Chapter 325: Kaelu, Return to Position!
Watching Hoshimi Miyabi—who, being utterly unfamiliar with the way the Guild operated, only half-understood Andrew’s explanation—Andrew couldn’t help but let a faint smile cross his face, and said:
"All right, all right—just trust those scholars. When it comes to this sort of thing, they’re absolute professionals."
"And if, after some trial and error later on, they determine that these Mosswine really aren’t suited to captivity, they won’t force the matter—they’ll choose to release them back into the wild instead."
Andrew’s words were meant to put Hoshimi Miyabi’s worries to rest.
But for Boss Pu, standing off to the side, those very words instead instantly sparked a sense of crisis within him.
Re... released back into the wild?
He recalled the past two years, spent day after day scrabbling and scraping to survive in this vast forest.
Free—sure, it was free, all right. But never mind the constant danger from monsters he might run into at any moment; battered by wind and scorched by sun every single day, and just to keep his enormously big-eating Sixth Brother fed, you could say he’d been living a life of going nine meals hungry every three days...
No! Absolutely not!
He’d thought that as long as he was successfully taken in, a stable life—chicken one meal, burgers the next—was right there within reach.
And now you’re telling me there’s still a chance I’ll get tossed right back out here?!
There’s no way I want anything like that!
In the next moment, Boss Pu’s gaze turned resolute.
For the sake of truly living the good life from here on out, he was going to get serious!
Hoshimi Miyabi was still gazing slightly downward, watching the Mosswine on the ground. Andrew drew out the signal flare that marked the completion of the commission and the capture of the monster, fired it off, and said with a smile:
"There we go. The ingredients have all been gathered; we can just leave the rest of the transport work for those scholars to complete."
But speaking of which, Andrew remembered something.
"Oh, right—I almost forgot."
After giving his forehead a slap, and under Hoshimi Miyabi’s puzzled gaze, Andrew pulled the Tranq Bombs used for captures out of his Item Bag.
Granted, it wasn’t entirely by the book, but in order to keep these monsters from waking up during transport and inflicting unnecessary harm on the logistics personnel in charge of moving them, the Tranq Bombs that needed topping up still had to be topped up.
Seeing Hoshimi Miyabi’s confusion, Andrew explained while his hands never paused, lobbing two Tranq Bombs onto the face of each Mosswine:
"Tranq Bombs—a wonderfully handy little item that can directly tranquilize any type of monster, with the sole exception of Elder Dragons."
"At the very least, it’s more than enough to let the scholar team haul them from here back to their base."
Looking at Hoshimi Miyabi, whose eyes had instantly lit up upon hearing what it did, Andrew—guessing exactly what she intended to use it for—immediately spoke up:
"This stuff generally only takes effect once a monster has completely lost its ability to resist. Against a target that’s fully conscious and bouncing around lively, it’ll do the job of a smoke bomb at best."
"And it can barely even block anyone’s line of sight, at that."
Hearing Andrew’s words, Hoshimi Miyabi had no choice but to abandon the idea of making this thing a standard piece of equipment for subduing biological targets in Section 6.
Although... it might be usable during the transfer and escort of dangerous targets?
The world Andrew originally came from really did have so many marvelous things. It was just a shame that her time here this trip was still far too short—learning the Tachi alone had already taken up the overwhelming majority of her time.
It really was a bit of a pity.
But the time they’d spent together meant Hoshimi Miyabi didn’t dwell on it; she quickly set her mindset right again.
After all, she’d never been good at things that required this kind of deliberation to begin with, and Andrew surely had his own considerations; all she needed to do was follow along behind him, just as she had before.
Mm-hmm.
Kailu’s tail slid down from her face, revealing a pair of blue eyes, and her petite little face was now utterly brimming with conflicted hesitation.
Grammeowster really hadn’t lied—the two of them truly were incomparably outstanding Hunter partners.
If she could become these two Hunters’ partner, the road toward chasing her dream of becoming a Felyne Hunter would surely grow far smoother.
She might even be able to achieve her ultimate goal—catching up to her own idol.
But that was exactly where the problem lay.
Just from Andrew alone making his move, Kailu had realized that, as Hunters, the two of them were simply far too outstanding.
So outstanding that now it was instead Kailu’s turn to start worrying about whether she, as a Hunter’s Felyne partner, could even manage to keep up with them in battle at all.
And that was the case even though she already had years of hunting experience under her belt.
Even when she’d already braced herself to act, the problem had already been resolved outright by Andrew through his own sheer strength, before she could actually make her move...
Most important of all were those things she’d silently mocked in her heart earlier, while Andrew was making arrangements for Hoshimi Miyabi.
If Andrew had really been the braggart she’d imagined him to be, that would’ve been one thing—but the facts had already proven that everything the man said was, in truth, the absolute truth.
So even though Andrew had no idea about any of this, Kailu still couldn’t get past her own conscience over it.
"Kailu!" "Meow?!"
Suddenly, Andrew’s call drifted up from below.
It wasn’t loud, but in this quiet clearing it came through with particular clarity.
Upon hearing it, the little black ball of fur instinctively gave a faint, involuntary shiver, then peeked her eyes out from beneath her tail to look down at the two of them below.
Looking up at Kailu skulking about all furtive and cat-like on the tree branch, Andrew was a little puzzled, but he went on regardless:
"Let’s get going—it’s time to head back and report to Grammeowster that the commission’s done."
His tone was perfectly casual, just like calling out to a companion who’d come along with him to head home, yet Kailu’s ears still shot bolt upright from their flattened posture.
She hesitated on the tree trunk for a few seconds, then slowly slid down from the branch.
Her landing was still light, but it carried a trace of unnaturalness it hadn’t had on the way in—like a child who’d done something wrong, straining to act nonchalant in front of the grown-ups.
This demeanor of hers left Andrew even more puzzled.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t recognize what this sort of behavior signified—after all, back when they’d first started hunting together, every time Meow-Da had screwed him over and gotten them carted, he’d worn this exact same look.
But the problem was—why had Kailu turned out like this?
Could it be that her Barrel Bomb had, after all, caused serious damage somewhere in the forest—blown apart some animal’s nest?
But no, that wasn’t right.
Hadn’t he deliberately gone down and knocked that large Mosswine out cold before she could even act?
For a moment, Andrew was a bit at a loss to make sense of it.
But before Andrew could open his mouth to ask, Kailu had already trotted briskly to a spot ahead of him and Hoshimi Miyabi and silently begun leading the way.
The three of them headed back along the path they’d come.
Moonlight spilled through the gaps in the canopy onto the woodland trail, laying out a silver-white path across the ground and stretching the three figures’ shadows out long.
Though he still wasn’t certain.
But after carefully running back through everything that had happened over this stretch of time, Andrew—who had now formed a bit of an idea about why she’d ended up in such a state—looked at that black cat’s slightly drooping ears.
Suddenly he called out:
"Kailu." "...What is it, meow?"
"You’ve been at the Felyne Village all this time now—have you really never found yourself an official partner?"
At these words, Kailu’s tail gave a violent flick behind her, and she instantly got a little flustered, retorting loudly:
"Who said I was looking for a partner, meow?!"
Her voice instinctively rose a notch, but upon recalling Andrew’s display just now, her tone once again involuntarily deflated.
After mumbling and hemming a couple of times, she said in self-abandoning resignation:
"Fine, yes! A creature like me—arrogant and conceited, fond of looking down on people, and never letting anyone off the hook with my mouth day in and day out—deserves to never find a Hunter partner of her own, all right, meow?!"
"Even my former partner, too..."
Her tail, which had merely been drooping before, sank all the way to the ground, and the dejection on Kailu’s face could no longer be hidden.
"That’s not it."
Yet in response to Kailu’s self-abandoning despair, Andrew didn’t choose to offer words of comfort; instead, he simply pressed on with his own train of thought:
"What I mean is—how about you become Miyabi’s partner?"
Kailu’s steps faltered, and the tail behind her shot up in an instant—only to be forcibly pressed back down once she caught herself.
She kept walking forward, but said nothing.
Andrew was in no hurry either; he just followed slowly behind her, waiting for her to speak up on her own.
After a silence spanning roughly a dozen-odd steps, Kailu’s voice finally drifted over, carrying a few more notes of conflicted hesitation than usual, along with a faint, barely perceptible trace of anticipation:
"...What do you mean by that, meow?" "Exactly what it sounds like."
Andrew’s expression was utterly relaxed, his tone just as casual.
"Miyabi needs a partner, and you’re looking for a partner too—isn’t that just perfect?"
This time, the tail behind Kailu shot up, no longer able to be restrained—yet she didn’t let the excitement of this sudden invitation go to her head.
She asked in earnest:
"But—why me, meow?"
"What’s so strange about that?"
In response to Kailu’s question, Andrew spread his hands and then said as though it were the most natural thing in the world:
"Miyabi may be a rookie Hunter, but you’ve seen her strength for yourself. An ordinary rookie Felyne couldn’t possibly keep up with her in battle—but for you, Kailu, that’s hardly a difficult matter at all."
"And on top of that, Miyabi is utterly clueless about the most important things for a Hunter—item usage and item combining—and her grasp of ecology can only be called half-baked at best."
"And all of that is something you, Kailu, are about as familiar with as can be—am I right?"
Faced with Andrew’s rhetorical question, Kailu instinctively puffed out her chest and proudly agreed:
"But of course, meow!"
"So there you have it."
Having gotten his confirmation, Andrew spread his hands and gave a shrug, wearing a look that said see, you’re the one who said it, and went on:
"In a situation like this, wouldn’t you, Kailu—a veteran Felyne partner—and Miyabi make the most perfect pairing of all?"
"..."
Kailu’s ears pressed down flat.
She opened her mouth, instinctively wanting to say something in rebuttal, but Andrew’s words were simply far too well-founded—so much so that she found she really didn’t seem to have anything to argue back with.
But recalling how, earlier in that battle, she’d looked down on Andrew and sneered at him in her heart...
She gritted her teeth and said in a muffled voice:
"But—I was looking down on you the whole time before, and I was even secretly cursing you as a big braggart in my heart, you know, meow."
Hearing this, Andrew couldn’t have cared less; if anything, he found himself quietly marveling deep down.
Compared to the endless stream of bastards back in New Eridu, in this world he didn’t seem to have ever once run into a genuinely bad person or a truly wicked soul.
It really did stir up a wave of emotion in him.
Never mind that Kailu had only been thinking it quietly in her heart—even if she’d actually said it out loud, Andrew probably could only have felt that she was just being coquettish.
So in response to Kailu’s self-confession, Andrew merely cut her off with a smile:
"But all I saw was that you—the one who kept insisting she was only there to lead the way—instinctively wanted to charge out the very instant Miyabi’s weapon broke."
As his words fell,
Kailu instinctively glanced over at Hoshimi Miyabi beside her, and Hoshimi Miyabi—who had been earnestly watching and listening to the two of them converse the whole time—also gave an instinctive little nod and spoke up:
"Mm. I believe a person’s instinctive reactions don’t lie. Um..."
Then, as if she’d suddenly realized something, she corrected herself:
"A Felyne’s instinctive reactions."
"What’s that supposed to mean, meow..."
Listening to the two of them speak, Kailu—who’d had nothing left in her heart but self-abandoning despair—found she could no longer get out a single tough-sounding word.
She quickly looked away.
So as not to let the people before her see her expression, Kailu immediately spun around to turn her back on the two of them, putting on the appearance of continuing to lead the way.
At the same time, her voice instinctively rose a notch as she said:
"You’d better think this through—by the rules of the New World, every Hunter only gets to choose a single Felyne as a partner for their entire life, meow!"
"Pick me, and you won’t be able to pick any other Felyne, meow!"
Hoshimi Miyabi gazed at her back in silence for two seconds, then gave a gentle nod.
"Mm."
Just a single word.
Kailu felt as though she’d thrown a punch straight into a wad of cotton, but in the end she could only say, somewhat futilely:
"Since you’re completely clueless about hunting items, then as your partner, I’m going to be very strict with you from here on out, you know!"
Hearing Kailu’s words, a faint smile finally surfaced on Hoshimi Miyabi’s perpetually expressionless face, and she nodded earnestly:
"Mm."
At this, Kailu instinctively turned her head back and opened her mouth, wanting to say something more to maintain her aloof, cool image.
But the moment she saw Hoshimi Miyabi’s pair of calm, dark-red pupils, the words that had reached the tip of her tongue slid right back down again.
Although that feeling of punching into a wad of cotton had only grown more intense, she discovered...
that she didn’t seem to dislike this feeling at all.
Moonlight leaked down through the gaps in the canopy, lighting the woodland trail as though it had been blanketed in a layer of silver frost, while the lights of the Felyne Village flickered faintly in and out of view in the distance.
By the time the three of them returned to the Felyne Village, a great crowd of Felynes had already gathered at the village entrance.
A Felyne cub was the first to spot their figures, and it immediately yowled at the top of its lungs:
"They’re back, meow! The Hunters are back, meow!"
And then the whole village erupted into an uproar.
Felynes poked their heads out from the tree houses, came running across the rope bridges, and charged over from the edges of the fields, flinging down their hoes—chittering and chattering as they swarmed in circles around the three of them.
"Did you take care of the monsters in the mushroom fields, meow?"
"Are you hurt anywhere, meow? Granny prepared some medicinal herbs herself!"
Hearing the commotion outside, Grammeowster came out of her house, clutching a wooden ladle.
Although she had complete and utter faith in Andrew’s strength, she still looked the three of them over carefully, head to toe, and only let out a breath of relief once she’d confirmed that no one was hurt.
"It’s good that you’re back, good that you’re back, meow."
"Granny, the commission’s complete."
Andrew pulled the enormous matsutake mushroom out of his Item Bag and waved it around in front of Grammeowster.
As a seasoned chef himself, Andrew naturally knew exactly what would most pique the interest of Grammeowster, who’d been a cook her entire life.
"Take a look, Granny—this time I brought back some absolutely amazing new ingredients!"
____
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