The Glavenus Heart and Hunters on the Move

Had the hunters already arrived in the New World?

What had the Grand Commander and the Commander looked like when they were young, back in the game?

As a dragon—and one with a bright future ahead of him—Xingyan wasn't dissatisfied with his life now.

At least it was better than the hopeless life he'd led in his previous existence, repeating meaningless labor day after day. This life was full of hope and motivation to strive for more.

In short, even though he'd grown accustomed to thinking from a dragon's perspective, whenever Xingyan revisited those scattered memories of when he'd been human, he couldn't help feeling a little nostalgic.

That was why he found himself uncertain about how he felt now.

He was apprehensive. He didn't know what he'd feel if he really saw hunters. Would he be excited? Or afraid? Cautious? Nervous? Worried?

He wasn't even sure whether he was actually looking forward to the hunters' arrival.

Hunters in the real world obviously couldn't go running around carelessly in such a dangerous wilderness. They'd use all sorts of methods to hide and disguise themselves. And compared to large dragons, they were so tiny that it was only natural he hadn't found them.

Maybe some hunters were already active in the Great Sand Sea.

At the thought, Xingyan found himself wanting to laugh.

To be honest, he was pretty curious about how the hunters would assess him.

Well, right now... he could only be called an utterly ordinary Glavenus, couldn't he?

Shaking his head, Xingyan walked toward the sea, lost in his thoughts.

The area around here was fairly safe. Sea Dragon Species occasionally appeared on the beach, but they weren't nearly as dangerous on land as they were in the water, so there was nothing to worry about.

The coastline of the Great Sand Sea stretched a long way, but much of it consisted of cliffs, with waves crashing directly against their edges and roaring deafeningly.

If you looked down at the New World from above and considered the Old World hunters' landing site to be the south, then Xingyan was now in the southeastern part of the Great Sand Sea.

After hopping over a stretch of towering boulders and passing through several canyons, Xingyan finally reached a wide-open area. He could see the sea now.

But the sea no longer mattered. Xingyan had spotted something more important—a ship.

A wooden ship.

There was only one, but it was enormous. It lay tilted on the beach as if it had run aground, and it was badly damaged. With his keen eyesight, Xingyan could make out a huge hole in one side of the hull. He didn't know if it had been smashed open by a reef or struck by some Sea Dragon Species.

The hunters were right there, so close.

Standing at a distance, Xingyan widened his eyes. He could clearly see countless tiny people, each like an Ant Worker, unloading things from the ship and piling them up on the shore near the base of a cliff.

The hunters had actually landed?!

And from the looks of it, they'd only just arrived. Xingyan could see that they'd set up tents, but perhaps they lacked building materials. They hadn't even managed to put up a rough shelter.

That made sense. Thinking back carefully, Xingyan remembered that the First Expedition Team in the game had used the ship they arrived in as the foundation for their base. Over the next forty years, they gradually expanded it until it became Astera, the Starry Base players knew.

According to the old man who ran the Smithy in the game, they'd spent a full forty years mining in the Great Sand Sea. The foundations of Astera's walls had been built from the stone they'd transported during that time.

As expected of the Ape Dragon Species.

The hunters had an almost absurd amount of stamina and energy. A single hunter could carry a wooden crate taller than a person, while it only took two or three to haul a broken mast as thick as a person's waist up onto shore.

The members of the First Expedition Team, who'd taken on the task of tracking Elder Dragons into uncharted territory, clearly had plenty of grit. They were nothing like the later expeditions, which specialized in construction or research.

A nameless panic and tension welled up in Xingyan. It was different from the tension he'd felt while fighting dragons like the Mudfish Dragon.

The hunters' chatter and calls as they worked had become fragmented at this distance. He could only make out the occasional faint sound.

In the end, he... turned and left.

After seeing the hunters with his own eyes, Xingyan was certain of what he truly wanted.

I am a dragon now.

That was precisely why Xingyan had no desire to greet the hunters or try to communicate with them.

Even an idiot could guess what would happen if a Glavenus suddenly appeared in front of the hunters. The First Expedition Team hadn't come here to study the ecosystem. At this point, they didn't even know how large the New World was. They still thought they'd landed on nothing more than a large island.

Nor had they decided to settle down and conduct research here for the long term. The First Expedition Team had only just arrived in the New World, and still thought they'd taken on a Guild mission that they could finish and go home from as soon as possible.

So they might well eliminate any dangerous monsters near their camp to protect themselves and their companions. After all, given the unusual nature of their mission, the Guild had granted them considerable freedom.

Whether hunters refrained from hunting young dragons out of concern for ecological balance or captured them purely for research made no difference.

Most importantly, Xingyan would never put his life in someone else's hands and let them decide his fate.

I am destined to become a forbidden existence.

—As a dragon, Xingyan had his pride.

So, he'd go back for now.

Wait a little longer. Keep watching.

The hunters had arrived, so he'd need to come up with a plan... The Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers would really have to be careful now.

"Move the food first! Pile it all beneath the cliff! Be careful! Don't let some strange monster steal it, or we'll all go hungry!"

"You, you, you, and you—yes, the four of you. You use Great Swords, right? I've got a job for you. Take a few people and smooth these stones down. Before the Leader and the others get back, we need to make this place look at least a little like a base!"

In the hunters' makeshift camp, a short, mustachioed man kept directing the hunters as they carried various supplies off the ship and sorted them into piles. He was even a little on the short side.

"Huh? Us? With our Great Swords?"

The men the mustachioed man had called out to widened their eyes.

"This is an emergency. Don't be stingy with your weapons. Do you think those stones are harder than dragon scales?" the mustachioed man said impatiently. "Come on, we still need to set up the camp's defenses. It'll be trouble if some monster charges us."

"All right, all right." The hunter carrying a Great Sword shook his head helplessly. He glanced back at the ship and said, "It's a shame our Star Ship has to be dismantled like this..."

"I told you, don't be so narrow-minded." The man grinned. "You can see for yourself that this is a barren land with few supplies. We have to make the best possible use of every material. Besides, you'll have to hunt those monsters deep in the wilderness later. The materials I have on hand won't be enough otherwise."

"Oh! Leave it to me!" The Great Sword hunter slapped his chest and promised. "By the way, Captain, can you give us a discount when the time comes?"

"Of course! So get moving—hmm?"

The mustachioed man—more precisely, the Technical Class Captain in charge of repairing, maintaining, and crafting weapons and armor for the hunters of the First Expedition Team—suddenly turned to look in the direction where Xingyan had been.

"What is it? Is there danger?"

The Technical Class Captain's movement caught the attention of a hunter farther away. He wore Female Fire Dragon armor, completely covered from head to toe, and carried a Long Sword made from Female Fire Dragon materials on his back. The flag of the First Expedition Team was slung across his chest.

Without a doubt, while the two leaders of the First Expedition Team were away, this hunter was the one left behind to guard the camp. He was a formidable fighter, known as the Sword Master.

Hunters like him preferred being called by their nicknames rather than their real names. Those nicknames were a recognition of their past accomplishments.

"No. Maybe I was seeing things." The Technical Class Captain shook his head, looking puzzled.

For just a moment, he'd thought there really was something over there... He hoped it wasn't some unknown monster.

The hardworking hunters had built themselves a safe base, and the New World's ecosystem had gained another species. But that was all right. The hunters' arrival wouldn't affect much in the New World's diverse and complex ecosystem.

It was simply part of the cycle.

But to Xingyan, this meant something else entirely.

"Roar, roar, roar?" (You understand what I'm saying, right?)

Crouched in front of the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers, Xingyan spoke with a grave expression.

"Guga?"

The Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers crouched in front of Xingyan too, tilting their heads with a simple, clear call.

"Roar, roar, roar, roar!" (They aren't big dragons! And it's not that I can't beat them! You'll be in danger if you run into them, understand?!)

"Guga!"

"Roar, roar, roar, roar!" (They'll eat you, use your hide to make clothes, and turn your bones into weapons! Just like my tail!)

As he spoke, Xingyan ground his blade with a scraping sound.

"Guga!!!"

The Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers looked utterly shocked and terrified. Xingyan had no idea how a bird's face could even make those expressions.

"Roar, roar, roar, roar!" (Anyway, from now on, you have to come with me whenever you go out. I'll protect you!)

"Guga!!"

Seeing the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers looking overjoyed, Xingyan couldn't help sighing.

The Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers were the dragon who'd had the greatest impact on his life, and the most important dragon to him. Xingyan couldn't bear to imagine them being eaten by another dragon or killed by hunters.

He'd go mad.

Even though Xingyan no longer needed the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers to steal eggs to feed him, the debt he owed them for saving his life and the affection they'd built up after spending so much time together meant they were already family to him—family he couldn't bear to lose.

Both dragons had to stay alive and well.

It took a great deal of effort, but Xingyan finally got the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers to understand that they couldn't wander around carelessly. Until he was sure what the hunters were like and how they behaved, the Kulu-Ya-Ku brothers had to stay by his side.

And so, for a time, a strange sight appeared in the Great Sand Sea: a Glavenus that looked like a young one, but was far too large to be a young Glavenus, had a cheerful Kulu-Ya-Ku at its side wherever it went, whether hunting or drinking water.

The Kulu-Ya-Ku was always chattering away, and the Glavenus wasn't cold or aloof at all. Every now and then, it would push the Kulu-Ya-Ku aside with its tiny foreclaw when it got too close, looking exasperated.

Needless to say, the hunters who had begun exploring the Great Sand Sea soon noticed the bizarre sight.

Kulu-Ya-Ku weren't unique to the New World, and neither were Glavenus. The hunters already knew a fair amount about both species from the Old World, which only made the scene harder to understand.

What was going on?

Had the Glavenus changed its ways?

Weren't they supposed to be cold-blooded and highly aggressive?

And wasn't this Kulu-Ya-Ku a little too bold?

There weren't many scholars in the First Expedition Team. They'd only boarded the ship to satisfy their curiosity and help the accompanying hunters with questions of an academic nature.

But even they couldn't explain this strange phenomenon. All they could do was tentatively suggest that the two had formed an unusual symbiotic relationship by chance.

As for how they were living together, or what each could do for the other, that still needed to be studied.

The scholars speculated that the Glavenus might be sick. The evidence was the sparse patches of shell on its body, as though a second layer had grown unevenly over the first, with some parts raised higher than others. It looked almost disgusting, and its body was covered in large and small spots of unknown origin.

Perhaps the Kulu-Ya-Ku was staying by its side to help with this problem.

In any case, this was likely an unusual case, even among Glavenus.

—Scholars had vivid imaginations. This was only one of their guesses; there were plenty of others that were even more outrageous.

As for Xingyan, during this period of hunting, he'd already noticed plenty of traces of hunters appearing throughout the Great Sand Sea.

There was no helping it. Flower Field Marshland Area was simply too close to the hunters' base. It had an ample water supply, and many Carapace Dragons lived there, providing a safe source of food for the hunters.

Aside from Xingyan, the odd Glavenus who lived by the water, most of the dragons that appeared here weren't exactly berserk fighters. That made the area safer for the hunters to explore in the beginning.

It was just a little too noisy.

Xingyan's keen hearing meant he could hear the hunters digging up stones and ore in the wilderness from a long way off.

Clang, clang, clang.