Not Quite a Hunter
A hunter?
Had that howl a moment ago actually called the rest of them in?
They showed themselves in front of the rock pile. One, two, three...
"...Four."
One against four. I'd only just tried one-on-one for the first time today, and the difficulty was already jumping this fast?
Their attacks don't work on me anyway. So maybe I can handle this.
I took a step toward the one in front.
Thud.
"..."
Thoom.
The distance between the monsters and me was roughly ten meters. They seemed to be closing in slowly too, but—
"Why aren't we getting any closer?!"
If it were up to my heart, I'd have sprinted over and fed each of them a stone fist right then. Reality, though, was that even shifting my feet was a struggle. Thud. Thud. Thud. It felt like walking with enormous boulders lashed to both feet and my shoulders, and my blood pressure shot straight up.
Grrrr!
One of the wolves that had been staring at me broke into a charge first.
"Yeah. You come to me. That's better."
At least then my mind could rest. It lashed its tail from side to side, then leapt for my flank.
Skrrrk!
Claws raked the stone armor.
"Hm."
Didn't hurt. As expected. I turned and grabbed it—grab—
Whoosh—
"Huh?"
I missed.
"I missed?!"
The thing saw my arm start to bend and slipped out to the side in a flash. My arm cut empty air, and I felt claws swing in again from behind.
Skrrk!
I turned anyway.
Whoosh—
"...Ah."
I wasn't a boss monster. This was just unfair.
Graaah!
Grrrn...!
While I stared blankly up at the sky in pure deflation, two of them charged at once—one from the front, one leaping for my head.
"Getting hit doesn't even hurt, so who cares."
I'd just write one of them off. First I raised an arm toward the one that had jumped.
"How are you going to dodge in midair?"
CRACK——!
Thud. Thoom...
All I'd done was bring my fist down from above. The one caught in the punch slammed straight into the one in front, and both of them departed for the afterlife together.
"Hm. So that's about the level."
Luck, sure. But luck was a skill too, wasn't it? Riding the surge of confidence, I beckoned the remaining two.
Grrrrk!
The last pair rushed me at the same time. This time I didn't bother trying to catch them. Swinging wild somehow felt better than grabbing. I ignored the presence at my back, watched the one coming in first, and waited until it was close—
Once!
Thwack!
The moment I took the hit on my thick shoulder, the monster stared down at the tooth it had dropped, just like the first one to leave this world.
Grrr?!
Canine face or not, the sheer sense of grievance came through loud and clear.
"You all right? My shoulders are pretty thick."
This was the end of it. I seized the scruff of its neck and slammed it into the ground.
BOOM!
All that remained was a split in the earth. Nothing was left in my hand.
Wow. The efficiency is ridiculous.
No need to chase them. Monsters had to come to me if they wanted to attack anyway. But the last one that had been charging me hesitated, then suddenly veered off and ran.
"Hey! You're supposed to attack me! Don't run! Fight me!"
It didn't so much as pretend to hear me, bounding away between the cliffs.
"Aaaaah!"
A high-pitched scream followed.
"Ah. A survivor?"
I spun around in a hurry.
Thoom!
...In a hurry.
Thud!
"A little!"
Thoom...!
"Faster! I said!"
At a miserably slow speed, I did my absolute best to round the cliff, and there they were: a middle-aged man holding a sling torn from clothing, people collapsed on the ground, and one girl with a weapon in her hand. They were packed against a dead-end wall of rock.
A hunter?
Fragments of equipment lay scattered all around the girl's feet. A broken bracelet leaking mana. Two discs split clean in half. Loose mana stones and gouges in the ground made it plain they'd been holding out with that gear until now. The only thing still intact was the dagger clenched in her hand.
"D-don't come any closer!"
She swung the dagger this way and that with a trembling hand. At the sight, the monster faltered and backed off. The girl let out a breath of relief—
Damn it. That stance was an attack windup.
"Move!"
"H-huh?"
My shoulder drove into the wolf's torso, and the wolf's torso drove into the cliff.
"..."
Not one of the people behind me made a sound.
"Oh. Jumping's faster than walking. I should remember that."
I pulled myself off the cliff and turned. A row of blank stares was fixed on me.
Clack.
The dagger slipped from the girl's hand.
"Are you all right?"
"...I-I'm alive."
The man who'd been sitting there blinked over and over.
"H-Hunter?"
"Yes?"
"You are a hunter... right?!"
"Uh..."
What was I supposed to say? I'd awakened, sure, but I hadn't registered. Did that even make me a hunter yet?
"I did just awaken."
"..."
"..."
"...What?"
Why wasn't anybody talking? The middle-aged man's eyes went wide.
"J-j-just now?"
"Yes."
"You don't mean after you got caught in the gate?"
He looked back and forth between the cliff and me. Crumbs were still flaking off the rock where I'd shoulder-checked it, and the wreckage around it looked like a crater.
"Right?"
"But you took a monster out in a single hit..."
"More importantly, are you a hunter too? That dagger looks like hunter gear."
The way she swung it screamed rookie, but the weapon looked expensive.
...A whale of a newbie?
The girl picked up the dagger she'd dropped.
"I'm not a hunter either. My sister gave it to me and told me to carry it for self-defense."
"Ah."
So there was a hunter in the family. If she herself had been one, we could have moved together. Maybe she caught that thought, because her face went red. The mood had turned awkward, so I sighed and looked around.
"Stay here for now. I'll put together a temporary shelter for you."
If I raised a wall out of the big rocks, the wolves shouldn't be able to break through. Right?
"And you, Hunter?"
"I'm going to look around a bit first."
I'd only run blindly because my luck was garbage. But this place had spots where a person could hide, and places to keep clear of the wolves.
"I want to see if there are more survivors."
"Wait! Can't we come with you?"
"Huh?"
The girl with the dagger took a step forward.
"My sister said if you stick with someone strong, you're halfway there."
"I only just awakened too... ah, never mind. If you stick with me, you'll run into monsters."
"That's the point. I think we'd be safer following you, Hunter, than all of us staying bunched together."
Then she glanced at my face and swung the dagger in a clumsy arc.
"I-I won't get in the way!"
...No, she probably would. Still, thinking about it, she kind of had a point. If a pack of monsters piled on and tore a shelter down, that would be a disaster. Seeing the others nod, I sighed.
"I can't promise I'll protect you. And I can't take responsibility either."
In the end, I was just a rookie who'd awakened a minute ago.
Wherever there were wolves, there were people, and wherever I sensed people, the wolves' howls never failed to answer. After wandering the inside of the gate on those sluggish feet, the number of wolves I'd dealt with was already closing in on twenty.
"..."
I stopped. They stopped. When I glanced back, more than ten people were trailing me with vacant faces. The moment I halted, every one of them froze in place and stared, and all I could do was sigh.
...It's embarrassing when you look at me like that.
"Um, want to borrow the dagger?"
On top of that, the young girl was reading my mood, and the awkwardness only deepened.
"...No. I'm fine."
I wasn't putting her down, but... how to put it.
The suit's fingers and the blade are about the same length.
Graaak—!
Right on cue, two wolves burst out ahead. A short scream rose from the group, but nobody ran.
"Behind the rocks in back! Scatter and hide!"
The girl gripped the dagger and shouted, and at her word the people scattered in perfect order, tucking themselves between the rocks.
"Nice."
Everyone hiding on their own meant I could beat the wolves down without worrying. I supposed that counted as a relief.
"But you don't have to hide?"
I caught the wolf charging me in one hand, spun it once, and brought it down toward the ground—
"If a monster comes out behind us too, tell me— ah, watch out!"
Wham!
"Huh? Oh."
Of all the times for the wolf to jump. Thanks to that, I saved some time.
Crrk... crack.
"Huh? What was that sound?"
A noise I'd never heard in the fights so far came from around my shoulder. I turned my head. There was a crack in the shoulder joint.
No matter how hard it is, it isn't unbreakable, huh?
I focused on the cracked spot the same way I had when I made the suit. Do this, and the stone should clump back together and fix—
"It's not working."
Whether I focused on the skill or shouted its name, nothing changed in the shoulder. So I could make a new one, but I couldn't repair a suit that was already made?
Stingy in the weirdest place.
Grrrk!
"Ah. Hold on."
An attack, in the middle of thinking. I shoved the surviving wolf's head with my palm.
CRRRACK——
"...Right."
I was too slow to dodge in the first place, but being aware of where I got hit was something.
Better to take the hits on the thick parts of the suit.
The one that had gone down shook its head and got back up. Either it had no capacity to learn, or it simply charged me the exact same way as before. I lowered my arm a little and took the claws on my chest.
Skrrk!
Then I grabbed the head of the wolf that had come in close.
"Like this."
Crunch—
Mm. That did it.
As the number of monsters I'd finished off neared thirty, the cracks multiplied all over the suit. Besides the ones already there, one each on the left shoulder, the right forearm, and my side.
This is getting dangerous.
That thought landed in the same instant I reduced the wolf in front of me to something that used to be a wolf. The unnatural stillness around me was gone. In its place, that strange energy I'd felt while making the suit—
"Is it over?"
You have met the conditions to clear the gate.
—gathered before my eyes and became a message.
"...So it is over."
The tension let go, and a long sigh came late.
"Haa."
And then—
Waaaaaah—!
"Gah!"
My body flinched at the cheer that exploded behind me.
"We're alive..."
"For real? Actually?"
The people who had been following in silence until a moment ago all started talking at once.
"Golem bro, thank you so much!"
"..."
"Hunter, thank you. Really."
"No. You don't have to go that far—"
"If it weren't for Golem bro, we'd all be dead!"
Behind the people crowding in to throw praise at me, mana rippled once more and drew itself into an oval.
"Damn it, of all the F-Rank gates, this annoying one is... huh?"
"Hey! Don't block the path, move! The people caught in here... there's... ten thousand of them?"
The hunters who came through the gate in full gear stared at us in a daze.
"Why is there a golem in the Baby Wolf's Training Ground?"
"Combat ready!"