WeTried Translations

Translator: Botanica

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ I Became a Generation Zero Hunter ◈

Chapter 3

──────

The Youth Who Was a Hunter (3)

"Balden."

Ian decided to use the lull to hear about the world that had changed on him.

He did plan to stop by the library when he had time, but knowledge organized in print was a different thing from a story heard straight from a person's mouth.

"Hm?"

"There are quite a few hunter great houses, aren't there? Is there one you're especially fond of?"

The corners of Balden's mouth curled up slightly. Ian didn't miss it.

'Doesn't seem like he has a bad impression of these so-called hunter great houses...'

This was exactly the sort of difference he meant. The liveliness conveyed through something other than words. The subtle feelings reflected in a person's gestures.

"Oh ho, now. Are you trying to play riddles with me, lad?"

"Nothing like that. I'm just curious. I always liked the ones who fought with swords. They look cool."

Ian tossed out a sentence that could be taken a number of ways depending on who was speaking, and waited for a reaction.

"Hmm. Swords, eh? Then it's got to be the Pendragons, doesn't it? The house that holds the 'Holy Sword' handed down since before the Great Cataclysm!"

'Uh...'

Ian endured the sudden urge to shout, "What is all that?" Of course, he knew the legend of Excalibur.

There had even been a hunter who made finding it his life's ambition.

He was a man who had lost his entire family to fairies. The nasty part was that the fairies who had slaughtered his family had then adopted him. They'd done it to mock him, watching a human regard his own enemies as his parents.

After he uncovered the truth and butchered the fairy who'd played his parent, he went searching for the greatest holy sword in England, vowing to carve terror into fairies who didn't fear the ringing of church bells.

Elric. A friend who was English, yet more at home in the fairy tongue than in English.

But desperate searching doesn't guarantee a successful dig. As far as Ian knew, it was extremely rare for anyone to actually find a weapon out of the stories.

That was why most hunters just stocked lore-based equipment like silver bullets and iron stakes.

Hunters who burned their lives away looking for a real legendary weapon were rare.

'I hope he found it.'

Ian hoped that the wish of his old friend Elric, someone he could never meet again now, had been fulfilled.

Even after 1999, the hunters must have had to keep hunting, and in that long, grinding fight, Excalibur would surely have been a great help.

"People like me can't say whether it's true, but that's one legend I like. The one where the soul of Elric, the first head of the house, dwells in the holy sword and judges the character of his descendants."

"...Pardon?"

"Mm. Is talk of souls a bit creepy after all? There's a rumor going around that the Pendragons' first head takes over the bodies of his descendants, too."

Balden rattled on about things Ian hadn't even asked. Passionate declarations like, 'But Elric Pendragon, Knight of the Star, is a noble man, so he would never do something as low as stealing a descendant's body!'

Thanks to that, Ian had time to gather his thoughts. He chose his words carefully, so he could easily recover if a "Who's that?" slipped out.

"Then what do you think of Sir Elric's comrades? For example, the one who fought barehanded."

"Ah. You mean Seo Hong?"

Another old comrade's name had popped out.

'What on earth happened while I was gone?'

"That person left quite a mark in their own right, too. They say it's the origin of the mana cultivation methods hunters learn today. Still, I figure Seo Hong would be a notch below Elric Pendragon."

'So that one's breathing exercises actually worked?'

The origin of mana cultivation, no less. The one who'd been treated as the biggest hellion among the hunter comrades had really made it big, hadn't they?

Ian listened closely as Balden went on.

Balden preached the case for Elric being the strongest, saying that Elric had been chosen by any number of constellations, while no constellation had ever approached Seo Hong first to offer a contract.

Then another hunter, who'd been listening quietly, spoke up.

"Aw, that's not right. If we're picking the strongest among the founders who started the Original Six Houses, it's gotta be the Heart-Eating King, no?"

"Now, now. What are you talking about? I'm telling you, there's the holy sword! The strongest artifact, handed down since before the Great Cataclysm!"

Listening to the hunters get absorbed in their VS game, Ian laughed hollowly.

He could guess exactly who the founders of those great houses they were talking about were.

'Seriously. What happened while I was gone?'

And at the same time, he felt a few things that didn't sit right.

Elric's and Seo Hong's careers as hunters went back to the Common Era, didn't they?

But while their idolized life stories had survived, how they'd actually operated in the Common Era hadn't been passed down.

It seemed that only an image of the six founders as 'the leading figures who overcame the Great Cataclysm,' rather than 'hunters who'd been active since before the Great Cataclysm,' remained in oral tradition.

'There's more I need to look into...'

* * *

"Everyone, please disembark."

The hunters moved at the instruction of the Agency staff member. They looked quite practiced; apparently they'd all done a Gate vegetation survey a few times before.

"The entrance to today's survey Gate is straight ahead."

"Tch. A forest type? There's not much worth picking up over there."

"Please finish your collecting and return before the time limit on the watches we've issued runs out. The Agency will also purchase monster mana stones, but no hazard pay is provided, so we recommend avoiding combat as much as possible."

The Agency staff member looked around at everyone and left a parting farewell.

'May the stars' blessing be with you.' It was the same greeting Ian had heard from the fairy receptionist.

* * *

"Hm? Lad. Didn't you bring a weapon?"

Casualties on an F-rank Gate vegetation survey were extremely rare. Even an F-rank hunter could easily subdue the lightweight monsters commonly called "mobs."

Still, a monster was a monster, so even if people seldom died, they got hurt fairly often.

For that reason, the Agency handed out activity guidelines for vegetation surveys to keep hunters safe, and recommended exploring in teams of two.

Of course, like any "recommended" guideline, it was very rarely followed. All the more so since no supervisor went into the Gate with them.

Balden and Ian were one of those rare pairs. Balden normally didn't bother with the Agency's recommended guidelines either, but when he heard it was Ian's first trip into a Gate, he'd volunteered to team up.

Partly it was consideration for a newcomer, and partly it was curiosity about a hunter of unknown background.

From Balden's point of view, it was odd that Ian hadn't brought so much as a single weapon.

Whether he was some scion of a great house come to experience the life of a bottom-rung hunter, or a practitioner of the Constellation Order, a hunter was fundamentally someone who fought. Having at least one weapon was a given.

'Could he be a martial artist? But I don't see anything like a metal gauntlet, either...'

"Ah. My weapon's right here."

Ian untied the strap that had been bound around the upper left arm of his black coat. The two cords that had held the strap in place with a soot-blackened buckle were already in Ian's hand before anyone noticed.

"Hm? That's a weapon?"

Ian nodded, picked up a stone rolling near his feet, and set it in the strap.

A piece of leather held between two cords. A stone gripped in the very middle of the leather.

The ranged weapon that hunters of Ian's era had favored most, for the reason that 'ammunition is easy to get and easy to conceal.'

A sling.

Ian gripped the cords and slowly began to spin it. As the sling picked up speed, the noise grew louder.

The whir of it cutting through the wind, hwoong, hwoong, stopped getting louder at some point.

Ian let go of one end of the cord at exactly that moment.

Swoosh!

Right after a sharp whistle split the air, a blood-boiling scream of "Kyerk!" burst out.

"Wha, what?!"

"Got one. Let's go take a look."

Ian dragged along the bewildered Balden, who was flustered by the unexpected weapon, and went to check the prey he'd caught.

A body smaller than a young child's. Skinny limbs. A bulging belly and a hooked nose.

"A goblin, then. Well, the most you'll run into in an F-rank Gate is goblins or kobolds."

Balden demonstrated how to find a mana stone, saying you could start by cutting open the area near the heart.

"Don't get your hopes up, though. Mana stones mostly come out of the strong ones, and they rarely come out of weak monsters. In an F-rank Gate, you're better off honestly gathering medicinal herbs."

Ian chuckled behind his hood. The idea that stronger creatures dropped better items was also so typical of constellation fiction.

While Balden cut open the goblin's rib cage with a pocketknife, Ian approached the pool of blood the goblin had made and held out the Jade Necklace.

Then he confirmed that there was no reaction.

'Damn it.'

It had seemed to be going too easily. Ian smiled bitterly.

Even before entering the Gate, he'd expected it might turn out like this. The Jade Necklace's power source was blood shed by the Night Folk.

But were the monsters inside a Gate even the same kind of thing as the Night Folk?

It was a question Ian couldn't answer on his own. And the answer that had just come out was "no."

"Yeah. No wonder the stone didn't feel as satisfying when it hit."

On the inside of Ian's epaulette was engraved a hexagram formed from two crossed triangles, the symbol commonly called the "Star of David."

It was a measure meant to draw on the lore that David brought down the giant Goliath with a sling.

Against ordinary people or animals, a hit did no more than an ordinary sling stone. But against the races that belonged to the night, it unleashed destructive force beyond the usual laws of physics.

For example, if a vampire was hit by this stone shot, the regeneration of the struck area was temporarily reduced. And it dealt especially fatal wounds to giant-type creatures.

'The Star of David doesn't do much against races with no real connection to monotheistic lore, but...'

The goblins he knew were mythical creatures rooted in European lore. In terms of cultural sphere, it should have been natural for a monotheistic symbol to work on them.

But once again, what Ian had known to be natural was denied.

If the Star of David had worked, something more unreal than the ordinary reaction of a skull cracking from a stone should have happened. The struck area burning away, for instance.

Refusing to give up hope until the very end, he tried soaking the necklace in the blood, but as expected, the necklace didn't react at all.

'Neither the lore weapon nor the necklace is reacting. I have to conclude they're different from the Night Folk I know...'

Ian let out a faint sigh. It seemed he'd have to use some other method to charge the Jade Necklace.

Though the first method had ended in failure, Ian wasn't impatient. He had prepared a second plan in advance.

"Hey! Ian! Come over here! A mana stone came out!"

"Oh! Coming right away!"

* * *

"You did all the work, lad. Splitting the money with me like this isn't right, is it?"

Balden was quite flustered by Ian's words. Even after the first goblin, Ian had focused less on pulling up the Gate's grass roots and more on tracking down goblins and cracking their skulls.

And then he'd proposed splitting the payout for the mana stones from those goblins fifty-fifty. It was an astonishingly generous attitude.

'Is this kind of money just pocket change to a scion of a great house?'

Ian shrugged.

"I learned how to butcher goblins, so please think of it as tuition."

"That's an awful lot to pay for a back-alley lesson..."

Ian waved off Balden's attempt to decline, and asked the Agency staff member to divide the settled amount into exactly two halves.

In truth, it also covered the price of the stories about his friends. Hearing them had let him make his plans for the future more concrete.

Leaving behind the words, 'If it weighs on you, then go easy on me next time we meet,' Ian got off the Hunter Support Agency transport vehicle.

Behind his back he could hear, "Hey, with your skill, is there any need for you to take on a job like this?" Ian chuckled.

Of course there was.

It was to charge the Jade Necklace.

* * *

After that, Ian's daily life became very simple.

First, after waking up, he walked straight to the library. His arrival time was set to match exactly the time the library opened.

He read books on the Great Cataclysm era in the reading room, and when it was time for the Gate vegetation survey assembly, he went to the Agency annex and headed out on survey work.

If he returned from the Gate and the library hadn't closed yet, he went back to the library.

If the library had already closed, he returned to the public rental housing for Gate returnees and wrapped up the day.

His life was so regular that anyone who observed him for a week could have memorized his routine.

His travel route always included places that were sparsely populated and thick with shade.

And since Ian wasn't carefully hiding his existence, anyone paying enough attention could have noticed that a Generation Zero hunter named Ian was active.

With a bit more effort, they'd even have figured out that most of the public jobs he handled were F-rank.

In other words, Ian now had a fixed residence, a regular pattern of activity, and what looked like the power of an utterly ordinary F-rank.

Three weeks passed like that.

When the number of books he'd devoured at the library passed double digits, Ian muttered in exasperation.

"Seriously, why aren't these bastards attacking me?"

Had the vampires gone soft with the times?

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried