After finishing their breakfast, the Skyte hunters couldn’t help but think that the students participating in the field trip behaved exactly how they’d expected. They were sure not to show it on their faces, but the exasperation was clear as day in their hearts. The whole reason the students had been advised to put their tents right in front of the forest was to teach them through experience how tough camping could be. Unfortunately, the students were all nobles. Even if they were right on the border of the barrier, that fact would not change. Excluding the family that had already made their own meal, the other families’ servants were delivering their breakfasts and handling their clothes, baths, and every last thing one could think of. It was no different from a vacation.
Yet even with two guardians per student, it was still odd that their carriages were being sent out and back so frequently.
“Milord, more carriages are coming. I know we have the forest here, but it’s so close to the border of the barrier...” The hunter furrowed his brow at the sound of the caravan of carriages clattering down the road. It was as though the drivers were completely unbothered that monsters could appear at any moment.
“It’s well-known that monsters attack both humans and livestock. Even if it’s just carriages, I still wish they’d stop...” There were just standard horses pulling the carriages, practically a different breed from the specially trained horses that the hunters brought with them. A monster appearing could easily startle the untrained horses into throwing their riders off or kicking them, leaving the people in no shape to hunt.
“We have more monsters this year than usual. We’ve let it slide, but given the field trip going on, I feel like maybe it’d be best to limit carriages coming through here...or, rather, I felt like that.” While the lord of Skyte was receptive to the worried hunters, he had mixed feelings about the whole matter. After all, it was the Stewart family—the rulers of the Pallas region, where monsters appeared with the most frequency in the kingdom—that was sending their carriages out far more frequently than any other student. They were far more experienced with handling monsters than the Skyte hunters. It was hard to really complain about a family who could take down a roc with a single arrow...but goodness, was he tired of having so much weirdness to point out the past couple of days. The fact that the Stewarts knew how to make a roc taste good, the fact that the whole family was participating in the class, the fact that they were weirdly close with the king... The lord frowned and looked toward the forest.
The one singular blessing they’d had was that other than the roc, no monsters had appeared...for some strange reason. They’d been so overrun with monsters that they’d begged the royal family to send knights their way, but it had gone quiet since the field trip started. The hunters doing their regular rounds in the forest were rather shocked to see so few monsters roaming around after dealing with the infestation for so long. They’d suspected there might have been a nest in the forest somewhere, but now it was like someone had exterminated them all. They hoped it wasn’t the calm before the storm, but...
While the lord and the hunters were squinting out at the forest cautiously, the king strolled in with a smile. “Hello there, Lord. I’ve got a favor, or...more of a request for you.”
The king had the greatest authority in the land, so a favor or a request was tantamount to an order.
“What might I do for you, Your Majesty?” Those who were unaware of the king’s disposition might have answered that they’d do whatever he asked. The lord of Skyte, on the other hand, was so cautious that it could have been considered utterly disrespectful. Regardless, there were some favors that you absolutely could not agree to immediately, and the king standing before him was exactly the type of person to ask exactly that kind of favor.
“I was wondering if we could change the plans for our field trip this year,” the king said with an unassuming grin as wide as a young boy’s.
Putting it frankly, the lord had a horrible feeling about this.
“Changing them...how exactly?” Seeing the king smile like that was the scariest thing his vassals could imagine.
“Well, we’ve got the Stewart family from the border attending this year. You think we could have them help us out and go into the forest? I’d like to see some of the monsters in there for myself, as the king of this land.”
“What.”
There was nothing more dangerous than an amateur on the hunting grounds. That was the first lesson learned by anyone who undertook the mission of becoming a hunter on the borders. The forest wasn’t a playground. It wasn’t a training ground. It was a certified hunting ground.
“Your Majesty, I’m terribly sorry, but I cannot grant such a request.” Whether it was a favor or even an order from the king, he couldn’t acquiesce.
“But think about it! I’m the king and I’ve never seen a living monster in the flesh before. If I don’t even try to just because they’re dangerous, it only leaves me clueless. And the more clueless I am, the more of a burden I could potentially saddle people on the border with.”
Currently, the only knowledge the king was working off of to create monster countermeasures was reports and petitions that had been sent to the castle. It really couldn’t be said that he had a full grasp of the problem. He was just doing what the king before him—and the king before that king, and the king before that king—had done every year.