21. Hunting Requires Preparation (4)
21. Hunting Requires Preparation (4)
"...That is some unusual armor."
"Does it look weird?"
"What is that, a golem? Alchemists would get a kick out of it."
It was a shame I had no mirror. Never had I regretted being unable to see myself so much. I thought I looked fairly impressive, like the stylish heavy armor from a game I had played long ago. I had even mounted an antler—no, a horn—on the helmet, and the carefully processed bark made it look like a knight's green heavy armor rather than something shabby and crude.
"But can you move in that?"
"No problem."
It looked heavy but was lighter than expected. If I'd made it true full plate, I probably would have collapsed from exhaustion just walking. I was not stupid enough to make armor without considering that. I'd made something similar before. Back then, drunk on the excitement of my Skill, I'd ignored my scrawny condition and nearly died while wearing it. I knew better now.
"Can you fight in it? Looks like it'd be insanely uncomfortable."
"It's fine. I have my methods."
This wasn't my first time making armor like this. Naturally, I'd prepared a few tricks of my own to make it usable.
Anyway, it was time to suit Reni up as well.
"Come here. You need to wear some as well."
"That looks incredibly hot... Hah. Guess I have no choice."
"Take off that half-crushed armor."
At that point, the damaged armor was more likely to injure her than protect her if she got hit. Reni obeyed and threw off the cumbersome armor. Once the armor hiding her figure was gone, her thoroughly trained body came into view.
Hmm, she was no slouch either... Her chest wasn't as conspicuous as Karina's, but the faint six-pack visible on her exposed stomach and her healthy tan were both quite attractive. She was the very picture of a healthy beauty. Perhaps that quality had gone unnoticed because her vicious image from the game still lingered in my mind.
"What're you staring so intently for?! Hurry up and put it on me!"
"...Stand still for a moment."
I needed to check her size. I circled Reni once, examining her body while also checking how freely the armor would need to move. It looked as though she'd need about one-third less material than I had. Since she was far stronger than me, I could afford to make her armor somewhat thicker.
I kept revising the design in my head as I looked over every part of Reni's body. She was trembling, perhaps because she'd removed her armor. Was she cold? The temperature here remained above twenty degrees Celsius all year, though. I needed to hurry and make the armor for her.
"Spread your arms. Until they're at a right angle."
"Like this?"
Reni held her arms out as though I were measuring around her waist and watched me with an uneasy look. What was the problem? I had no idea.
I decided to focus on the task at hand.
"Craft."
The necessary materials were drawn toward me. I was grateful that I didn't have to exert myself for this part. They slowly took shape according to the design in my head: leather formed the lining, bone wrapped around it, and bark covered the outside. After roughly a minute, the completed armor appeared before me with a greenish hue.
"Not bad."
"Isn't this a little tight?"
"Where's it tight?"
"...A bit on the chest."
"Got it. Repair."
That should do it. I looked down at the small golem... no, at Reni in her armor. Contrary to the design in my head, it genuinely looked like a golem, and I couldn't help sighing.
So we were Small Golem and Big Golem?
Was my aesthetic sense really that bad?
"...Why are you slumping over? We have to go scout!"
"...Right."
I nodded listlessly.
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"Ugh, what a godawful smell. I think this is worse than the sulfur stench..."
Reni grumbled as she crossed the pools. Fortunately, the armor I'd made held up well against the poison in them. I followed behind her, scanning our surroundings.
It was quiet.
Why was it so quiet?
The silence bothered me even though we had entered the most dangerous part of the forest. Were all the snakes... dead? Or... no, surely not. I didn't want to imagine anything that ominous. That would have been the worst outcome, an utterly pointless spike in difficulty. I shook off the thought and focused on scouting again.
But by the time we passed the fifth pool, there wasn't so much as a hint of a snake.
What gives?
"Are there really snakes here? I can't see a single living thing, let alone snakes."
"...They should have popped out by now."
Even if all the other snakes had dissolved, why was the Hydra so quiet? That thing was never the type to welcome uninvited guests into its territory. Was it worn out from fighting zombies too? Or was there another reason? There were far too few clues to judge. This forest, dyed entirely violet, was eerily quiet.
I couldn't even gauge how long we'd been walking when it happened.
Reni and I stopped almost simultaneously and looked at each other. All that was visible was our slightly exposed eyes, but I thought I knew what she was trying to say.
Hsss—
Shhhk—
We quietly gripped our weapons. A nasty rasping sound spread through the silent forest. The source of the sound was obvious.
The helmet covering my face had narrowed my field of view, reducing the visual information I could gather, but my heightened sense of hearing picked up the sound once more.
Sweat soaked into the leather covering my hands. It was unpleasant, but that wasn't the problem right now.
That sound.
That reptilian sound set my nerves on edge. Something was unquestionably stalking us from somewhere. It was a certainty, not a suspicion.
I had to kill it.
I had to listen carefully.
My heart was pounding. The sound was getting closer. The window for a decision was short.
Where would it come from?
Left? Right?
I could hear it from both sides, alternating. Which meant...
"Reni. Take the left."
I swung my shovel toward the right. A heavy impact immediately shot back up through my hands. My shovel was stained with snake fluids and blood. The hideous stench forced its way through my helmet and into my nose. Agonizing. But I had to endure it.
I couldn't throw my life away just because of a smell. As always, I targeted the snake charging at me with practiced movements. Though its mouth was half torn apart, the snake—still large enough to swallow a grown man whole—ignored its lacerated jaws and crept closer, intent on eating me.
So this was why those snake bastards had been so quiet...
"A zombie snake. The world really is going to hell."
"I've lived a long time, but this is the first time I've seen a snake turn zombie."
I tore the rotting snake's maw, already a gruesome mess of ripped flesh, even wider. Once I'd ripped its mouth open to the point where its facial muscles couldn't possibly function, the pressure on my shovel eased slightly. I let go with one hand from my two-handed grip and placed it on the snake's snout.
"Craft."
The sharpened bear bone pierced through the snake's forehead. The zombie snake, spurting purple blood as it lost strength, collapsed to the ground once I pulled out my shovel and kicked it away.
Fortunately, I'd managed to pierce its brain in one shot.
"Dismantle."
Good thing I had brought a bone from the Alpha Bear. It was tough as hell, and the effect was excellent. I returned the spike, which I'd made from the bone decorating my wrist, to its original shape.
Turning around, I saw Reni had blown off her snake's head and was shaking the blood off her sword.
"It's just big."
"...That's just you."
"Anyone who's been knighted should be able to handle this much. Ah, but some young masters who don't know the world would've ended up as a warm meal."
Knights were terrifying. She had decapitated a creature that looked at least five meters long with a single stroke.
Never mind. I decided to check it first.
I picked up the half-dissolved snake head that had fallen into a poison pool. Its horrific appearance looked capable of haunting my dreams, but I still had work to do. I carefully turned the head over and examined it.
"A fairly young one."
"This is young?"
"Fully grown ones can get close to twenty meters."
The snakes here were ridiculously huge for creatures that ate nothing but rabbits. Most of them were probably dead now, I figured... but if any were alive or had become zombies, things were going to get incredibly annoying.
"Zombie snakes, huh... This is going to be a real pain."
"What's the plan? Withdraw? Or head deeper in?"
"We'll go a bit further. We've barely passed the outskirts."
I answered while pulling William I from my leather pouch. Now that we had confirmed the presence of zombie snakes, we needed to be even more vigilant.
I hurled William I as far as I could. The rabbit traced a parabola through the air before splashing into a pool and dissolving in an instant.
"That direction looks safe."
"Okay."
We changed how we moved. We threw rabbits into suspicious areas, assessed what happened, and advanced only afterward. By repeating that process, we managed to blow off the heads of five snakes that revealed themselves.
...In other words, no matter where we went, there were snakes.
I felt the noticeably lighter weight of my pouch and tried to analyze the situation.
Fortunately, not all the snakes had become zombies. Only some of the larger specimens seemed to have turned. That meant the Hydra was probably a zombie too.
So we needed to verify the Hydra's condition.
It was difficult to be sure that a monster of Hydra's caliber could have been turned into a zombie that easily.
I surveyed the forest, then set our course toward the cave where the Hydra lurked and moved out.
By the time we climbed up onto a rock overlooking the Hydra's cave in the distance, the leather pouch once full of rabbits was completely empty.
"Should I have caught more?"
"With how many we killed, I doubt any more will pop out. We got at least ten..."
Reni's voice carried unmistakable fatigue. That was only natural. Her body hadn't fully recovered, yet she had fought her way across a forest filled with acidic poison. I was fairly exhausted too, and spending all day looking at revolting sights had worn me down mentally.
That one that charged at us even with its head split in half still sent chills down my spine just thinking about it.
Human zombies really were the weakest, huh.
"We'll rest here and wait for that bastard Hydra to show itself."
"Fine. Ugh, I feel gross..."
I spent my time peeking my head out from behind the rock.
Ten minutes, twenty, thirty... Time passed idly.
Being forced to endure the time without even taking off our armor because of the poison was a torment. Whether it was just my nerves or not, the soles of my feet were stinging too. Maybe the bark's effectiveness had reached its limit.
I didn't like the fact that all sorts of bad conditions were piling up, but there wasn't really a way around it.
How long had we waited behind that rock?
The sinking sun scattered vermilion light across the forest of poison pools, bathing it in an eerie glow.
"...Let's pull out."
"Yeah. Let's head back, quickly."
We would go back, wash ourselves, and rest properly. Bringing a sack full of rabbits next time to deal with the remaining snakes also sounded reasonable.
I organized the plan taking shape in my head and turned around.
Or rather, I tried to.
If only I hadn't spotted the nine pairs of eyes watching us from inside the cave.
How did it know?
"Shit."
The nine heads opened their mouths. I knew the meaning of that action.
That was...
The world began turning violet.