Chapter 124
The Inspection
“SO, ACCORDING TO the information we got at the guild, this is the forest where newbie hunters usually go to work…”
In the past, Reina would have dutifully rebutted, “Who the hell are you explaining this to?!” But now, no one bothered to even comment on Mile’s unnecessary exposition.
“It won’t be a useful test if we get too serious right off the bat, so we need to conduct ourselves the way that normal rookie hunters in this area would,” she continued. “Since we’re in a forest, fire magic is obviously a no-go, Reina. And make sure you keep your other spells to the level of a D- or E-rank mage also. I know your fire magic was already on par with a C-rank when we started at the Prep School, but try and limit your other spells to the level they were back then. Mavis, your skills were also already around that level when you started, since you were trained from childhood by your father and brothers, so
maybe shoot for something a bit weaker than you were at that point… And Pauline, absolutely no hot magic. Not the spicy kind or the thermal kind.”
The thermal kind referred to attacks made with boiling water, or spells that raised the target’s body temperature, such as the ones she had used to fell the hired hunters when taking back her family’s shop.
“These limits will apply until we declare that the test is over, unless someone is about to be hurt—or something else unexpected pops up.”
“What limits will there be on you?” Reina asked.
“Oh, I won’t be participating in the hunt,” Mile replied calmly. “I’ll be focused on watching you all fight and evaluating the results.”
The others made no move to argue this. It was probably for the best. If Mile were to participate, she would likely overdo it somehow, and with her scientific mind, she was most suited for the role of observer.
“Now then, let the battles begin!” With that signal, their test had started.
***
“Hm, we aren’t really finding much…” Mile sighed. In truth, it was no surprise. This forest was barely different from any other forest near town that rookie hunters would commute to. No dangerous, high-ranking monsters were likely to dwell in these environs, as the populations of prey would be too small to support their breeding. This close to town, smaller creatures were killed by low-level hunters at a rate that didn’t leave much for larger monsters to snack on.
Typically, the Crimson Vow were only able to find quarries in such areas thanks to Mile’s search magic. She didn’t like for the others to be overly reliant on her special talents, but she liked going home empty-handed even less, so she did utilize this skill on their hunts, at least to a certain degree.
In this case, however, she was avoiding it entirely. It wasn’t something a typical newbie hunter would be able to use, after all…
***
“One jackalope at one o’clock, fifteen meters ahead…”
Finally, Mavis spotted one. Catching sight of a small horned rabbit, fifteen meters ahead in the forest undergrowth, was a tall order. Typically, the jackalopes would sense the humans’ presence first and either run away or burrow down into loose earth or grass to hide themselves. Mavis must have been blessed with impeccable vision to be able to spot their prey.
“Mavis and Reina, if you would!” Mile directed. The pair nodded.
Having four humans chase down one jackalope would be overkill, even with Mile focused on observation. Pauline, meanwhile, was not particularly blessed when it came to reflexes, which meant she could never keep up with one of the critters.
“Let’s do it, Reina!”
“Let’s go!”
The pair then softly approached, so that the jackalope would not hear them. Reina had already mentally incanted a spell that would release tiny hailstones, and was holding the trigger, while Mavis drew her sword, moving into her usual stance. However…
“Crap! It’s running!”
Reina immediately unleashed her hailstones, but they missed. There was no way of chasing a swiftly moving jackalope through the undergrowth like this. It would have been better for her to unleash the spell while the rabbit was still sitting still, but hindsight was 20/20.
“It’s no use! It’s getting a…huh?”
The creature was slow. Indeed, all four could clearly see that the jackalope was running much more slowly than usual.
“Is it injured? Good, that means we’ve got a chance! Let’s go, Reina!”
“I’ve got this!” said Reina, and soon the pair were in hot pursuit. Now that the creature was already aware of them, there was no point in keeping their voices down.
“There they go…” said Pauline.
“How am I supposed to observe them if I can’t see them?” Mile sighed. The moment she spoke, however, Reina and Mavis came thundering back wordlessly, their faces grim.
“What’s the matt… O-oh myyyyy God!”
At Mile’s scream, Pauline turned to look in the direction that the pair had come from. Before them, they saw:
Jackalope.
Jackalope, jackalope.
Jackalope, jackalope, jackalope.
Jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope, jackalope…
Jackalopes, by the thousands, as far as the eye could see. All running at full pelt, their pointed horns aimed directly at the Crimson Vow.
If Mile got serious, she could blow all of them away in an instant, but it would feel as though she had somehow “lost” if she were to fight with her full strength. After she had said all those things to the others about holding back, she didn’t want to jump in with skills so far beyond what a rookie hunter could manage. Plus, they were just jackalopes…
Pauline seemed to be thinking the same thing: What would a normal rookie hunter do in this situation? A jackalope’s horn could easily pierce through leather armor. Even a C-rank hunter could be caught off guard and seriously injured if they let their defenses down. And so, at the moment, there was only one option available to the two…
“RUUUUUUUUUN!!!”
Mile and Pauline followed after the other two, running as fast as they could.
Yes—as Mavis and Reina had decided, their only valid choice in the moment was escape.
***
“Wh-what the hell was th-that…?” Reina huffed once the four of them had finally escaped the swarm.
“A j-jackalope stampede, obviously,” Mavis replied. They were all panting heavily.
“More importantly, why didn’t you say anything to me and Mile?!” Pauline groused.
“Our bad…” The pair dutifully apologized. They had more or less drawn aggro from a whole troop of monsters and dragged them along to where the rest of their party was waiting—not exactly an admirable course of action. To then simply run off without warning the others would be enough to fracture the trust of any normal party. You couldn’t write this off with excuses like “Well, it was only a few jackalopes” or “We all could have managed, if it really came down to it.” What if it had been a swarm of ogres instead? What if Mile were a normal C-rank hunter?
On Earth, one never pointed the barrel of a gun at someone else outside of battle, regardless of whether or not it was loaded. Accidents happened all the time. Even if you removed the magazine, there could still be a bullet in the chamber. Who knew when it could blow?
Likewise, no matter how weak one’s enemy or how strong one’s allies, there were things that one simply did not do. This was especially true when one considered the fact that Pauline was slow, physically weak, lacking in melee combat skills, and lightly armored. Were she to be attacked by dozens of jackalopes at once, she could fight back with magic, but even if she decimated all but a handful, that wouldn’t stop the remaining creatures from inflicting life-threatening injuries. Of course she would be angry about this.
“Forgive me,” said Mavis. “As a knight, that was unacceptable behavior.”
“I’m sorry,” said Reina.
Seeing how truly remorseful the pair were, Pauline stopped criticizing them. She did, however, remain silent, not offering any words of forgiveness to ease their consciences.
“O-okay… But what the heck was that?!”
In an unusual turn, Mile was the one to change the subject. Mavis looked relieved. Reina, however, was not as quick to recover. Having worked as a hunter for the longest out of the four of them, she prided herself on being the party’s leader. Still, she attempted an explanation.
“Well, so, we ran after the jackalope because we thought it was moving slow because of an injury or something…and it led us straight into an ambush,” she said.
“A counterassault…?”
Silence spread across the group. There was no point in overthinking it. They had an investigation to continue.
***
“Why did those goblins have swords and spears?!”
“They must be using weapons that they lifted from fallen hunters…”
“Well that much is obvious!”
***
“Can you believe the orcs operating in three-man formations?!”
***
“How are the ogres fighting in pairs?! What’s with these Rotte tactics?!”
***
In the end, the Crimson Vow marched home, disheartened and weary—not only physically but also spiritually. They silently sold their goods at the turn-in counter and silently continued back to their inn. Seeing the state they were in, neither the other hunters nor the staff had the heart to speak to the new hunters.
***
Back at the inn, they ate their dinner and then moved to their room to discuss all that they had witnessed.
“What was all that?”
“That couldn’t have happened…”
“But it did happen. We have to accept that…”
“It’s bizarre!”
“The monsters here are way too smart!!!”
It was true. The monsters on this continent were horrendously, inexplicably clever. There were jackalopes that prepared ambushes, pretending to be injured to lure hunters in. There were goblins equipped with weapons stolen from humans, rather than branches or twigs. There were orcs and ogres that fought in Rotte formations, in cells of two or three.
Normally, humans could win against monsters, who were superior both in offense and defense, because monsters were reliant on their strength. They were stupid and uncoordinated, with no sense of tactics. If you endowed those same monsters with knowledge, making them suddenly able to coordinate and strategize… If they stole weapons from humans and wielded them themselves…
“Even if they aren’t physically different from the monsters on our old continent—”
“They’d be pretty hard for a normal hunter to fight!”
“I mean, as long as we don’t let our guards down, we should be fine.”
“But, for the C-rank and lower hunters here…”
The words of the guild master echoed in their brains: Factor in all the folks who retire, or get injured or die, and our situation is getting pretty dire.
A decline in the number of hunters meant there would not be enough humans to keep the monsters in check. The result of which would be…
A stampede.
The problem was a complex one. If this was an issue for the immediate area alone, the Crimson Vow could simply station themselves here a while and clear out all of the high-level monsters, after which the problem would resolve itself. The monsters would repopulate sooner or later, but in the meantime, the guild would be able to train up newbies and request a dispatch of troops to control the speed of population growth.
However, what if this was not the only place that these intelligent monsters inhabited? What if all the monsters on this continent were just as smart? What if they were to propagate and spread all across the world?
“How scary…” all four said with a shudder.
They had come to this new land in search of fun and relaxation, but the forecast suddenly seemed rather gloomy. The four members of the Crimson Vow fell into a deep silence…
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