First Battle

Every year, from autumn through winter, Alba Herons fly north from the south. Allen had lived in the Frontier Village for six years, but had never left it. These magic beasts had taught him how vast the world was and how the seasons passed.

Allen's father, Rodan, had named him with the hope that he would move freely through the sky, like an Alba Heron.

'Gyaaaaaaaaaas!!!'

The Alba Heron descended from the sky and landed on the ground. It seemed that Taunt, an Insect G's Special Ability, could lure in magic beasts. He didn't know how they acted normally, but it seemed to be enraged by being taunted.

Its wings spanned about four meters, and it stood over two meters tall from its feet to the top of its head. It looked twice Allen's height. Its body was covered in white feathers, which gradually darkened to a bluish black toward the tips of its wings.

The Alba Heron had landed in the center of the clearing, about ten meters in diameter, that Allen had made by trampling down the weeds. Allen was crouched low, hiding among the still-thick weeds outside the circle.

(Wha!? I was trying to catch wild birds, and an Alba Heron came down!)

He was surprised, but barely had to think about what to do. He could have kept hiding, and maybe it would have taken off and gone somewhere else.

Perhaps it was because of a remark he'd heard when he was one year old, tucked away at the back of his mind. Rodan had said that Alba Heron tasted good. Or perhaps it was a gamer's instinct to fight whenever he saw a magic beast.

There was only one thing to do. He gripped one of the baseball-sized stones he'd left on the ground...