Just as Xia Xi was trying to develop the last supreme territory...
Deep within Mount Kagenobu...
The earlier incidents of the Man-Eating Bear attacking people had been so horrific that the atmosphere in the Small Town was already stretched to the breaking point.
Every household had erected spiked barricades outside their doors to keep the bear from climbing inside.
Yet in less than a week...
People from two or three more households had still been killed, one after another.
For a time, panic gripped the town.
So the local Police Station discussed matters with the hunters in the mountains.
They organized an operation to hunt down the Man-Eating Bear.
Two or three local patrol officers, along with several seasoned hunters, formed a bear-hunting squad.
They were equipped with bows, machetes, Bear Spears, and even several Matchlocks.
On top of that, the patrol officers carried small handguns of their own.
With a force like this, never mind hunting down one bear...
They had more than enough firepower even if another showed up.
Under the townspeople's expectant gazes, the group set off into the forest in force.
The bear-hunting squad searched the mountains for an entire day.
Only at dusk did they find traces of the bear and follow them all the way to the pitch-black entrance of its den.
But the desperate fight to the death with the Man-Eating Bear they had imagined never happened.
This hastily assembled squad killed the brown bear in the cave with ease.
Several volleys, followed by thrusts of their Bear Spears...
The bear merely struggled at a distance for a while before crashing to the ground.
Every member looked at the brown bear that had fallen before their guns.
They all let out long sighs of relief, and some even laughed.
Only the hunter leading