Hayata's Dream

It was early morning in Minegarde. The vendors had yet to set up their stalls, and most residents were still asleep. The usually bustling cobblestone streets held few pedestrians.

For once, Hayata was not wearing a dress, but a cotton shirt and trousers that allowed her to move freely.

She jogged along behind her uncle Pine. Though she pressed her lips together and tried to look serious, she could not hide the excitement and anticipation in her eyes.

Walking ahead, Pine wore the same tight-lipped, solemn expression as Hayata. His eyes, however, held no trace of a smile-only anxiety.

They were on their way to a certain hunter's home.

As they walked, Pine suddenly stopped. He turned around, his voice full of unease and resignation. "Hayata, are you sure you won't reconsider?

"Being a monster hunter is the most dangerous job there is. And you're a girl, too. If anything happened to you, how could I face my brother and sister-in-law in heaven?

"Didn't you used to say you wanted to be a musician or a painter? That would be wonderful, so elegant and..."

"No! Uncle Pine, I want to be a hunter!" Hayata's answer was crisp and decisive.

"Sigh..."

Pine's head ached. They had repeated this conversation countless times over the past month or so.

After the monster attack, which they had fortunately escaped with a hunter's help, the caravan had canceled its journey and returned straight to Minegarde City.

With cargo lost, several members dead, and many more injured, the caravan had suffered devastating losses.

Most troublesome of all, many caravan members who had watched monsters tear their companions apart, and had themselves been injured or even permanently disabled, had quit their jobs and left the trading company.

After all, no one could guarantee that the next journey would be safe.

Even most of those who stayed were plagued by nightmares. Remembering that day still left them trembling with fear, and Pine himself was no exception.

Hayata, however, was the sole exception.

Rather than leaving fear in her heart, that day's experience had given her an even more dangerous idea: she wanted to become a hunter, a monster hunter whose very profession was hunting monsters.

At first, Pine had assumed it was just a passing fancy. What fourteen- or fifteen-year-old girl going through her rebellious phase didn't have her willful moments?

But a month later, Pine realized he had been wrong.

Though Hayata was normally mischievous and energetic, she was, at heart, a very sweet and obedient child.

In all her years, she had almost never acted willfully or thrown a tantrum, making life easy for both Pine, who frequently traveled far from home, and the older nanny responsible for her daily care.

This time, however, she proved extraordinarily stubborn.

Over the course of more than a month, neither his earnest persuasion nor the lure of delicious food and pretty dresses had shaken her resolve in the slightest.

Pine had even lost his temper with her for the first time and confined her to her room.

Faced with Pine's genuine anger, Hayata did not talk back. Even when he announced that she was grounded, she merely walked silently into her room and sat there without a word.

Several days and nights later, Hayata, who had once shone as brightly as a little sun, had sunken cheeks and circles beneath her eyes as dark as a layer of coal dust. Even her smooth, silky chestnut hair had lost its luster. She looked as though her soul had left her.

The middle-aged merchant, a doting father at heart, surrendered.

"Fine, fine, go be a hunter! Though I don't know whether those skinny little arms and legs of yours can even lift a weapon or carry a suit of armor!" Pine had said, sounding as though he had given up entirely.

And so Hayata got her wish.

With her wish granted, the girl regained her usual energy, chattering away around Pine and pestering him about when he would send her to a hunter training camp.

In larger human settlements, the Hunter's Guild maintained dedicated facilities for training newcomers. Naturally, a major city like Minegarde was no exception.

But Pine had no intention of letting his precious niece undergo that kind of hellish training!

For one thing, he had heard about the local hunter training camp's regimen. Even the basics involved barbells, dumbbells, and weighted cross-country runs.

After several years of such training, the boys naturally all grew strong and sturdy. As for the girls, well...

Relatively few women volunteered to become hunters. After all, most girls cared about their looks, and an excessively muscular body was nothing short of a nightmare to them.

Pine absolutely could not accept the thought of his lovely, adorable niece becoming a mass of bulging muscles.

In truth, Pine and most other people misunderstood female hunters. Naturally disadvantaged in strength and size, female hunters rarely chose heavy weapons.

Ranged support weapons were very popular among female hunters. Even those who were naturally combative and preferred close combat generally chose agility-oriented weapons such as the Long Sword or Dual Blades.

Of course, there were also exceptions who favored heavy weapons such as hammers. Through hard work, these women pushed beyond their limits and performed every bit as well as male hunters.

Compared with the group instruction offered by training camps, Pine, who had made a point of asking around, preferred another way of training hunters-the veteran-to-novice mentorship common in many professions.

Simply put, an experienced hunter guided a newcomer one-on-one, helping them complete their training as an apprentice.

In smaller human settlements, such as villages and towns, most young hunters completed their training this way. After all, an ordinary village could hardly gather enough young people who wanted to become hunters to put together a "training camp."

As for whom to ask to teach Hayata, Pine already had someone in mind.

Born and raised in Minegarde, Pine had plenty of friends, several of whom had been close to him since childhood.

Amos was one of them.

As far as Pine remembered, Amos was a rather formidable hunter.

Pine did not really understand how hunters were ranked, but he vaguely recalled hearing the receptionist at the Hunter Gathering Hall tell a client admiringly, "Master Amos is a high-rank hunter!"

Judging by the receptionist's pride, as though his achievement were her own, and the client's response of, "Oh, then I have nothing to worry about!" High-rank hunters had to be very powerful, right?

Strong and capable, an old friend of many years, and someone whose character he knew inside out-only with such a person teaching and training Hayata could Pine feel at ease.

Aside from that, another important reason Pine wanted Hayata to study under Amos was the latter's "build."

Most hunters Pine had met were broad, burly mountains of muscle. Compared with them, Amos looked positively "slender."

Well, perhaps another word would be more appropriate: "wiry."

If the powerful muscles of strength-oriented hunters brought hard granite to mind, then Amos's muscles were steel cables wound around his bones, honed to the utmost.

Pine had made a point of asking about this while they were drinking together. Amos had explained that it resulted from differences in training methods and weapon choices.

As an agility-oriented hunter skilled with the Long Sword, excessively developed muscles would reduce his speed and flexibility.

As for whether strength-focused heavy weapons or agility-focused light weapons were superior, there was no point in comparing them. Each simply had its advantages in different situations.