And Yet, I Won't Stop (7)

"Hey! You think I'll let you get away?!"

A shout of abuse echoed over the water as a spear was thrust from the boat toward the monster caught in the net.

Ah, no—the tip has a vicious barb to keep it from being pulled out, so I suppose it would be more accurate to call it a harpoon.

I came to watch the army hunt monsters traveling upstream from a distance, but this was a surprisingly brutal way to fight.

Besides, this didn't look like it would help me at all when it came to making my way through the Man-Eating Great Swamp.

After all, their methods involved driving the monsters into trap nets set after several boats circled around them, or throwing nets from the boats to impede their movements and then stabbing them to death with harpoons.

The boats used for the hunt were also quite large, presumably so the monsters wouldn't easily overturn them.

Going by appearances, fishing seemed more apt than monster hunting.

From what I'd heard, they dealt with small numbers of monsters this way, but if a large number came swimming upstream, they blocked off the river or used bait to lure them onto land and annihilate them.

Though apparently, large numbers of monsters swimming upstream wasn't something that happened very often.

A tongue stretched toward the boat through the gaps in the net, but a soldier carrying a large shield stepped in to block it.

Apparently, the monsters being driven into the trap were a kind of frog monster.

Like the Lava Frog I'd defeated in a volcanic region before, frog-monster meat had no unpleasant smell and was easy to eat.

And because they were so plentiful, I heard they were a fairly popular food in Badas and Orotenan.

I'd tried some at a tavern myself, and... well, the Lava Frog was much tastier, but it wasn't bad.

Incidentally, as you can see, the tongues of the frog monsters found around here can be blocked with a shield, and they don't make any absurdly huge jumps. They don't feel remotely as strong as the Lava Frog.

Even so, several people apparently get swallowed and eaten by these monsters every year, and the soldiers hunting them had expressions of utter seriousness.

The adventurers apparently hunt monsters a little farther downstream without boats, but I obviously couldn't go take a look at that.

For them, hunting monsters was a technique developed at the risk of their lives, so naturally they had no obligation to show it to others for free.

Even if I paid to watch the hunt, I didn't know which of the adventurers in town could be trusted.

If I hired some shady adventurer, I might wind up with a thug, practically a bandit, who tried to kill me under the guise of an accident at the hunting grounds and steal my belongings.

Of course, I wasn't so easy to kill, but if I turned the tables on them, I'd probably get dragged into trouble anyway.

In other words, I'd have to work out how to deal with aquatic monsters through trial and error after actually entering the Man-Eating Great Swamp.

There was no guarantee that methods effective against the monsters around here would work against those lurking deeper in, but, well, so be it.

Clinging to methods I already knew could lead to an unexpected blunder, and in any case, I'd have to come up with my own approach each time.

Personally, I was more interested in the harpoons the soldiers were using.

Azvardo, my master in smithing, had taught me how to make a broad range of weapons, but harpoons weren't among them.

After all, a harpoon was more like fishing equipment than a weapon.

Coastal countries might be different, but in the Kingdom of Rudoria—and especially in Vistcourt, which lies beside the Great Forest—nobody needed fishing equipment.

I could tell it was something like a spear, but there had to be some unique trick to keeping the barb strong.

Once I got back to town, it would surely be a lot of fun to visit weapon shops and smithies and have them show me how they were made.

I'd love to make one myself, but for now I had no intention of settling in town long enough to rent a forge.

If I made something half-baked by imitating what I'd seen, its flaws would bother me so much that I wouldn't be able to think about traveling anymore.

So if I wanted to make a harpoon and thoroughly experiment with the technique, I'd have to spend a long time in some town—years at a stretch.

In short, since I was about to step into the continent's unknown eastern reaches, making one would have to wait for a while.

Also... since I was heading into an unknown danger zone, I should stock up on medicine and the like.

If I were entering an ordinary forest, or even the Pulha Great Forest, I could gather medicinal herbs here and there even if I went empty-handed.

The trees would tell me where medicinal herbs were growing, and even if I found a completely unfamiliar plant, I could more or less tell whether it was poisonous and what medicinal effects it had.

But I knew far too little about the wetlands I was heading into this time.

There would surely be plenty of plants growing in the wetlands, so I thought I could manage somehow.

But that's what makes a place a feared danger zone: you can never rule out encountering unknown pathogens or some unforeseen obstacle.

That was why I needed to shore up my preparations as much as possible, covering everything I could think of in advance.

Even then, I was probably still a long way from being fully prepared.