Dark Fantasy’s Extra

It was a night of the full moon.

The blue moonlight illuminated the forest.

It was that same blue moon that always appeared in the bad ending of the game ‘Blue Paper Moon’ which I had played hundreds of times in my previous life.

We followed our squad leader through the tree shadows, moving carefully to avoid being exposed under that light.

Our clothes and shoes were damp with sweat and the potion we had sprayed on ourselves to mask our scent.

While ordinary people would have been breathing heavily by now, this level of activity was no problem for us who were trained in both physical combat and magic at the Hunting Order.

“…!”

The squad leader raised their hand with the signal to stop.

Then came the signal indicating they had spotted something.

We scattered, each looking in the direction the squad leader had pointed.

There should be another hunting squad on the opposite side.

I almost let out a curse.

We were told it would be a small mid-tier beast, but the thing currently devouring a wild boar in the clearing was nearly 2m tall even while crouching.

Above all, the pressure it emanated wasn’t at the mid-tier level.

This was a ‘Beast’ – the worst curse and calamity of this world.

Looking at my companions’ states, they seemed to share similar thoughts.

Though their faces were barely visible with cloth covering from nose to mouth and wide-brimmed hats pulled low, we could still read each other’s grimacing expressions.

Either way, a mission is a mission.

At the squad leader’s signal, we drew our rifles loaded with silver bullets.

It would have been nice if the guns themselves were enchanted…

But such expensive equipment isn’t issued to 9th-rank hunters like us.

Items that could be bought after hunting just a few mobs in the game aren’t so freely traded in reality.

And now isn’t the time to lament what we don’t have.

The squad leader gave another hand signal.

Whatever happens, the die will soon be cast.

Aim.

We aimed our rifles at the Beast.

But the signal to fire… never came.

The Beast grabbed the corpse it had been eating and hurled it at our squad leader.

The squad leader turned into a mash of crushed bones and flesh as if hit by a massive iron ball.

Most of us immediately ran away.

Some didn’t react to the sudden situation, but there was no time to worry about them.

“KIAAAAAAH!”

The roar felt like it was striking my brain, and before I knew it, I had fallen to the ground.

There was no time to stay down.

Unable to tell front from back, I first lifted my head and slammed it into the ground.

With the dull impact, the blurred world came back into focus.

As soon as I regained my senses, I grabbed my rifle, got up, and ran.

“Uaaagh!”

“Save me!”

Behind me, I could hear the sounds of the Beast rampaging and my companions’ voices.

But I knew well that I couldn’t save them.

I ran past the forest into the wide plains.

There were no signs of the Beast following, but I couldn’t let my guard down.

It might come after finishing its current prey.

And not long after, I heard something massive running from behind.

The heavy footsteps were rapidly getting louder.

It’s coming.

It’s targeting me directly.

The moonlight was unnecessarily bright, making my shadow clearly visible.

The moment I felt something catch my foot, I fell forward.

Something massive whooshed past over my fallen body, and the soil in front of me erupted.

The Beast had swung its arm, but I seemed to have luckily avoided it by falling.

I immediately turned around and aimed my rifle at the Beast.

A massive Beast well over 3m tall.

A horrifically twisted existence that looked like a grotesque mixture of human and animal.

Its maw was drenched in blood with entrails hanging from its teeth.

“Damn!”

I pulled the trigger.

With a gunshot that seemed to tear through the night, a single silver bullet flew toward the Beast.

The bullet hit the Beast’s chest, where its heart should be.

“…”

That was all.

It didn’t even flinch.

Well.

A normal silver bullet might have worked on the small one we were told about, but to a monster of this size, it’s nothing more than a toy…

The Beast opened its maw.

“Haha… This is the end.”

I had hoped to hold out until the protagonist arrived, but maybe that was too greedy.

Considering the timing, it would have been really soon too.

To meet such a meaningless end… Though I had somewhat expected it, facing it was still disheartening.

The Beast’s maw descends toward me.

Including my previous life, my whole life flashed before my eyes.

The last thing I saw was the game screen showing the bad ending.

Then the Beast’s head was cleanly split in half, falling on either side of me.

“Good work luring it. Though it’s bigger than reported.”

A young woman appeared, her silver hair that was often described as divine flowing in the wind.

In her hand was a longsword so uniquely white that ‘bleached’ would be a more fitting description.

While it looked like a work of art at first glance, that sword was a top-tier artifact even within the Hunting Order.

The large blue moon and the star-filled night sky.

And a silver-haired beauty holding a pure white sword.

It was such a fantastical sight, like a painting, that I almost forgot about reality.

The sense of life was worlds apart from when I saw it as game illustrations.

Though of course, she’s actually alive here.

“I heard it was just mid-tier, but while it felt weak to cut, it was definitely high-tier.”

Her words quickly brought me back to reality.

That’s right.

The higher-ups had definitely told us it would probably be mid-tier, and a small one at that.

But that Beast’s threat level was clearly high-tier at minimum.

Though angry at the higher-ups’ incompetence, there was something I needed to do first.

“Thank you for saving me, Lady Sephira.”

I stood up and bowed deeply to her.

“…I merely did my duty. But where are the other hunters?”

“About that…”

I couldn’t lift my head.

Our mission was to lure the Beast to these plains.

But no one else had followed.

Given the speed of the Beast we just killed, I should have been caught long ago.

But that Beast’s start was delayed.

Unusually delayed.

And the blood and entrails around its mouth.

“…I see, there was a mistake in Intelligence.”

Sephira said.

“Yes… A mistake… right.”

A mistake.

That one word contained the lives of 6 companions.

No, counting the squad we hadn’t met on the opposite side, it would be 13 people.

We weren’t particularly close friends.

Still, the fact that 13 people, colleagues who worked at the same place, died at once weighed heavily.

In the original game, no one cared how many low-ranking hunters died.

They were just extras with no faces or names, and expressions like ‘hundred or two hundred died at once’ were merely numbers indicating the enemy’s strength.

But now that I was on the dying side, for the first time since being born in this world, I desperately needed the protagonist’s existence.

I had to somehow convey the future threats to him and prevent the worst bad ending.

If the world ends, I’ll die too, naturally.

No, being able to die peacefully would be fortunate.

“If you’re the only survivor, we have no choice. I need to take your statement, so follow me.”

“Wait. First, we need to recover the bodies…”

“…Ah, yes. Being unfamiliar with such tasks, I forgot. My apologies.”

“You have nothing to apologize for, Lady Sephira.”

As a 9th-rank hunter, I’m at the bottom of the Order.

All the dirty and menial work in the field falls to us.

But in this harsh world, having the Hunting Order as backing is important, so we can’t quit either.

Above all, it pays much better than factory work or begging.

If I had to be reborn in a game world, I wish it had been as a noble.

“Shall I help?”

“Ah, no! This isn’t work suitable for you, Lady Sephira!”

If I let a 3rd-rank hunter do dirty work, I’d be the only one reprimanded.

And it’s fitting for a 9th-rank hunter’s remains to be collected by another 9th-rank hunter.

After all, regardless of rank, we handle all the corpses anyway.

“Then I’ll wait for the backup squad. Please call if you need any help.”

“Yes, thank you.”

I turned away from Sephira and entered the forest again.

The work was quick since no one had more than half their body remaining.

*    *    *

“I’m tired…”

After returning to the Hunting Order when the mission was over, I immediately grabbed fresh clothes and went to the shower room.

At a paid shower facility, warm water comes easily from a single tap like in my previous life’s bathroom, but even those few coins are precious to someone of low status.

Like the game’s background that oddly mixed medieval and modern elements, a warm bath remains in the realm of luxury.

“Ugh, cold.”

I quickly scrubbed off the blood, sweat, and dirt with an oily-smelling soap, changed into fresh clothes, and left my dirty clothes at the laundry room.

Then as I was about to enter our squad’s – no, now just my – empty room, someone was waiting at the door.

“9th-rank hunter Eugene, Lord Crowty summons you.”

He was the assistant to Crowty, the overall commander of field hunters.

An order from one of the top superiors here can’t be refused.

Still, Crowty was a sensible person in Blue Paper Moon, and he’s actually a good person in reality too.

He’s particularly detailed and proactive regarding issues concerning lower-ranking hunters.

At least he wouldn’t call for nothing.

“Welcome. Sorry to call you when you must be tired.”

The man wearing the same hunter’s uniform as me spoke as I entered Crowty’s office.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s nothing major, just about tomorrow’s mission. Ah, don’t worry. I’m not thinking of sending you to another field right after experiencing something like that last night.”

“Yes.”

“It’s an escort mission for a noble family’s young lady. Of course, they’ll prepare the real security personnel, and what you actually need to do is just be a conversation partner for the noble daughter. You understand what I mean, right?”

My organization’s name is the Hunting Order, but despite being called an Order, it’s not really a religious organization.

While our main job is hunting the Beasts that infest the whole world and getting paid for it, sometimes we also work as simple mercenaries doing security work.

It’s a relatively safe job, and since it involves nobles, the pay is usually good, so we take turns doing it.

It seems Crowty moved up my turn this time.

It was consideration to let me earn some special allowance while doing easier work after my hardship.

I really feel like crying.

“Yes! Thank you!”

“Thanks for what… Here’s the operation plan. Read it carefully and ask if you have any questions.”

Crowty handed me a sheet of paper.

It was an escort mission for a young lady named Hilde from the Grimm family.

As Crowty said, the main force would be prepared by the Grimm family, and my main duty was to be a conversation partner for the noble daughter.

It seems she wants to hear vivid stories about Beast hunting from a field hunter.

But somehow the name seems familiar…. What was it… Ah?

…Hilde was also the default name for the female protagonist version that I only played once during the tutorial.