015 The Hunter

He thought it was strange. If there were this many traces left, it must have been a fairly large beast. It wasn’t a small animal like a rabbit.

But could a person without a bow or spear catch a large beast? Absolutely not. Even an experienced professional hunter would find it difficult to hunt a large beast alone in a day.

Moreover, the giant’s hands had never held a bow, let alone a sword. He thought there might be an accomplice. Strangers were always to be watched.

So he hid and observed for a while, but there was no sign of another man in the cabin. It was just the giant alone.

“….”

Gus looked at the giant’s hand. There was a wound on the man’s hand that hadn’t been there when they parted yesterday.

‘That is….’

The raggedly torn skin and deeply embedded teeth marks were clearly those of a wolf. He had seen wolf bites many times and knew them well. He couldn’t have been mistaken.

But what caught Gus’s eye was not the wound itself. It was that it was already healing. The edges of the wound, which had been deep enough to show bone, were already recovering.

‘Impossible.’

He had seen many wounds from animal bites, but he had never seen one heal so cleanly in just one day. Normally, a wound that severe would cause a fever and delirium, leading to death.

Wolf bites might look simple on the surface, but they were usually severely torn inside. If the bone was visible, it was normal for the blood vessels and muscles to be damaged as well. A man with such a wound shouldn’t be able to move as normally as the one before him.

If there was a possibility, it would be only one thing.

‘Could this man be a wizard? A very rare one at that?’

There was no way a wizard would appear in such a place. But if this man was a wizard….

It felt like someone had twisted open a door that had been closed right in front of him a long time ago.

There are wizards in this world. They are people that ordinary folks rarely encounter. Gus had only heard of them, never met one.

Some wizards use fire, some use water. He had heard there were also wizards who used wind.

—

And it is said that there are very few who can use healing magic.

‘If that man is really a magician.’

Gus lowered his head to hide his expression from the giant.

‘The opportunity has come.’

Perhaps he could take revenge. An opportunity he thought would never come until he died had arrived.

A smile appeared on Gus’s previously expressionless face.

*

Young people often tend to think that old people have been old and narrow-minded from the beginning, but old people also had times when they were boys, and times when they were energetic young men. Gus also had days full of hope when he was young.

Gus was destined to become a hunter from birth. It must have been so. By the time he was aware, he was already climbing mountains following his hunter father.

The mountains were more comfortable than the plains. He was confident that he would become a better hunter than anyone else. Based on that skill, he wanted to become the lord’s close aide someday. That was his wish.

If you become a forest keeper who manages the mountains or forests owned by the nobility, you receive various benefits, but you also have the obligation to go to the battlefield for a certain period. If you achieve military merit there, it was not a dream to become the lord’s close aide. It wouldn’t be easy, but there were rare people who had done it, and he believed he could do it too.

That future was ruined when he first left his father to find a place to work as an independent hunter. He heard that a distant village was looking for a forest keeper.

Youth is truly frightening. You can’t distinguish between what is possible and what is not. You mistakenly think the world exists for you.

In the village he went to, the village headman recruited a forest keeper on behalf of the lord and made a formal contract every year at the end of the year.

Once the contract was made, you could receive money and goods for settlement. It was said that the variety was quite large, including food such as grains, flour, and salt, and materials such as linen and wool. It was much better treatment than other places.

But that was why his father opposed it. He said that places with conditions that were too good always had something fishy. Foolishly, Gus thought that was his father’s jealousy. He thought his father was envious because his son was receiving treatment he couldn’t get.

Blinded by the benefits specially granted by the lord and the advantages from the mountains, Gus started the forest keeper job without properly investigating. He was really a fool.

To become a forest keeper, you must first get used to the mountain. You need to gradually learn the terrain and the animals living there and adapt yourself to the mountain.

Gus climbed the unfamiliar mountain every day. It was a rich mountain.

There were many animals such as rabbits, birds, and deer, as well as edible plants and fruits scattered everywhere.

All of that was allowed for the forest keeper. He thought there couldn’t be better conditions than this.

You have to pay something to the lord, whether it’s labor or taxes, but even ordinary commoners can take firewood from the lord’s forest. In spring, summer, and autumn, firewood for cooking and heating water is needed in any season, and collecting firewood was always a competitive task.

In winter, firewood was even more necessary, so you often had to go deep into the forest. But in that mountain, you could pick up firewood anywhere.

Excited, Gus didn’t think deeply about why the villagers only collected firewood from the shallow parts of the mountain.

‘He was really foolish.’

To become a forest keeper who protects and manages the lord’s forest, you must have all your limbs intact when you make the contract.

There were goblins living in that mountain.

Gus, unaware of the goblins’ existence, wandered around the mountain and was attacked by them. He injured his leg then, and completely strayed from the path of a hunter.

—

The goblins that make up the village must be completely exterminated, but doing so is not easy.

In the mountains of that village, when the goblin village was subjugated, a few would survive and escape, and the escaped ones would form a village again, repeating this cycle every few decades.

The villagers knew this but kept it a secret.

Later, it was discovered that it was difficult to find hunters around the village, so they had to go far away to find a mountain keeper.

Goblins kidnap human women to breed. Because of this, the village, which had a small number of women, was called the goblin village by the nearby areas.

“….”

Even though he could no longer work as a hunter, Gus couldn’t leave the vicinity of the mountains. He continued his miserable life, dreaming of the day he would take revenge on the goblins that had brought him to ruin. He lived with the villagers for decades, despite hating them. It was because of his single-minded determination to take revenge someday.

Many people think that a hunter’s job is to chase and catch animals in a lively manner, but in reality, most of the time is quiet and boring.

Setting traps and waiting silently nearby all day or for several days, or tracking the traces left on the ground for several days to chase the animal. It’s a tedious task, but that’s real hunting.

Because of this, the greatest talent a hunter could have was tenacity and persistence.

Gus, who had lived in that village for decades, waiting for the chance to take revenge, was a born hunter, as his father had said. If he hadn’t been attacked by goblins, he surely would have been.

Gus looked at the giant. This man could do it.

There were two types of hunters.

The first was the ordinary hunter.

They set traps in the mountains or catch animals with a bow. They caught animals commonly seen in the mountains, such as wolves, rabbits, deer, and birds.

The second was the beast hunter.

Ordinary hunters couldn’t catch beasts and monsters. No matter how skilled a hunter was, they would almost certainly die when facing them. That’s why hunters were taught to run away if they encountered a beast or monster from the first time they went up the mountain.

It was adventurers who caught beasts and monsters. When a beast appeared, the lord or village would request the guild to call adventurers. It was the same in every country.

But rarely, there were those who had the aptitude for magic and became hunters. Such hunters were stronger than adventurers. The hunting skills that adventurers lacked made beast hunters stronger than anyone else.

If they could use healing magic, they wouldn’t die even if they were injured. Seeing the wound on his arm, Gus knew that this man’s healing ability was incredibly strong. Gus knew better than anyone how advantageous that was in hunting.

Moreover, this giant was incredibly strong. The load he carried up the mountain was too heavy for one person. He carried it along with a woman and a child, without even breaking a sweat.

This man could become stronger than anyone Gus had ever known or heard of.

“….”

Gus was sixty-five this year. It had been well over forty years since the goblin subjugation, so by now, their village would have formed again.

As the village grew and the number of kidnapped women became insufficient, the goblins would attack the village. They were still hiding deep in the mountains, not appearing before humans, but it wouldn’t be long. They would surely attack this village. That would be the chance to annihilate them.

‘Until then, I’ll train this man to be an excellent hunter.’

But he had to be careful. The goblins living in this mountain must not be discovered.

Goblins not only kidnapped women but also attacked houses and ate people. No human would stay in the mountains knowing there was a goblin den.

—

‘We must keep it hidden until the contract is signed.’

Once the contract is signed, it becomes binding. If you break the contract and run away without the lord’s permission, you will be punished as a criminal.

The giant doesn’t know the language, so it won’t be easy for him to find out. The villagers won’t tell him, so there’s no need to worry about that. The sly village chief will deceive him with a friendly face. The goblin matter can be revealed after the contract is signed.

At first, the giant, who seemed wary, put down his axe and grinned.

“####.”

The giant said something in a language I had never heard before. It seemed like a greeting. However, one of the giant’s legs was slightly behind, almost imperceptibly.

‘Is he shifting his weight to the back?’

If you look closely, his right shoulder was also naturally lowered back. It was a stance before an attack. This man, even though he was smiling, seemed to be aware that Gus was hiding and watching. He was very cautious.

‘He will make a good hunter.’

The giant, despite never having learned to hunt, had an uncanny resemblance to a carnivorous animal in his behavior. It wasn’t something he did consciously. Rarely, but sometimes, there were people who instinctively acquired such traits. This man was probably one of those.

‘There is time.’

Gus continued to search for traces of goblins, but they had not yet been found in the mountains. So it’s fine. If this man has the talent to catch a wolf alone without any training, there is plenty of time to train him.

Gus smiled, letting his hands hang by his sides to show he had no hostility.

“From today, I will teach you how to hunt. I will pass on everything I know.”

It was a good day. The sky was clear white, and the mountain’s energy was exceptionally clear today. The cries of winter birds searching for food early in the morning echoed everywhere. It felt like the spirits of the mountain were smiling. Everything seemed to bless this day. There had never been a day as good as this since birth.

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