My Glasses

Chapter 175 – Glasses boy gathers more information

There was a momentary uproar at the news of Zett’s participation, but before long, the festival continued on as if nothing had happened.

At first I felt like going home right away, but I managed to recover by now. I just needed to change my mindset a bit.

I’ll probably end up meeting up with him again, so there is no point in worrying about it.

And in the first place, does he even remember me?

Well, I wonder if I can deceive myself enough to believe this kind of thing.

Though if I try thinking about it, there should be a surprisingly large number of ways to avoid getting involved with Zett, or at least ways to minimize my involvement with him.

… As in, I just don’t want to see him. That Iron Eater gift is just way too terrifying.

I’ll definitely lose if we fight a one-on-one battle, and if Zett decides to kill me, then I’ll have no way to stop him.

Not to mention that Zett is already pretty strong even without taking his Gift into account.

Even Beckenberg tried to kill Zett only after he got hold of the Gift Seal, after all… And considering everything that I know now, I can confidently say that it was absolutely necessary if one wanted to have a chance against Zett.

… I wonder what would have happened if Beckenberg had been able to use the Gift Seal that night like he had planned to.

I don’t think it would have been enough to kill Zett, but I also don’t think Zett would have been able to get away unscathed.

Honestly, I think it’s even possible that Zett might have gotten serious when seeing that and would have ended up actually killed Beckenberg.

… Well, at the end of the day, thinking about this is just a waste of time. That was not what happened, and what happened has already happened.

Though I wonder where the Gift Seal is right now… Ah, wait, this too is also a pointless line of thought.

******

There’s still some time left before the competition starts.

By staying here, I was able to obtain the heartbreaking information about Zett’s participation. If I continue listening, there’s a high possibility that I might get even more information.

As for Zett himself, I’m at least mentally prepared for him now.

If I end up running into him during the festival, I won’t be confused about it, and may instead react to him with some plan in mind.

If I were to meet him without any previous warning about his whereabouts, I might have ended up reflexively running away like a terrified rabbit. Run far enough away that he wouldn’t be able to harm me with his Iron Eater.

“Hey, that horse skewer is really tasty.” The therianthrope girl commented.

For some reason, she was now talking to me frequently while we waited, though I mostly gave half-hearted responses to whatever she said.

… Still, she ended up convincing me that I should try out the Destroyer Horse skewers later.

Maybe I should do it right before the hunting festival starts, to make sure I am full during the hunt itself.

I certainly enjoyed eating some Destroyer Horse barbecues with lady Seviarow back when I was accompanying her on her daily patrols.

The Destroyer Horse meat was truly incredible. I didn’t think I would ever eat meat that was still red on its inside, but this somewhat-raw meat had a very unique and delicious taste to it.

I could even understand what it felt like for my sister, Horun, to bite into raw meat… No, never mind that. I can’t understand it at all. This is a fundamentally different situation from that.

Well, in any case, on top of the information about the participants, I was also able to overhear a lot of things related to the Demon Beasts that people have been planning on hunting today.

Most people seemed to agree that Demon Pigs and Destroyer Horses would be no good if one wanted to win the competition. Common Demon Beasts aren’t enough if one wants a high score, unless it’s a special outlier like the queen that Chace hunted.

These common Demon Beasts might have been a valid choice if the competition cared about the number of Demon Beasts you hunted, but this time the score cares only about the type of Demon Beasts you killed, not the number.

Therefore, there are only two options here.

“Hey, hey, which do you think is better? The Demon Pig or the horse?” The therianthrope girl asked.

“They’re both good. Do I have to choose one?” I replied.

Yeah, we can just go for both instead… Wait, no, that’s not how it works. Don’t let the meat distract you.

The two options available are to either hunt a strong Demon Beast or a rare one.

When it comes to strong Demon Beasts, the options seem to be the Blood Spider; the Ash Cat; and the Vajra Ape. *

I wasn’t very familiar with the Demon Beasts of Krozheit, so I gathered information on those in advance, and it seems like those enemies are strong enough that you’d usually need a group of at least ten hunters to take them down.

The Vajra Ape in particular is very dangerous, and it is usually only hunted once every few years.

On top of its superhuman strength and speed, this Demon Beast seems to also be quite intelligent and knows how to move and throw things depending on the situation it is in.

Apes are truly smart, aren’t they? They might even be smarter than my older sister, in fact.

But well, as for the rare Demon Beasts, there wasn’t much information on them, but one of the potential targets was the Sky Lizard, as it apparently also lives near Krozheit.

It seems to be viewed as a very hard to find Demon Beast though, and it’s also only hunted once every few years.

Other Demon Beasts I ended up hearing about were the Fairy Moth, the Phantasmal Rabbit, the Dragon Fish and the Sky Snake.

I was unfamiliar with all of those, so I tried getting some information, but I hardly got anything.

Apparently, people sometimes find fallen wings of Fairy Moths in the forest, so there is no doubt that they actually live near Krozheit, but I didn’t hear anything about someone finding or killing one of them.

As for the others, old man Tatsunami said that he had seen the materials of a Phantasmal Rabbit and of a Dragon Fish back when he was young.

In fact, he had an armor made of Dragon Fish scales in his store, so I asked him to show it to me.

It’s unknown if those Demon Beasts were actually killed near Krozheit or if the materials were just brought from somewhere else though… Still, those two Demon Beasts are also treated as rare Demon Beasts that live near Krozheit.

As for the Sky Snake, it is sometimes seen flying near the forest.

It seems to fly at a fairly high speed, so most people seem to have concluded that there is no way to hunt it, even if it sometimes flies at a high altitude and other times flies at a low altitude.

And that was about as much information as I could gather about the Demon Beasts during my research.

Well, that, and I also heard some rumors about their potential habitats, so I have kept that in mind too.

So, when thinking about whether I should go after a big or rare Demon Beast… Well, there was only one choice available to me.

“Hey, hey, you’re participating too, right? What are you aiming for?” The therianthrope girl asked me.

“I wonder…” I vaguely replied.

“I’m going after the Vajra Ape.” She stated.

Eh…? For real? Even if it’s an enemy that usually requires ten strong hunters to be killed?

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* Translator’s Note: Vajra is a mythological Buddhist weapon that symbolizes both indestructibility and irresistible force, amongst other things.