Chapter 7

Over the course of that day, Turan patrolled the area around the city and caught seven monsters in all. Each time he absorbed mana from a dead monster, a shiver of pleasure washed over him, so intense he felt he might become addicted. He almost regretted that once he had absorbed all the mana he could hold, he would no longer get to enjoy that sensation.

Of course, that visceral pleasure was not all he gained from devouring monsters. By the time he absorbed the fifth monster's power, his mana was roughly one and a half times as strong as it had been before he met Keorn. At this rate, a few months of hunting could theoretically make him dozens of times stronger than before, but...

'It won't be that easy.'

The more often one absorbed mana, the smaller the gains became, and it was difficult to grow stronger on the mana of weak monsters. Besides, hunting in one place for too long would naturally wipe out the local monsters. Hadn't he heard that powerful nobles sometimes went on pilgrimages in search of monsters worthy of them?

That was why Turan captured the two weakest monsters he found alive; their mana was not even worth absorbing. One was a squirrel whose tail was about five times thicker than those of its kind, which it used as a weapon. The other was a somewhat oversized badger whose fur changed color to match its surroundings. When he tied them up securely and brought them to city hall, the official in charge stared wide-eyed.

"Two of them?"

"Yes. I captured them unharmed, apart from a blow to the head with a stone. The combined bounty is twenty-five rum, correct?"

"Well, the thing is..."

The official trailed off, perhaps trying to pull something, but when Turan fixed him with a fierce stare, he promptly handed over the money.

"Here you are."

The pleasure of earning money like this was another discovery Turan had made since coming down from the hill. When he returned to the inn with twenty-five silver coins in his purse, the waitress welcomed him with a smile.

"Hey, young man! You're back alive and in one piece! Will you be having dinner here, too? Bread and soup again?"

Turan was about to order the cheapest dish, as he had that morning, but changed his mind. He could earn as much money as he liked anyway, so he wanted to take this opportunity to find out what made expensive food so expensive.

"Your most expensive meal, please."

The waitress's eyes widened.

"Wow, you must have made good money! I'll go tell the cook!"

What Turan had not realized was that the inn's most extravagant meal took a full hour to prepare. But the food laid out on the table made the wait worthwhile: wheat bread, soft and fragrant as though freshly baked, tart fruit jam, a whole roast chicken glazed with seasoning, and pork ribs topped with sizzling cheese...

It was a breathtaking spread for a shepherd who had spent his whole life on a barren hill eating gamey mutton and grain porridge. He lost himself in chewing and tearing into the food, and before he knew it, everything on the table had vanished.

"... No one stole any of this, did they?"

"Of course not. You're skinny, but you can really eat!"

"Haven't made that in ages. Glad you enjoyed it!"

It seemed to be a rarely ordered meal; even the cook, who apparently usually rested in the back of the kitchen, came out to offer a comment. In any case, the meal had introduced Turan to the pleasures of fine food.

* * *

By the time three days had passed, Turan had successfully hunted more than thirty monsters. Only five of them had earned him a bounty, but those alone brought in over a hundred silver coins. He exchanged some for gold to make the money easier to carry.

His improved proficiency with tracking magic had contributed to this splendid haul. After several experiments, he discovered that when his target was out of range, he could pursue it by searching for its traces. Taking the Blade Crow he had caught first as an example, he could search for the "droppings of a crow larger than a young child," then follow the trail of droppings to find the monster.

In contrast to Turan's continuing success, Midan's group seemed to be accomplishing little. They sat around looking gloomy and complaining that at this rate they would struggle even to pay for their rooms. One day, two of Midan's sworn brothers followed Turan upstairs as he went to rest, thrusting their fists at him threateningly.

"Hey, scrawny!"

"Heard you've been making a lot of money lately. Spare some charity for your fellow hunters."

Naturally, in less than a minute, Turan had beaten them soundly and sent them tumbling down the stairs. After a brief commotion, Midan heard the full story and bowed his head to Turan on their behalf.

"I'm truly sorry. I'll give those two a stern talking-to. This will never happen again..."

"Are things that difficult for you?"

Midan hesitated at the question, then answered honestly.

"Money's a little tight."

Midan and his sworn brothers had originally been thugs in a large city with a population of over a hundred thousand. Two years ago, after meeting someone who had become a wizard by killing monsters, they had left that life behind to become monster hunters. But not only was it difficult for a band of ordinary people to hunt monsters, the reality was that a corpse earned no bounty unless the creature was powerful enough to be recognizable as a monster even in death. Thus, they hunted while barely scraping by on odd jobs in various cities.

'I never imagined it took them two years to kill three.'

Then again, they were former thugs, not professional hunters, let alone wizards. How good could they be at hunting? And if they needed other work to make a living, they could hardly devote all their time to it.

After hearing their story, he could see why the official treated monster hunters like layabouts. How could people look kindly on those who staked their lives on a chance that might never amount to anything, while everyone else worked diligently?

"Honestly, in another three days or so, I don't think we'll be able to pay for our rooms. This city's too small. There aren't many odd jobs we can do. But I'm not going to ask a young fellow like you for a handout. After putting you through this, I'd have no shame asking for money..."

"Here."

Turan reached inside his clothes and handed him ten silver coins. With a little bargaining, it would be enough for four people to stay at the inn for about three days. Midan stared at him in bewilderment.

"But why?"

"Even though you were struggling, you tried to include me because you thought it was dangerous for me to travel alone. This is my thanks."

The moral code Turan had learned from his mother was simple: treat others as you wished to be treated, and repay whatever you received, whether kindness or enmity. By that measure, the goodwill Midan had shown him was easily worth a few silver coins. He had already repaid his men's misdeeds with a beating.

"Still, I'd feel bad just accepting this..."

"If you really can't accept it for nothing, give me some information. Even stories about the cities you've visited while hunting would do."

Information was something one paid for: that was a piece of common sense Turan had learned since leaving the hill. Keorn's lessons had given him a rough idea of the world's shape and where the great houses were located, but he knew little of the finer details of each region. Midan's face brightened at the suggestion.

"That's easy enough!"

Having spent two whole years traveling from city to city in search of monsters, Midan knew quite a lot. Besides drawing a simple map to other nearby cities, he even recommended monsters worth hunting there—though, of course, he meant to warn Turan away from them.

With monster sightings growing scarce around Murei, this information was quite valuable. One trip made on a vague notion that there was a city somewhere in that direction, as he had done last time, was enough.

Other accounts proved extremely useful, too: one city had ruins left by an ancient empire, while a certain wizard house forbade Wanderers from crossing its territory without permission. What particularly caught Turan's attention was a library in a relatively nearby large city.

"You're saying it has thousands of books?"

"That's what I've heard. I've never been inside myself."

Turan's mother had taught him to read and write, but he had never read a book. Naturally enough, Hisaril Hill and its surrounding villages were far too poor to own books. Sometimes his mother would lament that there were books she wanted to read to him, but she could no longer remember their contents.

As a result, Turan had built up a vague, idealized image of books as mysterious objects holding all the wisdom in the world. Yet according to Midan, the library in Orem, a city relatively close to the northeast, held over a thousand of them. And all it took to gain admission was—

"Any wizard can enter..."

"Well, once we become wizards someday, we can have a look too!"

After discovering an appetite for money and food, Turan awakened to another desire he had never known he possessed: a thirst for knowledge. Having spent his whole life on a hill, he had never realized it was there... He wanted to learn more about what sort of place this world was.

"Was that worth your money?"

"More than enough."

He had been planning to leave the city after one last day of hunting tomorrow. Now he thought he knew where he ought to go next.

* * *

Despite that pleasant conclusion, the following afternoon, on his final hunt, Turan came across one of Midan's men coughing up blood with his belly split wide open. His eyes were half-glazed; one look was enough to tell that he was unlikely to survive.

"What happened?"

"Rabbit, monster... beast..."

"Where's Midan?"

"There..."

Where he pointed, a familiar shaggy head lay rolling on the ground. Midan had died with those strangely clear eyes wide open, as though bitterly protesting his fate. Beyond him lay two more bodies, severed in two.

Finally, a rabbit the size of a cat glared at Turan with red eyes, chewing on something. Its front teeth were long enough to reach the ground, and its hind feet were grotesquely overdeveloped. As soon as it saw Turan, it charged at him as fast as an arrow.

"Urgh!"

Turan hastily threw himself aside. Unable to check its momentum, the rabbit shot past him, and astonishingly, the tree it struck collapsed with a splintering crack. More precisely, the part caught by its front teeth had been sliced clean through.

'What in the world...'

The creature looked dangerously strong, too strong to experiment on. Turan immediately resorted to his trump card: slinging stones with the sheepskin sling he always carried.

Propelled beyond the speed of sound by magic, a stone hurtled toward the rabbit. Astonishingly, it swung its long front teeth and batted the stone away. One shot, then two, then three.

Turan clicked his tongue at its absurd reflexes. It seemed he had encountered the sort of enemy Keorn had warned him about, one that physical projectiles could not defeat, sooner than expected.

[SKREE!]

The rabbit gave a bizarre, mocking cry as though asking if that was all he had, then tensed its hind feet to leap again. At that moment—

[SQUEAK?]

Turan suddenly vanished on the spot, bringing the rabbit monster to a halt. How could something disappear from right before its eyes in an instant? Acquiring mana had made the rabbit smarter, but this was beyond its understanding.

Had he fled? How? Where was he now? There wasn't even a scent to follow... As it stood motionless, puzzling over those questions, Turan approached under stealth and drove a dagger beneath its jaw.

[SKREEEEEE!]

Turan quickly twisted the dagger once, then released the hilt and flung himself backward. Had he not, the enraged rabbit's swinging teeth would probably have cut him in half. It leaped about desperately, lashing out with its teeth to strike its unseen enemy, but its enemy had already flown into the sky, still concealed.

After spending about a minute cutting down the surrounding trees, the rabbit finally collapsed, its strength spent, without finding its enemy. Only then did Turan release his stealth and descend to the ground with a sigh.

"Whew..."

He had thought he had dealt with all the strong monsters in the area. Who could have expected such a formidable enemy to appear out of nowhere? Its small size seemed to leave it somewhat lacking in defense, but its speed, offensive power, and reflexes were more threatening than those of the leopard monster he had first encountered.

He thought he might even have lost if this had happened before he met Keorn, when slinging stones was his only proper means of attack. Indeed, when he absorbed its mana, he gained far more than he had from killing the leopard.

'What rotten luck.'

There had been no creature like this among the monsters registered at city hall, so it had probably mutated recently. Midan's group had seen a rabbit that was not particularly large, assumed it would be an easy kill, and attacked carelessly, only to be wiped out. How would they feel to learn that this rabbit could have killed even a decent noble in an instant if they let their guard down?

With the situation dealt with, Turan approached the hunter whose belly had been torn open. He was still conscious and wore an appalled expression, perhaps having watched Turan fight.

"You... no, sir... a wizard..."

"Yes."

"Why..."

Explaining why he had concealed his identity would be long-winded and pointless. Turan shook his head and asked a question instead.

"Do any of the four of you have family to leave your belongings to?"

"No..."

A short while later, Turan buried the dead monster hunters in a sunny spot near the forest. Four holes in the earth were the final share allotted to those who had wanted to become wizards.