Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 10 "Father really is something else, dragging a guest along on a monster hunt. Does he truly find us that unreliable?"
Izella, the only daughter of the Lug Family Head, grumbled in disbelief.
Having swapped her flamboyant dress for a tunic and trousers that looked far more practical, she turned to look back at Turan.
"Oh, I'm not complaining about you, guest. I'm just saying my father is being overly dramatic."
"Calling the Family Head dramatic? You're going too far, Sister."
"Mind your own business."
Another noble standing beside her—Lug's nephew—rebuked her in a low voice.
For a moment, sparks seemed to fly as their eyes met, but the nephew soon turned to Turan and offered a polite greeting.
"This is our first time meeting properly, isn't it? I am Marvin Baltas. It is a pleasure."
"Likewise."
After exchanging greetings with Marvin, Turan looked at the twelve knights standing behind the two nobles.
Unlike their masters, who looked as if they were out for a casual stroll, every single one of the knights was visibly tense. It was only natural, considering they were heading out to hunt an unknown enemy that had already devoured four knights without leaving a single survivor.
A short while later, the small army—consisting of three nobles and twelve knights—marched majestically toward the North Gate.
Every resident they passed knelt and bowed their heads deeply. The only ones who remained standing, merely bowing their heads while clad in armor and carrying swords, were the people Turan now knew were called the 'police.'
Commoners who were given weapons to maintain public order within the city...
Naturally, they were people who could never be used as a military force, whether for monster hunting or inter-family wars. Even Turan, who was still an inexperienced noble, could likely kill thousands of such armed commoners on his own.
Once they cleared the city walls and headed north, a brick road built during the era of the Old Empire welcomed them. Because the magical beast had been attacking people for the past ten days, not a soul was seen traveling the path.
"I just want to get this over with so I can go back and rest," Izella complained, kicking at a pebble on the side of the road.
As Turan walked a bit behind her, staring blankly at her back, Marvin quietly approached him and whispered.
"Turan, are you perhaps interested in my sister?"
"No."
Turan shook his head immediately.
Over the past few days, Izella had been consistently throwing flirtatious remarks his way ever since their shocking first encounter. It wasn't anything serious—more of a light, joking manner—but Turan didn't find her particularly attractive.
Her behavior, which bordered on frivolous rather than just lighthearted, was far from his ideal. More importantly, if he married her—someone of a different bloodline—wouldn't he have to become a son-in-law marrying into her family?
The library here was magnificent, but he didn't want to be tied down for life just for that.
"That is a relief."
Marvin's face brightened at the answer. Turan wasn't sure what the young noble meant by the question, but his response seemed to have satisfied him.
*
They continued north, chatting for about an hour.
The subjugation squad eventually discovered a broken cart and several pieces of torn, blood-stained clothing in the middle of the main road. It was clearly the site of an ambush.
"Is it that thing?"
"Most likely. We've strictly forbidden anyone from heading north, so they probably got attacked while coming down from the highlands..."
While they talked, Turan examined the wreckage to deduce the identity of the beast.
The scent of blood hadn't yet turned foul, meaning the attack had happened only a few hours ago. Judging by the way the clothes were shredded, they seemed to have been pierced by something sharp. And the abnormally large handprint on one side of the cart had five fingers, just like a human...
With that last clue, he was able to confirm the opponent's identity.
"It's a monkey."
"A monkey?"
"Look at the handprint here."
"Ah."
In truth, Turan had never seen a monkey in person either. He only mentioned it because the evidence matched the illustrations in the magical beast encyclopedia perfectly. If he hadn't read that book, he would have just assumed it was some unknown monster.
"It seems it attacked some peddlers and retreated into the forest. We should be able to track it if we find the trail."
"Tracking... I can barely use that kind of magic. Marvin, what about you?"
"Not me either. Perhaps one of the knights—"
"I'll try to find it."
When Turan stepped forward, Izella asked with a look of delight.
"Oh, is that your bloodline ability?"
"I've used it often, so I'm used to it."
After telling a blatant lie with a straight face, Turan immediately activated his tracking magic.
The target condition was the bloodstains on the torn clothes.
As he cast the spell, his five senses expanded, and the scent of blood grew intensely sharp. He could sense the scent trailing off along the left side of the road. To be precise, all other smells were filtered out, allowing him to isolate the scent of the unknown victim's blood.
"This way."
Following Turan's lead, the subjugation squad immediately left the road and moved into the forest. The fact that there was no proper path didn't matter much. The three nobles were one thing, but even the knights were of a breed that could easily leap four or five meters from a standstill.
After following the bloodstains for thirty minutes, they arrived at a stream. A few deer drinking water were startled by their appearance and fled.
"The trail ends here. It must have washed itself."
"A beast did such a thing to avoid being tracked?"
"It probably just wanted to wash."
The encyclopedia had also mentioned that monkeys were among the animals with a culture of bathing.
Turan deactivated the blood-tracking magic to try a different method of searching. At that moment, a thick body odor hit his restored sense of smell.
He spun around quickly and saw a pair of large, golden eyes glaring at them.
"Behind us!"
Along with his shout, a piercing, screeching cry rang out.
A giant monkey, standing nearly two meters tall.
The creature, which looked human-like yet strangely alien, burst through the bushes and threw handfuls of gravel. Because its hands were disproportionately large even for its massive frame, dozens of pebbles rained down on the squad. They were even infused with strong mana, making them much faster and more powerful than anything a normal human could throw.
"Agh!"
"Get down!"
While several people were knocked over by the stones, Turan managed to leap to the side and dodge the barrage as soon as he shouted. Looking back, he saw that Izella and Marvin had surprisingly used a knight each as a shield to block the attack.
"Ugh, are—are you alright—"
"Attack!"
Izella barked, tossing aside the injured knight who had shielded her.
The eight uninjured knights immediately charged with their swords and spears, but the monkey let out another screech and lunged into the thicket, leaping from tree to tree to make its escape. Despite its massive size, it moved as fast as the wind, making it impossible for the knights to catch up on foot.
Just as everyone stopped in dismay, a single stone chased after the fleeing monkey.
It was a sling shot imbued with the three spells Turan was most familiar with: Reinforcement, Acceleration, and Homing.
The stone curved through the air, grazing several trees before striking the monkey squarely in the waist. The beast let out a scream and tumbled to the ground. It writhed in pain, unable to get back up, as if its spine had been shattered.
"Die!"
Izella screamed and reached out toward the writhing monkey.
The flames blooming from her fingertips took the shape of a snake with a body as thick as a log. It lunged forward, biting into the monkey and incinerating over a dozen meters of the surrounding forest. Both the speed and the scale were on a completely different level from what Turan could produce.
This was the power of the Pyromaniac Bloodline that the Baltas family took such pride in.
'So that's it...'
Creating fire was something any mage could do—something they could even do instinctively—but it was nothing compared to those whose bloodline magic was specialized for it.
Marvin followed up by manifesting a dozen flaming spears and driving them down, completely turning the monkey beast into a pile of ash.
Seeing this, everyone in the subjugation squad breathed a sigh of relief.
"Wow, I actually got a chill when those stones started flying."
"Were you scared, Sister?"
"Shut up. You're the one who screamed like a little girl..."
"Who did that?!"
While the two nobles bickered, Turan checked on the knights who had been struck by the gravel.
"Ugh, I think my arm is broken..."
"This one's head won't stop bleeding. What do we do?"
"Apply this medicine first."
Fortunately, it seemed none of the knights had lost their lives. Those who had been used as shields by the two nobles were the most severely injured, but even they had only been knocked unconscious by stones to the head or suffered a broken bone or two.
Turan clicked his tongue, recalling what Izella and Marvin had just done.
Considering that physical ability increases as mana grows stronger, their bodies should have been at least several times tougher than those of ordinary knights. Yet, they had used much weaker people as shields just because they didn't want to get hurt themselves.
He felt a bitter realization of what his mother had told him: that to a noble, a knight was nothing more than a dog to be sacrificed at any time.
Noticing Turan's gaze, Marvin asked curiously.
"Hm? Is something the matter?"
"No, it's nothing."
He brushed it off, but there was a faint trace of contempt in Turan's eyes as he looked at the two cousins.
Just then, Izella waved her hand and called out to Turan.
"Anyway, guest, come over here! Let's absorb the mana!"
"Yes."
The three nobles stood side by side next to the half-ashed remains of the monkey. As they reached out and absorbed the mana, a now-familiar pale green glow flowed out and seeped into their bodies.
Turan shivered at the rush of pleasure while checking how much his mana had grown. The growth he gained from absorbing the monkey's power was stronger than the leopard's but weaker than the rabbit's. Considering the monkey's strength wasn't particularly exceptional, it was an incredible amount, especially since three people were absorbing it together.
'It's true... just as I heard, absorbing it with multiple people doesn't diminish the amount of strengthening.'
When killing a magical beast to absorb its mana, up to four people could absorb it together and each receive the full, identical amount of mana. No one knew why the limit was four—not three or five—but that was why families with many nobles supposedly hunted in groups of four.
The fact that they didn't even include a knight despite having a spare slot spoke volumes about their sense of superiority.
"Ah, I can't absorb any more."
"Me neither."
Izella and Marvin spoke as they released some of the pale green glow back into the air.
This was the process of 'dissipating' mana. When one reached their innate limit of mana growth, they would absorb only a tiny fraction and release the rest.
Turan could feel the envious glares the two directed at him as he absorbed every last bit of the mana.
*
On the way back to Orem City, Izella and Marvin repeatedly recounted the fight with the monkey, boasting about how heroically they had fought. It was laughable considering they had used the knights as shields, but Turan played along.
"Come to think of it, I don't think we could have caught it without you, Turan. From the tracking to the attack that brought it down, it was all thanks to you."
"It was nothing special."
He acted humble, but he secretly agreed. If he hadn't been there, the squad would have been hit by a surprise attack without even realizing it, suffering much greater losses, and they wouldn't have been able to chase down the fleeing monkey. What could they have done against a hit-and-run attacker without any tracking abilities?
Izella and Marvin might have saved their own lives by running back to Orem City at full speed, but the knights would have surely been pelted to death by gravel. Even those two wouldn't have been safe if they had been hit by large boulders instead of small pebbles.
Though they had caught it easily because the situation favored them, it was certainly a beast capable of devouring four knights without them being able to resist.
"Actually, it's a shame I didn't notice it sooner and gave it the initiative. I didn't know it would have detection abilities of its own."
"Detection abilities?"
"Yes."
Turan recalled the appearance of the monkey they had just encountered. A massive frame and superior physical abilities were typical traits of almost all magical beasts. Among those, its disproportionately large hands and eyes were particularly striking.
The shadow leopard he had met before had a highly developed ability to hide, allowing it to move by turning its body into a shadow. The front-tooth rabbit had developed an incredible knack for gnashing, gaining the ability to cut through anything in its path.
He surmised that the monkey's large hands had evolved into an ability to throw things with great force, and its large eyes into an ability to see further or peer through the dense forest.
When he shared these thoughts, everyone in the squad let out a collective gasp of admiration.
"Wow..."
"To think you noticed all that in such a short time!"
Everyone looked at him as if he were the greatest sage in the world. It seemed not a single person among them had ever read a magical beast encyclopedia in the library.
When he subtly asked about this, Izella tilted her head.
"The library? That stuffy place... nobody goes there."
According to her, the Sky Library served merely as a famous cultural landmark, and few people took an interest in the books inside. Access was difficult since it required the Family Head's permission, and there were many more things to do and see than spend time reading.
At most, people like Turan might visit once every few years for a tour, or someone might go in to look up specific records when something special happened.
Come to think of it, there hadn't been a single other user during the past few days.
"I went in once a long time ago out of curiosity, but there were only difficult books, so I left before I even finished half of one."
From that, Turan learned another new fact: not everyone in the world found joy in gaining new knowledge.
"If you have the chance next time, you should ask the librarian if there are any easy books to read."
Since he felt he might have lost interest in reading quickly if he had started with difficult books himself, Turan offered the advice lightheartedly.
However, the response he received was entirely unexpected.
"The librarian?"
"Yes. The person who manages the library."
"Is there such a thing in the library?"
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