“Don’t need a ride back, do you? Same as always?”
“N-No. We’ll manage,” Yu replied to the big Russian man, Aleksei Volonov. Apparently, he had also come to the floating settlement as a refugee, and now he captained an official public transportation ship.
Boats were understandably vital to the survival of a city that had to sustain itself in the middle of the ocean, for a multitude of reasons. One being for collecting building materials from the sunken archipelago, another being for trade and mutual aid with other nearby countries that had just barely managed to keep their governments intact like Korea, China, and Taiwan. There was no end to the need for ships.
Yu looked over Volonov once more. His face was always locked in a stern grimace and his muscles were bulging. He looked like he belonged in the mafia or the military—the latter of which he did, Yu supposed. Aleksei was a member of the militia, and he had proven his skill with a gun and knife during Anomaly hunts.
He and Ein were like-minded, and she gave her stalwart friend a pleasant smile. “Visit us when we return. We must thank you for your constant assistance.”
“Goes both ways,” he rumbled. “I like keeping things simple.”
Volonov had rowed them out to a deserted island somewhere in Wakayama Bay. He pushed the dinghy from the sand and back into the ocean with ease and began the trip back to the transport ship, pushing and pulling the oars with fluid, practiced motions.
He’d done something involving international trade in the past, supposedly, which explained his fluency in the Japanese language. Yu and Ein watched him shrink into the horizon.
“Shall we begin?” Ein said.
“Guess we should. You remember your promise, right? I want to give it a try today.”
“Of course. I’ve been looking forward to it!”
Pop!
The dry crack of gunfire rang out. Ein used a simple hunting rifle in place of her usual Type 89. The untouched and uninhabited island was brimming with nature and the perfect spot for hunting, but before being cleared out and made into a tourist attraction, it had been used as a fort during World War II. In more recent years, however, it served only as a home for wild animals.
Ein had just killed a rabbit, and it was Yu’s job to collect the game. Its little body was still warm. But it was unmistakably dead. Its head had been blown clean off.
Ein never pulled the trigger heedlessly. The way she skulked through the greenery was purposeful, alert for any signs of life, and even when she spied them, her expression hardly changed. She simply raised her rifle and took aim. When she finally pulled the trigger, it was with confidence. And although that didn’t mean she never missed, it was rare. Maybe only two out of every ten targets.
Rabbits, bulbuls, and doves alike met their end by that calm, calculated conviction. The two were making fast progress.
“We’ll have plenty of options for the stand,” Yu commented.
“I would like to try my hand at larger game, though.” Ein looked aside and perked up. “Yu, look.”
Between the trees and shrubs, he saw an adorable baby deer, its innocent eyes yet devoid of caution for the world around it. Yu and Ein could see it, so it could certainly see them, but it made no move to run.
Ein readied her rifle, and Yu got ready to stifle his sympathy.
Pop!
The fawn collapsed on the spot and the two of them walked up to where it fell. The bullet had passed near its heart, but it wasn’t enough. It was still alive. Twitching and convulsing.
Ein looked down and said to Yu, “We need to put it out of its misery. Can you do it?”
“Y-Yeah,” he stammered in reply. “Yeah.”
Yu carried the same rifle as her. He raised it up, took aim at the fawn’s head, and when he pulled the trigger, he did so with confidence.
The fawn stopped twitching.
They hunted four more adult deer after the fawn. Presently, Yu and Ein were bleeding and gutting the corpses of their quarries at a pristine creek. The work was a little painstaking, truth be told. One cut to the carotid artery with a disinfected knife, flush out the blood, slice the gut, then remove the entrails. This was usually Ein’s job—she was more efficient, after all—but today, Yu wasn’t a mere assistant.
“Four-legged beasts will spoil if they aren’t handled properly and quickly,” Ein lectured. “The taste will suffer as well. You’d best stick to birds or those with torso wounds for now.”
“Got it,” Yu replied nervously.
Today, he was bloodying his hands. Ein observed from behind, offering advice and occasionally demonstrating more appropriate techniques. She was a good teacher.
Yu had never taken much of an active role on their hunting trips, until this one. He had specifically asked Ein to teach him more about the process during this excursion, how to butcher and slaughter. He wanted to feel the weight of the flesh, of the life they were taking.
“Impressive as always,” Ein said. “You have dexterous hands. You’re already improving.”
“It’s not all that complicated.” Yu cracked a self-deprecating smile. He didn’t feel like he’d ever get used to Ein’s endless praise.
Soon, he found a rhythm. Yu always was quick to pick up on things, and this was no exception. He absentmindedly looked up and met eyes with the fawn he’d killed, its round, faultless orbs staring back at him. It reminded him of the corpses. The piles of gored, massacred Anomalies. Many of them weren’t monstrous abominations. Many were trolls, goblins—intelligent fae races. Humanlike.
But none, of course, were as human as the greatest enemy of all: the archmages.
“How do you fight something that can talk to you?” Yu muttered. “That can feel?”
The fawn gave no answer. Any that could be gleaned was only a reflection of pity in its emotionless eyes.
Yu hadn’t realized just how deeply his meeting with the two archmages had affected him. It weighed heavily on his mind. But he would have to fight them nonetheless if he wanted to protect those dear to him.
He continued to work, his grip on the knife still firm. And Ein continued to watch him, nodding once in quiet conviction.
Few people in Nayuta didn’t own guns, and Ein certainly wasn’t the only experienced hunter in the city. What most residents did lack, however, were the means to make productive use of these tools.
There was more to hunting than simply shooting an animal dead. One needed a ship to transport the carcass, of which there would need to be many in order to justify the trip to begin with, which then meant that not just any boat would do. You needed a big one. This, in turn, demanded fuel, personnel, money to compensate said personnel, and the costs only continued to compound from there. One could potentially butcher the animal on-site and ship it in a more compact form, but then that would require a decently large refrigerator in order to keep the meat from spoiling.
In summary, going hunting was a costly affair for Nayuta’s people. Consequently, meat was extremely valuable. Yu, however, had a trick up his sleeve.
“That’s the fourth time,” he moaned. “Still nothing. I don’t know what’s been going on lately.”
“Take your time, Yu,” Ein comforted him. “It’s different without the presence of enemies, I’m sure. Try it again.”
“Okay. Yeah.” He focused once more. “There! I armorized!”
A cloud of adaptive nanofactors glowed all around him before finally plating themselves over his body, enshrouding him in the black and gold nano-armor. It had taken Yu the better part of five minutes.
He nodded at Ein through the helmet. “The usual.”
“Understood.”
A window popped into his visor and a string of text scrolled across it.
[Mantra Server Startup Complete. All PRAJNA running.]
[System Now Booting Spellbook “VAJRA-SEKHARA SUTRA”...]
Once Ein finished reciting the Gospel Code, two kinds of auxiliary droids materialized. The first was a large box resembling a big, metal storage container. The second was the MUV Airmobile—the jet ski-esque device he had used with the Mark III’s Full-Armor form.
Yu faced the giant container—that is, the heavy-duty transport droid, MUV Storebox—and configured it for cold storage. He began hauling the fruits of their labor into the oversized freezer one by one, the corpses as-of-yet unbutchered and normally very heavy. Lugging around a few rabbits, birds, or even the almost half-dozen deer they had shot was easy work for Devicer Three though.
And with that, their part of the job was done. All that was left was to carve it all up and turn it into food.