Chapter 287: The Monster Hunter

We walk together down the cobblestone road, passing by several students. Marina walked by my side, keeping her pace with mine. Standing right next to her, the first thing I noticed was how calm her body was, in contrast to the moment we fought each other at the arena, of course, but it was still jarring.

The next thing I realized just now was that she was taller than me. Not by much, but she was taller than most others in our year. How come I didn’t notice that before? That slab of destruction of hers must’ve screwed my perspective back in the arena.

"So," Marina said, folding her hands behind her head. "What are we getting? Something to eat?"

"Uhh, meat kebabs, I think. I heard they're pretty good."

“Meat kebabs, huh? Judging from the smell, I think it’s further that way.”

When we got there, the stand was, as expected, crowded. Smoke filled the area around the stand, enveloping the students and guests waiting in line. Just a single waft of the smell made my stomach rumble, along with Carine’s, unfortunately.

The both of us stepped into the line and began our patient wait for some good meat.

"So," Marina spoke up. "Where’d you learn to fight like that?"

"Ah, well... the Sareid house, obviously," I answered.

“Oh, really?” she said with a slight interest. “Thing is, I fought many Sareid practitioners during the preliminaries, and you fight much differently than them.”

I raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

“You still use the same fundamentals, techniques, and philosophy, yes. However, the way you moved, the way you read into me, especially during the third round… it’s almost inhuman… Or perhaps, monster-like.” She paused, turning her gaze at me. “Carine taught you that personally, didn’t she?”

I stiffened slightly, and I didn’t know why. "I-I mean... we spar together, sure, but I was mostly tutored by Lady Reyna, Carine’s mother..."

“Hmm…” Marina just hummed.

Then, our turn came on the stand. The meat was being cooked on a grill right in front of me, and the smell alone could make me drool.

I reached into my pouch, ready to pull out a few coins. But before I could even pull out a single piece of metal—

“—Two, please,” Marina said, placing a handful of coins onto the wooden counter.

“W-Wait, hold on, I can pay for my own—”

“Don’t even bother,” she interrupted, grabbing two heavy, steaming skewers of meat kebabs from the vendor and stepping out of the line. “You won against me; just consider this your reward.”

But I really want to spend my money!

I stood there for a moment with a handful of coins in the palm of my hand before reluctantly tucking them away with a sigh and following her into the open courtyard.

…

We found an open table near the other side of the academy grounds and claimed it for ourselves so we could enjoy our kebabs in peace.

I took my first bite of the kebab and… it was good. It looked juicier than it actually was, and I was a bit underwhelmed by my second bite, but it was pretty good. The sauce definitely helped the meat a lot. It was sort of similar to the food stalls at New Year's.

As I sat across from Marina, I began to wonder. Fighting her was a harrowing experience, especially with the screaming muscles, but thanks to her, I could improve Feyt’s hearing capabilities, or rather, my understanding of how to use it.

If I could somehow ask her to join our joint-training sessions, it would be a great opportunity for both of our bodies to improve against her.

Just as I was about to invite her to the club, though, she took her second bite of the kebab and began nodding slightly.

"Not bad," she noted. “For dire boar meat, this is pretty soft.”

I paused, my skewer halfway to my mouth. "...Did you say dire boar?"

"Yeah."

"As in... monster meat?"

Marina didn't react; she just casually focused on her skewer before taking another bite. "Don't worry about it," she said around a mouthful of meat. "Dire boars are strict vegetarians. It's not like they eat humans."

I let out a sigh of relief. “Oh. Okay, good. For a second there, I thought—”

“They’ll still kill you, though; they’re pretty territorial,” she added nonchalantly. “Their tusks could gut and slice you open in one strike too.”

That right there was how my appetite went out the window.

“They're very abundant in some parts of Setus,” Marina continued, entirely oblivious to my sudden existential crisis over street food. “Easy to hunt in small packs, and they carry plenty of meat on their bones. Back home, we ate this stuff almost every day.”

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I looked down at the charred meat, my enthusiasm thoroughly slaughtered, before looking back up at her. “Back home?”

She nodded. “I came from a small barony, ruled over a small plot of land which just so happens to sit right on a major migration route for certain kinds of monsters.”

In an instant, my enthusiasm flared up again.

“You’ve encountered monsters before?”

The most I’ve personally gotten to a monster was a glimpse during a ride to my hometown as Feyt.

“Indeed. And since we were short on knights at the time, anyone who could fight had to pull their weight,” she continued. “When I was young, I was already helping my father and my siblings to clear out whatever crept too close to our region.”

“You fought monsters?!” I nearly stood up from my seat.

“It’s that interesting, huh?” she said, taking a small bite from her skewer. “Well, it’s something you might have to do if you were ever to be a knight in a territory like mine.”

Everything I knew about monsters so far was from books, and they were mostly about monsters like dire boars, dire wolves, basic monsters that were hunted almost daily, either for safety or for resources.

Fighting people and hunting monsters were two completely different things, though, and I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to spend all day fighting monsters.

“It sounds stressful,” I said sympathetically.

“Huh?” she blurted out, as if caught off guard. “What do you mean, stressful? I love it.”

Love it?!

“Monster hunting is the best pastime there is,” she said with a grin. Perhaps the first time I saw her smiling this wide. “Sure, it was terrifying the first few times, but once I got used to it, there’s nothing like swinging low on a dire boar’s charge to snap both of its front legs at once. The sound it makes when it crashes into the dirt—it’s almost addicting!”

A chill just ran up both my spines.

I had a feeling the girl in front of me might be a bit dangerous to be around.

She took one final bite of her skewer, ripping the meat clean off the wooden stick. After swallowing down the last piece, she began twirling the wooden stick as she continued.

“I joined this academy thinking I’d actually learn something useful about monster hunting, but…” She turned her gaze toward the distant outer walls, her expression flattening into pure annoyance. “It’s a complete snooze fest.”

Oh. So I’m not the only one dying of boredom around here.

Knowing someone else found the first-year curriculum painfully boring was a massive relief. In fact, this was the absolute perfect chance to pitch the club to her!

I opened my mouth to speak, but before a single word could escape, Marina’s eyes snapped onto mine. That terrifyingly bright grin crept back onto her face.

“That’s when I heard a rumor,” she said, leaning across the stone table. “Rumor got around during the preliminaries that an actual monster was walking among the first-years. Someone who plays with her prey. Someone who knows they’ll win, but prolong it just for fun. Naturally, as a monster hunter, I knew I had to hunt them.”

I slowly froze on both bodies as I immediately realized what rumor she was talking about.

“A-Are you talking about—”

“That’s right,” Marina cut in with an eager nod. “Your lady. Carine Sareid. I heard how she utterly dismantled Myura in her opening match, and how she had a heart of ice. From everything I’ve gathered, she’s a total monster through and through.”

I’m sitting right across from you, you know?!

Calling someone a monster right in front of their face should be a taboo. And it didn’t help that it came from her. What did she mean by hunting me?

I tried to settle the mood down a little and leaned closer myself. “Look, Lady Carine didn’t mean to—”

“—by the way, I was planning on humiliating you in the arena, and maybe snap an arm or two during the earlier match,” she said calmly before throwing her wooden stick onto a nearby disposal.

I sat there stone cold with both of my mouths hanging open.

“Y-You wha…?”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that. It wasn't personal.” Marina waved it off.

HOW IS THAT NOT PERSONAL?!

I slowly lowered my skewer and leaned back from the table, drawing in my breath to calm myself. “C-Care to elaborate?”

“Well, I figured if I humiliated Lady Carine’s favorite bodyguard in front of everyone, it’d shatter that cold, calm face of hers. I wanted her to challenge me with real bloodlust in the finals, so that I could truly hunt a monster.”

This girl…

This girl is unhinged!!

Should I even be near her right now?!

“But, as you can see, my plan failed,” Marina continued, letting out a disappointed sigh. “I completely failed to realize that a human trained by a monster... might just become a monster, too.”

She stood up from her seat, casting her shadow over the table as she looked down at me with a faint, dangerous smile.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m done hunting yet.”

“...Is that a threat?”

For a few long, agonizing seconds, Marina just stared at me. The wind blew past the quiet corner of the grounds, carrying the smell of the food stands and a few flower petals. But between us, the space felt frozen.

“Haha~,” a low, rumbling laugh escaped her throat. A laugh only a serial killer would have.

Yep, I’m dead.

Marina casually stepped around the table, closed the distance, and gave my shoulder two heavy, reassuring pats.

"Don't worry about it!" she chirped, her tone flipped to a relaxed casualness. "You beat me fair and square. In my eyes, you’re mostly a friend!"

“Mostly?”

“You bet! Oh, and would you look at the time.” She offered a bright smile before turning on her heel and strolling back toward the main road. She raised and waved her hand over her shoulder without turning back. "See you later, Feyt! I’ll cheer for you tomorrow!!"

I sat there in stunned silence, watching her tall frame melt into the crowd of students.

An overwhelming sense of relief washed over me.

Thank god I didn’t invite her to the joint training session.

—

Marina walked past the crowd of students and guests enjoying the stalls, heading straight to her dorm.

Her face was silent and completely flat as she kept her gaze locked forward, ignoring the celebratory noise crowding the cobblestone roads.

She had failed to enact her plan today. The second her heavy broadsword clattered onto the arena sand, her entire scheme shattered, leaving her at a total loss as to what to do next.

The thought of enduring an entire year of boredom without a true, life-or-death fight with a monster was unbearable.

Sure, she could have easily asked Feyt to invite her to his sparring sessions with Carine. But... that wouldn’t be a real fight. Controlled duels and polite restraint meant nothing.

She needed to fight Carine in her truest form: when rage and unbridled bloodlust were the only things driving her. She needed Carine to become a true monster.

But with her strategy dead on the sand, how else could she drag that monster out from behind that icy mask?

“If I can’t hurt the one she loves...” Marina muttered under her breath, her eyes narrowing as a realization came to her mind. “I wonder what happens if I do the opposite...”

A slow grin crept up on her face as she swam through the sea of heads to her dorm.

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