Every single participant immediately ran out into the woods, including Shienne and Mhiya. The only one who remained was Maeyurai, who was unprepared for the horn.
"Huh?!" he exclaimed, running forward with unsteady balance.
He thought that his performance would worsen if he ran last, and so he sprinted with all he's got.
Due to the training that he received, his physical conditions were drastically improved.
While running, he passed by the participants one by one, dodging all of them smoothly without bumping into anyone.
I'll find the first Hell's Spawn, whatever it looks like, and kill it!
Then I'll repeat it and get the most!
He slowed down to take his longbow from his back. Then, he ran at an even faster pace, going past most of the participants.
Every single person went in their own way, separating in all directions. A Hell's Spawn could be ahead or to the left.
Either way, it wouldn't matter. All that they needed was for a Hell's Spawn to be around so they could kill it and add to their count.
For The Hunt, how a person's kill is counted is by bringing the ear or the nail of the Hell's Spawn that they defeated. Or most known in the event as counts.
And the fifteen people with the most counts are given the opportunity to become part of the army as an archer.
As Maeyurai ran off on his own, two people followed him.
The two of them stood at a height of 5'9. One of them had indigo hair; the other, jet-black.
They ran at a speed equal to Maeyurai, and it seems that they could run even faster if they wished to. The one closest would then attempt to talk to Maeyurai.
"The name's Phantas Ugina. I've been seeing you a lot for the past five days," the man with indigo hair said, talking without looking at Maeyurai.
"Yhodth Maeyurai, nice to meet you," Maeyurai replied, not glancing Ugina's way. "What do you want?"
"Simply put, I want to challenge you."
Challenge? Me?
If you want a challenge, challenge someone else!
I'm not into competing for nothing!
"Challenge? What do I get if I win?" Maeyurai asked. He would rather not accept, but he still considered that there might be something good to this.
"I've seen you training in Huizen's place, and I know you only recently started," Ugina said. "If I get more counts than you, I'll beat you to a pulp, including Shikkan. Of course, I'm bringing Merico with me."
Maeyurai felt his heart burning with anger. Him taking the beating on his own was fine, but bringing Shikkan into it? That wasn't something he could tolerate.
What surprised him also was the fact that Merico was an acquaintance of Ugina. It makes sense to think that Merico was the one behind this. The only contrast was that Merico probably doesn't even know that Maeyurai's participating in The Hunt.
He kept a calm face as he questioned, "And what if I don't accept?"
"Then we'll make sure to do the same and even bring down the Soft Loaves."
"Better bring it on then." Maeyurai turned his head to the right, glaring at Ugina. "I'll make sure to double my fucking counts in contrast to yours."
"That's what I like," Ugina replied with a smirk.
"C'mon, Wency, let's go," he said to the person beside him, Akijiro Wency, the one with jet-black hair, before running off in a different direction.
"Aye-aye," Wency replied, following along.
Maeyurai kept running, his steam not running out due to the adrenaline he's currently feeling.
Not only that, but he was also fueled by anger. But despite that, he was rational and even more dangerous than he's ever been.
Running for minutes, there wasn't a single sign of a Hell's Spawn. It's quite difficult to find one when you don't even know what it looks like.
Feeling impatient, Maeyurai stops heading in his direction and takes a sharp turn to his right.
A few moments later, he bumps into Shienne.
Because he was feeling under the weather, he decided to run alongside Shienne.
"Maeyurai? What happened? You look a little frustrated," Shienne asked, looking at Maeyurai closely.
"Someone challenged me, and now I'm forced to work even harder. I can't find a single Hell's Spawn; this is so hard," Maeyurai replied with gritted teeth.
"Challenge, huh? I'm not going to ask what happened, but good luck. Finding Hell's Spawns in this area shouldn't be easy, so chill out, okay?"
"Okay."
The two of them would separate after Maeyurai nodded.
And then in the corner of Maeyurai's eye, he saw a faint color of red appear behind a tree.
To his surprise, it was a Hell's Spawn. Or more specifically, a Walker, a Common-Level HS. (Hell's Spawn)
A Walker is a red, humanoid creature with no facial features. It has wrinkly skin and nailless hands. Its main way of attacking is snapping people's necks off and eating them alive with its massive mouth.
Jackpot! He exclaimed loudly in his mind.
Maeyurai skidded to a halt, loading his longbow with an arrow. After taking aim on its head, he released the bowstring and launched the arrow.
It pierced the Walker's head, but it didn't kill it.
The Walker stumbled back and reacted, running towards Maeyurai in a frenzy.
"It's not dead?!" Maeyurai yelled out before loading his longbow again.
After shooting its head twice, it still refused to die. Just what could possibly kill it?
Wait...
If it doesn't have organs like a brain, then there must be some sort of heart I can shoot to kill it!
Before the Walker could grab him, Maeyurai ducked and performed a back-kick, hurling it away, hitting a tree with great force.
Taking aim, Maeyurai thought of the possible locations for its heart.
The first arrow pierced through its chest, but it didn't kill it.
"Damn," Maeyurai muttered.
He kept shooting arrows in different spots of the upper body. From the neck, the shoulder, the liver, the stomach, and the other places where there would be a vital organ.
But what he didn't consider was the navel.
Right! The navel! I haven't tried that yet!
He reloaded his longbow and shot the arrow, piercing through the navel.
And it ended with success as the Walker yelled out in pain, a large hole in its stomach forming, a sign that it was dead.
Yes! Now I know how to kill it!
However, Maeyurai couldn't stop to celebrate. He immediately ran towards the corpse of the Walker, grabbed an arrow, and used its tip to cut off the Walker's ear.
Blood doesn't spill out, but it has soft flesh you could cut. How weird.
"That's one," he said under his breath, collecting the arrow he used to kill the Walker with.
If I remember, I think Mhiya said yesterday that The Hunt lasts for the whole day.
If it's not, then it should be logical for me to assume that it lasts for around six to twelve hours.
For the next few minutes, Maeyurai was just running around mindlessly in search of an HS.
And when he does find one, he immediately kills it mercilessly, not giving it time to react.
Currently, he's obtained 7 ears. If he were to be compared to other participants, he would be in the top five.
Despite him starting archery late, his aptitude for archery is immense. He learned how to shoot and keep a consistent form, all within five days.
If he were known to the entirety of Gangumen, he would be called a prodigy.
"This is for Shikkan."
The same words that he muttered under his breath at least once every minute. That single line was enough to keep him motivated to kill more and more HSs. (Hell's Spawns)
"I need to kill more Hell's Spawns," Maeyurai said to himself, frantically looking around the place.
His pouch contained 12 ears of Walkers. He's been looking for the HSs without the thought of giving up.
After a while, he finally sees an HS. But the strange thing was that it wasn't the same type of HS that he knows of.
Looking at it, it was similar. The only difference was its long nails, incredibly hunched back, and monkey-like appearance.
It was a Crawler, another Common-Level HS.
Maeyurai immediately took aim, looking for its navel. But since it was looking away, he couldn't get the proper angle to shoot and kill it.
"Cmon, just look this way already!" he shouted out, trying to get the attention of the Crawler.
His voice caught its attention like fish to bait.
It immediately went on all fours and charged towards Maeyurai; it was as violent as he thought.
The Crawler hopped forward and lunged its arms at his head, but in preparation, Maeyurai had already shot an arrow towards its navel and rolled to the side to dodge its attack.
After shooting, Maeyurai stood up right away to collect its ear.
But it wasn't dead. It was penetrated by the arrow in the navel, but that didn't kill it.
There was only one answer that could explain this: if it's different from a walker, then the location of its heart is most likely different as well.
Maeyurai had already come up close to the Crawler, and he was wide open, giving a window for it to attack.
The Crawler swung its arm and attempted to cut down Maeyurai with its sharp, long nails. But it failed due to the close distance, only launching Maeyurai away with the force of its arm.
He rolled across the ground from the impact; afterwards, Maeyurai groaned as he hit a tree head-first.
"That piece of crap!" he exclaimed, tightening his grip on his longbow, going on one knee as he transitioned straight to a shooting form.
He drew his longbow quickly twice, shooting two arrows to the Crawler's chest and head.
Afterwards, a hole formed in its chest, indicating that the Crawler's heart was located in the center of its chest.
Maeyurai couldn't bother to waste time. He was so confident that before the arrow even landed on the Crawler, he had already made a move and run in its direction to cut off its nail.
Since a Crawler doesn't have a physical ear, as it is replaced by a hole, its nails were a counterpart that you could collect as a count.
Upon retrieving the arrows, Maeyurai sprinted off to hunt even more HSs.
Going deeper into the woods, more and more HSs started to appear. But where there are a lot of prey to hunt, there are also a lot of predators.
Almost in every direction, he could see at least one participant running around, chasing or being chased by an HS.
Why are some of these people even participating? He thought, observing the weak participants being beaten up by the Walkers and Crawlers around.
If they're so weak, they shouldn't come to this place.
I haven't even seen a single participant use magic.
Oh, right, with how weak the Hell's Spawns are in this place, there is no need to use magic.
Maeyurai was running without looking at where he was going. Because of this, he didn't notice the person that was about to bump into him. It felt like the crash was forced, not accidental.
Crash!
He slammed into Ugina, who stood in his way; his momentum being shifted to another direction sharply, the force pushed him to a halt.
"Argh!" he muttered, his face scrunched, wondering who it could be that he bumped into.
Looking forward, his eyes glared into the person that was standing before him.
"Tch," he uttered. "It's you; can you stop disturbing me?"
Maeyurai glared at Ugina as he questioned. He wasn't feeling the need to talk right now, much less that it was Ugina.
"Come on, dude, watch where you're going," Ugina said with a scoff, clearly mocking Maeyurai.
"I was watching where I was going, you prick," Maeyurai lied; he didn't want to admit that he was in the wrong in this situation. It was also possible that Ugina intentionally stood in his way.
"Whatever you say," Ugina replied with a shrug. "How many counts do you have?"
Maeyurai hesitated to reply. But he thought that, maybe, it wouldn't be that bad.
"19."
Ugina's eyes widened.
But it wasn't genuine surprise; it was an act of mockery.
"Wow, how surprising. You're better than I thought," Ugina said, his voice carrying sarcasm.
"By the way," he continued. "I have 54."
Hearing the high amount of counts that Ugina had, Maeyurai gritted his teeth silently, glaring at his provoker.
"Whatever," he said, trying to brush it off. "That doesn't explain the fact that you stood in my way."
After speaking, Ugina continued, "I was just standing here until you disturbed me."
"I wasn't disturbing—"
Whack!
Maeyurai was pushed forward with a powerful force. He felt like being hit by a warhammer directly on his side, as he was sent hurling a few meters.
He landed on a tree, creating a large bark wound on its shaft.
"Urgh..." Maeyurai muttered, feeling sick in the stomach from the force he just received.
Shifting his gaze forward to look at what hit him, he felt the world rotating, his eyes blurry. What he could see were the two figures, who were Ugina and Wency.
What just hit me...?
That hurt so bad...!
Is it Wency? Where did he come from?
That was incredibly powerful; that can't be human...!
Maeyurai hissed in pain. When his eyes landed on Wency, he noticed one thing that was strange.
"Where's his bow...?" he asked under his breath, almost inaudible.
Taking a closer look at Wency, he wasn't even carrying a bow. If so, what is he doing in The Hunt? Maeyurai thought that Wency probably snuck his way in to support Ugina in tormenting him, but this was incredibly unreasonable and petty.
Maeyurai barfed; he felt that his consciousness was fading.
As his vision tunneled, he heard loud cries of help all over the place and loud noises of trees falling down.
Something mysterious had been lurking around the forest and finally made its appearance.
The participants who had hunted the Hell's Spawns relentlessly for hours are now at the bottom of the food chain—reduced to prey themselves.