The Hunt
The news that Iria had defeated Lucia sent a fresh shockwave through the student body.
A commoner with no background whatsoever had beaten the second daughter of a renowned swordsmanship house in a formal duel. And not just any commoner—Iria, the student with the lowest mana capacity in the entire academy. Mana volume was not an absolute measure of combat strength, but the higher it climbed, the greater its influence on raw power. Lucia possessed the highest mana reserves among the academy’s prodigies. No one had imagined Iria could bridge that gap and win.
“Told you. During the entrance exam she punched me so hard she cracked my ribs.”
“Even so, anyone who saw the entrance exam knew she wasn’t weak. But the mana difference was still ridiculous.”
Those who had taken the entrance exam already had some sense of Iria’s strength. Every one of her matches had been short—and every one of them had been devastating. Still, most people believed that no amount of physical power could overcome such an overwhelming disparity in mana. Thanks to that widespread doubt, the legendary underdog fighter who had taken a rib-shattering punch from Iria made a small fortune. These days they called him Rib-Cracker for the story.
While the students were still heatedly debating the previous duel between Iria and Lucia, Rib-Cracker opened his mouth again. The implication was clear: that was no longer the important part.
“Hey, forget that. Did you hear the other rumor? Lucia licked Iria’s foot.”
“Ugh… that bastard. I’m so jealous.”
“Whoa. Lose a duel and you get to lick the feet of the capital’s S-rank beauty? Let’s go challenge her right now.”
After defeating Lucia, Iria had expected the flood of duel requests to taper off. Instead, for reasons she could not fathom, they only increased. She found herself quietly puzzled by the phenomenon.
After the duel ended without incident, I was on my way home.
“Ugh…”
I felt my condition plummet without warning and pressed a hand to my throbbing temples. I knew the reason. Hunger. Come to think of it, it had been quite a while since my last meal. Lately I had been living in the new house I had acquired, so people no longer wandered into my path the way they had when I lived in the back alleys.
The world took on a faint red tint. If I looked in a mirror right now, my eyes would almost certainly be glowing. Once I left the academy and found myself alone, the hunger hit hard. Today it seemed I would not be waiting for a human to come to me. I would have to go hunting myself.
It’s been a while since I last hunted.
I passed the central city’s fountain and headed toward a district with poorer security. I hoped luck would be on my side. Stepping into the familiar back alleys, I activated my stealth ability. As expected, the knights failed to notice me. Eating another knight would only cause an uproar in the order. I would have to target someone else.
Dark side streets like these were surprisingly full of criminals—wanted men who had made the alleys their hideout, or people who simply came here to commit crimes. I preferred to feed on that sort rather than the innocent, but even among them there were types I had to filter out.
“Heh… look at all this cash.”
“Hey, hand over the money first.”
“Tonight’s gonna be a good one.”
I casually ignored the illicit transaction and kept walking. Those kinds of humans were poisonous. The narcotic substances accumulated in their bodies could affect me as well. My resistance was high by nature, but a half-applied high was more irritating than satisfying. I decided not to eat them.
Leaving the stifling academy behind and walking the quiet back alleys always gave me a strange feeling. There were few people, and the silence was a world apart from the academy’s constant noise. I had spent the morning tormenting Lucia and the afternoon fending off strange perverts; the mental fatigue was considerable.
In these lightless alleys the moon was the only illumination. I walked the quiet streets bathed in moonlight. There was no one around, and even if there had been, they would not have perceived me. It sometimes felt as though I alone had slipped into another world.
Already it was a full-moon night. For reasons I did not fully understand, full moons left me more energetic and ravenous than usual. Perhaps it was a monster’s instinct. A pity. If I had not been so hungry, I might have lingered longer to savor the dreamlike atmosphere of the alleys.
I walked on, the cool night wind against my skin.
This was the alley where the monster appeared—the creature that lured humans with illusions and then devoured them. Yet as I walked those same streets, I felt no fear. The back-alley monster was me.
In places with poor security I had always been the hunter. Because of that, I had never understood the feelings of those who fled from me in terror. What must it be like? Was a place that felt like home to me terrifying to them? Or was it simply me they feared?
In the end it did not matter. Tonight, as always, I was the hunter. I would simply chase humans.
In truth, the back alleys were never safe even when Iria was absent. After rumors of a monster began to spread, other killers had started operating there. They could murder someone and pin it on the back-alley monster, making the place an ideal stage for their work.
They differed from Iria, who harmed humans for the sake of a meal. While she killed to survive, these people did it because they genuinely enjoyed slaughter. Murder without reason. The intoxicating sense of transgression that followed. The fake back-alley monster—the serial killer Asha—was half-addicted to that pleasure.
The sensation of a knife piercing human skin was indescribably exquisite. Deliberately missing a vital point produced the most delightful screams, and those sounds drove her nearly mad with excitement.
“Haa… haa…”
In the end Asha began to masturbate, a blood-smeared knife still clutched in one hand. Wet, rhythmic sounds echoed through the quiet alley. She had already killed one person tonight, yet her body was far too heated to be satisfied with a single victim. So she set out through the back alleys in search of fresh prey.
Afraid of the monster? That was nothing but a rumor someone had invented. Everyone who had died here had been killed by killers like herself, not by any monster. Besides, Asha was stronger than most 1st-Class Mercenaries. Even if a real monster existed, she was confident she could handle it. That was why she roamed the alleys without a care.
Who would be the unfortunate soul to die by her hand tonight? Preferably a woman. Asha was a deranged lesbian, after all. How wonderful it would be if a cool-beauty type of pretty girl with pure white hair happened to pass by. She could spend the whole night stabbing her while cooing over how cute she was.
But of course that would never happen. No one who matched her tastes so perfectly would set foot in a place this dangerous.
Or so she had believed.
“Huh?”
Amazingly, there she was. A woman with silver hair fluttering gracefully and crimson eyes like jewels. Just looking at her made it hard to breathe. That doll-like face made Asha’s mouth water. She could not stop the filthy thoughts flooding her mind. She wanted to pin the girl down right then and do all sorts of things to her.
“Heehee, I really am lucky.”
Asha immediately gripped her knife and lunged. First she would sever both ankles so the girl could not run. Everything else could be decided at leisure afterward.
But—
Shhk.
Asha never reached her. The moment she charged, both of her ankles were sliced clean through. Her center of gravity collapsed and her body slammed into the ground. Even as she fell she could not comprehend what had happened.
“Kyaaaaaaah!! My legs!! Hyaaaaah!!”
“……?”
Only after the delayed, searing pain hit did Asha scream. The girl she had tried to attack looked down at her from above. The gaze was ice-cold. A frigid voice settled over Asha as she writhed on the ground, clutching at the agony.
“Asha. Did you enjoy your little murder game?”
“Hic… wait, wait a second! Hwaaaah!”
“You had quite a few unclean thoughts. You intended to cut off my ankles.”
“Hic! Wh-what?! How?!”
Iria let out a sigh, as if she had seen everything now. The back-alley monster had become so famous that copycat crimes were starting to appear. She lifted Asha’s fallen head and met her eyes. The severed ankles clearly hurt terribly, so she put the woman to sleep at once. Unlike Asha, who loved the sound of others’ screams, Iria disliked noise.
“Sweet dreams, Asha. If you are reborn, it would be best not to come to any alley where I am.”
Tonight’s meal was a serial killer, then.
The number of victims in the back alleys had increased by one more.