Jade Forest, afternoon.
Fine snow began to fall again, the cold wind carrying icy grains that moaned and circled through the branches. The winter hunt's killing chill seeped into everything as the weather turned ever more bitter.
Frost had crusted over the heavy pauldrons on the warrior Blake's shoulders. With every step he took, his boots sank deep into the thinly snow-covered mulch of rot and leaves, crunching dully.
The others kept moving as they tried to work warmth back into their stiff bodies.
"Damn this weather… We finally had a half-decent, warmer morning, and now it's freezing again—still no 'prey' in sight." In the middle of the party, the mage Piero's cheeks were bluish with cold as he forced himself to maintain the faint shimmer of a detection spell. He was the one who hated the cold the most, and even bundled in a thick winter coat he couldn't match the hardy constitutions of the front-liners.
"It's fine," said the rogue Dilan, rubbing his hands and breathing out a plume of white. A sly gleam flashed in his eyes. "We scout a bit farther. If we still come up empty—" He paused on purpose until everyone's eyes were on him. "—we can always take a look next door."
"I noticed on the way in," he went on. "The sector beside ours belongs to that two-person team—the man and the woman. At their pace… heh." He didn't finish, but the chuckle said enough.
The other three traded knowing smiles.
Poaching kills wasn't exactly honorable, but among Bronze-rankers with comparable strength, numbers were king. If there was anyone to blame, it was the pair who'd decided to run with only two.
"Shh!"
"On guard!"
Blake, up front, rumbled a warning, greatsword snapping up across his body.
A heartbeat later, three green-eyed worgs exploded from the brush on their flank!
Both sides were caught off guard, and the fight ignited in an instant.
"Hrah!" Blake roared. His greatsword howled through the air and hacked down at the worg that had leapt ahead of the others. The beast couldn't correct mid-pounce; it slammed straight onto the cold edge.
Schlkk—splatter!
A tooth-aching rip tore the air. A vicious red line opened from the wolf's neck down to its belly; hot blood and viscera sprayed a garish crimson across the snow. The body split in midair and crashed to the ground in two halves.
Even as Blake struck, his companions dispatched the other two worgs in short order.
"Blake, could you maybe keep it down next time?" Piero grimaced, twisting aside from the spray of hot wolf blood.
Blake didn't answer. His gaze stayed hard and bright on the direction the worgs had come from.
These weren't ordinary wild wolves. Worgs were tougher and more enduring, often allied with elite goblins, orcs, or other monsters, serving as mounts or guards. Supposedly they were originally bred by magic as war-beasts; after generations of decline, today's worgs no longer carried that brutal peak combat power—but the habit of allying with monsters remained in their blood. Their appearance usually meant a sizable monster encampment was nearby.
The others had clearly thought of this too; their eyes lit up.
"Finally, a lead," the rogue grumbled. "We only cleaned out one lousy nest this morning—I thought we'd be going back empty-handed."
"It's getting late. Let's find the site and finish it quickly," the cleric urged.
Since the trail lay in their own "backyard," they dropped the idea of slipping into the "next sector." Better to avoid headaches; their party liked to keep the peace.
Dilan took point, following the fresh, scrambling wolf tracks through the snow at a brisk clip.
But as they pushed deeper, excitement turned to puzzlement.
They ran into more trickles of stragglers—some panicked kobolds, a dretch limping on a rotten leg—creatures fleeing as if a flood was at their heels, bolting any which way.
"Careful."
Doubts piled up. Had someone beaten them here? The nearby teams were all about the same level—by rights, none of them should be moving this fast. Or had the monster settlement clashed with some native forest predator?
Questions swirling, the four slipped through a dense stand of firs—and the woods opened into a clearing.
Out ahead, a lone man with a slender blade wove through the remnants of a monster pack, cutting a free-flowing path.
Every step.
Every precise thrust ended with a monster slumping to the ground.
His footwork was light and lethal—almost like a dance through the battlefield.
"Damn it! Someone really did beat us here?" Piero barked, fury flushing his frost-pale face. If the man was here this fast, he had to be breaking the rules—poaching before he'd even finished his own assigned sector.
They'd just been plotting the same thing, but it felt very different as the targets of it.
"It's him?" Dilan narrowed his eyes. Through the swirls of snow he made out a face framed by black hair, preternaturally calm. "You know him?" someone asked.
"Yeah. The two-person team next to us—him and the girl. And I just remembered—he's the one people in town have been joking about lately. 'Goblin Slayer.' Black hair. Rapier."
"Strong?" the cleric murmured.
"No idea," Dilan said, shaking his head. "All I've heard is he hunts goblins on purpose."
"How strong can someone be if all he does is bully weak monsters?" Piero shivered, anger climbing as he thought of the afternoon they'd spent in the snow, only to have their haul "stolen." That was real gold, and if no one saw, fine—but to run into the culprit mid-slaughter?
"Should we… teach them a lesson?" Blake said in a low voice.
Out in the clearing, the fight had already ended.
Gauss gave his rapier a quick flick, sending filth spattering from the blade, and pinned the last gray ooze—trying to melt into the mud—into the frozen ground. A trace of satisfaction crossed his face.
That made the third half-ogre leader.
And—
[Total Monsters Kills: 801.]
—plus the sixteenth common monster index entry unlocked: Gray Ooze.
Everything was proceeding in neat order.
But—
His gaze slid to one side.
Four figures were emerging from the trees at the edge of the clearing.
Gauss vaguely recognized them as one of the teams in this winter hunt. They were almost certainly from out of town—faces he hadn't seen before—likely folks who'd arrived in Grayrock in the past couple of weeks for the hunt.
He didn't hurry. Calm as ever, he drew a special green signal flare from his belt and lit it.
A straight pillar of thick green smoke speared upward, stark against the gray, snow-flecked sky—announcing that the clearing operation here was complete.
"Hey, 'Goblin Slayer,' that's a bit out of line, don't you think?" the mage in the middle said, frowning at that showy "claim-the-spot" signal.
"Is there a problem?" Gauss tilted his head slightly, still chewing his monster frog jerky at an unhurried pace.
"This is our sector," the mage said, bristling. "And if you got here this fast, you didn't even finish clearing your own area first, did you?"
Gauss's eyes slid over the rest of them. They hadn't spoken, but they were clearly of one mind.
Behind him, Alia and Ulfen jogged up from the distance.
"So what is it you want?" Gauss asked.
He knew full well that telling them he'd only crossed over after finishing his own area would be pointless. From the way they were coming on, they weren't here to verify anything.
"Since you broke guild rules first, split the proceeds from this sweep fifty–fifty," the mage said. "We won't file a complaint."
His gaze drifted between Gauss and Alia. Clearing a nest with just two people—he'd grant they had some skill. But they'd just finished a tough fight, while his side was fresh—and they had them four to two.
Might made right.
He felt his demand was perfectly reasonable.
"We've already cleared our assigned sector. You're the ones breaking the rules," Alia said from behind Gauss. "Grayrock's winter hunt doesn't allow this kind of strong-arm robbery."
The four ignored her and kept their attention on Gauss.
He slid another strip of jerky into his mouth, still chewing as he looked them over: a heavy warrior, a mage, a rogue, and a cleric who barely registered—each wearing a one-star Bronze badge.
Wind whipped grains of snow and teased the fringe at his brow.
Gauss was silent a moment. The rhythm of his chewing had a strange, steady cadence that put an odd pressure on the four as they waited for his reply.
At last he slowly, clearly shook his head.
"I don't accept."
"If you want to complain, go ahead."