I soon found myself walking along the streets of the capital with my familiars at my side.
“So, where are you planning on taking us hunting this time? And come to think of it, are we even going in the right direction?” I asked.
Previously, we’d usually gone in and out of the capital’s large front gate—in fact, it was the only one we’d used so far. This time, however, we were walking in the opposite direction, and it sure seemed like Fel was leading us that way on purpose.
“We are,” Fel replied. “The rear gate will be more convenient for the sake of our destination today.”
“Okaaay. I didn’t even know there was a gate back there, actually.”
“We investigated the matter in advance, rest assured. Did we not, Gon?”
“Quite, yes! Dora and I made good use of the time we spent up in the skies on guard duty. Today’s hunting ground is a location I made a note of after we stumbled across it during our watch.”
Guess they were keeping a pretty close eye on the ground while they were up there. Also, I guess that makes two hunting grounds in a row that Gon’s tipped us off about. He took us to the dragon turtles’ territory as well, after all.
《Heh heh! Gon’s already told me all about it, and it sounds like we’re in for a hell of a fun time today!》 declared Dora-chan, who was somersaulting excitedly through the air.
Dora-chan thinks this place is going to be fun? And it has him this hyped up...? Oh, I’ve got a really bad feeling about where this is going.
《We’re going somewhere fun?》 Sui asked.
《We sure are!》 Dora-chan said. 《Apparently, there’re a buncha monsters that looked an awful lot like real nasty earth dragons hanging around there! A huge variety of ’em too—big ones, small ones, whole groups of ’em, you name it. It’s gonna be crazy!》
《Oh, yaaay! Sui’ll get to pew-pew a bunch of monsters!》
《You know it! It’s gonna be a hunt for the ages!》
Dora-chan and Sui made their conversation sound like a casual, happy little chat...but boy, was its content disturbing from my perspective. Monsters that look like “real nasty earth dragons”? With big variations in size, and that travel in packs? That sounds like a sort of creature I’d rather have nothing to do with, thanks! I scowled as conspicuously as I possibly could, but nobody bothered to comment on it.
“Yes, it truly does seem like an amusing place,” Gon said. “It’s not quite like any other hunting ground I’ve been to before. I suspect you might have been there in the past, though, haven’t you, Fel?”
“A hunting ground different from anything you’ve seen before, you say?” Fel repeated, intrigued.
“Indeed! You can just barely see it from here, in fact. Do you see that mountain, off in the distance? A basin lies near its peak...”
“A basin atop a mountain...? Oh! There!” Fel exclaimed. Gon’s explanation had apparently helped him put two and two together. “Yes, that could be an interesting hunting ground indeed!”
“The only fly in the ointment being that I don’t believe much of the meat will be palatable,” Gon noted.
“True. Edible though it may be, its flavor was hardly of passing quality. A shame.”
“But you’ve no complaints about its worth as a hunting ground, I’m sure?”
“It is unique. That I will grant you.”
Oh boy. There’s another keyword I would’ve rather not have heard. What could “unique” possibly mean in this context...?
I sharpened the glare that I was shooting at Fel and Gon. “Sorry to butt in when the conversation’s just getting exciting, but what do you mean, ‘unique’? You’re talking about the area we’re going to, right?” I asked.
“Quite,” Fel said. “You will understand when we arrive, but in short, a forest lies within a mountaintop basin. That forest is populated with monsters that are not often encountered in this region.”
“Yes, and though those monsters come in all shapes and sizes, they share certain unique characteristics! It quite reminds me of a hunting ground we visited in the past, my liege—the one atop a towering plateau that I flew us to? It was full of unique monsters as well, if you recall.”
“Oh, yes, that place was full of odd varieties as well—though the monsters we shall face today are unique in a different sense.”
A towering plateau that Gon flew us to...? Unique, variant monsters...? Ugh... That’s a migraine coming on, all right...
I really didn’t want to remember the place they were talking about, but it was permanently etched into my memory. I could never forget The Heavens’ Woodland, more properly known as Ouranos.
“Okay! Bad plan. Let’s do something else,” I said.
“What? It is far too late to turn back,” Fel countered.
“You can’t be serious, my liege!”
《Right?! And hey, maybe you’ll end up having fun when we get there! You never know!》
《Masteeer, let’s gooo!》
“First off, I can guarantee that I’m not gonna have any fun at all, Dora-chan. Absolutely no way, no how! If this place is actually anything like Ouranos, there’s no chance! Do you have any idea how traumatic my memories of that place are?!” I got jumped by a wild behemoth and my magic stove got totaled! It was a complete disaster!
“Enough of your petulant whining! We shall pass through the gate, then fly on Gon’s back to our destination. I will not hear another word of complaint from you!” Fel insisted. He planted his head on my back and pushed me forward, propelling me through the gate and out of the capital before I knew it. Then, the moment we were outside...
“The time has come, Gon.”
“Very well!”
“Dora, Sui, climb aboard.”
《Hell yeah!》
《Okaaay!》
“And you as well. Hurry!”
Fel grabbed me by my collar and tossed me right up onto Gon.
“Gaaah!” I yelped, then landed on Gon’s back with a mighty fwump!
“We are all aboard!”
“Very good. In that case, hold on tight!”
Gon flapped his wings, and just like that, we were off.
“Wait, no! I said no! If this place is even close to being on Ouranos’s level, I don’t wanna go anywhere near it! Noooooo!”
My wail echoed fruitlessly through the open sky as we sailed off toward the mountaintop.