“Why are there so many damn bears here?” Gaius muttered crossly. Isabelle was protecting Nakama, so it was down to the little boy to carve a path, through what looked like a horde of angry bears. His arms weren’t moving much, just enough to create lethal or fatal wounds against every single furious grizzly that was rushing him.

But these monsters didn’t really worry him. What worried him was the growing pain he felt as he moved the Terminus and a small knife in his left hand around, despite the fact that he was already under painkillers. Every time his blades met resistance, pain would flare in some distant corner of his mind, growing closer and closer every time.

The ninth bear-like monster fell as Gaius clambered up its body and skewered its throat. His body rose and fell as Gaius inhaled and exhaled strongly, and after a moment’s rest, he kicked at the lifeless head of the bear and launched himself backwards, stowing his blades in the few heartbeats that he was in midair.

The Moonshot and a Straight Shot appeared in his arms as the boy seemingly defied gravity, his body shooting towards the skies, stabilising when he was around four metres away from the ground. Below him, Isabelle was fending off two monsters, a rapier in one hand and a Straight Shot in the other. One of them fell over as she sent the rapier thrusting through its throat, the other hand operating the Straight Shot to prevent the second monster from coming closer.

Monster after monster staggered and toppled over as Gaius began to fire in earnest. From the vantage point he currently occupied, he could see that there were barely over twenty such monsters left — it wasn’t by any means an impossible amount for the three of them. The Straight Shot in his hand emptied out rapidly, and Gaius dropped it to withdraw another from his cloak.

There were enough of these stick-like artefacts stuffed in his cloak that Gaius wasn’t too worried. In his mind, the boy could hear drums beating in rhythm to his shots, and as he stabilized his position, the bear-like monsters fell with mechanical precision, blood leaking from their heads.

Come! A blade of energy erupted from his body as the word flashed through his mind, the ability he’d absorbed from one of the nameless Engines Gaius called Dragoon. It spun around the airborne boy, before slicing downwards towards the handful of monsters left. Air hissed, so loud that Isabelle and the bear monster she was fighting turned to search for the source of the sound as it cleaved through a bear directly, bisecting it and swooping back upwards in triumph.

The sight of a monster being sliced into two, coupled with the grievous casualties, had sent fear into the survivors, and under Gaius’ nonchalant expression, they began to flee. The cloak on his back danced dramatically for a few more seconds as the monsters fled, before Gaius descended from the air.

“Imposing as usual, Master Gaius,” said the wooden sculpture, who was sitting on Nakama’s shoulder. The little girl was, surprisingly enough, not scared of what amounted to be a massacre of natural wildfire under any other circumstance, and as Gaius drew close, he could see her trying to imitate the quick strikes he’d used earlier on.

He smiled to himself, and then turned his attention back to Nexus. “Gotta scare the others away, right? And I needed some warmup too.”

Gaius grimaced as he picked up the Straight Shot he’d discarded earlier. Thankfully, he’d remembered that he had more ways to attack, other than using his blades, but just dispatching a few monsters with minimal movements had left his insides churning with pain. He straightened his face as he bent back up, ensuring that no one but him would know his discomfort, but his eyes narrowed slightly as a band of men and women came running towards their directions.

“Incoming,” intoned Nexus. “They don’t seem to be hostile, though. I mean, anyone with a working set of eyes would know that our little group just dispatched an entire horde of monsters.”

“True,” said Gaius. “I sense a business opportunity, rather. Maybe we can sell these monsters, instead of leaving them in the wild to rot.”

After a moment or so, the leading man at front ran over to Gaius, his eyes alight, before ignoring him to make his way towards Isabelle instead. “Ma’am, we would like to purchase these monsters from you!”

Seconds after he spat those words out, the people trailing behind him caught up. “We’ll offer a higher price! My village needs food more than his!”

“Scram, this young lord needs some Giant Bears for his city!” Another man, this time in opulent clothes, panted out. His retainers followed suit, but they were in far better condition than the young man trying to catch his breath. As for why Gaius could immediately identify them as part of the same group…well, they were wearing the same set of robes.

These robes looked like a blend of Japanese kimonos and Chinese traditional clothing, which was aesthetically pleasing if nothing else. On their back — or at least, on the man who had called himself a young lord — was a single Chinese…or Japanese Kanji character. Gaius couldn’t tell, and it was a bad idea to apply racial stereotypes in the first place.

Isabelle glanced at Gaius, who nodded back, and after receiving his permission, she said, “There’s more than enough for everyone here, so there’s no need to fight. I don’t think any of you can carry over twenty of these guys back anyway.”

Everyone else looked at each other, and then nodded reluctantly.

“Alright,” said Gaius, “what’s all this about? Why is everyone so uptight about food? There’s so many monsters around this place anyway, if this encounter is any indication. Go kill some, and you’ll be done.”

“They’re monsters, boy.” The self-proclaimed young lord replied, his voice full of assurance, and then blinked twice. “You lot aren’t from around here, are you? Especially that girl with the golden hair.”

“No,” said Isabelle, “we came from the South.”

“As I expected.” The young man glanced at the bodies lying around. “Well, you Southerners are supposedly masters at fighting, so getting food by killing monsters doesn’t seem hard to you lot, eh?”

“Oh?” Isabelle narrowed her eyes, and Gaius could see the curious side of her taking over. “What happened?”

“It’s a long story. Can we get those monster corpses settled first?” replied the man. “We want to get them into storage as quickly as possible, after all.”

Isabelle glanced at Gaius, who nodded imperceptibly, before agreeing to his arrangement. Like bees, the men and women assembled began divvying up the spoils in complete harmony, after paying Isabelle her due compensation.

As for Gaius, he plopped himself onto the grass underneath him, and waited. There was probably something he could use from the events here…