The Hunt
Darkness had not yet settled over the mountain when the men of the village gathered at its entrance, each of them carrying farm tools.
"Let's find the beast! The kid might still be alive!"
They had come to hunt down the unidentified animal that had taken a child from the village.
Fuck...
Joseph muttered the curse under his breath, too quiet for anyone nearby to hear. He was leading them with a small wooden shield in one hand and a club in the other. Needless to say, he had no desire whatsoever to be searching for some beast — least of all from the front of the line, where a man's life hung by the thinnest thread. If it were up to him, he'd have run for it then and there.
Hunting was dangerous work. Even a deer hunt could cost you your life if luck wasn't on your side. There was a reason hunters were a respected profession. And they were going after an unidentified beast with the sun about to drop? No matter how he turned it over, it was insane.
Can we even catch the damn thing?
How many of these men had ever actually fought a vicious animal? At best, they'd beaten a pig that thrashed around during slaughter. And yet Joseph had followed the village chief's orders without protest.
Pick a fight over it and I might get thrown out.
There wasn't a single matter in the village that the chief's influence didn't touch. His word carried that much weight. Ignore his orders, and the standing Joseph had worked so hard to build could crumble overnight. Even the respect he received as a hunter only held so long as he stayed cooperative with the chief.
It's not time yet.
He'd always planned to leave the village someday, but it couldn't be now.
"Hey. Hunter. You see anything?"
"...No."
As if I would.
Joseph was a hunter, yes, but only in the sense that he caught small game. He had no idea how to track an unidentified predator. He was simply walking the same paths he always took.
If I were alone, I could've just found a place to hide...
Joseph glanced back. Every last one of them was following him with a face drawn tight with tension.
I need to grab what I can and get the hell out of here, sooner rather than later...
It was infuriating, but for now he had no way out.
Keep your head on straight.
Joseph took a small breath. It was the same mountain he climbed every day, but the mere knowledge that an unidentified beast was out there seemed to have changed the entire atmosphere. The forest that had never bothered him when he was alone now felt somehow tighter, more closed in. Fatigue crept over him as time wore on.
"Hey! Anything up ahead? The sun's going to set on us at this rate!"
"I can't see a damn thing this way, so you lot search behind us too!"
They wandered like that for a long while, pushing deeper into the forest than Joseph usually went. Darkness was settling in before they knew it. A few men suggested turning back, but the idea was dismissed. They had no choice but to light torches and press on.
Not long after, someone let out a choked sound — and they found a corpse.
The neck had been snapped, and from the chest down the flesh had been torn away until the body was barely recognizable.
The men, Joseph among them, fell silent in an instant. Death itself was hardly a rare thing — but standing over a corpse that had been turned into prey was something else entirely.
"...Find it! Find it and kill it!"
Someone shouted, the words wrung from his throat. The others followed suit, cursing and yelling. Joseph, however, said nothing.
There was something more important than forcing down the fear of the moment. He stared down at the corpse sprawled in its ruin. The longer he looked, the more his skin crawled and his stomach turned, but he fought to stay calm.
The neck was broken.
He'd heard it somewhere before. Animals like tigers snapped their prey's neck in a single motion when they hunted.
Are there tigers in this world too?
He had no way of knowing. Joseph had never encountered a predator here. But either way, a beast of that caliber would be no easy catch for a group this small.
Joseph tightened his grip on the shield and scanned the surroundings. A pack of humans was wandering around with fire in their hands. There was no way the beast didn't know. Somewhere out there, it was watching them. He was sure of it.
And then it happened.
A short, sharp crash of underbrush — and something burst from the darkness. The shadow lunged straight at the man standing in the center of the group.
"Guh...!"
It seized the man's throat in its jaws and snapped his neck in a single bite. The man whose head had been caught didn't even finish his scream before he collapsed.
"I-it's here!"
The beast spat out the dead man and immediately slashed its claws at the man beside him, who was holding a plow. He too crumpled to the ground in an instant.
Only then did the men snap to their senses and start bellowing.
"Get it! If you let it go, it'll come at us again!"
"Aaaagh!"
In the midst of it, a man with a flail swung the thing at the beast. It dodged nimbly and scrambled up a tree. The creature turned its head, looked down once at the terrified humans, and vanished into the darkness.
It had all happened in an instant. No one had managed to react properly. Not even Joseph.
"We have to go after it!"
"How the hell do we chase something up a tree?!"
"I... I'm going back!"
"Wait! Don't run!"
It didn't take long for the group to scatter. Shouts rang out from every direction, and then they were all gone, swallowed by the dark.
Joseph did not follow them. More precisely, he couldn't even think of following them. His hands were shaking, and a cold sweat had soaked the length of his spine.
Fuck...
Because the beast had struck the group's flank, Joseph — who'd been at the very front — had been spared. If it had attacked from the front, he would have been the first man to die.
Joseph looked down at the two corpses. The first man to be attacked lay limp, his head crushed. The other wasn't moving, blood pouring from his chest.
Fear washed over him. In both this life and the last, it was something he had never experienced. In this world, people died far too easily. This was not a world where safety was guaranteed.
Joseph looked around. The night forest showed him nothing. Even the insects had gone silent. The only sound was the quiet rustle of underbrush stirring in the wind.
He picked up a torch that had fallen to the ground, half-extinguished, and lit it again. The beast might come back at the sight of the flame — but without it, he truly couldn't see a thing.
Joseph took a slow breath. Then he clenched his trembling hands and struck his own thigh several times. The harder he hit, the sharper the pain — and the clearer his head seemed to become.
I can't just stand here like this... I have to get used to this.
A world so wretched that the very concept of human rights didn't exist. Beyond the village, even greater dangers would be waiting. And if he couldn't even get past this?
I'd just live out my days as the chief's slave.
Getting cursed at by Hayra, the next village chief. Handing over every scrap of meat he managed to catch. That would be the rest of his life.
After everything it took to get this chance... I can't die here.
Joseph rapidly assessed the situation. The longer he delayed, the greater the chance his own neck would be next.
That thing just now...
Joseph recalled the beast he'd seen moments ago. A creature with black fur. Smaller than a tiger, but bulkier than a leopard. He didn't know what it was, but it wasn't any animal he recognized.
It dodged the flail.
Seeing it dodge the flail had been a stroke of luck. At the very least, it meant the thing wasn't the kind of creature that could take a hit like that and shrug it off. If it had been that durable, surviving would have been a lost cause.
A faint scream reached him from somewhere in the distance. It sounded like it had come from the direction of the village. The beast was still attacking people along the path back.
Joseph picked up a shield someone had abandoned and slung it across his back. It might stop a single attack from behind. He discarded the club. He had something better.
The Mana Orb.
He'd wanted to keep it hidden from people as much as possible, but this was no time for that. Joseph checked the amount of mana inside his body.
Four shots... no, three at most.
If he wrung himself dry, he could probably fire four. But then he'd collapse from exhaustion before the beast did, so three was the realistic limit. Still, three was better than nothing.
The moment it attacks. Put an orb through a vital point.
Joseph held another shield tight against the front of his body and began to move, slowly.
He advanced at a careful pace, turning it over in his mind. The ambush had come from behind him. He hadn't seen the moment of the attack. It had bitten one man to death, slashed another with its claws, then vanished up a tree. That speed was no ordinary thing. At the very least, it was nothing a regular human like Joseph could match. No matter how carefully he watched, he was going to take a hit at least once.
Then I have to drive an orb into it somehow in that window.
If he could handle magic a little better. If he'd been a mage with a proper teacher. If he'd been reincarnated with some kind of useful ability. All sorts of what-ifs drifted through his mind, but they were meaningless now. For the Joseph of this moment, that was the only plan he had.
A little farther on, another corpse lay sprawled on the ground. Whether he'd already grown used to the bodies or not, this time he found himself scanning the wounds first instead of gagging. Like the others, the man had died with his throat torn out. But there were no other injuries. It had simply killed him and moved on.
Why...?
It didn't seem to be trying to eat people. But it didn't seem to be running or hiding, either.
Don't tell me it's trying to hunt down every last villager?
The thought flashed through him, and he swallowed. He wiped the cold sweat from his palms on his clothes and immediately tightened his grip on the shield.
And in that instant, something crashed through the underbrush and launched itself into the air.
Joseph reflexively ducked and threw himself forward. It was less a prepared response than pure survival instinct. The truth was, he'd been so startled he'd simply lunged.
As he dove forward, something struck the shield on his back and passed over him.
"Ghk!"
The sudden impact sent him rolling across the ground. Blood rushed to his head in an instant.
Where is it. Where the hell is it!!
He'd been lucky. But the fact that he could have died had wiped every plan he'd been turning over from his mind.
He hastily formed a Mana Orb at his fingertips and fired it in the direction he'd come from.
"Fuck!"
The orb flew into empty air and vanished from sight. He felt the mana dissipate far in the distance.
The orb had been his hidden card. Not only had he exposed it to the beast in plain sight — he'd wasted it for nothing. He couldn't help but swear.
Joseph scrambled to his feet and thrust his shield toward the direction of the attack. A moment's delay and those claws would tear him apart.
But something was wrong. The black beast didn't charge. It glanced once in the direction the orb had flown, then lowered its stance and locked its eyes on Joseph.
I'm fucked...
A chill ran down Joseph's spine. This was no frenzied animal. It knew how to be wary of something unfamiliar, and it knew how to wait for an opening. Joseph realized that his odds of walking away alive were shrinking by the second.