clapped lightly.
"Congratulations~"
The two of them looked so well-matched that I let out a thin, deflated little laugh. And I thought about what kind of person I was. In the future and in the past alike, this body had been a Master Hunter. It was not merely thanks to the body — it felt as if I myself had been recognized.
A seat that had only ever been a matter of time had finally come into my hands. I had always thought it inevitable, but I could not stop my chest from trembling. That a small person like me had been acknowledged by the world — it was truly moving.