“Kao—Edith, are you really coming too?”
“Yup!”
Reiko...or rather, the C-Rank Hunter known as Can, decided to take on a regular job from the Hunter’s Guild to maintain her hunter qualifications. Apparently, you had to complete a certain amount of work to avoid being labeled a “paper hunter” or “ghost hunter”...which were like paper drivers or ghost members who signed up but never showed up.
So Reiko took on regular jobs from time to time. She could’ve just handed in some random items from her Item Box to fulfill ongoing material-gathering jobs, but Reiko and Kyoko had this idea in their heads that hunters should take on proper jobs from the request board.
I kind of got where they were coming from. If you wanted to build a name or climb the ranks, it wasn’t enough to just turn in rare materials. You had to take on standard monster-hunting jobs too, or so I’d heard...though Reiko was already working as my bodyguard, so she already had a “legit” hunter job covered there.
Anyway, if this was something she wanted to do, I wasn’t gonna stop her. So, I decided to tag along to see what it was all about.
“It’s the maiden...”
“The maiden pure enough to approach a unicorn...”
We heard the whispers as soon as we stepped into the Hunter’s Guild, and Reiko’s face turned bright red—though I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or embarrassment.
Come on, Reiko, that’s not like you!
In any case, we were here to pick up a normal gig, so we headed to the request board. We’d arrived at an odd hour, so the good requests that hunters usually fought over were already gone. We weren’t here for goblin culling or orc meat deliveries. We wanted something interesting—maybe a request that had been sitting on the board for ages with no takers. That was why we came at this quiet time, avoiding the morning rush when new requests got posted. It wasn’t about the reward; we weren’t strapped for cash or anything. If we needed funds, we could just deliver something out of the Item Box. This was about building Can’s reputation and doing something fun that’d make the client happy.
As we scanned the old, untouched requests, something caught our eye:
“Capture a lone unicorn-like creature spotted in the Black Forest.”
“What?! There shouldn’t be any unicorns around here... Oh, that’s why everyone was staring at Can earlier!”
Yup, this wasn’t an old request—it was brand-new, according to the posting date. The Black Forest was a dangerous place, and unicorns supposedly only approached pure maidens. Of course, that was just a rumor, and a false one at that. Still, Reiko—er, Can—had a history of turning in unicorn horns, so it was no wonder everyone was eyeing her.
There were extra details in tiny letters:
“A lone unicorn that only approaches young girls and doesn’t belong to a herd. For now, this unicorn will be dubbed ‘lonely unicorn,’ or ‘lolicorn’ for short.”
“‘Lolicorn’ my ass! What kind of idiot would even put this on the request form?!”
Oops.
I shouted without thinking, and the entire guild went dead silent. I was in my priestess outfit as Edith, and I couldn’t afford to tarnish the reputation of priestesses by acting crude.
“Rei—Can, this request...”
“I’m not taking it!” Reiko cut me off sharply.
Honestly, I didn’t want to get involved in this nonsense either, and unicorns weren’t even invasive. It would’ve been cruel to hunt them down like goblins or orcs. They were intelligent, and their numbers were dwindling; they were an endangered species that should be protected. It wasn’t hard to imagine what’d happen to a captured unicorn. At best, they’d just take its horn, but they’d likely also take its liver and heart. They might even drain its blood daily, just enough to keep it alive. It was said that unicorns were imbued with divinity, and that their flesh and blood could be used to make life-extending medicine. It was pure superstition, of course, and unicorn parts had no effect whatsoever. Even Longevity Medicine was more effective.
“Next!”
We moved on, scanning through the other requests. The guild was still quiet, and the area around the request board was deserted, even though a few people had been there earlier.
“Look at this one,” Reiko asked, pointing.
“‘Wyvern material delivery. Preferably one whole wyvern.’ This is basically a direct request for Kyoko’s shop...” I said.
“The lolicorn one was directed at us too.”
“Don’t call it a lolicorn!”
Reiko’s and Kyoko’s disguises, Can and Salette, looked about fifteen or sixteen, but my Edith form looked around twelve or thirteen. We couldn’t make our disguises too different from our real bodies, because it’d feel off when we touched things or moved, and our eye levels would seem unnatural. I’d chosen my fifteen-year-old body for this world, but I ended up looking twelve or thirteen here due to racial differences. There wasn’t much I could do about that. Reiko and Kyoko looked petite for their age too, but still got pegged as mid-teens. As for me, I was always assumed to be twelve or thirteen.
Why?! What part of me looks preteen to them, huh?! What a load of crap!!!
Anyway, if anyone was gonna be bait for a lolicorn, it’d be me, assuming it didn’t mind my less-than-friendly eyes... Ugh, shut it!
In the end, we grabbed a random request off the board and took it to the counter. There wasn’t anything particularly exciting, and the interesting ones were either reserved for top-tier hunters or were impossible tasks...like the ones related to unicorns, wyverns, or dragons. We could’ve taken those if this was just about boosting Can’s fame or raking in money, but our backstory was that I, as Edith, was tagging along to watch my bodyguard’s work out of curiosity. And, well, that was actually true. Who wouldn’t want to see some monster hunting action? My potion powers weren’t suited for one-on-one fights, so I’d be too scared to hunt alone without a strong frontline fighter like Reiko. No way we’d take on something crazy like a dragon hunt with a spectator like me in tow.
“Uh...”
The receptionist stared at the request form Can handed over.
“The lolicorn and wyvern requests...”
“We’re not taking those!” we both snapped.
So they really were aimed at Can after all... They weren’t the kind of jobs you could do on the side while working as my bodyguard anyway. I’d heard the Black Forest was a significant distance from this country and full of high-tier monsters. How were we supposed to capture a unicorn alive and transport it through a roadless forest? Sure, we could use an Item Box, but still.
As for wyverns, they flew high in the sky, and finding one was nearly impossible. Well, we had a few in our Item Box and could easily take one down with an airship, but it was Mission: Impossible for the average hunter.
“We’re...taking...this one!” I glared.
“Y-Yes, of course...” the receptionist said and processed the request.
Should’ve just done your job in the first place!
“So, the job is to hunt and deliver materials from an orthrus, a two-headed dog monster...” Reiko said casually.
“This is one of those cold requests no one wants to touch, isn’t it? A dangerous, impossible one...”
Sure, we were fine with old or tricky requests, but only the kind that were tough because the requested item was hard to find or transport, not ones involving deadly combat. Weren’t we supposed to avoid dangerous jobs? We weren’t talking about a kobold here, but the two-headed hound Orthrus. Back on Earth, it was on the same level as Cerberus, the legendary hellhound... Though I wasn’t sure if Cerberus in this world was the same as the one from Greek mythology.
“Oh, speaking of two-headed, I used to think ‘double-headed eagle’ was ‘trouble-headed eagle’...” Reiko said out of nowhere.
“Well, I guess that’s better than me... I thought it was ‘double-headed beagle,’” I said.
We both fell silent. Everyone had an embarrassing story or two from their past, right?
We used an airship to travel but decided to hunt the old-fashioned way without magic or tech. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be getting the real hunting experience. It would’ve been pointless if we just spotted our prey with the ship’s sensors and blasted them with its beam weapon. So, we planned to take our time and camp out for a few days. Our tents, beds, toilets, and other stuff came from our Item Box, of course. We weren’t gonna compromise there.
We cloaked the airship in optical camouflage and sent it up above while Reiko and I made our way through the forest with weapons in hand and personal barriers from Kyoko deployed. We were ready for a leisurely hike, treating it as exercise and fully intending to take a few days to find our prey.
“There! Found an orthrus!”
“Already?!”