My Glasses

Chapter 184 – Glasses boy and the hunting festival – part six

(Third person narration)

“Do you know why I targeted the Dragon Fish in the first place?” Eil asked Hydra.

After hearing his question, Hydra came up with several possibilities, but then converged them all into a single guess.

“Because you knew where it was?” She replied.

Demon Beasts and animals often move around, so it’s a given that it’s hard to find them.

Even Demon Beasts that set a territory as theirs can still be chased away by a strong Demon Beast and move away unexpectedly.

Cases of strong Demon Beasts coming in from the outside, like the Obsidian Wolf that appeared near Haidiga, are not that rare.

And well, it was because of the Obsidian Wolf that the Demon Beasts of that mountain were moving away from it.

The worst outcome was prevented, but if the Demon Beasts had truly been forced to flee from their homes, then they would most likely cause severe damage to the human villages near the mountain.

In other words, having a set territory doesn’t mean that a Demon Beast will stay in a given place forever.

Or if one were to change their perspective, this means that a Demon Beast that stays in a single place forever is an incredibly strong Demon Beast.

Like a legendary dragon that has lived in its lair for as long as anybody remembers, or a magical beast that guards a gate to another world.

Legendary-class Demon Beasts like those seem to still exist in this world to this day.

Both Hydra and Eil can acknowledge that Demon Beasts like these are way too strong to ever be hunted by humans though. They understand that certain types of Demon Beasts are just too unreasonably strong.

“That’s it. Dragon Fishes are Demon Beasts that live in the water, so they can’t move to places where there is no water.

“As in, if it lives inside a lake, no matter how big said lake is, the Dragon Fish will still be stuck there.” Eil told her.

That’s why he chose the Dragon Fish.

However, while they may be unable to live on land, it wasn’t necessarily impossible for them to act on land.

It’s this kind of unexpected thing that makes Demon Beasts scary.

Eil sighed, “Hunting a Demon Beast without much information about it is just way too scary, after all.”

Hydra was confused. She understood that something unexpected happened, but she wouldn’t know what it was unless he explained it.

However, after considering Eil’s expression, Hydra came to the conclusion that this was not something he was willing to elaborate on.

******

(Eil’s PoV)

I thought that, for as long as I could get the Dragon Fish on land, I would win.

I found the Dragon Fish during the week that was leading up to the hunting festival.

At that time, I wasn’t fully aware of how much of a large scale event Beckenberg was going to make it.

Nonetheless, in my free time, I made sure to go to various places to prepare for the hunt. I used that time to gather information on Demon Beasts and to carefully decide on what would be the ideal target.

The first step was to exclude the commonly seen Destroyer Horses and Demon Pigs.

Then, I found out that the strong Demon Beasts near Krozheit were primarily the Blood Spider; the Ash Cat; and the Vajra Ape.

I researched each of them and tried to figure out which ones I could hunt.

The Blood Spider was about as big as a child while it was on its eight legs, and about as big as a small adult while standing up. It was a giant spider-like Demon Beast that was about as big as me.

It was not only a very fast enemy, but it also had sharp, red, hook-like nails at the tip of its feet, and it used those to grip trees and rock walls.

And the most dangerous thing about it was its thread. If you’re caught on that while acting alone, you’re basically guaranteed to die.

Once you are caught by its thread, trying to struggle will just get you wrapped around it more and more. Then, when you have lost a certain amount of freedom, the spider will skewer you with its legs, then eat you. It’s basically impossible to escape without outside help.

And well, I’m not the ideal person to hunt quick Demon Beasts… Or rather, bows are not the ideal weapons for that, even if I don’t have a bow right now.

Either way, I gave up on the spider.

The next one was the Ash Cat.

It may be referred to as a cat, but it’s actually quite large. And unsurprisingly, it was also a carnivorous Demon Beast that ate humans.

From what I heard, the Ash Cat seemed to be slightly bigger than the Sand Walker that lived in the assassins’ village… I wonder how Asan is doing. I’d like to see her again if I could.

Anyways, the Ash Cat was also quite fast, and it seemed to have an ability to create a large sand curtain to obstruct visibility.

I might have been able to deal with that by using goggle-type glasses, but as the Ash Cat was quite fast in the first place, I decided to give up on that idea.

And the last one was the Vajra Ape.

While it was on the same category as the Blood Spider and Ash Cat as a ‘strong’ Demon Beast, it actually seemed to be way stronger than those two.

As in, if a Blood Spider and an Ash Cat tried to team up and fight a Vajra Ape together, the Vajra Ape should easily win. That’s just how strong it is.

One just needs to look at its body to realize that the Vajra Ape is incredibly strong, and when one considers that the legs must support that body, then it surely has quite the jumping power too.

Moreover, the Vajra Ape is said to be quite intelligent.

However, it apparently doesn’t attack you for as long as you don’t enter its territory.

Though the Vajra Apes near Krozheit apparently hate humans because glory-blinded hunters have often tried to attack these Demon Beasts.

Which means that, right now, they will attack or throw something at any human that they see. It is a truly frightening Demon Beast.

But well, when trying to think about what Demon Beast I had the best chance of killing… The Vajra Ape was the easiest one to hunt.

Since I can use the Shadow Hunter gift, I can bypass its strong body, so a good arrow to the head or to the heart should be enough to secure a victory… I don’t have a bow with me though.

But more importantly than that, it has a fixed territory, so I would be able to have a rough idea of its location, which is quite important in a hunting competition where speed matters.

However, the Vajra Ape having a fixed territory was also a problem.

As in, it wouldn’t be just me who would be aiming for it. Many other teams would surely be planning on going after the Vajra Ape, so I gave on that idea too.

I was just sure that I would have to deal with people trying to steal the body from me once I finished hunting, and I didn’t really want to deal with that.

So, after enough consideration, I gave up on going after strong Demon Beasts and decided to go after the rare ones instead.

I thought that I wouldn’t be able to find them easily, but… While scouting the hunting grounds, I found this one by chance.

There was a large deep lake in the forest to the north of Krozheit.

At the bottom of the lake, with Body-heat Vision, I was able to see a long, thin, red silhouette.

It seemed to be a very deep lake though.

Its water was clear, but it still got darker and darker as it got closer to the bottom.

I could see the silhouettes of fishes inside it, as well as footprints of animals that probably came to drink water from the surrounding areas, so I think it should be safe for humans to drink this water too.

But well, as I caught a glimpse of that red silhouette with my body-heat vision, I decided to take a closer look at the lake.

First things first, I realized that it was probably not a type of fish.

There was just too much difference in its temperature when compared to the lake. This thing was very easily visible with Body-heat Vision.

Fishes, on the other hand, had a body temperature that was fairly similar to that of the water.

… That said, the temperature of this thing was probably not the main mystery behind the giant fish of this lake.

So, I changed from Body-heat Vision to the Blue Map gift and tried searching for a Magic Core and… It was there. A blue dot on the same place I saw its silhouette.

This lake was very deep though, and as far as I could see, the elongated Demon Beast was at the very bottom of the lake, to the point I couldn’t even see it without the help of Gifts.

I wondered if I should dive into the water to check, but I instantly gave up on that idea.

If I was attacked while inside the water, there would be nothing that I could do about it.

Humans are naturally weaker than Demon Beasts, so there is no reason to make this gap even worse by trying to fight in my opponent’s home turf.

Rather than risking my life with this kind of crazy action, I should instead gather information from a safe place first.

And that was how I found out about the Dragon Fish.