Episode 9 Hounds of Hell (2)
In the Baskervilles, practical tests are conducted several times a day.
Most of the brothers fight each other to determine superiority in strength, but most of the start of the fight is announced with this species.
Ding-
The young hounds of the Baskervilles, who were nervous in the unfamiliar environment, immediately came to their senses at the familiar sound of the bell.
And as it has been learned, it reveals speculation like instinct.
A young Baskerville from the nine-year-old class quickly ran across the wasteland.
The guy who benefited quite a bit by occupying the advantageous terrain first here last year.
However, he has the intelligence to remember the points from last year, but not the intelligence to keep the eyes on him in mind.
The quick-witted 8-year-olds chase after him.
I don’t know what it is, but I plan to intercept what he’s trying to get.
Clever guys pretend they know something and run to attract competitors.
And lure them into dangerous pits or swamps and get rid of annoying flying flies all at once.
Hive, Middle, Low, and the triplets were such cunning guys.
“Occupy from there.”
“Don’t order.”
“Because you’re doing well, you guys are doing well.”
9-year-olds who are already showing their prominence For reference, these guys used a similar method last year when they were 8-year-olds to eliminate a lot of upperclassmen one year older.
Within hours of the bell ringing, dropouts began to appear one after another.
From shock and fainting, from rolling down a steep slope, or from being stabbed or cut by falling into a swamp.
The reasons were varied, but the root cause was one.
It was at the hands of other brothers.
…can!
You can also hear the sound of metal pieces colliding with each other throughout the forest.
As soon as the competition began, the children of the Baskervilles were fighting each other with shortswords given to them.
A dull knife whose blade is not sharpened so that it cannot kill.
Killing opponents is not encouraged in this tournament.
It is not prohibited, but it stops at a level that is not recommended.
If you kill the other person, a point is deducted… This score range is quite large, so the children did their best not to kill the other person ‘by hand’ if possible.
Of course, it doesn’t matter if your skills are good enough to take a deduction and you have accumulated enough points, or if you can kill your opponent secretly enough to be invisible to the leader dogs.
Well, despite the fact that the guardian knights who act as guide dogs keep their eyes on for 24 hours, mysterious deaths and accidental deaths occur frequently. This is a practical evaluation, so this opportunity may be used to eliminate a rival or a guy you don’t want to see.
……but.
There was no vikir in this fierce competition.
Bikir acted like he had no interest in scoring from the start.
All he did was, as soon as the bell struck, to move swiftly out of the reservation and settle down in the wasteland outside the boundary bordering the Unsea Zone.
‘……Was it about this?’
Bikir was reminiscing about his days as a student before returning and his days as an instructor.
If you go straight this way, there is a wasteland that is narrowly inside the border area.
There, an old dead tree stands tall, but the roots that extend deep into the ground are soft and rotten, so the whole ground is soft.
Eventually, Bikir found the land he was aiming for.
Unlike other places, the soil there is exceptionally reddish.
Bikir broke a branch and began digging and poking the ground.
While the other brothers fought in the distance, winning and losing points, Bikir silently dug the ground.
The guide dog guardians kept observing Bikir while hiding in a secret place.
However, even after several days, Bikir continued to be seen digging a pit.
‘Looks like he’s just hiding there to kill time.’
‘A bit disappointing?’
‘There’s no need to keep watching.’
As Bikir had been prominent since childhood, the Guardian Knights had high hopes for him, but this was quite disappointing.
Because digging and hiding in a pit was typical behavior of low-key children of the lower ranks of cowards.
In the end, the Guardian Knights who couldn’t keep an eye on him began to take their eyes off Vikir one by one.
……but.
They didn’t pay attention to the fights between the children.
How deep does Bikir, who is only 8 years old, dig a pit and what he does in it.
* * *
“This place is still like a cradle.”
Bikir.
He was sitting at the bottom of the pit and having a good time.
Red and Black Mountain, which I came back to again, were such a comfortable and cozy place.
Outside, the Guardian Knights stand guard instead, and competitors do not come to these outskirts.
If you are thirsty, you can collect dew that has formed overnight on a large leaf hung on the wall of the pit, and if you are hungry, you can catch a passing snake or mole and roast it.
Rather, it was much more delicious than haggis or preserved food that comes out as a school lunch.
Even the bed that I made myself was more cozy.
Beds for infants are made of monster skins or thorns, so they are very hard and rough.
However, the pit here is now covered with well-dried straw and ashes left over from burning sawdust, so it is very warm and comfortable.
Bikir closed his eyes for a moment while roasting a rat he had caught the night before.
< Gorgeous Rat 'Norbegicus' >
Hazard Level: F
Size: 50cm
Location: All Continents
– A rat that has become hideous after being stricken with demonic air.
A grown-up adult has the intelligence and size of a small dog, so it is an object of disgust for women and girls.
After removing the intestines, it is surprisingly edible if you bake it well over a fire or boil it well in water.
When it comes to information about monsters, no matter how low they are, they clearly memorize them all.
It was thanks to the monster encyclopedia that I had memorized before returning.
Of course, Bikir wasn’t the only one who memorized all the monster books in the world before returning.
In the Age of Destruction, everyone was a hunter.
‘……But now I’m the only hunter.’
Maybe it’s a situation closer to the hounds of hunters.
But that could make the hunter even more miserable.
“I mean, what could be more ironic than a hunter who dies from being bitten on the neck by his dog?”
Suddenly, I recall the conversation I had with Hugo before returning.
This happened shortly before being executed.
‘When you train a dog, you have to risk dying. Usually two out of three die. Do you think it’s heartless?’
‘no.’
‘Of course not. Because the owner also trains with the preparedness to die from being bitten by a dog. Owners should always be trained. You never know when you’ll die from being bitten by blind teeth.’
It was a fact that Hugo himself was aware of.
Maybe that’s why Hugo didn’t trust anyone in this world. even yourself.
“…”
Bikir shook his head to clear his thoughts.
Then, he took out a bean from a sack hanging from his waist.
Blood Bean. Dark red soybean with a huge cocoa concentration.
Bikir tossed a pea into the fire.
The stinky and other odors are removed from the plump fat rat meat, and the faint scent of cacao permeates.
‘Cacao beans and blood beans with a high concentration are the best for removing meat odor!’
It was a recipe learned from a late sergeant in the same platoon when he was drafted into the war against the demons.
“…Since we’re going camping, I’m thinking a lot about the past.”
Bikir looked around.
All the eyes that had been watching were now gone.
Perhaps the guide dogs, who found their behavior uninteresting, moved elsewhere.
……Then now is the time.
Bikir reached for the pile of firewood heaped up.
Then he took out a dagger from his waistband and started cutting down trees.
wooden spear.
Bikir began planting these pointed wooden spears upside down all over the pit floor.
The windows soared high as if to pierce the sky.
Dozens or hundreds of them are embedded in the bottom of the pit.
Like the lower jaw of a beast with fangs.
Even Vikir himself hadn’t thought about what these teeth would bite into.
Outside the boundary between the Red and Black Mountains, in the ‘unsea-forbidden zone’, there are monsters that are so big and powerful that people in this world can’t even imagine.
…… Well, most of them are familiar to Vikir who has passed through the age of destruction.
“The tree has fallen.”
Bikir discovered that all the trees he had cut were exhausted.
It was not enough to sharpen the wooden spear or throw it into the bonfire.
Bikir moved out of the pit to fetch the wood.
The gaze of the Guardian Knights has also disappeared, so now you can cross over to the forbidden land and cut down trees.
Eventually, Bikir crossed the border with a secretive force and entered the forbidden zone.
* * *
The sea of red and black trees is incredibly dense.
The stems and roots that grow horizontally and vertically made the entire forest into a huge labyrinth jungle-gym.
If you look at the dark caves poking through the roots of trees that have been burned by the forest fire, you might doubt that they are passages leading to hell.
Any normal young hound of the Baskervilles would avoid this gloomy and ominous place without saying anything, but Vikir prefers to dig into this burrow with his own feet.
‘Let’s see. I guess this was roughly the habitat?’
Bikir wandered through the sea for a long time.
When I was an instructor or skirmisher, I wandered around this place as if I was eating, so my eyes were clear as if I was going in and out of my house.
yet.
Bikir found something.
Sizzle…
It’s the sound of a small fire buried in the ashes.
After following the smell of something burning, I finally found what I was looking for.
It was a pile of shit.
A fire that has not yet been extinguished burns in the blackened pile of dung.
As far as Bikir knows, there is only one monster that takes such hot shit.
I raised my head and crawled a little further through the root hole of the tree, and before long, I saw the owner of the dung.
Two eyeballs that glow like a giant, sharp teeth and claws.
< Hell Hound >
Hazard Rating: B+
Size: 3m
Location of discovery: Red and Black Mountains 2nd ridge
– Also known as ‘the dog that drives hell’.
It is a being that unconditionally brings a terrible disaster to those it encounters, and if it is bitten once, it can never survive.
The sulfur fire spewing out of the eyes and mouth is brought from the embers of the depths of the polar hell, and does not go out until the life used as firewood is completely burned away.
Even in the encyclopedia, there was not much information about this dangerous monster.
However, Bikir has faced quite a few monsters of this type through the age of destruction.
“Finally found.”
The reason why I came to Red and Black Mountain is to meet these guys.
Bikir turned quickly.
As soon as the Hellhound saw Vikir, it rushed at it.
kong! kong! kong!
The roar of a hound pursuing closely behind.
As soon as he got out of the way, he threw himself into a burrow on the side of the floodwaters.
Chow ah ah –
Hellhound couldn’t overcome the force of running furiously into the straight course and took several wasted steps.
“As expected, you’re an idiot who only knows how to go straight.”
Most beings who have climbed up from hell can do nothing but go straight.
Even elite monsters like Hellhound show weakness in such a sudden break.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..
Hellhound turned around again and started pursuing.
Bikir prepared the following pattern.
Chow ah –
Drinking water made from collecting two drops of dew was sprinkled and drew a long line on the floor.
…flinch!
Hellhound came to a sudden stop with the same momentum as it was running.
This Yugye species (油界種) unusually can not cross the water.
No matter how thin and shallow the water is, that is the case.
Since it is a monster that is not good at anything other than running in a straight line, it is a hellhound that dares to return to water spots scattered on the ground.
It is a fact known to all hunters who have passed through the era of extinction, but it is a habit that is not well known in this world due to lack of research.
‘Well, it will inevitably be revealed later when the Pandemonium Gate opens and Hellhounds infest the entire continent.’
Bikir faced the hellhound.
Although the speed of the Hellhound running back from the water station has decreased, it is still terrifying.
Hellhound is a monster that even knights of expert intermediate level or higher have a hard time with 1:1.
Bikir before returning is also a monster so powerful that he was able to catch it alone only when he was 18 years old.
but.
Bikir did not come all this way without taking any measures.
“Canine monsters always open their mouths when running.”
Like a seasoned hunter who has lived through the era of destruction, he brought out a secret weapon prepared for this situation.
The most effective weapon for catching canine monsters.
…hard!
The sound of beans hitting each other in my hands.
Blood Bean Cocoa Beans.
It was chocolate.
