WeTried Translations
Translator: Botanica
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◈ I Became a Generation Zero Hunter ◈
Chapter 12
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The Hounds (1)
The post Ian had found was about the 'Heart-Eating King.' It said someone had met the King and been granted an artifact.
Ian guessed that this Heart-Eating King was the Half-Dragon Girl.
Among the Founders, there were really only two people who would ever attempt eating a heart.
One was Seo Hong. The hunters of the day had unanimously acknowledged this person as the most outrageous hellraiser of the age, and once, out of nowhere, Seo Hong had torn into a ghoul's pale heart and lain at death's door for three days and nights.
Just as everyone was aghast, demanding 'Why the hell are you eating that?', Seo Hong had answered with the bullshit line 'I thought it'd taste better.'
The other was the Half-Dragon Girl.
The Reptilians had a custom of eating the heart of a defeated rival.
They believed a strong heart brought stronger power. The Half-Dragon Girl had often carried out the Reptilians' traditional rite.
Upon the Reptilians themselves.
The Half-Dragon Girl had reacted violently to the hearts of humans, which Reptilians mainly devoured (partly Seo Hong's fault), but conversely she had chewed up Reptilian hearts without a moment's hesitation.
Her mother had died with her heart ripped out, so the Reptilians, too, had to suffer death in the same way. That was her reason.
Having looked over the posts, Ian thought that the Heart-Eating King was indeed the Half-Dragon Girl. Phrases like 'the King's claws' came up quite often.
The Heart-Eating King lived in the Sky Fortress, and every so often summoned hunters who had shown outstanding ability and granted them artifacts and the like.
In the comment section, a debate was underway on the topic of how, exactly, one could come face to face with the King.
Actually, if the method was not to 'meet' the King but to 'catch sight of' her, it was surprisingly simple. The Heart-Eating King's residence was a well-established fact.
The Heart-Eating King lived in the Sky Fortress New York. The only large-scale flying vessel humanity possessed in the Age of Constellations.
Sky Fortress New York was not the base of any one Constellation Order, but at the same time it was one of the places of great symbolic weight in the Age of Constellations. For that reason, the Constellation Order's council was held in New York regularly every year.
As a living witness of the era, the Heart-Eating King would deliver a congratulatory address at the council's opening ceremony. So catching sight of her was not difficult, as long as you met the bare minimum qualification.
'And that bare minimum qualification is B-rank, huh.'
The gates of the celestial city did not open to just anybody. Sky Fortress New York was one of the pillars of humanity.
With the ultra-long-range communication methods severely limited by the waves the Gates gave off, New York was the only thing that could travel around the entire world and serve as a relay satellite.
So to be admitted into New York, a hunter had to be verified as being 'on humanity's side.'
B-rank hunter. Only hunters who had proven themselves with at least that much of a track record could approach the Sky Fortress.
And the standard for facing a Founder in person rather than watching from afar, and receiving their commendation, was....
'...It seems like nobody really knows?'
The hunters on BloodWeb didn't seem to know the King's criteria for choosing audiences, either. Still, there was one widely supported theory.
[I heard she takes an interest in people who are good at killing Dragonkin. Every time there's an operation to wipe out the Followers of the Comet, an audience ceremony gets held. If you wanna meet a Founder in person, you'd better practice carving up Dragonkin.]
Most of the hunters who had met a Founder and been commended were A-rank or higher, but on very rare occasions a B-rank hunter had been selected and had come back with an artifact.
When you analyzed those cases, a fight with the Followers of the Comet was usually involved.
Reading this comment, Ian sank quietly into thought.
It seemed he had found a way to meet his old friend.
It would take a little time, though.
* * *
While a rare species on par with a winged unicorn, a Generation Zero hunter with a diligent work ethic and a well-rounded personality, had been released onto the low-rank hunter market,
Wecoop, the Crimson Order's Sheol diocese head and bishop, was sunk in worry.
At the root of Wecoop's worry was the Princess, who had suddenly paid a visit to Sheol.
Hadn't the monster who had shown such terrifying power in the S-rank Gate clearing operation broken her seclusion without warning and come to Sheol?
To Wecoop, this felt like an ill omen. That, just like the S-rank Gate the Princess herself had stepped forward to stop, some kind of great incident would occur in Sheol as well.
Fortunately, however, the Princess was now preparing to leave. Word had come from the Princess's manager that tickets had been booked on the Continental Railway back to London.
Wecoop was relieved at the thought that this burdensome presence would finally be gone.
Just then.
The blood vessels on the back of his hand began to spasm. The twisted vessels writhed and bulged as if about to burst at any moment.
It was a signal from the Order's Bishops' Council. A mode of communication, used only by high-ranking Bloodstream, that required no relay through the Sky Fortress's relay stations.
Wecoop drew a line across the vessel that had surged up on the back of his hand. The overflowing blood shaped itself into letters.
The instruction said that signs had been detected of the Princess making contact with a suspicious outsider, and that he was to find out who it was.
It was extremely rare for Wecoop, who had risen to the rank of bishop, to receive orders from another.
But matters concerning the Princess were decided by the Bishops' Council at the Order's headquarters, which made this tantamount to the consensus of the upper echelons, the Order's head included.
'Was the reason the Princess came all the way to Sheol to make contact with this mysterious outsider?'
Wecoop decided to start by securing the surveillance cameras of Hotel Glooscap. Glooscap's security was famously strict, but for someone of a bishop's standing, there were ways.
After spending a little time obtaining the surveillance records for the hours the Princess had stayed, Wecoop was rather bewildered.
There was no trace in any of the footage of anyone who had 'met' the Princess.
He reviewed the closed-circuit footage of the guest room corridor again and again, until he noticed a single moment when a door opened and closed on its own.
But it was truly strange. Hotel Glooscap strictly restricted guests' use of artifacts outside their rooms.
If mana above a certain scale moved, the hotel's automatic monitoring system would detect it and issue a warning.
And yet, if someone had used such a covert invisibility method without the hotel noticing....
There were two possibilities Wecoop could think of.
Either they had hired an outstanding magitech engineer to temporarily paralyze the hotel's surveillance system.
Or they were someone using a relic of the old era, one whose structure differed from modern artifacts.
And both methods carried a certain kind of extremity. The bishop knew very well what kind of people could most easily display such 'extremity.'
"Generation Zero...."
He didn't mean only hunters. The mythical species who had lived through Generation Zero had also carried a certain extremity.
Wecoop swallowed. Contact between primordial species of the old era was one of the incidents the bishops guarded against most.
He reviewed the figures who might plausibly seek contact with the Princess in Sheol of late.
At first he started with high-ranking hunters of B-rank and above, and powerful mythical species, but the timing didn't fit for any of them to have made a move.
Wecoop's list of candidates gradually widened. Then, the moment he reached out even to the roster of low-rank hunters,
As he went through the register of Generation Zero hunters, a record caught Wecoop's eye: a hunter named Ian, scheduled for promotion to E-rank.
Though still low-ranked, Generation Zero people harbored a distinctive, unpredictable madness. For all he knew, this might not be an ordinary human at all but a hybrid with a mythical species.
Reading through the documents, Wecoop eventually shook his head.
The entry 'Remarks: High sociability' had caught his eye.
"It's not someone like this."
The documents alone could never turn up the Princess's contact. Wecoop had no choice but to decide on a more direct means.
He had hounds imprinted with the Princess's scent.
And since a suitable smokescreen had just settled over the city, it was a good time to release the hounds.
* * *
A few days earlier, strange news had begun to reach Ian's ears.
"Are you saying something seems to have slipped out from inside the Gate?"
"Yes. The Hunter Support Agency will probably make an official announcement soon, but.... It seems a type of monster that preys on people under cover of night has escaped the Gate."
Ian thought back to the past.
'The kind that preys on people under cover of night,' huh.
In truth, most of the creatures he knew were exactly that kind.
"Gate suppression in Sheol had originally been stable. But, well, remember the Followers' attack a few days ago? The Gate suppressor's output dropped temporarily then."
Ian nodded at Cozy's words. That Agency employee had a rather genial nature. It showed in how kindly he gave such a warning even to someone he'd seen only once, at the E-rank exam.
"Understood. Thank you."
Ian bowed his head in thanks. Goodwill was a precious thing.
While waiting at the annex assembly point for departure to the Gate site, Ian caught the hushed talk of other people.
A rumor that something resembling a blanket or a rag had lunged at a person.
Sighting accounts of sharp claws, or of many eyes. A vague dread, woven from subtle unease, had spread among the low-rank hunters.
Ian thought.
That it was a very typical urban legend.
And behind such urban legends, there was usually something 'real' hiding.
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