DBA FG

by HyperBrachydios

A quarter of a century has passed since the conclusion of DBA G. The new generation of monster taming hunters set out into unknown lands, only to find a world beyond their control and blood that stains the ground deeper than they could possibly understand. This is nothing more than a story about finding something. Beyond the end, the expedition of the powerless begins.

27. THE WILD SWORDS REDUX

Across the place that had been chosen as the battlefield, chaos broke out. The once-abandoned city was now filled with the noise of battle as hunters, poachers and monsters clashed.

---

Fera Gladius arc part 4: THE WILD SWORDS REDUX

---

In a place in the north-west of the city, a man was sprinting at full force, trying to escape from something. Even though he had been given the title of a hunter, he felt like nothing of the sort at that moment.

Frantically, he scrambled, unable to stop moving. Death was behind him, encroaching ever so quickly.

He had been confident. Even against indomitable odds, he thought that he would somehow prevail as he had in the past. In just a few seconds, that had all been shattered.

The world did not revolve around him. That much had been made abundantly clear. In the first place, that was an odd view for a hunter that existed as a part of nature to have, so it's not like he fully believed it anyway. But with this encounter, he had finally had it disproved, all remaining traces of that delusion had been stamped out.

If the world were to revolve around anything, it would probably be what was behind him at the moment.

As he panicked, his mind rapidly pondered over useless things.

Was his only purpose to be killed here? Was sole that the reason that he was born into this world?

No matter how he went over it, when faced with such an overwhelming gulf in strength he couldn't see his life as anything more than the lead up to him becoming fodder in this moment.

Even though he knew he shouldn't, he still couldn't prevent himself from glancing over his shoulder.

A blur descended upon him in slow motion.

He only properly understood at that moment. He hadn't suddenly developed a taste for reminiscing on his past. It wasn't that it was approaching slowly. His life was flashing before his eyes, was all.

In that space drawn out to an endless moment, he was finally able to see clearly.

A spear with a wide blade. It was a rarity to see people using them in this era, but that was the oddest thing about it. It was completely unremarkable in any other way. A simple spear. Now that it was barely moving, he had the chance to notice a few keychains tied to the end of it.

Its wielder was Minerva.
The woman called the War Goddess.
The woman called the Queen of Everything.
The woman assigned the highest recommended hunter rank possible.

Even though the guild knights heading this operation had sternly warned them against it, several hunters tried to take her on when they first saw her.

After all, she was just a human. They each reasoned that this operation necessitated so many hunters because of all the monsters.

Humans are weak. As humans, they knew this well. No matter how superior their intelligence, all it would take was one mistake for a monster to split them apart. That's why, even though she was described to them as certain death, there was no reason for them to believe that they were at any risk.

The group of hunters that found her were nearly annihilated in what seemed like an instant. Powerless to fight back, the last remaining hunter saw dropping his weapon to run away as his best and only path to survival.

Though, all that had led him to was this point. While time felt like it had slowed to a crawl, it had not stopped. His end still approached.

A shot rang out, deflecting the spear of course. He had just barely been saved by something unseen. Not foolish enough to question the miracle, he carried on running without missing a beat.

Minerva stopped, looking upwards.

"One, two, three, four." She absently mumbled as she glanced around in an apathetic manner.

Four guild knights were standing on the roof of the nearby buildings, surrounding her in a square. The one who had fired sheathed his weapon, a strange combination between a gun and a glaive.

"We meet at last."

The one known as Gunbert, the gunner, was speaking. Minerva wasn't sure who he was but he clearly knew her well.

"You're saying that like you were looking for me in particular."

"Tracking is an essential skill for both hunters and guild knights to have. Something on the level of finding one woman in a city this empty is the bare minimum that should be expected of us."

"Hm. Guess it would be."

"Now then. At least 180 cases of poaching. The murder of 90 hunters, and twenty six guild knights. Are these numbers correct?"

"...Are they?"

"At times like this, I lament the limits of justice. People often talk about an eye for an eye, but regrettably we can only kill you once."

"...You sound really mad. I don't remember you, though. Did I do something to you?"

Gunbert grimaced.

Hunters are sorted into three ranks. Low rank, high rank and master rank (once known as G-rank, though it was dropped as no one was sure what the G stood for).

All hunters start off in low rank. Being promoted to high rank requires hunting a considerable threat, such as an apex predator or a less powerful elder dragon.

To go from high rank to master rank requires fighting off something that could cause a disaster. The type of potentially cataclysmic power.

As a result, the number of low rank hunters and high rank vastly outweigh those in master rank. The only ones to achieve such a status are considered heroes.

High-rank is the minimum qualification to become a guild knight. While it couldn't be said that they make up the majority of the group, a good number of hunters that achieved master-rank eventually became guild knights.

Even in spite of that, Minerva was wanted for the killing of multiple guild knights.

In the incident that gained her notoriety and its resulting fallout, she had killed a total of six guild knights, all assigned to the same area she was once. After dealing with the hunters sent after her, she killed a further twenty over the course of her twelve years as an outlaw.

Minerva had no interest in seeking out the guild knights. They were the ones who approached her. Each individually hunted her down to challenge her. Each believed that they would be the one to avenge their fallen comrades by defeating the War Goddess.

"Captain, are you okay?" Niceman, the undead, asked from across the buildings. "Something seems off about you."

"So I'm not the only one that noticed something was up." Shriek, the nomad, added.

"What's wrong?" Unweathered, the shirtless, addressed Gunbert. "You can tell us."

"I… I can't."

"You can."
"It's ok."
"Just get it out already."

"No, I really can't."

"We're saying you can."
"What's stopping you?"
"Hurry it up."

"Ok, fine! She killed my brother!"

The rest stopped responding to this. After his outburst, Gunbert looked down.

"My brother, ten years my elder, was a guild knight. The very first one that she suddenly murdered. For all this time, I've been lost without an answer as to why my idol was taken from me. I'm sorry. I'm just a fool. GUNS was formed for the sole purpose of taking revenge on her, but I was always too afraid to tell you. Afraid that you'd all see me as someone shallow and only interested in revenge."

The others took this one.

Shriek was the first to reply.

"I never thought I'd see you acting this dumb."

Gunbert seemed dejected. Niceman tried to fix things slightly.

"Phrasing it like that's gonna give him the wrong idea. Hey, captain. You promised to help me take revenge on the bastard who shot me in the head, didn't you?"

"Yes, that's true."

"And you said that you'd help me take down the guy who massacred my clan and pinned the blame on me for it." Shriek added on.

"Yes, that too."

"And you swore that you'd help me hunt down the shirt that killed my entire extended family." Unweathered came in last.

"Well, yes."

"So why are you acting like it's a big deal if you're out for revenge too? That's how you recruited all of us. Really, the only problem was you hiding it for so long."

Gunbert looked a tad more hopeful now.

"You could've phrased that in a cooler way," Niceman sounded slightly annoyed at getting his lines stolen. "But I think that's pretty much all he needs to hear."

"All of you…" Gunbert paused for a few seconds, struggling to find the right words. "Thank you for pushing me out of my weakness. I shouldn't let doubt cloud my mind. Now that I can think clearly again, I should ask what I've been burning to know all this time. War goddess."

Minerva snapped back into paying attention at the sound of her epithet.

"For what reason did you kill my brother, Swordbert?"

Minerva stared up at him. She moved her head from side to side a few times, as if trying to shake the information out of her brain. The shaking intensified before abruptly coming to an end, as though she had realised there was no purpose to doing that. She kept on staring at Gunbert for a few moments, before sighing as though to resign herself to what would come next.

"Who was that, again?"

"How could you forget!? You're the one who killed him!"

"Well, I can't remember what I can't remember. Are you sure he really existed?"

Gunbert was on the verge of getting carried away with his exasperation, but stopped.

"That's fine. You'll have plenty of time to remember when you're in captivity. Let's waste no time and begin the fight! Now that I've shared my worries with my comrades, we are unbeatable! The force of GUNS will overcom-!"

Gunbert's voice was cut off. A spear rammed itself into his skull. His life has ended in the middle of the sentence, without even an instant to process that it was happening. If there was any solace to be found in that, it was that he couldn't even feel the slightest amount of pain, let alone any of the attached emotions like fear.

Not one of the onlookers had time to react. Minerva hadn't moved from where she was standing, throwing it instead. She jumped up to retrieve it from Gunbert.

Three voices crying out "Captain!" broke through the frozen time to telegraph a barrage of gunfire. Taking heed of the warning, Minerva retrieved her spear and dashed out of the way a second before the shots reached her, resulting in only where she was standing being blasted to oblivion.

She immediately targeted the one who was closest. Recognising that he was next on the chopping block, Niceman readied himself.

Minerva attempted to attack, but was deflected by an attack of his own.

Minerva held a spear, while Niceman held a Gunglaive. The two weapons possessed relatively similar effective ranges. There was only one key difference, that being speed.

If the same person were to use both weapons, then the gunglaive would always be slower. The reason was obvious. The gun that was built in to the back greatly increased the weight.

Even without this disadvantage, he recognised trying to directly compete with Minerva would be foolish. Even more so than the preservation of his own life, his priority was to defeat her to avenge the captain he had just lost. He threw away any notion of pride that could've potentially led to him trying to defeat her with spearmanship alone and focused on using every option at his disposal to grasp victory.

A first clash, followed by a second, which turned into a third.

Gradually losing ground, he threw everything into his next strike. Minerva backed off slightly.

In a single swift movement, he spun his glaive around so the gun was facing her. It was a simple ploy, but he had no desire to draw the fight out any longer than necessary.

The gunglaive's recoil while firing was almost absurd, having been designed so that the gun part could double as a way of launching the user through the air. As a result it was difficult to aim properly. But with so little distance between them, he didn't have to worry about that.

Fearing that even a split second of hesitation would be ample time for his opponent to retaliate, he had resolved himself to fire the second the gun was close enough. Niceman pulled the trigger.

His plan had been executed perfectly. If there was a flaw to be found, it was who he had used it on.

There was no reasonable way that a person could've dodged something comparable to a shotgun at that distance. But his opponent could not be defined as reasonable in even a single category.

Niceman was pushed back by the recoil of his weapon. Weaving around his last-ditch attack, Minerva dashed in and thrusted the spear into his eyepatch. The undead died once more.

A fierce yell came from her blind spot, tipping her off to another incoming attack.

There was Shriek, screaming out while attacking. Minerva jumped up, getting clear of the swing of the gunaxe, before thrusting her spear downwards.

Unweathered, the last member of the group remaining, was still trying to make his way over. Minerva turned, locking eyes with him for a moment.

In what seemed like an instant, Minerva propelled herself across the gap to thrust her spear into his chest. Her momentum vanished as quickly as it had been built up. In spite of the spear stuck through him, Unweathered was still breathing. His voice was slightly off-balance because of his winds, but even so he spoke.

"Why are you even fighting for these people?"

"You ask so many questions. It's because of pure love, I guess. It's not fair unless I get to ask something back. Why do you always yell before attacking? No, ignore that, I have a better one. Why aren't you wearing a shirt?"

"Yelling out before you attack is just basic etiquette. As for your second question, I'm the man known for being strong enough to not need any kind of chestplate."

Despite the position he was in, Unweathered's tone of voice became somewhat intimidating. While Minerva clearly held the advantage, in that moment his presence shifted, giving the impression that he was towering over her.

"These muscles of mine have been built up through years of training, so it's quite naive of you to think that a single attack would be enough to bring me down, young la-"

"I see."

If a single stab wouldn't work, all she had to do was use more. It was basic enough logic. So, she attacked unendingly.

A continuous flurry of spear thrusts, their blistering speed making it a matter of seconds before the total number of attacks broke into three digits.

Minerva heeded his advice well. The attacks only ceased when there was nothing large enough remaining to pierce. As she pulled her weapon, what was left collapsed in on itself with a large squelch.

Minerva turned around, trying to remember where the one she was chasing had gone to.

She saw a bolt of lightning a short distance away, followed by a scream.

A few moments later, a monster trotted towards her.

"Oh, right. I did order you to do that, didn't I? Good job."

Minerva idly stroked the mane of the Kirin that had been assigned to her. As she did so, she frowned for a moment.

"Now that I think about it… I still didn't find out who the sword guy was."

10:23

The guild knight group, GUNS. Completely annihilated.

---

At another part of the battlefield, three hunters were fighting their own respective battles.

One poacher stood there, covered in innumerable cuts, still barely managing to stand.

"You better call your monster off." The girl in the gothic dress told her opponent.

"Ok, ok. Stop attacking. See? It's stopped now. So let's-"

The longsword that she held, Bloodletter, went against the traditional design of one. In the place of the blade there were several smaller ones sticking out, resembling a row of sharp teeth.

The comparisons went deeper than just that. Once caught in them an opponent should be unable to escape, similar to being caught within a predator's jaws.

The sword was swung once more, getting caught in his side before Milla pulled it back. The man slumped to the ground.

"Milla, in cases like this you're supposed to spare the enemy if they listen to your demands."

"Huh? I never said I'd do that."

"But it's implied. I think that's why he went along with what you said."

"If I was fighting a woman I'd consider it, but who cares whether generic poacher man number thirty seven lives or dies?

"Milla…"

Sol turned back to the poacher she was fighting, who had been trying in vain to attack her while she was distracted.

"Oh, right, right. Forgot about you."

She used the right of her pair of shields, known as the Gleaming Bulwarks, smashed into the poacher's head, knocking him to the floor instantly. He had forgotten to give his monster any orders, so it continued to stand there unnaturally.

That left just one, still locked in his battle.

The man swung around his club repeatedly, trying to hit what was attacking him.

Continually appearing just barely in the edge of his target's vision before attacking and disappearing once more was Kalo, wielding the dual blades called the Stunning Gust.

"What was the deal with these guys anyway?" Milla casually chatted as the fight went on in front of her. "They kept calling us sinful or whatever for not fighting alongside monsters, but they're useless at fighting with them themselves. No coordination."

"Yes, compared to when we were practising with the DBA, their skills are a bit subpar."

"Well, guess I was right. Only weaklings use monsters as a crutch."

"That isn't the point I was trying to make."

Another attack grazed the man. He staggered backwards, refusing to fall.

More than anything else, he was irritated. Every attack he had taken up until that point served mainly to frustrate him.

Each was shallow, the presence of the fighter with the head of a Kulu-Ya-Ku only fleeting. The club he swung wildly connected with nothing but air. He was unable to think of a single order for the monster that had been bestowed upon him by his leader.

The ineffective, repetitive attacks drove up his stress, but the one-sidedness of the fight prevented him any relief that landing an attack would have provided him.

Finally, Kalo came to halt, just in front of him.

With the solution to all of his problems standing right there, the poacher couldn't do anything but take it.

He roared at the top of his lungs as he swung his club over his head, aiming to smash the birdman in a single strike. The question of why Kalo had stopped never even threatened to cross his mind, the promise of relief completely blinded him.

Yet, he found himself unable to finish his attack. His arm was frozen in place.

The question of how this was the case would go unanswered.

Kalo turned around, staring him down. Before the poacher could even so much as grimace, he was kicked in the chin.

In spite of the size difference between them, Kalo's attack managed to knock the poacher off his feet. Not wanting to waste any time, after landing Kalo launched himself into a dropkick, now connecting both of his greaves with the poacher's face.

The poacher was knocked unconscious as he hit the ground.

Kalo quickly got to work restraining the poachers that had been defeated.

The three communicated with hand signs. Kalo reprimanded them for losing focus during their fights, a complaint that only one took to heart.

As their silent communication continued, Milla and Sol abruptly perked their heads up.

"You hear that too, right?" Milla asked, now sounding more serious than usual.

"It's definitely getting closer. But just where is it coming from?"

They kept scanning the environment around them. Kalo was unsure as to what was going on, but could sense something was wrong.

It was Sol who first spotted it. The dot of red in the sky growing larger by the second. She pushed the others backwards, raising her two shields. Had she been any slower, they would have been crushed under the weight of what crashed into where they had just been standing.

"Huh." Spoke the one who had landed there."Well, it's a good sign that you managed to dodge that. Maybe you'll have at least some fight in you."

"That's a Valstrax right there." Milla told Sol. "And he's got tonfas. Wasn't this guy on one of the posters?"

"I believe so."

"Finally, a real one shows up." She turned around. "Kalo, we're allowed to take him down, right?"

A sign of affirmation.

Their meeting was a complete coincidence. In the first place, they were completely unaware of each other's identities.

No one in team B of the Starward Diamonds had ever heard the surname Gilmore before. Furthermore, not one of them remembered Luke especially well. Even if Davi's face wasn't covered up by his helmet, the similarities between the two would have been completely lost on them.

In a similar fashion, Davi had no possible way of knowing that they were in a group acquainted with the DBA, or that they had fought his cousin before. In the first place, he didn't even know the hunting group that Luke was a part of was called the DBA.

His targets had been picked from above at random, assuming they were enemies from how they were fighting those with monsters.

He chose to enter out of no obligation to save his comrades, but just because he was looking for something to crush.

And so, the battle between those lacking any context began.

Davi took the first move, as should have been expected from him at this point. He and Goliath dashed forward. Both the poacher's tonfa swing and the attack from the dragon were blocked by Sol, pushing her back slightly. Stepping out from behind her, Milla swung her longsword around, aiming straight for Davi's head.

He managed to pull himself away enough to the point where only the furthest blade caught him.

"Crushing them will be tough with that shield. Let's go around."

No less than a second after finishing that observation, Davi dashed forward once more, throwing a punch with his tonfas which ended up blocked by Sol.

Goliath briefly hopped into the air, going over the hunter's heads. At the arc of the jump, the wings of the Valstrax spun around.

Davi threw a punch. Focused more on what was in front of her, Sol blocked his strike. Goliath crashed into the group.

Milla turned and swung her sword upwards. The jagged blade embedded itself in Goliath's side. At the same time, Kalo made his move, jumping at Goliath and slashing.

Davi hit his tonfas against Sol's shield once more, using them to vault over the hunter. Sol was completely unaware of what tonfas could do, a fact that Davi could've used to his advantage, but he passed up this chance to focus on helping Goliath.

Davi boosted himself through the air, aiming for Kalo. The two exchanged hits in mid-air, punching and slashing the other respectively. Davi then propelled himself again, reaching Goliath.

Goliath's jets activated, aiming for Milla. Not being enough of a fool to believe that she could stop a jet-powered monster boosting at full force towards, Milla dove out of the way in a hurry.

Goliath came to a halt a few meters away from them. Davi hopped to the ground.

"Defence, range and speed. There's one that specialises in each of those. The big one blocks and the other two hide behind her, only retaliating when she's already acted. Trying what we did before is probably what we want, I shouldn't expect any better outcomes from doing the same thing again. Now that I've got all that straight, what to do? Do I aim to crush the big one or the attackers first? If one side's weakened then their whole strategy will break apart, so I've just got to work out which is easiest to go for."

As Davi was contemplating his next action, Kalo sheathed his dual blades and started to communicate to the others.

They were fighting on a street between two rows of buildings. The three broke from their formation.

Kalo ran up to the building to their right. Milla ran to the left, not bothering to climb up the building.

"Come on, I was just getting things worked out here and you're already changing things up!" He glanced over to Kalo. "He's gotta be bait. Anyone with half a brain can see that. But maybe it's worth the risk of taking it."

Davi hopped onto Goliath's back, murmuring something. An instant later, the elder dragon took off, aiming straight for Kalo.

"They took the bait." Thought Sol. "I feel bad for leaving Kalo on his own, but this is what he told us to do. Since he's putting himself at risk to give us an opportunity, it's only right to make the most of it."

Sol readied herself. The arc that Goliath was following to reach was clear to them, her plan was to launch Milla at the poacher riding on the monster's back in order to take him by surprise.

Milla readied her blade to strike at the earliest opportunity. Sol lowered her shields.

Abruptly, Goliath stopped in the air. The Valstrax's wings turned around. At the same time, Davi turned around.

Even without any clear expression to convey anything, even without any words to carry the sentiment, in that moment they could both feel Davi saying something.

"Got you."

The wings ignited with dragon energy, sending the pair flying backwards. As Goliath hit the ground, the elder dragon spun around, hitting both Sol and Milla.

As a finishing touch to the attack, Goliath prepared to roar. Recognising this a few seconds early, Davi covered his ears.

The shrill scream of the Valstrax ripped through the surroundings, serving only to kick the already downed hunters.

Davi's gauntlets weren't enough to block the sound out completely, especially when standing so close to the source of the sound, so he was still too disorientated to act for a few seconds. But, he had solace in the fact that he shouldn't have been the only one stuck in place.

He had no reason to believe otherwise until he caught a glimpse in the corner of his eye of something flying towards him. Something human shaped.

This didn't go missed by Goliath either. With a simple tail flip, Davi was knocked from the monster's back into the ground. Kalo passed through where Davi had just been standing only a moment afterwards, both his dual blades having been readied to attack.

Davi threw himself back to his feet and addressed Goliath.

"You coulda been a bit less rough, but I guess getting treated like that beats dying."

"Who said you're living?" Milla asked from his side, getting back up as well. "You're getting on my nerves now, so I'm gonna be the one to kill you."

"Come on now. Didn't you ever learn to not make promises you can't keep?"

"I wonder if you'll be so confident after this?"

Milla pulled out a flask from her item pouch, tipping it back and seemingly emptying it a single go. A faint flicker of red trailed down her cheek, something that didn't go unnoticed by the poacher she was facing.

"Was that… blood?"

"At least your eyes are somewhat functional. Yes, blood. After all, I'm a vampire! Isn't it only natural that vampires get stronger by drinking blood?"

In reality, what Davi had just witnessed was the result of countless nights of tireless work in secret by her teammates to make tomato juice that was near indistinguishable from the taste of blood. All for the purpose of allowing Milla to remove her mental limiters without the need to procure blood to drink on site, something that typically had disastrous consequences.

But neither Milla nor Davi needed to know such a thing.

What followed could only have been accurately described as chaos. With their formation broken up, the three hunters surrounded the poacher and monster and tried to crush them.

Goliath's wings were put to full use, acting almost like spears piercing the earth from above.

Davi frantically battled against both Milla and Kalo.

With unprecedented speed, the jagged blade swung around and embedded itself in his side. Milla instantly pulled back her sword, the blades tearing through him as they retracted.

Without a second in between the two, Kalo stepped in and took on a stance that seemed demonic in nature. Davi switched his tonfas to their short-range mode and tried to block the dual blades.

Tonfas were widely believed to have originally been a weapon designed for defence against swords. For the sake of being better suited to battle against monsters, they had been given new features like the mode change and the aerial manoeuvres, each new addition diluting that specialisation until it was no longer significant enough to matter.

Ironically, Davi's experience with brawling and his natural tendency towards infighting made his own tonfas, called the Gemini Tenderisers, closer to that original purpose than most.

Kalo's rapid slashes were mostly blocked by short movements of the arm. The attacker was more experienced than the defender was at blocking, so it was only a natural result that a few attacks slipped from the gaps.

After a few seconds of the repetitive exchange, Kalo backed off. Davi had been so absorbed in the exchange happening directly in front of him that he'd forgotten to account for the positions of the others, only hoping that Goliath would hold them off for him.

That's why he was surprised to see Sol towering over him, both shields raised. The shock involuntarily caused him to try jumping back, but for some reason he felt as though he was stuck in place.

"Sorry about this." Were all of the words that Sol offered before slamming both of her shields into Davi's head.

With his skull crushed between the two heavy objects, Davi involuntarily crumpled to the ground.

Time seemed to slow down for him as he fell.

"Ah, I get it now. His dual blades must be coated in something. No, look closer. One's thunder element, the other causes paralysis. Making doubly sure I'm stuck in place. That's a good one."

His descent continued.

"I think my helmet's broken. Alright. I think it's safe to say they're not bad. Guess this was worth my time after all. Gotta make sure I crush them thoroughly."

Before he crashed into the ground completely, Davi stuck his leg out, stopping his fall.

"Huh? He's still going?" MIlla asked. "How?"

"I don't know," Sol answered her, "I thought he was done for."

"This guy's on the wanted posters, you can't hold back just because you're afraid of killing him!"

"I really didn't do that, I'm sure of it."

"No, you're totally being too nice again!"

The one being the loudest caught the reawakened warrior's attention first. He dashed in a straight line towards the longsword user. In the space of a few seconds, he entered her effective range. His tonfas were still in their short mode.

Milla took this information in but assumed it to be a mistake caused by the desperation of a cornered animal, swinging her blade vertically without a trace of hesitation. She was sure that this one strike would be all that was necessary to finish him off.

Since she was so assured of her victory, she decided to finish the fight in style. She drew her sword back briefly before launching herself forwards to perform a hunter art. The sakura slash.

The blade swung once, narrowly grazing Davi. The blade swung around as she continued stepping in, gaining even greater speed on its second time round.

At that moment, she felt something shift. In the same way as she felt him silently communicating before, the vivid image of his glowing eyes tracing the long sword's path was transmitted into her mind, in spite of the fact that they should have been covered by what remained of his helmet.

The middle of the sawtooth-like blades was caught between both of Davi's tonfas, only a few centimeters away from his face. The two came to a stalemate.

Milla desperately attempted to finish her attack, believing victory was less than an arm's length out of reach.

"Don't think the sword I made will break so easily! You can't put a dent in it like that!"

"Is that so? That's a relief, then."

"Hu-"

Davi started to swing his whole body. Milla wasn't sure what was happening but instinctively felt that letting go of the sword's hilt would be admitting defeat, her grip remained steadfast.

As a result, she was flung around by Davi's absurd display of strength. He twisted his body around repeatedly, building up momentum in a short time before releasing the sword from his tonfa's grip. Milla and her sword flew through the air, crashing into a nearby building.

After a brief period of disorientation, Milla tried to throw herself to her feet to seek revenge, but only found a world filled with red.

A blast of dragon energy from Goliath's right wing levelled the building and part of its surroundings. In the face of the devastation, monster and poacher both turned back to face the remaining two hunters. Davi only uttered a single word.

"Next."

He and Goliath dashed towards the two remaining. The Valstrax took the lead, flying up into the air and attacking below with spear-like wings once more.

Sol managed to block the spear, providing an opening for Kalo to vault off her and start running up the wing.

At around the same time, Davi vaulted into the air. The two met each other halfway and immediately went on the attack. Davi switched his tonfas to their long range mode, allowing his attack to connect first. The pole connected squarely with Kalo's chest, knocking him out of the air.

Both poacher and Valstrax fixed their gazes on Sol, stuck on the ground.

A blast of dragon energy propelled Goliath forwards, crashing directly into Sol's shields. The hunter was pushed back, dragging up the ground with her, but managed to stand upright even against the full weight of an elder dragon pushing into her.

Just as she ground to a halt, she sensed movement behind her. Her left shield just barely dodged an attack of Davi's.

The poacher activated his tonfa's propulsion system, moving for a gap inbetween

A storm of attacks followed, with Sol's enemies on both sides of her. The two kept circling her while attacking, exploiting any slight opening in her defence. While conventional logic would have been that Sol should've prioritised blocking Goliath's attacks, Davi's weren't far behind in terms of strength.

Goliath lept back, wings igniting once more. The following full-body slam was only the more devastating as a result of the distance gained. Sol was pushed back once more, losing her balance.

Recognising that continuing to block would result in disaster for her, Sol slid to the side, causing Goliath to keep boosting past her. But even this had been accounted for.

In the momentary gap before she could put her shields back up, Davi approached. He closed the distance swiftly, but from Sol's perspective it seemed as though he passed by her without doing a thing. That was until she felt the blast from the dragon spirit piercing attack.

In the seconds that Kalo had been taken out of the battle for, Sol had been taken down. As though trying to make up for the mistake of letting himself get hit, he closed in on Davi with renewed determination.

The two stepped into each other's effective ranges. A lightning-fast exchange of attacks followed, far more aggressive than their previous clash. For every slash Davi blocked or took, Kalo took a punch. As both of them wore the other down, Kalo noticed something. Davi seemed to only be effective at blocking his attacks from the side. The center of his body was almost completely exposed by comparison. In the heat of battle he couldn't contemplate his actions for long, so he decided to take it.

His left dual blade was planted squarely in Davi's chest. Kalo had expected a reaction of pain in surprise. Instead Davi grabbed the left arm that was stretched out.

"Good, you noticed that I was leaving it open for you. This saves me the trouble of catching you." He glanced around before looking directly into Kalo's eyes. "Tell me, birdman. Can you fly?"

Unsurprisingly, he received no answer.

Davi threw a kick, pushing Kalo back. Under normal circumstances, he probably would have been able to dodge it or stand his ground, but in his state of confusion Kalo couldn't do anything but stumble backwards. As he did, something swept in and knocked him off his feet.

As Kalo's senses returned to him, he found his feet touching nothing. Something was holding him. As he looked out, he could see the buildings getting smaller. It took what felt like a short while for his head to make sense of things.

Goliath must have grabbed him from his blind spot and picked him up, before flying directly upwards. He was currently stuck in mid-air, the ground only becoming more distant. This was obviously, undeniably, a dire situation to be in.

He only held onto one blade, so he could no longer qualify as a dual blades user. Even if this hadn't been the case, attacking still would have been a move in his position. All he could do was wait for Goliath's next move, hoping that he would find a way into a more favourable position than his current one.

Such a follow up never arrived. At a random point in the ascent, Goliath's grip completely loosened. Kalo tried to stick out his remaining blade to catch Goliath on the way down, but completely failed to catch anything, Goliath boosted away too quickly.

This left him in a free-fall with nothing to grab on. Frantically, Kalo's eyes scanned the environment that he was rapidly approaching.

What caught his attention was what seemed to be the tallest building there, something that resembled a clock tower. He tried to fall in the direction of it.

Just barely, he made it. The weapons of hunters were designed for cutting through hides of wyverns and other such things, so cutting through old stone like the one the tower was built from didn't seem like that much of a reach. He thrusted with all the strength in his right arm, managing to find some purchase.

Completely stopping his fall with this method was impossible, even if it had succeeded he would've likely gotten his right arm ripped off. Kalo let go of the sword, his fall now slightly broken. He landed on the nearest building to that.

Kalo managed to land on his feet, but immediately rolled after landing. After rolling, he ended up flat on his back, exhaling with relief that he was still alive.

For a second, he almost forgot that he was still in the middle of a battle. That was until Davi entered his cone of vision from atop the clock tower.

Davi had abandoned his broken helmet while Kalo was away. As a result, Kalo was able to somewhat understand his words for the first time.

"Wow, so you really survived. That's impressive. Well, maybe not. I mean it's kind of false advertising for a guy with a bird head to not have any means of combatting the force of gravity. Wait, now that I look closer… that's a Kula Ya-Ku head, right? Can those ones fly? I think they can't. Alright, I'll give you a pass. It's impressive."

Kalo struggled his way up the side of the roof as Davi kept on talking, eventually managing to pull himself onto solid ground with intense effort.

"Hey, I'm curious, so I wanna confirm something real quick. You're uh…. What's the word for it? I can't remember. But you can't hear anything, right?"

Kalo nodded, standing back up.

"Huh, cool. Doesn't really change anything, just felt like checking."

At that moment, Goliath slammed into the building that Kalo was standing on, destroying it completely. The hunter that stood atop it was knocked completely unconscious by the impact.

10:59

Starward Diamonds group B.

Kalo, Milla and Sol.
Defeated by David Gilmore, the Knight of Heaven, and Goliath.

---

"The hell was I thinking there, seriously?" Davi sat down and tried to remove the blade lodged in his chest. "If Goliath had grabbed him while he was still holding onto this I probably would've died. I put myself in more danger than they did."

He managed to pull the sword out as he finished complaining to himself. Thankfully, it hadn't pierced that deeply into his chest. Goliath landed next to him on the tower as he casually tossed the weapon aside.

"Good job. Now let's get going, I'm sure-"

Davi heard footsteps approaching. He looked down from the tower.

"Hey, hey, hey. Come on now! There's absolutely no way you're serious about this, are you?"

---

Luke fired several shots at the poacher and monster in front of him.

The poacher barked out an order, the monster got in front of him to block the shots with its rock-like shell.

What he was fighting was, of course, a team of a heavily armoured poacher and an Uragaan.

They had already been fighting for several dozen minutes. There were more enemies at the start, but now this combination were seemingly the last ones standing.

The poacher himself resembled a rock. Confident that the threat was over, he went on the attack again.

"Slam your chin into the ground!" He barked at the monster next to him.

Without any hesitation, the Uragaan did as ordered. The tremors caused Luke to use his balance, giving an opening for the pouncer to charge in.

Panzer threw himself between the two, taking the attack in Luke's place. Not wasting any time, the brute wyvern then swung his body to the right, trying to knock the poacher away.

He blocked, getting pushed back.

The fight returned to a neutral state, the two sides standing a short distance apart.

The poacher himself was armed with a large hammer. By comparison, all Luke held was a dainty bowgun.

What tied both hunter and poacher together were the monsters standing next to them. Two large, rocky brute wyverns.

In other words, it could be said that this was a battle between two humans and two shields. Recognising this, the poacher's immediate next

"Run them over." He ordered, causing the Uragaan to begin to roll.

It circled around the street, gaining momentum as it went. As it went around them, Luke climbed onto Panzer's back.

Finally, it approached them. Panzer lowered his head and charged towards the incoming wheel.

The two wyverns fiercely clashed. Panzer slowly lost his footing, being pushed back by the rolling Uragaan.

The battle lasted only a few seconds. Panzer and Luke lost the struggle, being pushed into a nearby building. The collective weight of two wyverns proved far too much for the ancient structure, crushing it instantly.

The dust that had gathered in that place over the course of centuries arose in response to the wyverns tearing through that place, creating a far larger dust cloud than normal.

The poacher's vision was obscured, barely able to see in front of him. What he could make out within the cloud was the outline of the Uragaan, and nothing else. It didn't take any great leap of logic to assume that he had won.

"Now crush the two remaining. They should be right in front of you."

After he ordered it, the Uragaan rolled away once more. He turned his head, ready to follow after it.

It was only after, and only for a moment, that he noticed the small silhouette standing obscured within the cloud that was only revealed after the Uragaan moved.

While he was an experienced fighter, a blurry shape that only took up a fraction of his vision for less than a second was a bit too obscure for him to immediately register as a threat. That was why it took until he had already completed turning his head to face the others for it to be registered as anything of interest.

By the time the poacher snapped his head back to its previous position in a double take, it was only too late. All that he saw was the silhouette of the bowgun, only a few centimeters from his head.

A tranq shot was fired from such a distance that it was impossible to miss.

This was not the result of his opponent being the type that could stand up again quickly after any kind of knockdown, he was anything but. It couldn't even have been attributed to good fortune.

This was the result of what had been built up over their entire battle. A long-spanning scheme to exaggerate the gap in power between the two sides, to make the poacher underestimate them both, all culminating in losing a clash on purpose. It was all for that single move.

Of course, he had no way of appreciating that. It took even less time for him to hit the floor than it had for Luke to make his attack.

Luke turned his head to the right.

"Watch out! The Uragaan's rolling towards you!"

"You think we can't see that?" Zara asked in response. Since she wasn't yelling, Luke had no way of hearing her from where he was standing.

Isa and Irontusk both stepped forwards.

"Just leave this one to us. We'll-"

A Bulldrome charged in from the side, knocking both of them over without even giving Isa a chance to finish what she was saying.

"Eh?" Zara was unable to stop herself from making a noise to express her surprise. Luke, who could only faintly see the situation from where he was standing, experienced a similar response of involuntarily going "Huh?"

Both Isa and Irontusk were knocked clear of the Uragaan's path.

After ordering the Bulldrome to stop, the man on its back laughed obnoxiously.

"Keh. Keheh. Keheheheheh! You really thought that I was done for?" He gave a thumbs up with his right hand, while angling his thumb towards himself. "My very purpose in life is to interrupt other people's fights for no reason! That's why I was given this Bulldrome. Don't think that I'll be defeated so easily."

"Oh, it's just you again." Zara sighed.

"Shouldn't you be more afraid?"

"Not really. I'm more… tired? Yeah, tired would be the word here."

The fight interrupter chuckled again, perhaps even more obnoxiously this time.

"Keheheh. I guess it's a good thing to be confident, at least. But are you sure that's what you should be feeling? If you ask me, you should be more fearful. I'll be getting in the way until the very end-"

Mid-proclamation, he fell from the back of his Bulldrome. Confusion was the only emotion sweeping through his mind.

"And here's the end." Zara told him, only partially clearing things up for him. The poacher tried to ask what she meant but found that he could barely get his voice out, yet alone form any words.

"The blades of my puppet are coated in a special poison I made just for this occasion. Getting it into your system was the real purpose behind all those attacks I made before Isa took over."

She looked to the side before continuing speaking.

"Well, I've got someone special in mind that I want to save it for, so I was probably a little too stingy with it. That's why you were able to get back up. But failure is the mother of success, right? So thanks for being my test subject."

The poacher still looked like he had something to say, but he lost the ability to move shortly afterwards, so it didn't matter to her that much.

"Hey, the Uragaan's coming back." Zara told Isa. "Stop laying about."

"I was wallowing in my irritation, do you mind?"

"I do mind. Arachne and I certainly don't have any chance of stopping it."

"Just web something up? Whatever. Is it still rolling?"

"Yep."

"That makes it easy, then."

Isa and Irontusk both stood up, looking closely at the approaching Uragaan.

"Yeah, this angle should be good. Let's do it."

Isa wound up her hammer swing. Irontusk lowered her head to the ground. The two didn't move from that spot, they only waited for the Uragaan's approach.

At the very last second before collision, they simultaneously burst into action.

Monster art: Shining Launcher.

The collective force of Isa's full-force hammer swing and Irontusk's tusks was enough to send the Uragaan flying backwards, soaring over the nearby buildings.

"That's completely ridiculous." Zara pointed out from the sidelines. "I don't think that should even be possible."

"It doesn't matter, it already happened."

A voice cut off their argument.

"Not yet. I can still-"

The two of them, having been interrupted by the poacher still crawling on the ground.

"Oh? What's that?" Zara asked. "You can still what? Say what it is that you can still do, or I'll have to make my own assumptions. You can still fight? Still move? Still breathe? We can't be having any of those now."

"Well, I don't mind." Isa added. "I've still got to pay you back for knocking me over, you know?"

The two of them giggled unnervingly in sync while towering over the fallen man that could barely move. While still laughing, Isa drew her hammer and Zara readied her puppet once more.

Even though they were technically on the side of justice, that didn't seem to affect the way they acted in that situation.

Distracted from the end of the battle, Luke's attention was turned to Panzer.

"I'm sorry. I made you get hurt just to get that guy to lower his guard. I'm sorry, okay? But I had to do it to win. We're almost there. Just a few more tricks to pull and everything will be fine."

Panzer stared at him without even offering so much as a grunt.

"Hey, you ready to keep going?" Isa asked as she walked over, now looking relieved.

"Yeah. We've still got a lot to do."

"Having to defeat both the monsters and the poachers is honestly such a pain, though."

"Really?" Zara asked. "It didn't look like you struggled much to me."

"Will you stop going on about that?"

Luke contemplated this for a moment.

"We were right in guessing that the monster follows the poacher's every order, even if we still don't know how that's the case. Targeting the poacher first is the most effective strategy,

"Yeah, good job repeating what we already know." Isa congratulated him. "What's your point?"

"I'd be there by now if you hadn't interrupted." Luke put his irritation aside to finish his point. "I suppose threatening them could work. Not sure if there'd be the time for that in the middle of battle though."

"Threaten them with what? I'm going to knock them out anyway."

"Just say you'll make it hurt less."

"...I don't know how I would even be able to do that."

"What?" Luke was incredibly baffled. "You don't know how to tell someone that?"

"No, well… I'd be lying to them, right?"

"How would that be the case? If you just do as you say then it's not a lie, is it?"

"But I don't know how to make it hurt less."

"Quite a monster, this one." Zara commented.

"You've got no room to talk."

"Yes I do."

"Are you still stuck on the shining launcher thing?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's the name that I'm using for that monster art now."

"That definitely sounds familiar." Luke contemplated for a few seconds. "Wasn't it- something something Heart Fighters?"

"Yes, exactly. Albatross Flock: Heart Fighters. The one that got made in 66."

"That's probably why I can remember it."

"It's Heart Fighters again?" Zara asked, trying to push down her bad memories from just a week prior.

"Always was. All of my monster arts are named after it, like-"

She stopped speaking abruptly. An eerie wind blew through the area.

A storm was approaching. Within the howls of the wind, there were footsteps.

"You aren't on our side, are you?" A voice from above asked them.

Above them was Rondo, the Molten Conqueror. Just behind was the Kushala Daora.

The other two were too surprised to answer, but Zara wasted no time.

"Hey, that hurts. You've forgotten me already?"

She'd intended her words as a sarcastic jab. But the poacher responded with absolute sincerity.

"Who might you be?"

"Hey, lie detector."

"He's genuinely asking." Isa answered her.

"Come on, now."

"You described him as haughty before, didn't you?." Luke asked Zara, confused by the discrepancy of the story he'd been told and the man before him.

"Yeah, he definitely was. The first time I encountered this guy, he was nothing but that. Calling him anything else would've been like looking at a blue sky and saying that it's red. But right now I'm… not so sure what I'd describe him as."

The man Zara saw standing was undeniably the same one she had faced just a week ago. His choice of equipment, his voice and even the monster behind him. All identical to before. This only served to further the contrast with his new state.

Before, Rondo had carried himself with regality but now he stood almost hunched over.

His sword was held to his right at the ready, taking a stance that would allow him to lunge forwards at any moment. His once proud eyes now seemed clouded over.

The unsettling energy radiating from Rondo gave the impression of a man possessed.

"No answer to what I asked. Well, it was just a formality. I've been meaning to throw away pointless things like those, so let's get this over with. You'll be my first sacrifices."

Rondo leapt down from where he stood. As he landed he swung his sword around, holding it close to his mouth so he could whisper to it.

"Let's begin, Brutus."

It seemed as though a battle was about to begin. Without any words left to exchange between them, all that was left was to tear away at the other.

That was until the rhythmic sound of a sheath repeatedly hitting the ground drew closer to them.

"Just a minute, before you get all carried away and such."

There was Akem Okino, the sword saint.

"What is it with you and always walking in to interrupt things? Do you not know how to enter normally?" Zara asked. "It's just getting ridicu-"

"Don't be so rude," Luke cut her off. "We still owe him for the training and everything."

"Old man with a sword. Elderly katana user. " Rondo kept repeating those words until he finally reached what he was trying to recall. "Are you the one that Nebulo was talking about? No, you probably wouldn't know his name. He's not the type to give that out in a fight, so let me make it more clear. Are you the one who crossed swords with a man that you couldn't see last week?"

"That's correct."

"Hah. You really scared him, he was saying that you might be stronger than Minerva. So to have you appear before me this early into our battle…" He drew the pause out for as long as he could. "I'm overjoyed. More so than I can find words to describe."

Rondo pointed his sword towards Rondo.

"If I prove myself in this battle then the king will have to listen to my requests. Contrary to my expectations, fate has yet to abandon me. I'm truly blessed to have gotten this chance before any of the others."

"That's quite a shame. I was hoping for a peaceful resolution. If you'd just leave behind that monster and weapon of yours, I'd be more than willing to look the other way."

"Don't belittle me, stepping stone"

"I'm being serious about wanting peace. I'm not so experienced with fighting other people, see?"

"You're saying that after coming all this way just to fight us?" Rondo tilted his head back momentarily, "Well, I shouldn't dwell on it. I think that you have the right idea to set up your excuses in advance. After all, you can't give them out if you die. Since you're going through all that trouble, the very least I can do is kill you quickly so it's not wasted."

"Oh, I didn't mean it like that. Let me rephrase to make it a little clearer. I'm not used to fighting other people, so-
-I might end up killing you."

---

From the day that he first gained self-awareness, Crescent Apocalypse Excommunication Salutation Alternative Rondo lived his life with a certain belief. That being that everything in this world was his to rule.

He came from a noble family that was of no particular renown. But one of the very first memories he had was of his father telling him of their family's history. About how they were descended from those who had ruled the ancient civilisation, but had now fallen to the status of regular nobles.

Whether it was true was of little concern. They were the words he had been given, making them more important than anything else in the world. So, he dedicated his life to living out that belief that he was the rightful ruler of the world.

That worldview only came to be challenged for the first time after almost two decades uncontested. The one to finally argue back against his belief was an older cousin of his. Whether his words were meant to tear down the haughty Rondo, or to help set him on a more proper path were unclear.

Rondo put no thought into his rebuttal, taking an instinctive response. As a result, Rondo tore his cousin's right eye out.

Afterwards, he had been called things like a monster in human skin that would unhesitatingly do something so brutal to his own family. These accusations only served to confuse him. Disrespect like that should have been worthy of death. It's because of his relation to the offender that he'd stopped at just the eye.

Even the father that had given him those beliefs seemed to now turn on him.

To avoid too much attention from the story going public, the decision was quickly made to expel Rondo from the family's name. So, he set out into the world, completely alone.

Having been betrayed, he felt there was no option but to reforge the ideals he lived by.

He was no longer a ruler. So he decided that his next step would be ascending to a height far greater than where he was before. He would become a conqueror.

A conqueror should have whatever he desires. That was the logic that Rondo followed. To him, there was no other choice available. He stole and fought as he pleased.

That path of living in complete freedom eventually led him face to face with a Glavenus.

The two had crossed paths by complete coincidence.

Rondo spotted a small group of Larinoth, intending to hunt at least one of them so he could eat.

As he was picking out his target, his thoughts were overwhelmed by the thundering of heavy footsteps. A Glavenus entered the area, clearly with the same intent.

Their eyes met.

The similarities between them didn't end with just their intent. The way they carried themselves, the air around them, it all overlapped to the point where they couldn't help but notice the other.

As the Larinoth fled the area, a battle began between human and monster.

Their battle went on for hours. By the end, both were bloodied and broken. Yet, they didn't seem to care in the slightest. They were too absorbed in their battle with the other that it was below their notice.

Rondo swung his sword once more, the blade breaking completely against the Glavenus' scales. With no more way of fighting, he fell to the ground.

Seeing his opponent fall, the Glavenus lost hold of the willpower that had been acting as his one remaining pillar, also collapsing.

Rondo laughed softly, unable to move anything other than his face at this point.

"You're quite a monster. I've never fought anything like you before."

He paused, staring up at the sky.

"This is a strange feeling. I suppose that it's only natural that an experience that I've never had before would lead to something I've never felt before. But even so, or perhaps precisely so, I must put it into words. Would you… like to join me? As an ally."

He looked over. The Glavenus gave him a grunt. Despite the short amount of time they had known each other, Rondo felt that he had grown to understand the monster greatly as a result of their battle. He could only take that grunt as affirmation, the Glavenus having understood his feelings through the same means that he understood the Glavenus.

So, he rejoiced.

"How great. I suppose the start of our world conquest will be gathering myself the materials to replace my sword."

That was the origin of the Molten Conqueror. The combination of Rondo and Brutus tore through absolutely any opposition, gaining them infamy.

With infamy, came many encounters. Those seeking to challenge them, those seeking to hire them, those seeking to join them.

The two continued to fight the world, both seeking complete freedom. They were the conquerors, seeking to be unbound by anything.

It was one day several years in when he came across a strange man claiming to be a king. By this time, Rondo had already amassed a legion of twenty four followers. In spite of claiming to be a king, the only ones behind the man were a woman with a spear and a Gold Rathian.

That man told him that was forming a country of poachers who fight alongside monsters, so he and his legion should join him. For Rondo, the answer was obvious. Without even a moment's hesitation.

"Sorry, but I'm not one to serve."

"Wow, what a cool sounding line. Then let's test whether it holds up or not. Minerva, it's your turn. Just remember we want these ones on our side after you're done. They seem pretty close-knit, so I'm certain that killing even one will cause them to refuse to ever ally with us. Take care."

"Mm. That sounds like a pain. But it is your order."

"Aren't you…" Rondo paused partway through his sentence, barely able to process the two people in front of him. "being a little too sure of yourselves?"

Minerva turned to face him.

The next thing he remembered was being on the ground.

"Done. Sorry it took so long."

"Good job. You made it look so effortless."

"No. It was tough."

"I see. Well, even struggling so effortlessly would be why you're you, wouldn't it?"

"Hey. Hey hey hey hey. What the hell is going on? Why the hell are they just chatting? I'm not some garbage for you to step over. Don't talk so casually. You just defeated me, at least act like that was something out of the ordinary. Don't be so casual about it. How could I be beaten so casually?"

All of this stayed within Rondo's mind, as he found himself unable to make a noise. The conversation continued without him.

"What a relief that we happened upon someone like this before he got popular. I want the use of monsters to be our signature, it wouldn't be any good for our image if there were people unaffiliated to us doing that. Maybe we should hunt down that Reaper's Envoy guy next."

"Who's that? How does he know the reaper well enough to get sent by him?"

"I'm not so sure, but regardless he's a pretty big name. He's got a Barioth. What he's known for is-"

"Hey." Rondo managed to speak before trying to stand up.

Rondo had to find something to say, quickly. His thoughts were all jumbled up, as he moved his body he found pain from new places that he hadn't noticed before.

Standing up, he noticed that his followers had all fallen to the floor. Brutus too, had been knocked to the ground.

Despite having seemingly fought alone against twenty five people and one monster, the woman was completely unharmed. To have so little damage while having taken the extra difficult route of sparing them.

He couldn't understand it.

"Wow, so you were still conscious." The man who claimed to be a king commented, sounding condescendingly impressed. "It only makes sense that a leader would be a step above his followers, doesn't it?"

He had to say something. His thoughts all mixed together, finally letting him spit out an answer. The most common thread between them was spit out.

"Wh-what the h-hell are you?"

The reason he was stammering wasn't because of fear, but because it was difficult for him to form any words in his current state.

"A king. And a king needs to rule, so I'm looking to expand. That brings us back to what we started on. Feel like serving me now?"

"Of course not."

The king sighed.

"That was meant to be a demonstration of the difference in power between us, but it seems like it didn't work. I took you for the type that would respond to action over words, but perhaps I was a bit too eager to show off and jumped to action too soon. In that case, I'll say this to make it absolutely and undeniably clear."

The king walked towards Rondo, seemingly with no concern for the sword that the wounded man still held ready. When he was close enough that no possible attack could miss, he made his offer.

"It doesn't seem like you have much ability to speak remaining after that beating you just received, so I'm giving you the chance to answer with your sword instead of your words. You have two choices here. Take a swing and die fighting against me, or drop your sword right now and live for me."

Rondo's gaze was fixed not on him, but the woman standing a few steps behind him. She hadn't moved.

Just what was she? With how quickly he had been taken down, he hadn't even seen her move.

He had thought himself at the top of the world. What stood just a few meters away from him was a blunt refusal of that assertion. Undeniable evidence against what he had built himself up on.

What existed there denied him.

Rondo's mind raced.

Despite how long it felt for him, it took only a second before the noise from his sword hitting the ground reverberated. His choice had been made.

---

After joining, the structure of Fera Gladius was explained to him.

The king ruled over all. The generals were each given their own pawns to rule over.

There are no pawns without generals to command them.

Rondo was made into one of the queen's pawns. He was given no say in this, simply assigned it.

The members of his legion were given the choice of who to join, but it was clear that they could not follow Rondo any longer.

This vexed him, considering that there were only six generals out of a possible seven at the time he joined. But all of his objections went unanswered.

At the very least, he still had Brutus. That was his one solace.

He was now effectively back where he had begun. But it wasn't the same. The world that had once been filled with hope was gone. He was no longer at the top of the food chain.

Empty days flew by him for a while. Throughout those, he had only one goal. To raise himself to the status of a general.

Then everything changed again.

A red comet crashed into their kingdom.

The man that had ridden on its back to get there claimed to have already beaten the knight who they had lost contact with several weeks ago, and was now here to clean up the rest of them.

Even though he had a monster with him, he was opposing the kingdom that fought with monsters.

The crimson attackers tore through the pawns as though they were nothing.

Eventually, he came head to head with Rondo and the queen's other three pawns. A bloody battle raged throughout the city, near the end of which only Rondo and Brutus were left to stand against the two invaders.

They clashed once more.

The man before him was brave. He was strong. He was confident.

Even when charging into a battle with such overwhelmingly poor odds, he was undaunted. If anything, it seemed to embolden him.

The more he struggled, the more he seemed to enjoy himself. The attacker was losing himself in the bliss of overcoming what should have been impossible.

In short, he was everything that Rondo had been. What he had lost. What he should have been. But accepting this would have led him to madness. So he fought. Desperate to crush the past.

If he could just crush this one, then what he had become now would be justified. He wouldn't have been wrong for losing. If it happened to someone else, then he couldn't have been blamed.

Rondo lost the clash, taking a hit to the ground that caused him to completely lose balance a second later.

As he fell, he was still able to just barely see what came next.

Just as it had once come for him, the end now approached that passionate attacker.

Minerva entered the battle as Rondo lost consciousness. As he closed his eyes, he knew that the result was certain.

The very next day, David Gilmore was made into the Knight of Heaven.

It was incomprehensible. Unbelievable. Bewildering. Baffling. Shocking. Stupefying.

Utterly incoherent.

Rondo was more puzzled than he had been in his entire life. But rather than regular confusion, what he felt could be described better by anger or envy.

What made that man so different to him?
He had lost to Minerva too, hadn't he? Why was his spirit the same as it had been when he was an enemy?

Even though he had no interest in having pawns, he was still made into a general. Rondo found himself unable to do anything more than stare at the one who possessed everything he had with an intoxicating envy.

There was still one slot free. David hadn't filled the last remaining place, but instead stolen it from the previous owner.

Was that what he should have done? It was simply bad luck that he ran into Minerva first.

But now, in his current state, Rondo didn't believe that there was any way that he could defeat any of the generals.

As he reached the end of his hope, he found one single thread left for him to grasp onto.

Almost every general possessed an elder dragon. The intruder had already brought an elder dragon with him, so that must have been it. The only reason that he was instantly promoted must have been that.

If he had an elder dragon, would it have gone differently? Would he have been given the position of a general? Would he still have his legion following him?

Brutus was his first ally. Without Brutus, he would have never gotten anywhere. He knew this more than well. He repeated this belief to himself a nauseating number of times. But even so, that possibility still held a grip on his mind.

It wasn't as though he could do anything about it. So he tried to push it down.

Shortly afterwards, the king gave them an order. In the previous battle, the Gold Rathian given to Minerva had been killed. So, he would reward whoever brought her a new one that was fitting.

The group set out. After some weeks of travelling, Rondo stumbled across a Kushala Daora.

It was barely able to fight back against them. Even though it was an elder dragon, capturing it proved to be relatively easy.

When he returned it, he spoke with the king. The only ones in the room were the king, Rondo and Brutus, and the monster that had been captured.

"Oh. We've never had one of these before. Good job. So, tell me. What do you wish for, Rondo?"

"By the rules that you've set out, there should still be one seat for a general left unfilled. Why… hasn't it been filled?"

"Because there's yet to be anybody that can fill it."

Rondo hesitated. Even without him needing to ask, the king's response had already squashed his hopes.

He knew that he shouldn't ask this question. If he simply waited and let the chance pass him by, then he could've spent the rest of his life pinning the blame on that one unknowable thing while never becoming any the wiser.

That would have been easier.

If he was denied, then he would've been crushed. If he was affirmed, then perhaps something worse would follow. His intuition was at least sharp enough to tell all of that.

And even so, his lips moved.

"If I took on this Kushala as my partner, then would I meet the requirements?"

"Oh. I wonder. You're awfully bold to suggest that about something that was meant to be a gift for my queen. I like that. There's one problem, though. It'd be unfair if you had two monsters at once. So how about I give you another choice, just like I did when we first met?"

Rondo didn't answer.

"You're a very straightforward man. That's why I can tell exactly what you want. The position of the rook will be yours. Your followers will become your pawns once more. All you have to do is get rid of that monster of yours. There can be no taking this back, understand? Get rid of it permanently."

If he didn't act, then he couldn't gain anything. If he didn't act, then would someone swoop in and take that open place? If all he had to do was give up one thing to regain everything that he had lost, then that choice should have been obvious.

In the heat of the single moment he had to choose, Rondo made his decision. He only wished that Brutus could have at least hated him for it.

The easiest way to part with love is hatred. He'd heard that somewhere before. That's why he wished for Brutus to hate him. So that he could, in turn, hate Brutus. Enough to retroactively justify his choice.

Maybe he could have convinced himself that there was always some residual grudge between the two that only came to a head at that moment. Even pretending that there was the slightest amount of animosity present would have been enough to soften the blow.

But, Brutus didn't resist. Without even so much as a single movement, the Glavenus seemed to accept his fate.

Going against all of nature, going against what Rondo knew him to be, he was unmoving in the face of death.

Rondo couldn't understand a single part of it.

As it ended, the king had some parting words.

"I've changed my mind. I'll have David take over this job instead. Getting the one who broke something to replace it is simple logic. Well, not that I particularly dislike strange methods. If we did everything simply and straightforwardly, then the world would never have anything unexpected. Like this, for instance. But I can't expect the unexpected, so it's always good to act in moderation. Ah, that's right, one last thing that I should say. Congratulations on your promotion, Rook of Storms. I hope that it brings you happiness."

As promised, his legion was returned to him.

Rondo now had the power that he had spent those days dreaming of. If he could not stand at the top, then the place next to the top was the best he could hope for. That's what he told himself.

Even despite this new position, he continued to work tirelessly, perhaps even more so than before. Even though he hadn't been told anything of the sort, he felt a sense of dread that he could lose his place at any moment.

Going back to where he was would have made Brutus' sacrifice be for nothing.

That was also what he told himself.

This all led him to just a week prior, staring at his defeated legion while in those towering woods.

This was something that he could never tell his king, but he hated the Kushala Daora. It was slow, it was unresponsive. The king had used the same mysterious method that was used on most of the monsters in Fera Gladius, so it had no initiative. Compared to what he had before, having to constantly give orders was awkward and clunky.

Abandoning it to save his legion should have been the obvious choice. Had he not sacrificed Brutus just to gain them back? Letting them be captured by the guild would be far worse than simply not having them working directly under him.

It should have been obvious. The easiest decision of his entire life. But he couldn't make it.

He couldn't forsake that Kushala Daora. That was what made him a general. He couldn't even imagine how he would be treated if he did so. Without the monster that he resented working for him, he would be nothing. So he was faced with two terrible decisions, weighing which was truly the worst.

His fear won over. He backed away from where he was hiding, leaving his legion to their fates. Once more, he'd made his choice.

As he reached the end of his memories, he felt himself start to lose his grip on who he was.

"Ah, wait. I think I understand now. This must be what I heard of. That phenomenon of your life flashing before your eyes. Which means that… I'm close to death. Heh. Heheh."

His whole body felt cold.

"So that's it? It just replays everything all at once? At least give me some advice. Tell me what I should have done to avoid this. Fighting this man was clearly a mistake, I should have left him and Minerva to tear each other apart like the beasts they are. Don't delude yourself. A conqueror can't turn down a battle."

He thought further back.

"Maybe I shouldn't have given up on the legion and left the Kushala to die? We could've tried running away from all this. No. A conqueror doesn't flee in cowardice."

If the answer didn't lie there, then he had to go deeper.

"Before even that, I was already in too deep after betraying Brutus. Then perhaps I should have abandoned that idea and stayed in my place. No, then nothing would've been solved. I suppose my fate was sealed once I became his subordinate. Should I have valiantly stood up even after being defeated, declaring that I'd rather die than become his subordinate, then die as promised?"

The world grew colder.

"Surely death is less free than what I experienced. But now that I'm close enough to think about it, the only reason those ancestors of mine are revered is because they're dead. If they were still alive, then they'd be just like me. No, this can't be it. Surely there must be a path to freedom that I missed. Somewhere out there, there must be a fate other than living in fear or dying bravely. I just can't see it. Father… once more, won't you tell me how to live?"

---

In total, only one attack had been made. From the moment that Rondo charged forward, there was no trading of hits, no clashing of wills, not even so much as an exchange of words.

When Rondo drew close enough, the blade of the longsword was finally released from its prison. Its first act was to tear through the air. Akem slightly stepped in as he swung, extending his range to be further than what it initially seemed.

Had he the time to react to the counterattack, then perhaps he would've backed off and ordered his monster around, finding a better plan of attack. The gun still attached to his blade wouldn't have been able to do much, but it would have at least bought him a few seconds.

But no what-ifs mattered. Once one came within that distance of Akem, getting hit was not a possibility, but an inevitability. At the moment that Rondo had crossed that invisible line, it became impossible for him to return.

In the several decades since its forging that longsword had never once dulled. That was the longsword called the Phantom Fugitive.

Akem frequently employed quickdraw blade appeared for an instant to attack, before disappearing once more.

Perhaps its name could have been taken to refer to a ghost-like presence that surrounded Akem Okino. After being swung several billion times over his many years, his blade had breached the realm of the unseen. Rather than an attack, a swing from his blade registered more as opponents falling without anything happening. Like an attack from a ghost.

In that sense, it was a natural counter to Rondo. By following the conventional wisdom that it's foolish to bring a knife to a gun fight, it was only natural to make use of a ghost to cut through a ghost.

The fight had moved faster than what Rondo could process. All that he was left with was the result. The last thing he took in was the blood bubbling up across his chest, before his vision completely cut out.

Rondo took a few steps past rondo, sheathing his weapon once more. As though it had never escaped, the fugitive returned to its prison.

Had one blinked at the instant the fight began, by the time their eyes opened it would have already been over.

Rondo slumped to the ground without so much as a word. Without even a cry of pain, the fight had ended. As he hit the floor, time unpaused for the rest.

"Forgive me. I doubt you even know the value of what you stole."

Akem continued walking after giving his last words to Rondo, ignoring their shocked reactions. He reached the Kushala Daora.

With how quickly the fight ended Rondo had been unable to give any orders, failing to live up to his title of the Rook of Storms. The elder dragon of steel stood there idly, unreactive to anything it saw.

"Okay, I'm about done."

Akem sat down.

"Huh?" Isa was the first to ask.

"I'm over a hundred years old, there's only so much you can ask of me."

"You defeated him without doing anything, though."

"I did do something. If I didn't do anything then he'd still be standing."

"But it looked like nothing. It was only one slash."

"Duels between people are intense, mentally. Quality over quantity, all that. That's why I don't like them so much."

"But still…" Isa paused. "If you can defeat a guy like that in one hit then surely there's nothing stopping you from taking on the rest."

"When you get to my age even walking here is quite an effort. Stop reading so much into it. This guy was one of the generals or whatever, wasn't he? There were only seven or eight of those, so I've done a pretty large chunk of the work myself. Surely it's unreasonable to ask for much more when there's forty of us hunters here."

"Just leave it." Zara told Isa before she could continue. "He does whatever he wants, right? I'm a bit mad myself, but this isn't worth it. Besides, someone who can launch a Bulldrome across a building can't complain much about classic ridiculousness like longsword quickdraws."

"How are you still mad about that?"

"I'm not mad."

"Then why do you keep bringing it up?"

They walked off while still debating this. As he followed, Luke turned to wave to Akem.

"Be safe." Akem told him. "No, maybe that isn't right in that case. Be lucky."

"I'll try. The same goes for you."

"I don't really think I need it."

"Ah, I guess that's right. You wouldn't."

Luke walked off.

"No, I didn't mean it exactly like that." Akem kept on talking to himself. "I don't need any more luck. I've found exactly what I came here for. The question is… how do I get him moving again? I wish that poacher had been a little more cooperative."

His gaze turned to the Kushala Daora, still unmoving.

10:31

Crescent Apocalypse Excommunication Salutation Alternative Rondo, the Molten Conqueror.

Defeated by Akem Okino.

---

Group C only went a short while before being witness to another event. Luke was the first to spot the blazing red descending through the sky, he waited only a second before pointing to it.

"There he is."

"What?" Isa asked. "How did you even spot that? That's barely a dot."

"I have no idea what they're talking about," Zara thought, "But I can guess it's something to do with his brother so I'm not going to let them know."

"I can just tell. There's no other wyvern I can think of that would leave a red trail like that. Well, I suppose that saying that does bring to mind the possibility that they have more than one Valstrax, but that has a very low chance of being the case."

"Don't overthink it, you were probably right the first time."

"Valstraxes leave a red trail? I don't even know what a Valstrax looks like." Zara continued thinking silently.

The red comet, beginning a fight with the Starward Diamonds that was unseen to them.

"Well, time's wasting." Isa started leading the way. "Let's go solve a familial dispute by force."

"Ok, good. I wasn't wildly off in my guess." Zara thought, before giving an affirmative "Mm."

"About that…"

After getting their attention, Luke found himself hesitating, unsure of how to continue his sentence. Realising that he was losing his audience, he forced the words into existence.

"I think that Panzer and I should be the only ones to fight him."

"...What." Even though Isa was technically asking a question, what she said was more a subconscious response of surprise.

"What?" Zara was asking a real question.

Gathering her bearings slightly, Isa now additionally asked "Seriously, what?"

"I'm saying that it should be just us two fighting him."

"And what are the rest of us meant to do in this case?" Zara asked back.

"Go to the castle like originally planned."

Isa cut in, waving her arms through the air.

"No, no, no. We're brushing over something here. You're forgetting that even though there were six of us we lost to the two of them just a week ago."

"It wasn't the six of us. I didn't do anything. Panzer only started putting up a fight after the rest of you were down. It was four against two at best."

"You're doing a better job arguing against yourself than she is." Zara said to

"Then let me explain it properly. Convincing Davi is definitely important. I can't pass up this chance when he's practically right next to me. That's what should be most important."

He paused, trying to gather his thoughts again.

"But whatever the secret of why these monsters are under the poacher's control is also important. If we get that, then this whole battle might turn on his head in an instant. I think it's easy to assume that it'll be a lot easier to deal with them, no matter what ends up happening. But is that more important than what I'm here for? I don't think that the needs of the many should outweigh my own. That's why I'm saying you should keep going to the castle while the two of us take him on."

Finally having conjured a line that he thought sounded cool enough, he pointed his fingers.

"This way I'm being selfish in a selfless way."

"That's stupid." Isa immediately shot him down with her opinion.

"Ok, but still, I think that's the plan we should go with."

"What was the point of all that yelling we did a week ago?" Zara asked. "That sentiment of being willing to help will go to waste if you do it without our help anyway."

Isa remembered something because of this.

"Yeah, I still need my revenge."

"See? How will this brutal savage without spilling another's blood to make up for her own being spilt?"

"Hey."

Luke ignored how the conversation had gotten off-track because of revenge talk and decided to focus on letting others down.

"That's… yeah, that's quite bad, sorry. But I uh… there's really no good way that I can argue out of that one, damn."

"How do you even plan on beating him, anyway?" Zara kept up the questioning. "You lost last week, didn't you?"

"I didn't lose back then. It wasn't even a fight."

"Same thing I said earlier about arguing against yourself more than we are. Look, this sounds like you're just insisting on it out of stubbornness rather than any actual logic. Which is quite unlike the you I've come to know."

"Yeah. I'm being stubborn. I was being stubborn from the start by even chasing after him, you know? If I'm not at least stubborn enough to stick with it then there's no way I can beat him."

"Ok, but there's a difference between refusing to give up and refusing to make things less impossible. I wasn't talking about that at all. "

Isa resumed her questioning before Luke could keep talking about stubbornness.

"Do you even have a chance of beating him?"

"I was going to get onto that. I know that it's only been a week. But over that week, I've been working tirelessly, specifically to counter him. It's only been a week of preparation, but I've known Davi for my whole life. I'm confident that I can be his equal with what I've prepared."

Luke paused for a second, before rubbing the back of his helmet.

"Well, this part might sound like I'm being overconfident, or so cocky that I'm definitely going to lose, but…."

Luke's voice trailed off. Isa picked the conversation back up.

"Just say it."

"I think that me and Panzer are probably the only ones that can beat him."

"Wow, you were right." Zara congratulated him. "You definitely are being overconfident."

"Well, it's not like that. I don't think that Panzer and I alone have a chance of defeating any of the other generals or maybe even some of the pawns, but in his case specifically

It's not just because I'm prepared. It's because I think he won't take us seriously. Beating someone almost a thousand times does that to you. I think that if anyone else goes with us, then he'll be on edge. If it was someone he didn't know, then he'd be more careful of them. Even if Isa and Fen went, I feel like he'd still keep his guard up. No matter how many times I run through it, I can't see a way to win without taking advantage of that."

"Hm. You're serious?"

"I'm serious."

"Human lie detector, if you would."

"Yeah, he's completely serious."

"Thank you." Well, if you're so confident, then let's see what happens. It'll look bad if this blows up on your face though. Ah, right. One thing."

She reached around in pouch, producing a bottle of strangely coloured liquid.

"Here. Using this should help you out a little."

He paused.

"Oh, that potion from before."

"I thought it was poison." Isa commented.

"What? Why would she give me poison?"

"Cause before she gave it to me and told me that she wanted me to test it. I remember the colour."

"You drank poison?"

"I respected her honesty."

"Enough to drink poison?"

"You're acting awfully cocky for someone who drank the same poison." Zara interjected.

"So the potion was poison?"

"A slightly weaker version, but yeah. I'm surprised you didn't work it out."

"Well you did mention one of the side effects being that I might feel like I got poisoned, so I thought it was that."

"That sounds a bit stupid by your standards."

"She-"

"I told him it'd make him strong enough to beat Davi and he took it without any further question. Probably good that we talked this out, actually, I'd overlooked the possibility that he'd just drink it once he got into the fight."

"Oh."

"Why were you poisoning us, anyway? That seems like a new low for you." Luke tried to change the subject.

"It most certainly isn't. But this time it was to refine it. I got the idea after our first encounter with these poachers last week."

"What happened in the fight to cause that?"

"No, not that. I said after the encounter. It was when Laura started talking about eating one of the world's most poisonous bugs like it was nothing."

"Oh. That makes sense."

"I've been refining it to defeat the poachers all week. But y'know, I need to test it first. Only test subjects available were you lot. It was that simple."

"So it wasn't just us."

"Yeah. You're one of the only ones I admitted it was poison to, though. Figured I couldn't fool you. With the rest I just used their weaknesses. Your brother took it instantly when I told him it'd cure his wound. I told Fen I'd stop being so cold to him if he drank it and he gulped it down."

"Hold on, you poisoned everyone?"

"No way. I'd never poison myself. And I couldn't get Bal or the old man to try it either."

"The Diamonds were part of this too?"

"Look, I'm being nice for once. Supporting you and everything. Just take the poison."

Luke stared at her.

"It's not enough to kill him. It'll just paralyse him."

He kept staring.

"Human lie detector."

"She's telling the truth."

"Thank you. Well, I will need everything I can get. I'll take it with gratitude then, thanks. Alright, any other last minute weapons that I should add?"

Zara clicked her tongue at him.

"Don't be so reliant on others, do your own thing."

"But you're the one who brought it up out of nowhere?"

"We don't have time for this."

"Yeah, so I'll be going."

Isa slapped his back.

"If you lose to him then I'm going to beat you up harder than he ever could."

"Then I guess that's all the more reason. I won't back down, don't worry."

"Also, I still want revenge on him so I'll be coming back when we're done with the king. I can sort of tell where he is now so I'll be sure to go back there, but if you change locations while you're fighting and I can't find you then I'm also going to beat you up in that case."

"O-okay."

"Oh, last thing. If you die then I'll kill you."

"Alright. I'll have to be careful in that case. Don't want to die when I'm already dead."

He and Panzer started to run at full sprint.

Those left behind watched them grow more distant. After they'd finally disappeared from view, Isa turned her head upwards.

"Ah, now I remember what was bugging me. Didn't a bunch of hunters who were supposed to join this operation leave? Right, cause they were sick or something."

Zara looked away.

"We don't have time for this."

"Did you cause that or not?"

"We don't have time for this."

"Answer."

"We don't have time for this."

"I can't catch you lying if you don't answer."

"That's exactly why I'm not answering."

"That's the same as admitting it."

"But it's not."

---

All of that led up to the moment these two timelines of events converged.

That area of the city had already been partially destroyed. Scattered around it were three defeated hunters.

Luke dashed in, taking note of the destruction around him. This was only a secondary concern. What he focused on was the man and monster atop the clock tower.

It must have stopped years ago. Its shortest hand had broken a quarter of the way through its journey, while the other two had made it just barely past the halfway mark before losing the ability to continue.

From where Luke was standing, it felt like there was a world between the two sides. The younger brother, the one left behind, turned his gaze skywards. The older brother, the one leaving, kept his gaze on the ground.

In that place, time was broken. The stage was set.

And so, Davi spoke.

"Hey, hey, hey. Come on now! There's absolutely no way you're serious about this, are you?"

"I am serious."

"Even after all of that? You're still here?"

"I'm still here."

"I thought you were supposed to be smart. Did something happen to change that? I'll spell it out, just in case you somehow don't get what's going on here. You and your buddies lost to me just a week ago. That was when you outnumbered us three to one. And now it's just Panzer and you. On top of that, I don't remember you ever beating me in anything, especially not a fight. Get it? If you're gonna stick around even after I was nice enough to make it clear I can only assume you're here to die."

Luke sighed, failing to find the bravado to mask his nervousness.

"I might be."

"Hey, at least you've got no delusions about what's going on this time. That's a step in the right direction. The next ones would be turning around and leaving."

"Nope. Can't."

"Oh, finally a response that isn't pretty much the same as the rest."

"I came here for a reason. That reason is… getting you to come back with me."

"Never mind, we're back to more of the same. Did you forget it's only been a week? I'm not repeating all that again. Still, I think that a week should at least be enough time to think of something new to say, shouldn't it?"

"Haven't had time. All I've been doing for the last week is thinking of ways to beat you."

"Hoh. Hooh. Hoho. Alright. That's some real bravado. So are you actually going to back it up? Or are you gonna refuse to shoot like last time-"

He heard a shot as he was talking. Instinctively, Davi swayed his head to the left. The bullet that had been fired whizzed past him.

"Nice. I prefer that to all this talking."

"I'm just going to check beforehand, one more time. Is there really nothing that will convince you to stop doing this and come back?"

"Seriously? Back to this again? Didn't the guild give you any idea of who you're fighting before they sent you here? They want me dead. I'm a wanted criminal. Get that?"

"That doesn't matter."

"Wow, good to know. Well, I'm not gonna pretend I care about that for the sake of an argument. Even if that wasn't the case, there's no way I can ever return. I can't get down from here. I can't be caught in that gravity again."

"I don't get what you're talking about when you say stuff like that."

"It's not something that you'd ever be able to get." He seemed to get irritated for a moment before refocusing himself. "I said that I preferred fighting to talking, didn't I? Let's stop wasting time and get to it. I'll see whether your confidence is bullshit or not myself."

Davi stepped forward, dropping towards the ground.

"Let's go!"

Luke readied his bowgun and pulled himself forwards.

"Yeah!"

This marked the beginning of match number one thousand.

---

11:01

Hunter side: 30 hunters, 8 monsters.

Poacher side: 44 poachers, 45 monsters.

TO BE CONTINUED

---

I was thinking that this chapter might be a shorter one when I considered what I had to cover but I ended up setting a new record for wordcount again.

I certainly didn't expect Rondo's backstory to end up that long, even though I already knew everything I had to cover before going in. I'm not sure if the backstories will get any more concise or not. Sorry.

Also it was so long between writing chapter 25 and this that I accidentally gave him a completely new backstory. It's a good thing that I noticed, otherwise I would've had to bend over backwards to find some justification for why the guild had a fake backstory for him. The element of him believing that his ancestors ruled the ancient civilisation came entirely from that second backstory, so I guess it's good to take detours sometimes.