Chapter 65

Night of the Hunt (3)

“-So, I don’t mind you spouting nonsense again!”

“……”

Aiden’s face twisted at the verbal abuse hurled so casually his way, but Noel, who was carrying both him and Katya on her back while sprinting, showed no signs of slowing the torrent of words flowing from her mouth.

“What’s your crazy plan to put that crazy idea into action!”

“……I have feelings too, Dame Noel.”

Aiden muttered sulkily, though even as he said it, he quickly scanned his surroundings.

Honestly, even with just a little thought—

This situation was definitely strange.

-Quest Info

♠ Main Quest

◈ Act I,

-Chapter 2,

▶ Due to external interference, the difficulty has skyrocketed.

▶ The event content has been changed from the original “Large-Scale Raid” to “Subjugation of a Top-Tier Beast”!

▶ Due to the difficulty change, the quest rewards will be enhanced upon completion!

Just looking at the quest window, it was clear—there was no way they were supposed to be dealing with a monster like this right now.

A beast that could brush off attacks from Noel and Katya as if they were nothing—there weren’t many of those across the entire world.

‘……Top-tier beasts normally never leave the Void Zone.’

Even within the Void Zone, an area optimized for the law of the jungle, top-tier beasts sat at the very peak of the food chain. Typically, they roamed inside in search of prey, paying no attention to the outside world.

And the reason was simple. Beasts existed for destruction and consumption, and the Void Zone's inner territory was the perfect nest to fulfill those urges.

For a beast like that to suddenly appear outside meant only one thing—someone had definitely messed with it before it crushed the Puppeteer, Rad.

To be more specific—

This “Berserk” status afflicting the creature known as Soul Reaver was likely that very tampering.

It had been lured out of its natural habitat by reducing its cognitive functions to that of a near-mindless beast.

So, considering all that—

This beast was currently in a state where its greatest strength—rational thinking—was out of play, and Aiden himself held two Skill Copy Tickets from the one who had messed with it to begin with.

That meant there had to be a way out. The monster had a clear weakness, and they had the means to exploit it.

For example—

While it might have looked like they were simply running away, they had at least managed to slam every stick they had brought beforehand into the ground in passing, more or less.

Noel ran, Katya intercepted Soul Reaver, and in the meantime, Aiden took the sticks from their supplies and slammed them into the ground one by one as they fled.

Doing something like that while on the run clearly meant he was setting something up. But that beast, which should have been an intelligent lifeform, probably couldn’t even recognize the significance of it due to the effects of its berserk state.

And the way to use that to their advantage—

Aiden reached out and placed his hand on Noel’s shoulder, who was running hard enough to set her soles on fire.

He gave her a few taps. A gesture that said he had a suggestion.

“Dame Noel.”

“……No.”

“Dame Noel.”

“I don’t know what it is, but no.”

“……”

As Aiden’s face fell into a sulky expression, Noel glanced at him sideways and squeezed her eyes shut.

Nothing in particular had gotten worse, but she had become painfully aware of her current state.

In the end, she realized that now that things had come this far, she was bound to act according to this man’s plan.

Oh Karva, why have you placed such a reckless man by my side…

“……Fine. Let’s at least hear it.”

“Let’s jump.”

The moment he said it, Noel had to forcefully swallow down a string of harsh words that almost burst out from her throat.

Had they been at a proper social gathering that valued decorum and etiquette, she would have earned herself several disapproving stares with that outburst.

“Jump? Where?”

“Down there.”

With that, Aiden pointed at the cliff edge beside the sloped path they were currently running along.

It was the very place he had descended earlier by rope to hammer in the sticks.

“……”

Noel briefly turned her gaze and looked down the cliff.

…She couldn’t see the bottom.

It was so high that the sound of blade-like wind howling upward from below slammed against her eardrums like human screams.

“……You mean down there?”

“Yes. Don’t worry. I’ve thought this thro—”

Before he could even finish his sentence, a torrent of unspeakable language erupted from Noel’s lips, utterly uncontrollable.

Had this been a formal social gathering, she would have been thoroughly beaten and thrown out on the spot for what she just said.

As Aiden stood confused about how to feel, having just received the foulest insult he’d heard in a while—and from his fiancée no less—Katya, still unleashing divine attacks at the relentlessly pursuing Soul Reaver, tilted her head curiously.

“We're supposed to go down there?”

“Yes. We need to break its spirit a bit if we want to tame it.”

Noel nearly said aloud that there was a huge difference between “breaking its spirit” and “committing suicide by jumping off a cliff.”

The only reason she didn’t say it out loud was because something interrupted her mid-thought.

“Yeah?”

That is to say—

“Then let’s go.”

—the moment Katya heard that, she unleashed her divine power at full output straight into the ground. Like a booster firing from an engine, the rebound force launched their bodies into the air.

Naturally—

Their bodies soared forward, then began a steep descent off the cliff, guided by the laws of physics.

“…I swear, you damned, Aiden Your Highness—!”

“……”

She was so furious that she even blurted out his title mid-rant.

I’ll definitely apologize to Noel once this is over…

As Aiden made that resolution, Soul Reaver, who had caught sight of them plummeting off the cliff, locked its bloodshot gaze onto them.

Then—

It followed them, hurling its body down after theirs.

The raw bloodlust in that act, one that showed no concern for its own safety, was more than enough to send a chill down the spines of everyone in the group.

Still—

They had to do what needed to be done.

Aiden reached into his backpack and, with a deep breath, threw the last stick he had.

Though it didn’t lodge very deep, he could clearly see it wedge into a crevice on the cliffside during the fall.

“…By the way, what exactly have you been throwing and sticking into the ground all this time?!”

Falling off a cliff while being chased by a top-tier beast, and she still had the composure to ask something like that. She was questioning how he could be doing something so relaxed while being pursued by death.

…Honestly, the fact that Noel still had the presence of mind to ask anything during freefall was proof enough she wasn’t normal either.

“Explosives. For blasting.”

“…Excuse me?”

Here’s a bit of random trivia about the Aslan Ducal Territory:

This region, more than most people realize, is famous for its mining industry.

Which meant that acquiring high-quality explosives—designed for breaking rocks and altering terrain—wasn’t all that difficult.

And—

Even while they’d been running for their lives, they had just finished planting enough blasting explosives, mined from a rather large vein, to last a full month of operations.

“…Why would you go and plant that much all over the place…?”

Rather than explaining, it’d be faster to just show her.

Aiden reached into the backpack still slung over his shoulder and pulled out a spare rope. It was a special one, with a hook on the end.

It had already been tested several times for durability—strong enough to support multiple people without issue.

He flung it across to the opposite side of the canyon they’d just leapt from, and the hook caught.

Suddenly, the endless plummet they had been in shifted dramatically.

With a support in place, the group swung violently like a pendulum and slammed into the cliff wall on the other side of the chasm.

It was such a violent impact that they barely avoided injury by erecting a barrier of Brilliant Radiance—but the real problem was that there was someone else about to crash even more violently.

If Soul Reaver had even a shred of intelligence left, he might have at least attempted to halt his fall. But in his current berserk state, he simply flailed his limbs with mindless hostility, even while free-falling.

And sure, even those frantic flails in midair visibly pulled his massive body closer to them, making one gape at his ridiculous physical specs—but the outcome was already decided from the start.

With a piercing whistle, Soul Reaver plummeted to the bottom of the cliff at terrifying speed.

“……”

“……”

Noel and Katya watched in silence.

Still dangling from the rope, Noel narrowed her eyes and glared at Aiden.

“…Mister Aiden.”

“…Yes.”

“From now on, if you’re going to pull something like this, I ask that you at least discuss it with me first.”

“……”

“Understood?”

“…No one got hurt, right?”

When he didn’t answer directly, Noel shot him a deadly glare, but Aiden avoided her eyes.

Well, that was because—

This wasn’t over yet.

Avoiding Noel’s gaze, Aiden fished around in his coat and pulled out a detonator.

“…What’s that now?”

“Time to blow it up.”

The “path” along which he had planted the blasting explosives—

—had been designed to drive an entire cliff face straight down onto the Soul Reaver that had just crashed at the bottom.

With a beep, the charges embedded along the cliff ignited in sequence.

Amid the thunderous explosions that shook the night sky, Katya’s quiet words reached his ears.

“You… You planned all this from the start?”

“Pretty much.”

“…This?”

“……”

You mean—

He led that giant beast here,

slammed it down the cliff,

then planned to collapse the entire cliff face on top of it?

“…Mister Aiden, seriously, what goes through your head on a daily basis?”

As Noel asked, equal parts exhausted and appalled, Katya chimed in right after.

“The more I watch you, the more I think your thought process is genuinely dangerous.”

“……”

“Isn’t your first instinct always just… blow it up and kill it?”

At Katya’s sharp jab, Aiden’s face twisted as he pressed the button.

Coming from her of all people, that really did sting more than he expected…

-!!!!

Regardless of whether he was hurt by it or not—

With a massive explosion, the very landscape transformed as the shockwave of the detonation swallowed up the surroundings.

Hundreds of thousands of tons of rock crashed down directly onto Soul Reaver’s head.

As the dust began to settle and the thunderous noise that had engulfed the area finally started to fade—

Aiden let out a deep sigh and checked the state of the rope.

Hmm, so—

“…Dame Noel. You’re the heaviest right now, so if you keep moving the rope might—”

He got punched.

“…I wasn’t talking about your weight—I meant you’re wearing the heaviest gear right now, so you’re the—”

He got punched again.

“……”

Note to self: never say anything about a woman being heavy, no matter the context.

As he reflected on that valuable lesson—

Suddenly, a chilling sound echoed up from below the cliff.

“…It’s still alive?!”

Noel gasped in horror as she looked down and saw it.

Soul Reaver was climbing up toward them, jamming its two front limbs into the cliff face one after the other.

Of course, Soul Reaver didn’t look anywhere near intact. It was so mangled that it was hard to find even one part of its body that wasn’t broken.

The fact that it had fallen from such a height, only to have a mass equal to a small mountain dropped on top of it, and was still alive—was utterly horrifying.

“This is completely messed u—”

“—No, it’s not.”

But Aiden’s thoughts were completely different.

If it could be killed that easily, it wouldn’t deserve to be called a top-tier beast in the first place.

More importantly—

“If it died, that would’ve been a problem. I’m trying to tame it.”

And then—

Just as he said that, Aiden let go of the rope he was holding.

He dropped down toward Soul Reaver, who was climbing up toward them.

Under normal circumstances, approaching that monster would have meant instant death the moment he entered its range. But with Soul Reaver this badly injured, Aiden could now handle its attacks.

He blocked a swiping front limb with a barrier of Brilliant Radiance and landed directly on its head.

Then, at that moment—

He copied the two skills the Puppeteer had likely used to bring Soul Reaver to this state.

-System Message

▶ Mimicking ‘Skill: Dark Energy – Hydraulics’.

▶ Mimicking ‘Skill: Dark Energy – Divine Order’.

-Skill Info

◆ Dark Energy: Hydraulics

Analyzes the flow of energy within a target that possesses dark energy. Once the flow is understood, ‘Divine Order’ can be used on the target.

★ This skill was copied using ‘Mimicry’. It is weaker than the original!

◆ Dark Energy: Divine Order

Invades the mind of a fully analyzed target and implants a “command.” The target influenced by Divine Order will absolutely obey the command until another being nullifies it.

★ This skill was copied using ‘Mimicry’. It is weaker than the original!

As the stream of system messages flashed quickly past the corner of his eye, Aiden let out a soft laugh and placed his hand on Soul Reaver’s head.

Maybe it was because dark energy—the nature of this power—was derived from sealed gods, but the abilities it produced were eerie and grim in every way. And this one, in particular, showcased that nature quite vividly.

Still, just this once—

Aiden found himself grateful for such power.

After all, abilities like these couldn’t easily be measured in strict numerical terms when it came to power. Even if what he copied was weaker than the original, it wasn’t something he could really feel as a drawback.

More importantly—

-System Message

▶ Activating ‘Skill: Dark Energy – Hydraulics’.

▶ Analyzing the flow of dark energy within the target!

▶ Analysis complete.

A black pulse-like flow revealed itself within Soul Reaver’s body. Aiden, identifying the point where the energy was most densely concentrated, reached out.

-System Message

▶ Activating ‘Skill: Dark Energy – Divine Order’.

▶ A duplicate skill is already active within the target. Activation failed—

Before that message could even fully appear,

Aiden pulled out the perfect ability for this situation from his arsenal.

▶ ‘Supernatural Power: The Purifier’ deletes the existing ‘Skill: Divine Order’ implanted in the target.

Did that bastard Rad even realize?

All those tricks he had pulled to try and trap Aiden—

Had now become a banquet of riches, generously laid out for him on a silver platter.

Because to Aiden right now, those skills—

—were worth more than gold.

-System Message

▶ Target’s ‘Berserk’ status has been lifted.

▶ ‘Skill: Dark Energy – Divine Order’ has successfully activated.

▶ The target now obeys your commands!

That’s right.

As those words appeared before him, a pure, unblemished smile spread across Aiden’s face.