Monster Hunting

Author’s Note: **** means a change in pov. Other than that, enjoy the chapter. Reviews, comments and suggestions are appreciated.

I wandered deeper into the forest.

While I wasn’t that far from the edge (rather, I was still at shouting distance from the group at the clearing), I still had to stop and pause for a minute. I had ceased to appreciate wildlife and just nature in general when I entered the hikikomori lifestyle, but here and now, amidst all its glory, I could more or less understand the fervor some wildlife enthusiasts had.

Although the bugs were pesky and the humidity of the forest irritated me, at least the scenery was something pleasant to the eyes.

As I ventured further, taking in the environment , my attention was eventually taken by the wildlife. I took in my surroundings, momentarily forgetting about the Entrance exam.

The forest was immense to say the least. It was huge beyond comparison. Even from the school, you could already tell that the topiary of Setohanda Park was much larger than average. From up close, I could completely appreciate their size. The trunk of the trees were thick and wider than the arm span of 4 grown men. It was also covered in thick, rigid bark colored in a murky shade of brown.

I tried touching some of the bark and felt its rough surface press against the skin of my finger. I pictured this would have been what Miss Jumblee’s wrinkly skin felt like. I had a small chuckle over this thought.

I continued observing the forest. The duff layer, which contained dead branches and leaves was rather dark. Aside from the fact that the ground was originally a layer of brown covered in more brown, a large reason for its darkness was the dimness of the whole forest. This was most likely due to the shade created by the canopies above. They denied all entry of sunlight, keeping the forest dark.

Although they failed to do anything substantial to the humidity.

As I lazily surveyed the surroundings, I remembered exactly why I was in here in the first place. Thus I began looking for any beasts. But after a minute, or so and despite my apparent effort (hah), I couldn’t find a single monster or magical being.

“Well, that’s to be expected, I’m still near the edge of the forest after all. No sensible beast would wander so close to human civilization.”

I shrugged of my concern, and forged ahead. Eventually I’d stumble upon one right?

*****

A crouched figure observed the curious young man from a distance.

It had stumbled upon Kelp’s presence not a minute after he had entered the forest. Out of curiosity, and due to a faded memory of a past event, the beast had decided to lurk around for a bit and quietly watch over the young man as he took in his surroundings with wide eyes and an awe filled expression.

It followed Kelp from a distance, relying on its Hawk-like vision, a misleading characteristic despite its appearance, to maintain an observable, yet undetectable range. Its 4 legs made virtually no sound, as a lifetime of experience went into erasing its very presence.

It moved when Kelp moved, it ducked when Kelp scanned the shrubs, and it quietly observed as Kelp progressed in his exam.

Like this, the mysterious creature continued to follow the equally as mysterious young man.

*****

One hour later….and I still couldn’t find one.

At this point I was now a bit concerned. I frantically searched the forest. Shaking the underbrush, climbing some of the trees in order to acquire a higher vantage point, and at one point, I thought maybe yelling at the top of my lungs would help attract some attention. But even with all this, the results were….dismal.

“None….NONE!!!!

Where the heck are those damn monsters!”

I slumped down on a wooden log. My dejected expression filled my face. Not only was I tired, hungry, and itchy, all my hard work and physical exercise had resulted in failure.

My frantic searching might seem out of place, considering my usual attitude, especially to anything magic related, but there was one thing driving me: fear. More precisely, fear of my parents. I shudder to think what that crazy couple would do once they found out their son got expelled even before school officially started. Whatever it was they’d do, it surely wasn’t going to be anything pleasant, and it was practically guaranteed that I kiss my internet goodbye for good.

With a shiver, I got up and once again continued my search. Pushed by fear and strengthened by resolve, I determined to get this exam done.

Right now my only option was to head even deeper into the forest. Since the map wasn’t exactly of any real use right now (since I had no real specific destination), and I can’t use the monster catalog if I can’t at least find one, I was practically on my own.

Now, if I were one of the other students who could actually use magic, I would have had immensely better luck with this exam.

Some of magic’s most practical and greatest attributes was it’s almost omniscient presence and the fact that mana came in different variations. For instance, magic that just took up empty space, much like atoms, filled the air all around. This type of magic was different from magic found in solid objects like the ground, or in rocks. Similarly magic found in water also looked different to the trained eye. Aside from the obvious separation of objects naturally containing magic and objects that don’t naturally contain magic, this mana variation can be further separated between non-living things and living things. The quality and overall “look” of mana emanated from humans and the like were vastly different. And to an even deeper degree, mana or as what some theorists call it, aura, was different for each species, heck, it was even different for each individual.

A magic user can theoretically detect the magical aura emitting from any living thing. Of course there’s a limit to this, if a person learned to hide their presence or if a magical being with the natural ability of [hide] were to show up, then in all likelihood, a regular magician could not detect them.

I’m not sure how, but this logic follows the same logic as to why regular magicians cannot detect the magic that’s always present in their surroundings. Like the theory of choice blindness. Althouhg if they could take up such a swath of information, then detecting a monster, which has no magical ability would be as easy as detecting a magical being.

They’d just have to find the pocket of nothingness.

But its very rare for someone to be able to do that, rather, I think it might be impossible. But the lesser degree of detection, which only applies to living things is readily accessible.

Now this practice is quite common among today’s wizards, so when the directors thought up this exam, they more than likely though it up with the mindset that the students would use that [trace] skill to quickly find the magical beings.

“So I’m guessing nobody else is having as much trouble with finding monsters huh….”

Plus, the fact that I can’t even find one is suspicious in itself.

Even if this is a big area, there’s bound to be at least one of them around here somewhere.

With such a suspicion weighing down on my shoulder, I once again, continued to aimlessly search for the beasts. Well at this point, it’s now more like exploring the forest and hope an idiot creature’s dumb enough to show itself.

****

The beast continued its quiet observation.

It was curious about the franticness in which Kelp expressed and at the time when Kelp had yelled, the beast had been startled, causing it to jump high into the air, almost revealing his presence to the boy.

But nevertheless, it went undetected and continued following the lad.

The beast quickly noted that the man was looking for prey. Despite the man’s outward appearance, he also noticed that this individual had particularly sharp senses. If any beast other than himself was nearby, they would have been discovered within in an instant. Infact even the beast himself had a few cold sweats due to this man’s incredible perception. At one point he had been forced to rely on his natural skill, [hide] in order to escape from the man’s tenacity/

Although the Beast knew this man’s search was futile. After all, he had personally hunted everything within the vicinity. And by vicinity, the beast had hunted everything within a 1 km radius. Well, everything except one specific exception. But just the thought of that sent shivers down the formidable beast’s back.

As the young man continued, the beasts ears twitched. The boy was nearing its territory. On normal occasions, it would have rampaged through the forest, shooting out of the underbrush before ramming into any would be trespassers, yet now, it did not want to do so.

It did not want to interfere with the boys perseverance. It wanted to see fully what the boy would do in this forest the beast had laid claim to almost 4 months back. But most of all, the beast felt a sort of gravitation towards the boy. A mix of kinship and obedience.

Thus a faint sheen could be seen as the beast waved its three- pronged protrusions in the air and continued to observe the boy quietly once again.

****

It’s been 30 minutes since last time and I’ve yet to find a single creature. Although I did find something rather interesting.

I stumbled upon a clearing. It was odd, mostly because the trees, which should have obviously been there, were rooted out, and they were obviously extracted by something extremely powerful.

The ground around the clearing was patted down, most likely by heavy footsteps, but I couldn’t find any residual foot prints or tracks of whatever monster that used to be here, the rain and weather had since long washed it out.

Well, scarlet rain to be precise.

I thought to myself as I stumbled upon specks of dried blood around the clearing.

Now, what was interesting wasn’t the clearing itself, but rather, what I found in the clearing. A small cave, probably no wider than my wing span. Well, rather than a cave, it was more like a hole in the ground. Nevertheless, The Cave was in the exact center of the clearing, and the entrance, from what I could tell, was smeared heavily with blood, more so than the ground. Traces of red residue still remained after all.

I timidly approach the entrance to the cave. Peering into it, I could see that the walls were quite solid, and as far as my limited knowledge on caves goes, I didn’t think it would collapse at any time soon. The cave also seemed to go deep underground, with no visual end from my perspective.

I decided to go into the cave. I had nothing better to do on the surface, and I might have better luck inside, rather than out here.

With that conviction, I entered the cave.

…..

…..

The cave really did go far. Rather, it went a bit too far.

The cave itself was more like a pathway, rather than an actual cave. The walls were rugged and scratched, as if an animal had purposely dug itself deeper into the ground. Although the floor had an even footing which only gradually descended into the earth.Like a tiny hallway, it guided me deeper into the depths of the unknown. It was also very dark in here.

With no other light source, I could only rely on what little light that seeped in from the entrance, and even that wasn’t very helpful. Eventually the light stopped reaching me, so I had to rely on the light from my Smart phone. But the LED glare was less than helpful, not to mention I was an idiot yesterday and completely forgot to charge it, so at best, I had probably 7 minutes of light.

There was also another issue. The deeper I went, the hotter it became. Now, like I’ve said before, I don’t know much about caves, but I doubt it gets hotter like that. Or at the very least, I doubt it gets this hot this fast. It was like I was entering an oven whose temperature was slowly rising. Well bad metaphor, more like an oven whose temperature was slowly rising rapidly. (if that makes sense)

Nevertheless, I continued, ignoring the dark and the heat.

Eventually, after ten more minutes of walking blindly and sweating profusely, there was a difference in the cave. Farther ahead of me was a faint red glow, reminiscent of last night’s forest, but this one was a bit more….carnal, in a sense.

As I approached it, hot in fact, that I was getting a bit light headed. Thankfully the gradual build up of the exposure to the heat, sort of made me withstand it the temperature better.

The cave eventually opened up into an open cavern. The space was circular, sort of like a giant dome or stadium. From what I could tell, it was probably as big as a football field, maybe double that, and there were no other openings that I could see from here. This meant I had reached the end of this stupid cave. And that the only other entrance from here was from where I came from.

While I surveyed the location, I quickly noticed that there were infact two light sources. The first one I noticed was from a body of water near the right side of the cavern. This was probably one of those underground pockets of water or a body of water that connected to a bigger lake or river from the outside.

The light that was reflected from the water was coming from the rocks within the water. These rocks were shaped like stalagmites, and glowed a faint hue of green. The rocks were all over the shallow areas of the water and on the shore as well. From what I could guess, there were probably more the deeper you went into the lake.

The rocks themselves only glowed when they were inside the lake. The ones on its shore stayed unlit. This caused me to guess that instead of magic, it might have been just a reaction the rock had to whatever particles were in the water.

The other light source was a bit more amazing. The light from this was more of the overpowering red I saw from the passageway earlier. This one pulsated, as if in sync with the beating of a heart. And as I looked closer, I found out that I wasn’t to far off.

The light was emanating from a beast. A rather large one in fact. If I had to say, it probably took up about a quarter of the total area within this large cavern. There was no way in hell that thing could have possibly squeezed through the entrance I had recently come through, it probably came from the body of water over there. This once again confirmed my theory that the lake was connected somehow to the outside.

Upon closer inspection, I found that the beast was lying on it’s back, sleeping. The glowing was coming from it’s exposed stomach. Other than that, I couldn’t see much of it, since from my vantage point I could only see a spiked tail, a scaly leg, and it’s glowing belly.

Despite this though, it emanated an incredibly fierce aura. Although I say aura, I didn’t mean the magical kind (since I obviously can’t perceive magic). More like killing intent. Most normal people would have probably cowered in fear by now, but I’m not like most people.

I quickly hid behind a giant boulder near the entrance. Lucky for me, the beast was still sleeping. And even luckier, I finally found a monster to slay. My eyes shined in anticipation.

I quickly scrambled for the Monster catalog.

“Um, let’s see…..what type of beast is this hmm….”

I mumbled quietly to myself while scanning the list of monsters in my hand. I would occasionally peek at the thing to make sure it wasn’t moving just yet.

After a minute or so of this, I decided I needed a better vantage point of the thing in order to properly identify what type of beast it was, and whether it was a monster or a magical being (since I couldn’t differentiate like normal magicians).

After all, it was important to know how many points I would be getting. This exam was kinda similar to some of the rpgs I used to play, so the game-like scenario awakened a little something in me. Like a young adventurer, I had stumbled upon a hidden boss. This setting excited me.

Plus, even if I don’t care much for the results, It’s still a bit embarrassing to come back empty handed.

Quietly sneaking around the edges of the walls, I made my way near the southern portion of the cavern, where I quickly found another boulder to hide behind. From my new vantage point, I could now see the majority of the beast in front of me.

It was massive, probably the size of two school buses. It had red scales around all over it’s body with the exception of its tail. The scales broke off near the base of the appendage, revealing a tuna white complexion of raw skin. The skin both looked smooth, slimy, yet somehow scarred. At the end of the tail, was another set of scales, this time in a different color. The end of the tail was colored a coalition of hues, resembling a rainbow pattern.

I moved my gaze from the bottom, to the top.

I saw webbed feet attached to a muscular lower body, that looked like it was built for swimming. Above that, was it’s yellowish stomach. Similar to the tail, the stomach was not scaled. Much like a crocodile, the stomach was exposed and glowed a faint red which pulsated with the tempo of a heart. The upper body was as muscular as the lower body, with the same set of heavily muscular limbs followed by webbed hands.

The head of the creature was scaled and shaped like a western dragon, with black fins protruding from the side of it’s head. It had a two small bumps on its forehead and on the sides of its long neck, were gills, like those seen in sharks or fish.

Overall, the thing looked like a cross between a fish and a crocodile.

As I continued to stare, I was satisfied with the fact that it wasn’t moving or showing any signs of getting up anytime soon, well, aside from the occasional snort and wiggling of its nostril.

I eventually went back to trying to compare the creature with the catalog. While doing this I would occasionally look up at the creature, which by now I’ve lovingly nicknamed snapper head (due to the shape of its jaw). Most of the time I saw the creature, it would wiggle its snout. It was a weird gesture that got me wondering whether the thing had something up its nose.

….

…..

“Oh crap..”

I eventually realized why it was moving its nose around so much, but by then it was already too late.

The creature lazily opened its eyes and as if it already knew my location, it automatically turned its head to my direction. Its gigantic yellow eyes glared at me with as much intensity as Professor Kiryat.

“Geh..like I thought..”

Snapper Head’s eyes were glazed, yet its snout continued to sniff the air. I had realized the creature had found out about my presence using its sense of smell. This quickly became evident as the intensity and amount of times it would wiggle its nose grew as time passed.

How can it smell me out when this whole room stinks of dead fish!?

I rudely commented my displeasure within my mind.

Well one good thing about being found out was that I at least determined that it was a monster. Since the majority of monsters relied on their senses to hunt.

Snapper Head sluggishly rose from its slumber, shaking the cavern with it. Particles of broken ceiling came down, and I braced myself against the stone.

I grimaced, I had decided not to judge the thing’s rank merely by size, since I’ve read about extremely large creatures with relatively low levels, but seeing Snapper Head in its full glory, I knew this thing was way beyond Rank B.

“This must have been that Rank AAA they were talking about earlier….”

I mumbled to myself as I collected the catalog and stuffed it into my pack behind me.

As I did this, the thing unleashed a low and guttural growl. It was warning me not to move.

I froze and stared back at the thing.

We had a silent stand off as each of us predicted, anticipated and tried to bait out the other to take action.

“....”

“....”

“.....”

I moved.

*****

The beast jumped at the roar that came from deep within the cave.

It had fought the monster that resided within its depths numerous times, yet in every scrap, he had come out defeated.

Even if the beast had been called the strongest within the forest, he still could not match the monster in a blow for blow battle. His rank AAA strength was useless against something far superior to its own, and in almost every conflict, the tusked beast had come back with barely a sliver of his life,its tail between its legs and its shiny brown pelt stained with its own blood.

Seeing as the beast was rather dull, it could not strategize properly, even with all the losses engraved in its body through injury, its battle driven mind could only think to try again with the exact same method, and such methods always resulted in the same outcome.

As a result of the beast’s tenacity, it had cleared the surrounding trees near the entrance as a warning to the fellow creatures within the forest. It did not want anybody challenging its “prey”. Although from an outsiders perspective, such a term was poorly used, since the one who fit the role of prey was the beast, not the creature below the depths.

But despite its efforts, due to a moment’s carelessness, he had allowed the human boy to pass through. He had intended to follow, but for some reason the beast could not muster up the strenght to enter the cave.

Was this due to the fact that it was still injured? Even with the beast’s enhanced regenerative skill, it still took about a week to fully heal from its injuries, and its last fight was a mere two days ago. Or was the reason due to a mental trauma it had unconsciously developed over the course of its repeated thrashings at the hands of a superior enemy?

It did not know. The beast wasn’t very good at thinking.

The reverberating roar had shocked the beast back into its senses. He glared through the pitch black darkness of the entrance before letting out a roar of its own, one that would not lose in volume to the creature below.

The beast stomped its feet heavily on the ground, causing cracks to appear on the surface before it stampeded down into the depths.

Timmy the Boar was now entering the fray.

****

As I dashed from one boulder to another, Snapper Head’s tail flickered for a moment, and the boulder I had previously taken shelter behind had been splintered into little pebbles.

The creature roared once more, seemingly angry that I had predicted it would attack me.

GRAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHH

“tch, crazy strong fellow aren’t you…”

I sighed under my breathe.

It’s one tail smash had left a deep gash in the limestone. Not only was it strong, it was also incredibly fast, completely dodging that’s gonna be a real pain.

But even before I could catch my breath and prepare myself, its rainbow colored tail once again moved. The creature’s tail was aimed at my head this time and like a missile it shot out at me, except its speed was undoubtedly far greater than one.

Luckily, I was already moving way before it had decided to attack me a second time, so the tail hit nothing but lime stone.

I rolled over once again behind a boulder.

“Fuu….crap, this thing is seriously crazy! Is it really not in this book?”

I frantically skimmed the thin book, passing names I knew next to nothing about. If it weren’t for the pictures next to the name of each monster, I would have never known what was what. As I looked over the book, I could not find anything. The only creatures present in this catalog were B+ monsters or below, and undoubtedly this thing was far stronger than some run of the mill B class.

Finally towards the end of the book, was a final page filled with hand-written information. The handwriting was stained and sloppy, but the top clearly labeled, “AAA Class Monster - Info”

I expressed a faint smile before letting out a relieved sigh.

Since this entry was hand written, there was no convenient picture for comparison, so I quickly began reading the page.

Let’s see…..the AAA class ranked monster that resides within the forest is…..wait, a BOAR!?

Before I could express my incredulity, the tail once again smashed into the boulder. Due to my shock and carelessness, I was sent flying by the impact of the tail.

I crashed heavily into the limestone wall, causing it to crack under the impact.

GRAAOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH

Snapper Head roared once again, smacking its tail against the ground in an act of happiness. This action caused the cavern to once again shake violently.

“......”

“.....”

“*cough*..”

Dust and debris were congregating in front of me. Currently I was embedded into the wall, still holding on to the monster catalog, which by now was ripped and torn to shreds.

“.....Ah, screw it..”

I dropped the book, letting it fall to the ground.

“....I don’t care how strong you are…” I silently muttered to myself.

“Or what type of monster you are.”

I pulled myself out from the wall, bringing with me a few more pieces of debris, which promptly fell to the floor.

Snapper Head, moved back, its senses now on high alert. It looked confused as to why I wasn’t dead or broken, or not able to move.

“You know, I kinda did realize it was my own fault.”

I coughed once more.

“I mean, I did invade your territory and even went as far as to disturb your nap. That was my bad.”

My joints made a crackling sound as I stood up.

“Plus, you and I aren’t so different. I can’t use magic, you can’t use magic. Plus I’ve got a pretty weird physiology, kinda like you.

honestly, in a different life, we coulda been friends.”

Despite my words I sent a glare directed towards the creature, who for the majority of my monologue, has been just standing there, glaring back.

“But that was then, this is now. You attacked me and so let me return the favor….”

I looked down at myself and saw that my new uniform was torn to shreds. Most likely by the shrapnel and sharp rocks.

Damn it, how much did this cost? Will they replace it for me..? Can I get Nanami to fix it?

I pulled my mind away from the trivialities and focused back on Snapper Head.

“...I’ll worry about all that later, for now I’ll beat this monster’s ass…”

I took a deep breath and lowered myself to a crouch. I took note of the cracking surface beneath me.

“...Cause right now, I’m seriously pissed!!!”

I pushed myself off, whooshing past the heated air. I angled myself to hit Snapper Head on the cranium, but the monster was much faster than it looked. It swiveled its head to dodge, before intercepting my charge with another hit from its tail, sending me flying once again, this time to the left cavern wall.

I was once again embedded into the wall, but I quickly pushed my self out. I released my body from the rocks, taking with me loose pebble and rock. I gripped the wall, and positioned my feet to push off from its surface, hurtling me once again at the Monster.

I rocketed towards it, only to be met with the same fate as before. Yet I did not give up, I was being an idiot right now, and a good quality idiot has to have tenacity. The routine followed with me pushing of and hurtling towards him only to be met by a smack from its rainbow colored tail.

Eventually after about a dozen more times of this, I once again pushed myself and rushed at Snapper Head, but this time I was now relatively closer to the ground. Close enough to touch it.

As the creature anticipated my arrival, it sent its tail down. I stopped my acceleration by punching downward, embedding my hand deep in to the ground. Since the Monster had over anticipated, its tail slashed only at air and struck the ground as well, embedding it in the limestone.

Using this opportunity, I quickly pulled my arm out, rushed at the monster and abruptly stopped in front of its massive stomach.

Snapper Head was too slow this time. Before it could react, I cocked my left arm back, widened my stance, and punched the thing square in the stomach. The impact sent vibrations through out its body before my punch sent it flying to the wall.

With a roar of agony, it quickly got up. The glare in its eyes intensified, it roared an even louder roar.

GRAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I cracked my neck and faced my new adversary.

“Well then Mr. Snapper Head, let’s let the real fight start eh? Although I haven’t fought in while, at least let me warn you of this, I ain’t no push over.”

As if in response to my banter. The creature quickly loosened it’s jaw. Steam began wafting out of its nostrils.

It breathed out a warning shot of pure white flame straight into the air. An act of strenght. Not one used to deliver fear, but one used to state certainty. That it would certainly try its damn hardest to kill me.

So that’s why this room is so hot. Snapper Head over there can breathe fire. Although its pretty weird, considering it looks kinda like a fish.

I commented inwardly on this peculiarity.

Well, no matter, it showed me what it can do, it’s only proper to do the same thing.

I addressed Snapperhead once again.

“Hmmm...pretty neat trick you got there. Let me show you my strength too then. The strength of a real monster.

One that can’t be attained with magic.”

I lazily brought up my arms in a fighting stance and glared at my opponent.

The battle had now started.

Chapter 4

Chapter 6