|Fugen — Elder and Leader of the Kamura Village|
I clench my hand tightly at the funeral ceremony happening in front of me.
'Another one dies'
Miu is a kind woman. She is the one who teaches Yomogi how to make Dango and Mochi for the others. She is a bright woman who always smiles and is someone who happily takes care of the children.
Sadly, her smile disappears when her family is gone because of the monsters breaching the defence perimeter around the village. I want to stop her from doing what she wants to do, but when I see her expression, I know stopping her will do nothing.
She became a woman who only wanted to fulfill the promise they had made in their younger years, or at least that was what she had been saying to herself.
Deep down, I know she only wants to die and reunite with her family, but she doesn't want to take her own life and tarnish her family's legacy. So… She takes the bodies of her husband and daughter to the Shrine Ruins region and tries to bury them in the land supposedly where the Gods once lived.
Sadly, that place is no longer a safe place for humans. Even hunters need to be careful in that area, for the monsters there have taken over the entire region.
After the Old Red Stronghold fails and we need to retreat deeper to the north, the Shrine Ruins region is now outside our reach. The New Red Stronghold is the last defence against the monsters.
We know the reason why they are full of hatred and hell bent on killing all of us. The Ancient Civilization performed what we now call the Forbidden Act. It is an act so foul that nature itself is angry at their action. The ancient people created an abomination made of hundreds of dragon parts to create a so-called new life.
However, it is not a living being. The souls of all the dragons killed by the people of the Ancient Civilization were held together by steel that was created from the blood of hundreds of dragons. All the souls inside that thing are screaming and full of hatred, something the people of the Ancient Civilization taught they could control.
They cannot control them.
When the Great Dragon War was declared by nature itself, the ancient people thought they could use their creation to fight in their battle, but their so-called masterpiece rebelled against their order and attacked them from the inside.
The end of this war scattered humanity across the world and cast curses upon the world.
The biggest among them is the Curse of Separation. It is a curse that prevents any Hunters from creating a party with more than four members. If someone tries to form a party with more than four members, misfortune will fall upon them.
A storm will appear when they set sail to do their mission, a landslide will happen when they try to explore the region, or an Elder Dragon will appear when they form a party that is more than eight members.
There are a few exceptions to this curse. It will not affect a defensive battle. That means, as long as they are not actively hunting monsters, the curse will not activate. That is something that is fortunate because Rampage is a thing.
Lucky for us, the ancient people wrote their sins in books and ensured we got those books to ensure we did not do what they were doing in the past. They even write about how to make amends to nature.
How? Guard the ecosystem.
Never overhunting monsters. This is hard to do with how monsters can give birth to a lot of offspring at a very fast pace. We cannot overhunt because they produce monsters faster than we can hunt.
Make sure the other monsters do not over-hunt. This is a hard task to perform. It requires us to hunt larger monsters that overhunt the smaller monsters.
Never try the Taboo Act. This one is easy because, after witnessing the destruction of a massive and powerful empire after trying to play God, we will never try or even think to perform the Taboo Act.
These three unbreakable rules are something we need to perform and will help us reduce the vicious attack nature delivers to us.
And it is working.
Nature welcomes us, and the smaller monsters rarely attack us. Only larger monsters that attack us. However, it has changed over the past years. For some reason, the monsters start to get even more aggressive than before.
Even after we performed the Three Unbreakable Rules, they are still going wild, and we are trying our hardest to research the cause of it. Sadly, we have yet to receive anything useful.
I shake my head and take a deep breath.
I can see the ceremony is over, and it is time to put the urn in the Hall of the Dead. However, as we walk to the Hall of the Dead, I can see a group of people walking from the Southern Gate. I blink for a second as I see a familiar face among the group.
A familiar face that supposedly died.
Without hesitation, I run toward them and give them a tight hug.
"Miu! Ito! Mika!"
I can feel tears running down my cheeks.
"Elder Fugen!"
I hug them for a few seconds before releasing them. I look at them and say.
"How? I saw you two die."
Miu smiles at me and says.
"Can we talk at our house? I will tell you all of it."
I nod and take them back home. Hinoa is kind enough to make tea for all of us.
"Miu, please tell me what is happening."
She nods, takes a deep breath, and says.
"It starts when I meet a god."
"A god?"
I look at her in shock.
"Yes."
She then tells me her story. A story of her being about to be eaten by a Great Azuchi and her pack member; however, she is saved by a massive dragon. She then tells him how the dragon can change form into a humanoid one.
This is the first time I have heard of a dragon that can change form into an animal-like form. All of the monsters are humanoid in form, which is why the male monsters are willing to take human women to their nest. Humans and monsters can breed. The chance is slim, but there is a chance of humans giving birth to monster eggs.
"He then takes us to the supposed abandoned camp deep in the middle of the Shrine Ruins region. There… He performed a miracle. A miracle that only God can perform. He resurrected my husband and daughter."
I want to tell her that it is impossible. Resurrection is not something that is possible. However, the evidence sits right in front of me.
Do gods exist? Are they the ones who declared the Great Dragon War? Why are they appearing now?
Is he our hope? Or is he the bringer of doom?