Fel, Gon, Dora-chan, and Sui sat in a line in front of me, all of them looking very awkward. Nobody said a word.
My four familiars had worked in tandem to wipe the floor with the three long-necked dinosaurs we’d found in the clearing in the blink of an eye. That part wasn’t the problem... I mean, okay, it was sort of a problem in a number of ways, but the dinos had attacked us first that time, so they’d had it coming. The problem had started when Fel declared that “Out of all the monsters living in this area, these ones have the most acceptably palatable meat.”
“Ah yes, true. Their meat is a little tough, but not bad at all,” Gon agreed.
Needless to say, the next thing I knew, everyone had been champing at the bit to hunt down more of them. They had all still been worked up from their battle, which made their enthusiasm harder to deal with than ever. The fact that the dinosaurs were so huge had made it easy to track another of them down as well, so we had ended up moving on to our next target without even a moment to rest. Before I knew it, the gluttonous quartet had hunted down four new long-necked dinosaurs to add to the initial three.
“What do you expect me to do with seven of these if their meat’s only ‘tough, but acceptable’?” I grumbled as I gathered up the spoils. “Oh, right! I guess I never appraised these ones.”
I used my skill to take a look at the long-necked dinosaur’s particulars.
【Supersaurus】
A monster endemic to a particular region that was modeled after a dinosaur native to the planet Earth. Ferocious carnivores with the toughest skin out of all the creatures in the area they lived in. Their long, muscular necks enabled them to smash their prey against the ground with brutal efficiency. The apex predator of their native habitat. Extinct.
The info block my skill gave me seemed quite detailed this time, and I had to wonder if the conversation I’d had with Demiurge about the dinosaurs had something to do with that. I gave it a quick read through...then paused and cocked my head.
Wait. “The area they lived in”? Like, past tense? Also, more importantly—“extinct”?!
For a moment, it felt like time itself had stopped dead. I had most definitely just seen the supersauruses alive, well, and very much not extinct just a matter of minutes ago. Much to my displeasure, the logical conclusion that squared my skill’s description with reality as I’d witnessed it was extremely easy to reach.
“So. Do you guys know why I’m mad at you right now?” I asked. I was pretty sure that Dora-chan and Sui knew that I was angry but couldn’t figure out why, while Fel and Gon knew exactly what this was all about. “Fel, you can use Appraisal, so I think you could make a pretty well-educated guess! You too, Gon!”
“I, well...” Fel began before faltering immediately.
“Y-Yes! It appears that...” Gon said, trailing off just as quickly.
“I heard a yes in there! In that case, how about you explain it to Dora-chan and Sui?”
Fel and Gon both awkwardly broke eye contact with me.
《Yeah, seriously. What’s the deal here? Bring us into the loop!》 Dora-chan said.
《Master’s maaad! Tell us why, pleeease?》 Sui added.
“You see, err...” Fel stammered.
“The fact of the matter is...” Gon tried to explain, but was also unable to continue.
“Those long-necked dinosaurs you just killed were the last ones. They’re extinct now,” I explained.
《Wait... What?》 Dora-chan said, his mouth hanging open with shock.
《Huh?》 grunted Sui, who didn’t seem to quite grasp the concept.
“They’re extinct! Gone! Kaput! The species doesn’t exist anymore! I know you probably don’t understand what I mean, Sui, but imagine if you and every single other slime in the world just up and vanished. There wouldn’t be any slimes like you left! Wouldn’t that be awful?”
《Sui doesn’t want that!》
“Right? And the thing is, that’s exactly what’s happened to these dinosaurs. You beat them all, and now there aren’t any left anymore.”
According to my appraisal results, the dinosaurs were endemic to this basin. In other words, you couldn’t find them anywhere else. The seven supersauruses that my familiars had killed, clearly, had been the last ones left in the whole world.
“Extinct! You guys literally drove a species extinct!”
Species going extinct had been a whole problem back in my old world. After all, a species vanishing from its native environment could have serious effects on the ecosystem, and usually in a bad way. Considering the supersauruses were the basin’s apex predators, the hyper-carnivorous madness that was the local food chain seemed like it could be thrown into even more chaos than ever thanks to their disappearance.
“And this is nothing new! You guys always overdo it like this!” I continued. It seemed my familiars could tell that I was really mad this time. They all looked rather chagrined. “Does the word ‘restraint’ mean nothing to you? Because it’s super important! Having restraint’s always for the best! But you never, ever even try!”
“I-I will admit that we did, perhaps, take our fun ever so slightly too far,” Fel hedged. “However, it was not an intentional choice on our part. It was momentum—a moment of excitement...”
“Y-Yes, exactly. I see now that we’ve crossed a line, but who are we to resist our instincts?” Gon agreed.
《Y-Yeaaah, our bad. I thought we were just hunting like usual. Didn’t think there’d be any extinctions involved,》 Dora-chan said.
《Sorry, Master,》 Sui apologized.
I’d really let them have it, and it seemed that I’d at least somewhat gotten through to them. Fel, Gon, Dora-chan, and Sui all appeared to be at least a little remorseful.
“And while I’m at it, Fel and Gon? You’re the elders here! It’s your responsibility to think these things through a little more, especially since you have the skills you need to figure this stuff out in advance.”
Fel could appraise monsters, and sensing them at a distance was child’s play for him. Gon, meanwhile, could fly up into the sky and survey the area with ease, not to mention having appraisal and sensory abilities as well, though not quite to the extent that Fel did. And of course, that wasn’t even starting on the real root of the problem.
“And most of all, people call fenrirs and ancient dragons the ultimate apex predators for a really good reason! You can’t let yourselves go all out like this!”
“I did no such thing.”
“Nor I! If I’d gone all out, this whole basin and the mountain beneath it would be a stretch of barren wasteland.”
“Shaddup!” I snapped. Fel and Gon snapped their mouths shut. “Even if you weren’t going all out all out, when you hit the point where you’re wiping out whole species, you’ve obviously gone too far! Being the strongest means you’ve gotta be conscious of how you use your power! You have to have restraint! Figure out what the appropriate amount of power is for any given situation, and don’t go past it!”
I get that you’re both hotheaded, but I also don’t care! You cause problems like this every single time you get worked up over something, and it’s an awful habit!
“As for you two, Dora-chan and Sui: Do your best to learn from the bad example that Fel and Gon set for you today! This is not the sort of behavior you should emulate when you grow up!” I continued.
《Like I’m not grown up already,》 Dora-chan grumbled. I pretended not to hear him.
“Fel and Gon, on the other hand, are already grown up, and I really wish you’d start acting like it! Just take a second to calm down before you decide what you’re going to do, please! It’d be one thing if this was the first time...” I said, launching into a speech that dragged on for quite a while. I had quite a bit of resentment built up thanks to my familiars’ habit of overdoing things, and it was all exploding out in the form of a full-blown lecture.
“Oh, enough of this! I tire of your ceaseless quibbling!” Fel eventually erupted.
“Quibbling, my foot!” I shouted back.
“What does it matter?! The beasts are slain, and nothing can be done to change that now!”
“How do you have any right to snap at me, Fel?!”
“I fully appreciate that what we’ve done today was less than ideal, my liege, but I must agree with Fel. There’s no undoing what’s been done,” Gon chimed in.
“Oh, and now you’re trying to brush this off too?!” I shouted. They’d looked a little repentant for a time, but before I knew it, the shameless expressions I was so used to had returned to their faces. “Were either of you even listening to me?! I sure hope you are now, because I’m not done yet...”
My lecture began all over again, but this time, it didn’t land nearly as well. Fel and Gon were clearly both blowing me off—why should beings as powerful as them care about all of this petty stuff?—and around the time I happened to glance at the supersaurus corpse lying off to the side, the whole exercise started feeling pointless.
“Ugh. You know what? Whatever. We can’t bring the supersauruses back to life. Extinct is extinct, like it or not...” I muttered. Fel and Gon responded with their own mutters about how it was “finally over,” but oh, were they ever wrong about that. “Anyway, time for me to decide how I’ll be punishing you for this one!”
“Wh-What?!”
“P-Punishment, my liege?!”
《What’s that mean?!》
《‘Punishing’?》
“We can work that out once we get home. We’re going back to the capital!”
You know what? Sure, we drove the local apex predator extinct, but this place was a dinosaur-eat-dinosaur madhouse from the beginning. Having one species gone shouldn’t make that much of a difference. It’ll be fine...probably.
I did my best to reassure myself as I scooped up the last supersaurus and began the trip back to the capital.