Hero Association executive meeting.
The conference room was wrapped in silence.
Five minutes passed before one executive finally spoke in a heavy voice.
“...Damn it. We still haven’t found that monster?”
“There are so many red-scaled lizard monsters that it’s hard to narrow it down, isn’t it? For now, we’ve pressured the Hero Encyclopedia to hurry up and list its appearance and traits, but...”
Monster hunter.
That was the nickname attached to that lizard monster.
It was a freak that hunted down and devoured every monster it could see, and unusually, the nickname had been given not by humans but by monsters themselves.
One might even say such a monster would be useful.
But for the executives who already knew its track record, that was impossible.
It had brutally murdered a hero and then eaten them.
And it had done so when it was only low-rank.
At the time, more than half the executives, unwilling to be humiliated, had decided to cover it up.
There were certainly some who objected out of conscience, but the ones who chose to hide it were in the majority.
The problem started there.
Since it was only low-rank, they thought it would either be taken down by heroes or die in the chaos caused by even more vicious monsters.
But then came the surprise.
In just about two weeks, that low-rank creature had become high-rank.
It had overwhelmingly crushed three A-Class heroes it encountered, and in the process, for reasons no one could understand, it had even used the [Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist] of Silver Fang, the S-Class hero ranked third.
Then, to make matters worse, it had challenged an even higher high-rank monster that had already overwhelming defeated two S-Class heroes in a duel and won.
In other words.
“So it’s still growing now... is that what you’re saying?”
“Yes. Even as we speak...”
The difference between low-rank and the uppermost high-rank was enormous.
It was the difference between heaven and earth.
No, maybe even that was not enough to describe it.
For a monster to close that kind of gap in one leap was... not impossible.
There were cases where excessive stress, medication, or changes in diet caused rapid growth and rampages.
There was precedent for that. Rare, but it existed.
Still, there were clear limits.
At the very least, there had never been a case of a low-rank monster becoming dragon-level.
More importantly, monsters that became explosively stronger because of such factors rarely continued to grow easily afterward.
And yet...
“According to the research results, its growth is different from that. It seems to get stronger the more monsters it hunts and eats. In other words, unlike those that grow explosively over a short period... this one is fast, but also continuous.”
“That means...”
“...if we leave that thing alone like this, someday...”
Dragon-level.
It might eventually rise to the pinnacle of disaster levels.
No. If left alone like this, it would definitely do so.
That was what it meant.
“...How long until that prediction comes true?”
“At most four weeks. If it’s fast... it could be within two weeks. That’s what I was told.”
“Damn it...”
It was already uppermost high-rank.
It had surpassed the S-Class hero ranked 16th, Genos, and the S-Class hero ranked 17th, Tanktop Prisoner.
That was proven when it defeated and devoured the high-rank monster Sea King in a duel, something even those two could not do.
And now they were saying that thing would grow even stronger, enough to become dragon-level?
Even if high-rank and dragon-level were the top and bottom of their respective tiers, the gap between them was still enormous.
Just the possibility that the gap might close someday, that it might cross that wall, was already a threat.
No casualties had been discovered after Gogmuboots, but there was no telling when another would appear.
“And why does it have to be that bastard of all things...”
What had once been reported as high-rank to hide their shame had become true.
And now it was about to become a disaster that surpassed even that.
Even if they revealed now that the creature kept growing, all it would do was damage the Association’s image and destroy their credibility.
Nothing else would change.
So the cover-up would continue.
At least the S-Class heroes had been told some altered version of the truth.
In the end, all they could do now was urge the S-Class heroes searching for it to hurry.
Of course.
Not a single person there was trying to analyze exactly what path that monster had taken in J City.
And even less did anyone think it might have changed into a different form.
Several hours passed before I had adapted to the changed muscles enough to move my body somewhat normally.
Compared to before, it was clearly much faster.
That was only natural, since this time I wasn’t going in blind like before and I already knew what to do.
Still, it would take a little more time before I could use this body close to perfectly.
For that, the fastest way to adapt was still combat, I decided.
Since I was in a forest anyway, I started searching for a monster I could hunt and eat.
In theory, it was flawless.
And yet, if there was one problem in the process...
“............Why aren’t there any at all?”
Before long, I found and ate exactly one.
The problem started after that.
I couldn’t see even a single low-rank monster, the most common kind.
Surely mountains like this were always crawling with monsters.
It had been the same in City A, where strong nocturnal monsters hid, and in N City, where monsters had been slaughtered en masse, from low-rank to wolf.
...Was it possible that mountains were supposed to be full of monsters in the first place? The thought began to nag at me.
Unlike usual, when monsters were scattered everywhere I went, I searched from the treetops to the insides of caves and still found nothing.
“Why...?”
...It wasn’t as if they had never been here.
There were plenty of traces showing monsters had lived here until not long ago.
Claw marks that no ordinary wild animal could have made proved it.
The most likely explanation was that they had all left together for somewhere else... but I didn’t know why.
“......I guess there’s no helping it.”
I remembered a rumor I had naturally heard while carrying out a massacre in N City’s mountains before.
There was supposedly a place somewhere in Z City where monsters gathered and plotted something.
The fact that there were many monsters there was certainly appealing.
The fact that it was a ghost town, meaning I’d almost never run into humans, was also tempting.
And yet, the reason I hadn’t gone there was clear.
First, at the time there had been plenty of monsters to eat, so I hadn’t felt any need to go out of my way.
It was also to avoid the uncertain things that might happen along the way because of the distance.
On top of that, I had been reluctant because of the rumor that elite monsters there were plotting something.
I had no idea whether those elites were high-rank or dragon-level.
Still, the biggest reason was this.
There was something in Z City even more terrifying than the so-called elite monsters.
Because of that one thing, I had heard that both humans and monsters feared Z City.
They wouldn’t fear it for no reason.
It meant there was almost certainly at least one monster there on the level of Vaccine Man...
“..................”
...Well, still.
I’d have to go eventually.
Someday, I would have to face dragon-level.
If I wanted to take another step forward, then someday...
“.........Haa.”
Still.
Fear was fear.
I knew that myself.
I was afraid of dragon-level beings.
The mere thought that there might be multiple monsters as strong as Vaccine Man felt like a nightmare.
I didn’t want to go.
I was scared.
Just thinking about it gave me chills.
But.
It couldn’t be helped.
If I couldn’t overcome it.
If I couldn’t stand back up.
If I couldn’t face it directly.
There was no way I could move forward.
Comments (0)
Please log in to leave a comment. Login or Register