Horn Boars (1)
Lawrence climbed the mountain with two mercenaries.
All along the slopes, the hills were already crowded with mercenaries who had staked out their spots since early morning.
Mercenaries who had already finished a hunt were now butchering Horn Boars.
Unlike the traces of battle all around them, their faces were bright with smiles.
The boars’ tusks, the gear they wore, even crude lumps of ore—everything had been stuffed into sacks so full they looked ready to burst.
Horn Boars were money.
One look at the mercenaries’ mood was enough to prove that the saying was no exaggeration.
Without meaning to, Lawrence felt his own heart start to race.
No matter how much money you had, it was never enough.
If he could walk away from here with even a few gold coins, he could cover the cost of all the spellbooks he needed. Money meant magic, and magic meant a path toward uncovering the laws that governed the world. It was hard to keep his excitement in check.
“Hmm. Seems there’s no room here, either.”
“Nothing for it. Let’s go to the place we found last time.”
Mercenaries really could smell money from a mile away.
After walking nearly two full hours from the village, the group finally stopped.
Even here, there were still signs of mercenaries nearby.
Still, compared to the village outskirts, where they had been running into mercenaries every few steps, this was practically peaceful.
Raul took a net from the sack slung over his shoulder.
“You’re using that to lure the Horn Boars?”
“That’s right. You must’ve seen plenty of them on the way up. We hang these in the trees, and when the boars get worked up over them, we take them down.”
It was a red net.
All over the mountain, there were nets like this one.
They were all bait meant to draw in the Horn Boars that lived deep in the mountain.
“How much does one hunt bring in?”
“If we can bring one down, it’s worth an average of several dozen silver. We haven’t hit the jackpot yet, but if we ever land one of those, we might even be able to touch gold.”
Several dozen silver on average.
Compared with an orc extermination, which was lucky to bring in ten silver a day, it was enough to make his mouth water.
“It doesn’t compare to orc hunting, that’s for sure. Of course, since you hunted them alone, mage, the amount you brought in must’ve been different.”
“Everything has its pros and cons. Hunting alone might be more profitable, but it comes with plenty of dangerous situations.”
“No matter how valuable money is, it’s still not worth more than your life. Yes, exactly. A head only matters while it’s still attached.”
The most important thing was staying alive.
People didn’t say that it was better to be alive, even if you had to roll around in a pigsty, for nothing.
“Still, if you can make money like this, wouldn’t everyone get rich in no time?”
“Not quite.”
Raul, who was hanging the net on a tree, gave a wry smile.
“To be honest, there are so many people in on it that we wind up going home empty-handed a lot. On days like that, we don’t make a single coin and have to head back to the village. Besides, the area around here has already been stripped clean of Horn Boars, so there’s nowhere left to hunt. Unless you’re out before dawn, the good spots are all taken, which is why we have to come this far out.”
“Even if you don’t catch anything, the money still goes out. And compared to other places, the fact that ore and equipment sell for less here doesn’t help. If you sell to the traveling peddlers who visit the village, they’ll usually give you a little more, but there are so many mercenaries that the market price has basically flatlined.”
A massive axe sliced through a tree branch.
Ulrich, trimming the tree to make it easier to hang the net, went on.
“The mercenaries who used to work with us moved on to another village for exactly that reason. In Rombamel, something that might fetch two silver here only goes for one. No matter how you look at it, you can’t shake the feeling that you’re losing money. So they wanted to take the byproducts they’d stockpiled somewhere else and sell them there. They took a peddler escort job and went to Mistra.”
It was a story Lawrence hadn’t expected.
In other words, there were so many mercenaries packed into the area that Horn Boar byproducts were overflowing in Frange.
Come to think of it, there really were absurdly many mercenaries gathered in Frange.
It was an ironic situation—more people than Horn Boars.
There weren’t even this many mercenaries hunting Forest Spiders in Spider Forest.
The biggest reason was, of course, the monsters’ danger level.
Forest Spiders were so dangerous that even luring and killing one meant gambling with your life.
Their main value lay in their legs and venom sacs.
They weren’t bad from the standpoint of byproduct prices, but because killing them solo was almost impossible, the profits had to be split with a party.
And because the hunting grounds were still far from orderly, violent squabbles were a daily occurrence.
If someone in the party died, you even took their belongings.
It was the kind of place that reinforced Lawrence’s vigilance until he was nearly ready to distrust mercenaries on sight.
By contrast, Horn Boars were different.
The process of luring them wasn’t difficult, and you weren’t constantly staring death in the face. Even if you did manage to draw one in, the income was practically guaranteed.
Any mercenary with his wits about him would welcome that with open arms.
“We were just thinking it might be time to pull out, actually. Since we met you, we were planning to hunt a few more times before calling it. Even if we’re buying at less than the original market rate, the amount of money that ends up in our pockets is still real.”
“It only does the peddlers a favor, then. They buy cheap here and sell high somewhere else. For all we know, if they’re buying in bulk, they’re making several times their money back.”
All of a sudden, Raul raised a hand.
It was the signal that a Horn Boar was approaching.
While they’d been grumbling, it seemed something had taken the bait.
As agreed beforehand, the three of them spread out behind the trees and confirmed the Horn Boars approaching the net.
Quiruk? Quiruk.
There were three Horn Boars in total.
The ones wearing iron gear gathered beneath the net.
Raul gave the signal as if to say now.
Ulrich drew his massive axe and looked at Lawrence.
He knew what was coming.
This time, too, magic would start things off.
Bind.
With the activation word, tree vines burst into growth.
Since the Horn Boars had gathered so conveniently beneath the net, there was no need to worry about range.
The preparations were complete.
Feeling Lawrence’s gaze, Ulrich burst from behind the tree and charged.
Quiruk!
The boars reacted to the sound of his footsteps.
When Lawrence saw all three Horn Boars brace themselves for battle, he clenched his fist.
In an instant, their footing gave way and they stumbled.
Raul and Ulrich didn’t miss the opening created by their collapsing bodies.
Raul calmly went for the lower half first.
Ulrich trusted the power of his massive axe and swung with all his might.
In the blink of an eye, two of the Horn Boars were dead.
The strain on Bind eased.
The lone Horn Boar looked around, clearly unable to understand what was happening.
If it was lost in confusion, that was fine by Lawrence.
He poured in even more mana.
Responding to the mage’s will, Bind bored into the Horn Boar’s body.
Its thrashing resistance was useless.
Like vines climbing a tree, the Bind coiled tighter and tighter.
It secured the ankles. The wrists. The neck.
Perfectly.
Pain lasted only an instant.
Lawrence clenched his fist and twisted.
With a wet crack, the Horn Boar’s neck snapped.
The body hanging from the vines went limp.
The more he used it, the clearer it became.
There was no spell better than Bind for securing byproducts.
Fire-element magic simply set things ablaze.
No matter how skilled the control, it always left damage behind.
For monsters whose bodies themselves became valuable byproducts—skin, horns, all of it—that was fatal.
He had felt that clearly in Ulbazar Swamp.
He had only sliced off the jaguar’s head with precise control, but he still couldn’t erase every trace left by the scorching flames.
And Massacre was out of the question.
It had so much raw power that it could bring something down, but it had nothing to do with preserving byproducts.
Bind, on the other hand, was different.
Not only could it handle the carcass as intact as possible.
It could subdue targets without damaging the byproducts at all.
Thinking about the road ahead, mastering Bind wasn’t a choice; it was a necessity.
“A mage really does make things easier.”
“I’m sure you could’ve subdued them easily without me.”
They began dismantling the Horn Boars.
There was no thorough field butchery like there was with Under Wolves.
It was more like hunting orcs and taking only the noses.
After pulling out the Horn Boars’ tusks, they collected the equipment.
They also made sure to stab the hearts.
If there happened to be a magic stone inside, it would be a life-changing haul.
Of course, if it were found that easily, it probably wasn’t a magic stone at all.
“No luck, huh.”
“No ore, either. Honestly, I didn’t expect much.”
“You can tell that much?”
“Roughly. You can make an educated guess from their appearance. These ones, as you can see, wear iron gear. The so-called jackpot specimens are the kind you can spot at a glance because they’ve got gear that practically shines.”
Tsk, Raul clicked his tongue.
“It’s in bad shape. There’s too much impurity mixed in, so it’ll be hard to get a fair price.”
“Still, the shape is intact, isn’t it?”
“It’s all going to be melted down anyway. What does that matter? We’d be lucky to get even a few silver for it.”
“That’s disappointing. Still, it’s not a bad start.”
“That’s true enough. Let’s set the nets back up first.”
The net they had used to lure the Horn Boars was badly damaged.
Branches had broken too, so they found a new spot to set it up.
The next Horn Boars appeared two hours later.
This time there were only two of them.
Their equipment was the same iron.
A deep disappointment settled over the party’s faces.
“No good. Seems like the only Horn Boars around here are the ones that make their homes in iron mines.”
Even if they wanted to go elsewhere, there were too many mercenaries.
In any case, everyone really did have an uncanny nose for the smell of money.
The Horn Boars appeared only once in a while, like sesame seeds in a drought.
Lawrence had wanted to try Shadow Trap at least once if possible.
But in a situation like this, there was no chance of using Shadow Trap—there wasn’t even any reason to use another spell.
In the end, after two hunts, the sun began to set.
That was when it happened.
Lawrence spotted a Horn Boar that seemed wrong somehow.
Even after seeing the red net, it didn’t come closer.
Instead, it was walking forward in a daze, as if under a spell.
Its body had an odd, translucent sheen to it.
Its skin wasn’t the only strange thing.
Gills, the sort you’d expect to see on a fish, were visible on its neck.
Its cheeks bulged and deflated like a frog’s, with tusks jutting out from the sides.
“What a strange-looking Horn Boar.”
“That’s a Horn Boar with an anomaly.”
An anomaly.
He had heard about them from the receptionist.
“Just as some people are born with natural talent, monsters and magical beasts aren’t all the same either. Very rarely, a peculiar individual appears. Those are called monsters with anomalies. According to reports submitted to the guild, these anomalous creatures often carry magic stones.”
“Magic stones?”
The Horn Boar that had only seemed odd a moment ago suddenly looked like a gold coin.
It was alone.
If they ambushed it, now was their chance.
But Raul caught Lawrence by the shoulder.
“Don’t. Anomalous creatures are extremely dangerous. There’s so little information on them that we don’t even know what to watch out for. No point bleeding for nothing—best to avoid it.”
“Still, if that thing really does have a magic stone in it… it’s just too tempting.”
“There won’t be a magic stone.”
As Lawrence clicked his tongue, Ulrich spoke up.
“The anomalies showing up around Frange aren’t normal. Usually, when a monster manifests an anomaly, there are only one or two at most. But there are too many of those things around the village.”
“Think about it. They’re not just one or two random sightings—they’re the kind of thing you run into two or three times a day. To assume they all have magic stones is nothing more than wishful thinking.”
“……”
It was hard to argue with that.
Meanwhile, the translucent Horn Boar headed toward the sea cliffs.
“But there’s only the sea down there, isn’t there?”
“That’s right. The sea.”
“Can Horn Boars swim?”
“Hmm. Can they swim, you ask? Well, I don’t know. Or rather, do we really need to know?”
Ulbazar Jaguars could swim.
But they didn’t have iron gear dangling all over them like the Horn Boars did. Could something carrying that much weight on its body really swim?
“No one knows whether it went to the sea cliffs, into the water, or somewhere else entirely. It’s not something we need to concern ourselves with.”
“It just feels wrong. I’ve heard Horn Boars live in the mountains and roam around mines because they like ore. But this one’s heading straight for the sea, where there isn’t any ore at all.”
He remembered the dwarves complaining about the salty sea breeze and how it made ore impossible to keep in proper condition.
As far as Lawrence knew, the sea had nothing to do with ore.
Given the Horn Boar’s habits, it should have been heading uphill, not down.
“If it bothers you that much, report it to the guild. Once the branch director gets involved, the proper measures will be taken. That’s the sort of thing a lord or a noble should handle. It’s not something a mere mercenary needs to worry about.”
“Come on now. Do you think an anomaly is called an anomaly for no reason? The trick is not to think about it. Besides, the village festival is coming up soon. We ought to earn as much as we can before then.”
Raul laughed as if to tell them not to fuss over it.
Still, Lawrence couldn’t easily shake his suspicion.
A Horn Boar with an anomaly.
A creature that was different from ordinary monsters.
He remembered the monsters he had seen in the Lost Sanctuary.
The queen Forest Spider in Spider Forest.
The Bugbear King in Ulbazar Swamp.
Those were clearly monsters with anomalies.
Given their size and strength, it wouldn’t have been strange if they had magic stones.
Then what, exactly, were these things?
In the end, before they returned to Frange that day, Lawrence saw three more Horn Boars with anomalies.
And by some strange coincidence, all of them were heading toward the area with the sea cliffs.