Back at the Skyte region in the forest by the barrier...
“Anyway, we need to retreat as soon as possible,” Leonard pressed the king, who had just awakened from his kitty-induced slumber. It had taken ages for everyone to reconvene because of the king’s rampage, and on top of that, they’d had to wait for the king to regain consciousness. They were going to be returning to camp far later than they had planned.
Honestly, what is with this king? He’s been nothing but trouble! Leonard couldn’t hide the wrinkle forming on his brow.
“Hmm? Oh... But if we keep going a little bit further, we’ll reach the barrier, right? I’d really like to see it...” The king didn’t seem to notice Leonard’s impatience at all. He just figured since they’d come this far, they might as well see the barrier while they were at it.
“Nngh...” The hunters and knights all did their best to hide their groans. They were too tired to interject anymore.
“That won’t do, Your Majesty. The sun is already starting to set. If it gets too dark and we encounter any monsters with good night vision, not even we can guarantee your safety,” Arven insisted. When fighting monsters, the most important thing was to determine what monster one was up against. It was quite difficult to tell certain types of monsters apart in the dark. What was more, a lot of nocturnal monsters were particularly nasty to deal with, so hunters tended to avoid hunting at night.
“Hmm? Oh! Father! Uncle Arven!” Emma, who’d been gawking and staring so as not to miss a second of the king’s muscles, took a look around her for a moment and immediately called to her family. She felt a little guilty for having been so taken by the king’s muscles that she hadn’t noticed it until just then. Their path forward was completely blocked off.
“Oh, shoot... Are those...what I think they are?” When William followed Emma’s gaze, he turned to look at the Skyte lord, realizing this could be a problem. These monsters would be a bit tough to handle with their current party. Even though his father, brother, and uncle were all used to hunting, even they could be a bit unpracticed around monsters that weren’t native to Pallas.
“Of all the rotten luck...” The one-armed Skyte lord gave each of his hunters a look to signal them. The monsters before them were ones that appeared in Skyte relatively frequently. Usually, there would only be one or two of them, but now there were far more than usual. At the lord’s signal, the hunters nodded silently and quickly lit their lamps. Though it had gotten a bit dark, they’d only been using minimal lantern light so monsters wouldn’t find them. However, that wasn’t always the right call. These monsters were worse to fight in the dark, because the dark was something people feared.
“Can you tell we have monsters blocking our path, Your Majesty? They’re not all that big, but you still need to be careful. These monsters attack the psyche, so I want you to listen. Do not look directly at them. However, you also cannot lose track of them.” Arven explained as he readied his bow.
“What?” The king was baffled by these instructions, but he did his best to only look right in front of where the monsters stood, though they seemed to practically blend in with the dark forest.
“Those are called rainbow raccoons. They can change the color of their bodies to blend in with their surroundings like a chameleon. We need to defeat them before the sun has fully set!” William began teaching the inexperienced knights and king about the monsters’ characteristic behaviors as he counted the number of rainbow raccoons. If there were no light, the rainbow raccoons’ fur would blend completely into the dark, leaving their only hint of visibility the glowing of their eyes...which was exactly what the monsters wanted. It was a very clear rule that one should never look a monster that attacked the psyche in the eyes, because that was how their attacks worked.
People were naturally afraid when they were faced with any sort of monster. Rainbow raccoons would take the fear in those people’s hearts and make it grow and grow until it turned into full-blown panic. Similar to the charm magic mages could use, it was more effective on people with weak hearts. Once one person began to panic, it would spread through the group, sending the whole party into hysterics and destroying the ability for them to cooperate. That was why it was best to fight them with only a small crew. Unfortunately, they’d happened to encounter the worst possible monsters at the worst possible time, when there were more people on the hunt, including the king and the prince.
This was exactly why we’d split into two groups, with one making sure the road ahead was safe! If the king hadn’t gone mad, then we wouldn’t have joined back up into one again! Everything went exactly the opposite way it was supposed to! William thought.
Just then, Leonard shouted, “Numbers check! Seven!”
“Seven!” Arven responded.
“Seven!” George, who was standing a bit behind them, guarding the girls with the prince and Arthur, answered.
“Seven!” William, who had just finished counting a moment ago, responded. When fighting multiple monsters, it was important to make sure everyone was on the same page about how many there were.
“Nine!” Emma answered last.
“Nine, huh...” Leonard agreed.
“Huh?” The king cocked his head. Normally, if opinions were split four to one, the majority ruled. That wasn’t how it worked for the Stewarts, though. Instead, they deferred to Emma’s eyes, which she’d honed through her copious insect collecting.
“I guess it’s nine, then...” Arven didn’t doubt his niece either, but that was more because he was completely niece-brained than anything else.
“Where are the other two, sis?” William asked, since he couldn’t find them.
“They’re hiding behind the third raccoon from our right.” Emma pointed at the rainbow raccoons that were lurking in the grass, trying to hide. Their fur was blending in with the grass, so it was hard to see them without looking very closely.
“Oh, there they are... I was thinking there were more whiskers than usual. Must’ve been because they were overlapping!” George bopped himself on the head, as if to say, Boy, they really got me!
“Wait, you can see their whiskers?!” Arthur and the prince were both shocked. There were over fifty meters between George and the monsters, and he was standing behind them. They couldn’t understand how he was able to see their whiskers but not look them in the eyes.
When the two boys tried to look at the monsters, George covered their eyes in a panic. “Agh, Lord Arthur! Your Highness! You can’t look at them! They’ll make you go crazy with fear! Be like Lady Marion and the others!” This was exactly why having amateurs was so dangerous.
“L-Lady Marion... That’s a real monster.”
“Calm yourself, Lady Francesca. We learned about those monsters in our extracurricular lessons, didn’t we?”
“We did.”
“We learned about them too, didn’t we, Caitlyn?”
“We did learn about them too, Catherine!”
Francesca and the twins agreed with Marion.
“Then what is it we’re supposed to do?”
“Keep our eyes closed and stay put!”
“Mroooowr!” Kongming gave a meow of praise to the girls’ answer.
They’d all remembered the explanation from class and Emma’s helpful tips after. According to them, “If you panic, you risk hurting yourself, making other people panic, and getting in the way. Therefore, you’ll have a much higher chance of survival if you just close your eyes and don’t move.”
“I need you to listen, okay, Lord Arthur? Your Highness? The most dangerous people in this situation are those who have a good sword arm, okay? The Skyte hunters are used to these guys, so neither of you need to butt in, okay? Even if you just wanna look good in front of the girls, it’s gonna fail a hundred percent of the time when you’re dealing with monsters,” George said, really drilling his point home.
“I know.” Edward thought back to the horrible memories of when they’d fought the slimes and obediently closed his eyes.
“Myah!” (It’s harder for me to protect you all if you move around all willy-nilly, so keep your eyes closed and stay close to me!) Kongming said. Emma, who normally would have interpreted for her, was out of earshot, so they shouldn’t have known what Kongming was saying, yet the prince, Arthur, and the girls all nodded. After all, kitty language was all about vibes and enthusiasm.
“E-Emma? Emma, shouldn’t you and William be going that way too...?” the king asked worriedly, pointing toward the girls being protected by the cat.
“I’m okay! Actually, you should be going there, and I... Hmm?” Emma was going to say that she wanted to see a real rainbow raccoon in the flesh so she could expand her monster karuta deck, but then she felt something poking her elbow. Nobody was there when she looked, but she heard a voice whispering in her ear.
“Lady Emma... Remember what I’m here for?” It was Hugh. Having been trained in the ninja arts by the ninjas at the Stewart household, Hugh had made himself invisible and poked her elbow, muttering because it was hard for him to bring up at this time.
“Huh? Oh!” Emma had completely forgotten why she’d come into the forest in the first place. “Your Majesty...” Emma took the letter she’d received from Hugh and handed it to the king.
“What’s this?”
Their way was blocked by monsters with psyche attacks, and the Skyte hunters were slowly making their way toward their enemy without looking directly at them. It was already an incredibly tense moment, yet Emma was still smiling as she responded.
“It’s a letter from the queen!”
“Wait, now?!”
“Yes! It’s apparently really important, so you should read it right away!”
“Okay, but now?!”
“Yes!”
The king swore it couldn’t possibly be something he needed to deal with right then.
The first round of attacks from the Western Empire had been avoided without any further problems thanks to Joshua and the kitties back home. However, that was just a taste of what was to come. Soon, the Skyte region would be taken by the Western Empire’s evil clutches. So what would the Stewart family do, when they’re still unaware? What about the monsters? The Western Imperial Army? Would the Tanaka family be able to stop this world’s very first war of conquest?
All that will be revealed next time.