Wilderness Survival

The sun blazed overhead.

Dunes rose and fell like folds in silk, stretching beyond sight.

At the end of a trail of footprints, Li Le trudged forward, hunched beneath a basket woven from dead branches.

He had transmigrated into this desert four days ago.

At first, Li Le had no idea where he was.

Not until he found an abandoned camp while searching for a way to survive the harsh environment.

The familiar camp layout, along with the Hunter's Guild's X-shaped emblem on a blue supply box half buried in sand.

Finally confirmed to Li Le that this was the world of Monster Hunter.

He felt this was good news. After all, the people in the Monster Hunter world were generally friendly.

As long as he was lucky enough to meet someone, they would surely offer help.

After searching the abandoned camp for anything usable, he set off.

But after traveling for a day, Li Le discovered some bad news.

The people were indeed friendly, but the problem was that there were no people to be seen.

The only frequent visitors nearby were Cephalos, nearly ten meters long, swimming beneath the sand.

As hunting targets, these pack-dwelling Piscine Wyverns.

Should only warrant the lowest, one-star difficulty rating for hunters, provided their pack leader, the Cephalos King, stayed out of the fight.

But for Li Le, whose physique was unremarkable and who wore nothing but pajamas printed with a chibi Rathalos.

Forget hunting-one encounter on the sand might cost him his life.

From then on, finding food to fill his stomach and avoiding Cephalos as much as possible became Li Le's top priorities.

Li Le stopped atop a dune.

He took an old rolled-up map from his basket.

After studying it for a moment, he looked around and began planning his next route.

Those three-toed claw prints I found in the eastern sands should belong to a Genprey pack. I absolutely can't go any deeper.

The marked camp to the west is abandoned and completely buried by windblown sand. Even if supplies were left behind, I couldn't dig them out.

The markings to the south show some ancient ruins.

If nobody lives there, there probably won't be any supplies left either. No point wasting time.

There's a water source to the north, but it's also Apceros territory.

"I'll try heading north..."

He tightened and pulled down the sun hat he had made from tattered canvas.

Li Le continued onward, his feet treading the warm sand.

About an hour later, the rolling terrain flattened out, and a pale yellow plain of cracked earth appeared before him.

Across the open landscape, a giant barrel cactus flowering at the top stood out against the sand.

He quickened his pace toward it and circled halfway around the cactus, inspecting it.

He discovered three fist-sized strawberries growing at its base.

Slurp~

Swallowing his saliva, Li Le crouched to pick them.

In the terminology of the Monster Hunter world, these tempting fruits should be called Tropical Strawberries.

But because they were full of juice and their flesh was exceptionally chewy.

Li Le preferred calling them Juicy Giant Strawberries. They were also the most readily gathered food keeping him alive in this desert.

Putting one in his mouth and chewing it, Li Le lowered his branch basket and took out a small pouch made from tattered canvas.

As he opened the pouch, a small pile of mineral crystal fragments emitting cold vapor came into view.

When he first found them at the abandoned camp, he guessed they were probably ice crystals.

But they were likely just a few leftover fragments, not enough to count as ore materials suitable for crafting.

Still, they were highly effective at preserving food and cooling him down when held against his back.

"With the two I gathered earlier, I've got four Juicy Giant Strawberries now. Probably enough for another day, but I'd better play it safe."

Suppressing his hunger, Li Le wrapped the little pouch back up.

He returned to the cactus and began searching again.

From his gathering experience over the past few days, Tropical Strawberries were not the only plants growing around these cacti.

There were revolting pink berries whose pungent flesh could be smelled from far away.

Blades of grass with juice so sticky it could glue his mouth shut.

Fruit shells that felt harder than alloys and made his teeth ache when he bit them.

Vines that were shriveled and yellow from lack of water, yet as tough as rope and impossible to chew through.

All sorts of plants with bizarre properties were gathered into his basket.

"What's this?"

After digging in the sand, Li Le noticed a red, jellylike blob clinging to his fingers.

He had never seen anything like it during his days of gathering.

He gave it a light lick, and a cloying sweetness filled his mouth.

"If it's sweet, that means it has sugar... I'll take it."

Digging deep into the sand with both hands, he pulled out an entire red blob.

For now, Li Le classified these things not as materials, but as foodlike substances.

He was keeping them for emergencies when he became desperately hungry.

After all, Juicy Giant Strawberries were not always available to gather.

He packed up his basket, but had only taken a few steps.

Shhh~

A scraping sound came from behind him as something rubbed against the sand.

The nightmarish sound made Li Le's heart shudder.

He quickly dropped flat and held his breath, making as little noise as possible.

With a wisp of drifting sand, an upright blue-green dorsal fin swam and turned across the surface, approaching at high speed.

Thud-crunch!

A yellowish-brown, semicircular head rose out of the sand as its neck straightened.

The monster slowly swung its head, short, sharp teeth lining its enormous, open, disk-shaped mouth in neat rows.

On its nearly flat face, its round eyes were severely degenerated. One sat within an old slashing wound and seemed to have long since lost its function.

It listened for a moment and detected no unusual movement nearby.

The monster lowered its head and sank back into the sand.

Shhh~

The sound of scraping sand rose again as the swimming dorsal fin swiftly receded.

"Damn Old Geezer. If this were the game, you wouldn't even get a chance to see me."

Li Le let out a long breath, stood, and brushed off the sand clinging to him.

"Old Geezer" was the nickname he had given this elderly Cephalos.

Since the Cephalos pack was currently Li Le's greatest threat, he had also done plenty of observation and research.

Their primary prey was not humans, but Apceros.

Their territorial disputes were with Genprey.

So even if they encountered him, they had little desire to hunt him.

But this elderly Cephalos, covered in wounds, was an exception.

Ever since their first encounter, it had been tracking Li Le for three days.

Li Le felt the most likely reason was either that this elderly Cephalos no longer held much standing in its pack.

Even if it hunted Apceros, it would not get much meat. It might as well have a human-shaped takeout meal all to itself.

Or those old slashing wounds on its body had left it with an intense hatred of humans.

"Old Geezer seemed pretty halfhearted about chasing me this time. It left right after poking its head out. Is it giving up...?"

"Makes sense. If you can't catch your prey in three days, what else can you do but give up?"

Thinking that Old Geezer giving up the chase would naturally ease the pressure of surviving in the wild considerably, Li Le could not help spreading his hands with a grin. "Hehe, my lucky break is here."

Whooo~

Just as he was celebrating, a low rumble came from the distance.

He turned to look, and the corners of his smiling mouth twitched downward.

Driven by fierce winds, a vast, foglike sandstorm swept toward him as though it would swallow heaven and earth.

"Okay, okay, okay. I haven't even preordered Wilds, and you're already letting me play it, huh?"

"Thanks a lot, Mother Nature."

Squish! Squish!

Stuffing two Juicy Giant Strawberries coated in ice crystals into his mouth, Li Le turned and fled, pumping his arms.

Being swallowed by a sandstorm on open terrain meant certain death.

He had to find somewhere sheltered as quickly as possible...

The ruins to the south!

Looking at the tall ancient structure in the distance, hazy amid the windblown sand.

Li Le settled on the best place to take shelter.

Huff~ hah~ huff~...

Breathing in great gulps, Li Le quickened his strides, kicking up a trail of sand.

He had thought running flat out without conserving his energy would not last long.

Yet several minutes passed, and he still showed no sign of exhaustion.

My stamina seems to have improved. My body's tougher, too...

That can't be right. With a diet of nine missed meals in three days, I'm lucky not to be malnourished.

Could it be... the environment here?

Li Le suddenly recalled that when he first arrived in the Monster Hunter world, although the desert air was scorching and dry.

Breathing it had felt more comfortable than anything he had ever experienced.

Considering the various absurdly powerful monsters and plants this ecosystem produced, that seemed the most reasonable explanation.

After pushing his running speed to the limit for a while.

Li Le noticed his breathing becoming unsteady and gradually slowed his strides.

He soon found a pace that consumed a moderate amount of stamina.

Clearly, reaching the ancient ruins before the sandstorm swallowed him required not only running fast enough, but also running far enough.

Half an hour later, the sky was obscured by blowing sand.

Amid the howling wind, rapid vibrations traveled through the sand beneath his feet.

The ancient ruins built of dusk-colored stone lay just ahead.

Li Le glanced back at the approaching sandstorm and accelerated with all his strength for one final sprint.

A severely rusted Dragonator tip, a gigantic waterwheel, thick steel beams jutting from the sand...

As he gradually approached the ruins' stone gateway.

Li Le found the surroundings and abandoned objects inexplicably familiar, as though he had seen them somewhere before.

But the long run had nearly exhausted him, leaving him no time to think.

Thump!

Li Le threw himself into the gloomy entrance of the ruins and fell prone on the hard stone floor.

Whoosh!

With an explosive gust, the world outside the stone gateway instantly darkened as the sandstorm engulfed it.

The entrance passage, which had held a little light before, went completely black.

After panting hard and steadying his breathing, Li Le sat up.

A faint fragrance drifted into his nostrils.

"That smells so good..."

Having never experienced such a peculiar fragrance before, Li Le was momentarily dazed.

Bzzzz~

Two sounds of rubbing, beating wings overhead soon brought him back to his senses.

Vespoids!

Although the entrance passage was pitch-black, Li Le quickly identified the monsters by sound.

The image of giant mosquitoes over a meter long, with paralytic venom in their stingers, immediately surfaced in his mind.

Clatter~

His basket hit the ground.

Li Le pulled out the torch and flint he had found at the abandoned camp.

To dodge them and escape, he first had to determine where the Vespoids were.

Scritch~ whoosh~

The flickering orange glow of the torch lit up the passage.

"I... you..."

Looking at the mass of Vespoids packed together, filling the ceiling of the passage.

Li Le was struck speechless.

Tap, tap...

A series of rolling sounds rang out as three sandy-yellow Bnahabra, curled into balls, slowly rolled over from the other end of the dark passage.

Gritting his teeth, Li Le pressed his back against one rock wall, clearing the passage.

He was terrified of touching these Bnahabra and alarming the swarm of Vespoids overhead.

But the three Bnahabra rolled slower and slower, their paths swaying from side to side.

Clack~

After two Bnahabra collided, one veered completely off course.

It fell beside Li Le's feet, its body unfurling into an elongated shape.

Sigh, I should have eaten those two Juicy Giant Strawberries too...

Li Le sighed helplessly to himself. He really had done everything he could to try to survive in this desert.

Tap, tap~

The Bnahabra arched its back shell, pushing against the ground to right its overturned body, then switched to crawling and continued toward the ruins' entrance.

Huh?

This Bnahabra completely ignored me...

Come to think of it, these Vespoids haven't shown any intention of attacking either.

Could they instinctively stop attacking when a natural disaster strikes?

Just as Li Le felt relieved and puzzled.

The two Bnahabra from earlier rolled out of the ruins.

The violently swirling sand and dust swallowed them instantly, leaving no trace.

Then it probably has nothing to do with the sandstorm... So what's the reason?

There has to be a reason so many insects gathered here, all behaving so strangely.

Tap, tap, tap~

The Bnahabra with its body unfurled now began turning around and crawled past him.

Li Le immediately grew wary, but it merely crawled back to the other end of the passage.

Over there... that's the hall inside the ancient ruins, right?

Just as he peered toward the other end of the pitch-black passage.

That faint fragrance wafted over again, stronger than before.

Bzz, bzz~

Two Vespoids descended on beating wings, flying erratically into the darkness.

Gathering insects, a fragrance, being drawn in, Bnahabra trying to escape even if it meant suicide...

Li Le pieced together what he had observed and arrived at a conjecture.

This fragrance probably contains pheromones that attract insects.

That's why they're gathering here so peacefully.

What's giving off the fragrance? A plant like a Venus flytrap?

I don't remember anything like that in the game.

But one thing's certain, given how aggressively Vespoids attack and how narrow this passage is.

Once the fragrance's influence disappears, I'll die a truly gruesome death.

Looking at those stingers as thick as rebar, Li Le felt his heart lurch.

"Getting stung to death by a swarm of Vespoids would be way too frustrating. No..."

Picking up his carrying basket, Li Le held up his torch and headed deeper into the passage.

Large, listless beetles lay scattered across the brick-and-stone floor.

Some lay overturned, kicking their legs, while others rubbed against one another, clearly affected by the fragrance as well.

Beside the passage, the torch illuminated a dust-covered weapon rack.

Several severely rusted standard-issue weapons were displayed on it.

After examining them briefly, Li Le found that these blades and swords looked more like weapons for an army than hunting weapons for hunters.

He reached out and tried the large axe and broad-bladed saber among them, but their absurd weight made them impossible for him to lift and swing, so he put them back.

Only a spear shaft with half its length remaining could barely be swung around as a club.

With something in his hands to defend himself, however little use it might be, his prolonged tension finally eased a little.

Passing through the end of the passage, Li Le entered a large hall.

Countless thin streams of sand seeped through the ceiling, gathering into piles of various sizes on the floor.

A colored mural covered the wall at the back of the hall.

Beneath the mural, several broken, collapsed rectangular stone pillars lay piled across one another.

Seeing the severed insect limbs scattered across the floor, Li Le slowed his steps.

Crrrk~

A dry tearing sound came.

Li Le looked toward the sound and glimpsed a flash of gold beneath a massive stone pillar lying tilted against the ground.

He extended the torch, illuminating the space ahead.

When he saw the source of that gold clearly, Li Le froze on the spot.

"Ahtal-Ka... This joke's going a little too far, isn't it?"()