Chapter 26: The Remains

(The cat my girlfriend sculpted..)

Though it was only a simple statement, and though the one he had confided in was not even human, but a Felyne, Oran suddenly felt much better, as if he had finally found an outlet for the emotions that had been building inside him. Until then, loneliness had nearly swallowed him whole.

Buckthorn’s ears, which had been standing sharply upright, drooped.

With a faint smile, Oran reached out and ruffled the little Felyne’s head. “Thank you for worrying about me. I’m fine now, truly. But before we begin the hunt, could you accompany me somewhere?”

“Of course, meow.” Buckthorn nodded vigorously. “No one else is watching us here, so if you feel bad, it’s all right to cry, meow!”

“No need.” The numbness on Oran’s face had gradually settled into calm. “It wouldn’t be right to come back and see everyone after all these years with a long face. Come with me.”

They walked slowly onward, circling the great lake that was on the verge of drying up completely.

Suddenly, Oran stopped and went toward a cluster of long-dead reeds. A few weathered bones lay scattered around the withered grass—human bones.

Buckthorn glanced nervously at Oran. Those bones might belong to one of his relatives, or perhaps a friend.

Oran crouched beside the remains and reached out to touch them gently.

Many bite marks still marred the bones. That was hardly strange. In this resource-starved desert, it would have been far more unusual to find an intact skeleton.

Buckthorn had assumed Oran would gather up the remains, but he did not. After rubbing them for a while, he simply rose and continued forward.

Buckthorn quickened his pace to catch up. “Aren’t we going to bury them, meow? We have plenty of time and supplies, meow. There’s no need to hurry so much, meow.”

“No need.” Oran’s voice was so calm that it frightened Buckthorn a little. “Bodies buried in the sand will only be dug up and eaten by wild beasts, while cremation would disrupt nature’s cycle. Desert nomads have no custom of funerals. We are born in the wilderness, and so we should return to it in death. Death deserves sorrow and remembrance, but there is no need to pour too much feeling into the remains.”

“...As long as you can accept it, meow.”

As they continued on, they came across scattered fragments of bone every so often.

Oran had said there was no need to invest emotion in the dead, yet whenever he saw a bone, he would stop and touch it, stroking each one before moving on.

Then they came upon an especially enormous skeleton.

It was clearly the skeleton of some great monster. Its gigantic skull, large enough to resemble a small house, still bore a pair of curved horns.

“What... what is this, meow? A Diablos?” Buckthorn stammered. “Was this the culprit, meow?”

Oran came to the overturned skull and patted the pair of pale, withered, yet still imposing horns. “No. This is the skeleton of a Tail-Axe Dragon. It was once the guardian deity of this oasis. Back then, everyone called it ‘Big Guy.’

“As for the monster that caused all this... To be honest, I’d like to know where it went too. But...”

Oran’s gaze swept across the surroundings. Between the dead grass and the ruins of the village, faint yellow-brown shapes could be seen lurking in silence, creeping slowly closer.

“They may not be the same ones from back then, but since you’re the ones occupying this place now, I doubt you’ll complain if I take out my anger on you.”

Oran tightened the straps of his shield, then drew the hunter’s knife from behind him. Its blade gleamed with a cold light.

Perhaps realizing that their prey had discovered them, the desert bandits lurking in the shadows stopped hiding. Growling low, they emerged from among the dead grass and ruins, slowly closing in from all sides.

“One, two... five Genprey, meow?!” Buckthorn’s voice trembled. “Isn’t that too many, meow? We should retreat at once, meow! It would be better to split them up and take them down one by one, meow!”

Before Oran could reply, two of the Genprey sprang forward, screeching as they accelerated toward him.

“We can’t get away. Protect yourself.”

After glancing back and leaving him with those words, Oran charged straight at the fastest Genprey.

The creature clearly had not expected a prey animal of such ordinary size and presence to launch a counterattack so decisively.

In the blink of an eye, Oran was already before it.

Genprey dared to attack large monsters when fighting in groups, so there was no chance it would be intimidated by the prey in front of it. Without hesitation, it opened its bloody maw and raised its slender forelimbs, each tipped with sharp claws, then lunged forward to tear him apart.

At the instant before impact, Oran shifted his footing, turned sideways, and raised his shield. The attack glanced off, deflected to the side. In the same motion, he swung the hunter’s knife in his left hand.

Reforged and reinforced with a large quantity of high-quality ore, the hunter’s knife was far more destructive than it had been in its original state several months earlier.

The blade sliced effortlessly through the Genprey’s windpipe and carotid artery. Its hind legs suddenly weakened, and the creature toppled to the ground in a rolling heap.

It did not die at once, but it clearly had little time left.

Oran had eliminated one opponent with astonishing speed, yet the situation had hardly improved. The second Genprey was already only a few yards away, preparing to leap at him, while the others were closing in from the sides.

Worried that Oran would be attacked from both front and rear, Buckthorn drew his Felyne sword as well and charged forward through gritted teeth, hoping to share the burden.

But at that moment, Oran’s movements abruptly changed. The man who had seemed ready to fight to the death lowered his weapon and kicked off the ground, retreating at incredible speed. He moved so decisively that Buckthorn barely had time to react and almost collided with his back.

The second Genprey leaped and missed. It shook its head, then continued the pursuit.

By then, Oran had retreated to the Tail-Axe Dragon’s remains. He leaned back against one of its enormous ribs, a bone as thick as a person and three or four yards high, resembling a pillar supporting a house.

When the prey stopped retreating, the Genprey lunged without hesitation.

Oran remained where he was, as though stunned, until the instant its hooked fangs, dripping with paralytic venom, were about to touch him. Then he suddenly spun and slipped behind the rib.

With a heavy crash, the impatient Genprey slammed headfirst into the bone. Several of its fangs shattered on impact.

Oran’s feet moved in a rapid, intricate pattern. While the Genprey reeled, dazed from striking the skeleton, he had already circled back out from behind the rib.

He raised his hand and drove the blade beneath the Genprey’s forelimb, slipping past the bones and plunging straight into its chest.

Twisting the hilt, he crushed the creature’s heart, then pulled out the hunting knife. The second Genprey collapsed beside the remains, becoming a lifeless corpse.

Buckthorn finally understood.

Oran had not lost his reason, as he had feared. On the contrary, he was utterly calm.

On open ground, facing five Genprey at once would indeed have been dangerous.

But with his back against cover, familiar with the Genprey’s attacking habits and relying on his own nimble footwork, he had far more room to maneuver.

And where could better cover be found than the Tail-Axe Dragon’s skeleton?

After years of being gnawed by scavengers, along with rot and weathering, all the flesh had vanished from the bones. Yet the ribs and spine, the skeleton’s main structure, remained largely intact.

The gaps between the ribs were only about a person’s width. A hunter could pass through them easily by turning sideways.

Genprey were slender enough to force their way through, but because of their body structure, they could not turn around while moving between the ribs.

That made it impossible for them to bite a nimble hunter or Felyne.

The battle became nothing more than one-sided amusement. In a matter of seconds, the remaining three Genprey had fallen beside the Tail-Axe Dragon’s remains.

Flowing blood stained the withered bones.