Young, lacking any experience fighting as a dragon, it knew only how to launch crude attacks with its body, without the slightest technique. Once it ran into an opponent whose strength overwhelmed it or whose speed it couldn't match, all it could do was take a beating.
But even a young Great Jagras like this could chase his Bird Bro all over the place... What a damn bastard!
Couldn't it smell my scent on the vests my Bird Bro were wearing?!
Thinking this angrily, Xingyan turned around and swung his tail again, chopping the Great Jagras into even smaller pieces.
There was no denying that this felt wonderful. Xingyan had fully understood the battle lust carved into Glavenus's bones. Killing enemies with his Sword Tail felt incredible.
The instinct to fight, the thrill of slaughter, the joy of defeating a powerful foe—especially when the Great Jagras had grown so furious at the end that it had completely disregarded its own life and tried to fight Xingyan to the death. But no matter how angry it got, it hadn't managed to hurt Xingyan even once.
Glavenus's uniquely built hips and powerful legs gave Xingyan agility that belied his size. His fighting style was also different from that of an ordinary Glavenus. He didn't like biting or ramming his enemies with his body; he preferred to strike them with his Sword Tail—as if he were someone wielding a blade.
Why use your mouth when you had a sword?
Using his agility to dart around the Great Jagras, Xingyan let it strike only his repeatedly swinging Sword Tail. Even when it finally endured the pain and tried to break through to bite him, all Xingyan had to do was hop back and hold his Sword Tail upright in front of himself, like a shield.
The Great Jagras died a frustrated death.
Xingyan wasn't interested in its territory or the evolutionary information inside its body. He had drawn his blade only to avenge his Bird Bro.
Especially when the Great Jagras fell and he saw his Bird Bro come over, happily chirping away. It made Xingyan feel much better, too.
So he cheerfully watched his Bird Bro vent their anger by picking up a rock and hurling it at the Great Jagras's corpse, then happily chirping to himself... What a big dummy bird.
Shaking his head, Xingyan didn't waste any food. He swung his Sword Tail and began carving up the Great Jagras's corpse, searching for the parts rich in Life Energy to eat.
As expected, he didn't find a Dragon Orb. A Dragon Orb was a treasure that formed inside a large dragon after it had taken in a great deal of Life Energy over a long period of hunting.
A Dragon Orb made a dragon's body stronger and tougher, and could enhance its unique abilities. Some naturally gifted individuals could even use one to gain a degree of control over Life Energy. In short, it came with all sorts of benefits.
Unfortunately, the Great Jagras Xingyan had easily cut down was simply too weak. Xingyan wasn't surprised at all that he couldn't find a Dragon Orb in its corpse.
To Xingyan, everyday life was basically a different kind of search, fight, and extract game: search for prey, take it down, eat his fill, then head back to the nest.
"Roar?" (Huh?)
Xingyan, who had been busy eating, suddenly lifted his head from the Great Jagras's side. He jerked his gaze to the left. It wasn't his imagination; he'd clearly heard something unusual, coming from the not-so-tall bushes between the rocks in the wasteland.
Stare—
Stare—
Under Xingyan's deadly gaze, which lasted a full minute, the bushes between the rocks finally rustled again as someone pushed through them. A hunter emerged.
Xingyan remembered this person. He was one of the two hunters he'd run into earlier when he'd brought his Bird Bro to pick a fight with the Great Jagras.
It was obvious that the hunter was extremely nervous. He was crouched halfway down, without drawing his weapon. Instead, he kept both hands empty and visible to Xingyan, making himself as small and harmless-looking as possible.
But honestly, given how broad the hunter was... the effort was probably a little pointless.
Hunters appeared all over the Great Sand Sea; it wasn't anything unusual. So after giving the man a cursory glance, Xingyan turned back to his meal.
Although he'd recovered from the poison and his injuries had healed, his shattered Air Sac Carapace still hadn't completely grown back. He needed to take in more Life Energy. He'd go find some ore to eat later, too. A balanced diet was the key to good health.
The hunter who had appeared beside Xingyan was the leader of the First Expedition Team. To be honest, even with his courage, getting so close to a dragon known for its cold nature and aggressive instincts—like a Glavenus—had made his heart race.
Especially with the Glavenus still chewing on chunks of meat, bright red blood spilling from between its teeth and dripping from its jaw... It was enough to make a timid hunter's legs go weak. It looked like something out of a horror story.
Once he confirmed that this Glavenus didn't care about him at all and was still focused on its meal, the Leader finally breathed a sigh of relief. He'd just have to say he'd made the right bet.
"Hey... You sure are handsome..."
Moving slowly and avoiding any sudden movements, he did his best to show the Glavenus he meant no harm. The Leader finally had a chance to examine its side. There was no mistaking it; this one really did have two layers of carapace.
He had no idea what monster it had fought to end up with an injury like that. The Leader could see the new layer of carapace. It was pale, standing out sharply against the dark, hard plates around it. A second layer covered the carapace beneath, like a film. It was even translucent enough that he could vaguely see what lay underneath.
"This is... incredible... I've never seen a Glavenus like this, or carapace like that..."
Yano's voice sounded beside the Leader. Xingyan noticed the second hunter had arrived, but since she didn't seem inclined to start a fight, he couldn't be bothered with them.
Hunters were too skinny—not much meat on them, and hardly nutritious. So as long as they didn't attack him first, Xingyan wasn't going to bother them. They could each do their own thing.
Everyone in the Great Sand Sea had something to take care of.
"You came over, too, Yano?"
"Don't underestimate my courage or my determination, Leader."
"Hahaha, then let's wait together."
Patience was a virtue. In no hurry at all, the Leader even sat cross-legged on the spot. He really was a carefree sort; he planned to wait until Xingyan had nearly finished eating before trying to communicate. Yano kept herself busy by taking out a pen and notebook and sketching Xingyan, especially his physical features, so she could discuss and analyze them with the scholars back at camp.
The two of them had calmed down, but Xingyan, on the other hand, could no longer stay calm.
What had he just heard?
Leader? Yano?
The dragon in the middle of his meal abruptly turned his head. The blood clinging to his chin even flung onto the ground in front of the Leader. Xingyan's eyes widened.
Leader?!
Why wasn't he the Grand Commander?
After thinking it over, Xingyan remembered that the title Grand Commander came later. The First Expedition Team was a later distinction. At the beginning of the story, the Guild had planned to send only one Research Commission to investigate the mystery of the Elder Dragon Crossing.
That expedition had then discovered the New World, but the mystery of the Elder Dragon Crossing remained unsolved. So, to continue the investigation, the Guild sent four more Research Commission teams over the next forty years, each with its own leader.
By the time the Second Expedition Team arrived in the New World, the Guild would promote the leader of the First Expedition Team to Grand Commander so he could better command the newcomers and organize the exploration of the New World.
And Yano should be the Yano Master from the story. To be honest, the two of them seemed way too young right now. Xingyan had always pictured them as they looked in the game, forty years later, so he hadn't recognized them when he first saw them.
Even the Grand Commander's hair was still black, though his hairstyle wasn't much different from what it would be forty years later. He'd had the same spiky hair when he was young, full of wild energy.
Perhaps seeing familiar faces from his memories—familiar to him, at least—had made Xingyan a little excited. So he edged closer, until his hot, foul-smelling breath blew right over the Grand Commander and Yano.
Whether or not the Leader was the Grand Commander yet, Xingyan was going to call him that.
Well, he'd forgotten that approaching them so abruptly in his current form would put the two hunters under a lot of pressure. Yano's hand had already fallen to the weapon strapped behind her back. The only reason she hadn't drawn it was that the Grand Commander had stretched an arm in front of her, stopping her from going any further.
"Stay calm, Yano!" the Grand Commander whispered. Then he raised both hands in front of him, fingers spread, and faced Xingyan. "Hey, big guy! How are you?"
The man certainly lived up to his future reputation as someone who could spend years investigating alone in the field, even venturing deep into the Dragoncrystal Land. He was much braver than an ordinary hunter.
The hunters back at camp had said that this strange Glavenus didn't seem interested in attacking people, so the Leader had dared to take the risk. Now, not only had he stopped himself from reaching for his weapon, he'd even raised his voice to greet Xingyan.
Staring at the Grand Commander and Yano, Xingyan saw them as tiny. They were even smaller than his Bird Bro, who came up to about the height of his thigh.
And that nervous look on their faces... Xingyan suddenly found himself losing interest.
"Gugga?"
Noticing the commotion, his Bird Bro came over, too, curiously studying the two hunters. They were fairly familiar with hunters. Sometimes they even ran into them stealing eggs in Carapace Dragon nests.
"Roar..." (Let's go.)
Xingyan had eaten most of what was worth taking from the Great Jagras. He gave a low growl and headed home first.
"Gugga!!"
His Bird Bro was a little curious about what the two of them wanted, but when he noticed Xingyan had already hopped down from the rock ledge, he didn't hesitate. He shouted as he hurried after him.
"Looks like your first attempt at communicating didn't go very well, Leader."
Standing at the edge of the rock, Yano teased the Leader.
Even though the Glavenus hadn't attacked, the two of them still secretly breathed a sigh of relief when it turned and left. Getting so close to a huge monster had been incredibly oppressive.
"Didn't go well?" The Grand Commander burst out laughing. "No, no, I'd say it went great. It faced us and still didn't attack, didn't it? I think this one's different!"
"Why?" Yano asked. "I think it just couldn't be bothered to attack us while it was full."
"Those eyes!" The Grand Commander answered with complete conviction. "There's something different about this one's eyes!"
"Maybe," Yano said with a shrug. "You mean the way it walked off without looking back?"
"Ahahaha, it's always tough at the start," the Grand Commander laughed, utterly unembarrassed.
"This New World really is full of wonders."
Although he felt a little conflicted, Xingyan was still glad to have seen characters from his memories.
What made him conflicted was that he wasn't sure how he should interact with hunters, or how close he should get to them. He didn't want to gradually end up domesticated by hunters like those Wingdrakes, or become their lackey or anything. Nor did he plan to live among them.
But he wasn't going to add humans to his diet, either. They had little meat, lots of bones, and far less Life Energy inside them than large dragons.
So as long as they left him alone, Xingyan couldn't be bothered with human activity. That was how he'd dealt with them before.
Compared to the lifespans of dragons, humans tended to live much shorter lives. That meant that even if Xingyan got along with this generation of humans, it was anyone's guess how the next generation would treat him after the current one died out.
Once human civilization and technology advanced far enough, people would instinctively try all kinds of ways to eliminate threats or keep everything under control.
Ambition, desire, dreams, all sorts of things... There was no denying it: compared to dragons, whose thoughts mostly revolved around hunting, survival, and reproduction, humans were much more complicated.
And in the world of Monster Hunter, the balance between weak humans and powerful dragons had once been very different. In ancient times, humans had possessed a brilliant civilization that could stand against dragons. They had even fought a war with them.
Humans had used technology to defeat dragons and had even developed weapons like Dragon Mechs. Each Dragon Mech required more than thirty adult dragons as materials. Once built, it was powerful in every way, from its durability and firepower to its sheer strength.
But those weapons, built from the corpses of dragons, had eventually provoked the Forbidden Species that stood far beyond the ecological order, above the Elder Dragons. In the end, Fatalis destroyed the human kingdom, and everything vanished into legend.
To the humans living in this world today, it was nothing more than a bedtime story. But Xingyan knew it was all true.
That was what made him feel conflicted. Xingyan wasn't sure how he should treat the hunters, or where to draw the line so neither side would hurt the other in the future.
I'm a dragon now.
What's done is done. I may as well eat first.
Before you continue