“Ah ha ha ha ha! This is great! This is amazing!” the king bellowed with a smile as he cut down a herd of monsters heading toward him one right after another.
“Y-Your Majesty! Wait! Those monsters are too hard to cut throu—”
Slice!
“Aha! Ha ha ha ha ha!”
The king ignored the Monster Studies teacher Wolfgang’s warnings, slipped under the last monster’s belly and stabbed through the hard skin with all his might.
A short distance away, the knights and the Skyte hunters, who were supposed to be protecting the king, were just standing there with nothing to do as they watched him fight.
“We uh. Kinda don’t even need to be here, huh?”
The king was bathed in his enemies’ blood, and he wiped something from his forehead (either monster blood or sweat) with a satisfied grin before catching his breath. “Phew! It sure feels good to get my exercise in after so long!”
“Y-Your Majesty, please! You can’t just do as you please out here! It’s not safe to just slash your way through everything!”
It had been a few hours since they’d entered the forest, and they’d been making intentional, careful steps the whole way. When their hunting dogs detected danger, the Stewarts would go ahead to remove it, then the rest would meet up with them again. Everything had been going smoothly until just a few minutes ago.
“Pfft... The king’s just as strong as ever...” Arthur was hiding behind Prince Edward’s back, unable to contain his laughter.
“There was no time for anyone to stop him. Rest assured that if anything happens, the responsibility lies solely on the king himself,” Prince Edward said to the Monster Studies teacher and the Skyte lord, promising they wouldn’t face any punishment for the incident. The king was the one who’d jumped into the fray without asking. If he got himself hurt, the prince wouldn’t abide by him trying to make his vassals take responsibility for it. The king had been told countless times before they entered the forest that if they encountered any monsters, he was not to make a move, but to wait for instruction from the hunting experts among them.
However, a group of monsters took them by surprise, and the king (who had ridiculously fast reflexes) was the first to respond. The Stewart boys had already gone off to where the hunting dogs had signaled, and thus were separated. Nobody could have predicted that monsters would have come from so close by. It even seemed they had deliberately targeted the group and brought the whole herd to attack.
Before the Monster Studies professor could start identifying them and before the hunters or the knights could make their move to protect the king, he rushed toward the monsters himself. Those who had experience with monster hunting had been concentrating on identifying the number and type of monsters that had appeared, and several knights had never seen a monster before, and they couldn’t help but recoil in disgust. The king took advantage of the lag to run into the fray with a “Hyah ha!!!” and start swinging.
“Well, all’s well that ends well, right? You said I couldn’t cut through that thing, but look at it now!” The king flung the blood off his sword in a practiced gesture and looked over the remains. Apparently, he actually had heard the professor say that the monster was too tough to cut and decided in a split second to abandon the head and stab through the belly, which turned out to be just what he needed. The king grinned without a single shred of shame.
There were several dozen monster corpses all around him. Before the hunters or the knights could catch up to him, the king had defeated them all on his own. It made sense, given that he let Queen Victoria do his government work during the day while he trained with the sword.
Just then...
The two Stewart brothers, George and William, and the Hunting Techniques professor appeared before them with a rustle as they pushed through the dense forest. They’d been assigned to make sure the area ahead was safe, then come back and fetch the waiting party. “Sorry for the wait. We’ve secured a route...and... Huh?”
“Wh-What happened here?!” William gasped as he saw the pile of dead monsters around the king.
“Is everyone okay?! What happened?!” The Hunting Techniques instructor was shocked too.
However, the king simply wiped the monster blood off his cheek without breaking his smile even once. “A herd of monsters appeared out of nowhere. But not to worry! I took every last one of ’em out! I’m not hurt at all. All this blood is from them!”
In what world would a king be the only one covered in blood when he had knights and hunters alongside him?
“Y-You did this all yourself, Your Majesty?” George asked, his voice trembling in disbelief.
“Hmm? Sure did. I’m the type who tends to act first, then think later. A few of ’em were pretty tough, but I handled them!” Even if George was used to hunting, he was still only sixteen years old. The king was worried maybe showing off his skills as an adult might cause him to lose confidence...but then, William, who had finally come to understand everything happening, couldn’t stop himself from screaming.
“Wh-Wh-Wh-What have you done?!”
“Hmm?”
William did his best to keep clear of the blood staining the ground while investigating the bodies, and he looked distraught.
“Urgh... Yeah, this is pretty bad...” George sighed, staring up into the sky at the hopeless situation.
“Do you have any idea how upset my sister would be if she saw this, Your Majesty?!” In total contrast to the king, who was quite pleased with himself for having defeated all the monsters, William was slumping his shoulders in despair. It was such a waste... Just a quick glance at the bodies and he saw horned hares, hippopotamals, and armored boars. Every last one of them had gone to waste because a total amateur (the king) had slaughtered them. Of all the monsters he could have defeated, they had to be the kinds that yielded expensive materials and delicious meat. None of these had appeared the day before, or the day before that... And yet now, at a time like this...