Dark Fantasy’s Extra

Injured people lay on cramped, shabby beds, while a young boy ran between them carrying a bucket of water and towels.

The boy had already grown accustomed to wiping away streaming blood, squeezing out pus from wounds, wrapping bandages, and identifying medicinal herbs.

He had also done his fair share of confirming deaths and clearing beds.

Today, like yesterday, he approached one of the patients lying in bed to check their breathing and eyes.

And her face was…

*    *    *

“…!”

I woke up with rapid breaths.

Though it was hard to see in the dark cave, using a bit of magical power lets one see well in darkness.

It’s one of the essential skills learned to become a hunter.

“Ah, you’re awake?”

Someone was coming this way.

When I turned my head, there was a woman with light brown long hair holding something.

As I lifted my gaze higher, I saw eyes that were dark red like blood, containing an eerie light.

“Damn!”

I quickly reached for my waist, but there were no weapons to grasp.

“P-Please calm down, Hunter. I merely found you on the plains and…”

She spoke in a frightened voice while shrinking back.

“Don’t be ridiculous! What are you plotting?!”

Even without weapons, there must be something else…

“What? Plotting…?”

While she was acting, I desperately racked my brain.

Then I finally remembered the smoke bomb I had kept inside.

“Please calm down first, Hunter. I’ve treated your major wounds…”

I immediately took out the smoke bomb and set it off.

Then I ran, not knowing where but just running.

It seems like some kind of cave, where’s the exit…

“Ugh!?”

But I was caught in an instant.

“My, how surprising?”

Her voice came through clearly even in the thick smoke.

I was made to lie down again without being able to properly resist.

It was a strong yet gentle touch.

Still, I didn’t let my guard down.

“You even had something like this hidden? You’re well-prepared in many ways.”

As the smoke slowly settled, her previously bewildered expression was gone, replaced by a happy smile.

“And you even instantly recognized that I’m a Beast. Were we perhaps acquainted before?”

“Shut-!”

I tried to lift my waist, but she had somehow lightly placed her hand on my stomach.

She wasn’t even pressing down, just resting it there, yet it felt like being pinned under a massive boulder.

“Whoa, whoa. Calm down first, Mr. Hunter. I don’t intend to kill you or anything. I can even return your weapons if you want. As long as you don’t use them for self-harm.”

She was clearly confident that I couldn’t harm her at all.

I knew that too.

Probably even if I put a rifle to her forehead and fired point-blank, she wouldn’t get a scratch.

I stopped resisting.

There was truly nothing I could do now.

“Good, seems like you’re finally in the mood to talk. Shall we introduce ourselves? I’m Blanc. As you noticed, I’m a Beast. Of course, you probably know I’m different from ordinary Beasts?”

I was a bit surprised.

Not because she was acting friendly, but because she gave her real name.

“I have no name to give to a Beast.”

“Aw, don’t be like that. You see, I’m just a normal person who happened to get cursed. But I was lucky enough to keep my sanity. Sorry about the act earlier. I thought you wouldn’t listen otherwise.”

Nonsense.

I know well who Blanc is.

Her claim about keeping her sanity despite the Beast’s curse is only half true.

When the extremely rare Beasts that retain self-awareness continue to devour not only hunters but also weaker Beasts, they eventually become behemoths who have broken free from the witch’s spell.

While they were exceptionally strong enemies even in Blue Paper Moon, there weren’t many due to the setting that they had been largely exterminated long ago and gone into hiding.

Blanc is one of those behemoths.

“Let’s eat first. Your body has weakened.”

She was still holding a bowl in her other hand.

She hadn’t spilled a drop while subduing me.

“I’ll remove my hand, so don’t run away. I just want to talk with a person after so long.”

That’s also a lie.

If I hadn’t played Blue Paper Moon in my previous life, I might have been fooled.

No, I probably would have been fooled.

Blanc removed her hand.

I slowly got up and took the bowl she offered.

Inside was a thick soup.

“…”

“It’s nothing special, but I put my heart into making it.”

I took it, set it on the ground, and walked past Blanc.

“There’s no way a hunter would eat food given by a Beast.”

“H-Huh? Wait! Let’s talk more… Ah, right! Should I return your weapons?”

“Not needed.”

They’re a shame to lose but they’re all supply items.

Only the mithril glaive is shared equipment, but they don’t punish us even if it’s lost or broken during combat with Beasts.

Getting out of the cave was the priority.

“I even treated your wounds.”

Blanc grabbed my hand.

As she said, bandages were wrapped around where I’d been injured.

The pain was mild too, suggesting she’d used effective herbs.

I think she used the ones from my pocket though?

“I-I want… to talk with people… I’ve been alone for so long.”

Her expression turned bewildered as she suddenly spoke in a fragile voice.

I shook off her hand.

I felt no sympathy at all.

I only got chills at how well she could act.

Blanc’s current appearance was the very picture of a tragic woman.

Someone who was cursed as a Beast but luckily kept her sanity, living alone to avoid harming people.

Moreover, she had carefully treated and even prepared food for an injured hunter she happened to meet.

Add her beautiful appearance to that, and it was almost too convincing.

Even I, knowing it was all lies, felt somewhat swayed.

But Blanc isn’t such a pitiful woman.

After being fooled and ruining the game several times while playing Blue Paper Moon, I learned to either ignore her completely or pretend to be fooled and deceive her back.

From the start, a Beast in human form must be either a behemoth or a particularly good mimic, and the latter shows awkwardness if you observe carefully.

But when they’re this natural with such rich emotional expression, they must be either a behemoth or at least a high-tier Beast.

Of course, since the last behemoth appeared decades ago and didn’t even show such rational behavior then, even hunters might not know better.

Without knowledge from my previous life, I would have been completely fooled too.

“A Beast is a Beast. A hunter is a hunter.”

I left those words and kept walking forward.

“Please! Don’t go! I don’t want to be alone anymore!”

Blanc shouted from behind.

“Listen to my story… Ah!?”

There was a sound of falling from behind.

“Sob, sob…. No… I don’t want to be alone…”

Though I could hear her wailing, I kept walking.

As I continued walking, the sound eventually faded, and there was a fork in the path ahead.

I focused my senses as much as possible to feel the direction of the wind.

Wind flows from high pressure to low pressure.

Naturally, the place with lower pressure than a closed cave is outside.

I took off my gloves and felt the wind direction with my palm.

The air was flowing toward me.

Not this way.

I turned around and went back to where I was before.

“Ah, y-you came back! Right! I can tell you how to get out of here…!”

Blanc wiped her tears and smiled brightly, but I ignored her and walked past.

“Wait!”

She ended up following me.

“Go away.”

“I-I’ll show you the way. I’m sure I can help!”

I tried my best to ignore her.

Blanc kept talking as we walked.

About which village she was from, how many family members she had, how she used to be an ordinary village girl who did hand sewing.

Most of it was true.

In Blue Paper Moon, depending on the branch points, Blanc could become a heroine.

If she completely opens her heart, she reveals that some of her old lies were actually true.

Saying that using truth to deceive others is effective.

Right now, she’s just mixing in a bit of truth to deceive me.

“Go left here.”

I went left.

Not because of her words, but because that’s where the wind was flowing.

“Just go straight through the middle here!”

I went right.

“Don’t go this way! There are terrible Beasts this way!”

I ignored her and kept walking.

The air flow was becoming more noticeable.

“I’m telling you to stop! I’ll be fine since I’m a Beast, but you’re a hunter. What will you do without weapons?”

Though Blanc said this, she didn’t try to grab my hand or stop me.

I felt certain I was going the right way.

As we kept walking, light eventually became visible.

I continued forward without rushing.

“…”

At some point, Blanc had also gone quiet.

Then we came outside.

The cave was on a hillside, showing the scenery below.

The place where we were attacked by the zombie Beast horde wasn’t far.

The hill’s height was about 3m.

At that moment my vision flipped.

As I fell, I stayed close to the hillside to distribute the impact and grabbed a rock I’d noticed earlier to land safely.

My back stung a bit from scraping against the hill, but I wasn’t seriously hurt otherwise.

“Ahahahah! You really don’t disappoint until the end!?”

Blanc’s laughter rang out from atop the hill.

I immediately ran.

If I could reach the forest ahead, my chances of escape would increase slightly.

But something crashed down in front of me like a meteor, scattering dirt and rocks.

I stepped back from the powerful impact.

As the dust settled, Blanc, who had landed, walked toward me.

“I thought I might let you fool me once, but there was no need?”

Blanc’s ominously dark red eyes were filled with satisfaction.

“Finally showing your true colors, Beast.”

I picked up a stone from the ground, stood up, and threw it at her.

“Cute until the end. I really like you.”

The stone was caught with disappointing ease.

When Blanc squeezed her hand, the fist-sized stone crumbled with a soft crunch.

“Hey, won’t you tell me your name?”

“Get lost.”

“If you don’t tell me, I won’t let you go.”

“…”

“If you give me a fake name, I’ll kill 100 people who share that name.”

That woman never lies when making threats.

If she says she’ll kill, she really will.

“Eugene.”

“Fufu, you answer without hesitation? Perhaps you prepared a fake name in advance?”

“It’s my real name.”

“Oh my, so you gave your real name to a Beast you hate to save 100 innocent people?”

“…I don’t hate Beasts.”

“Huh?”

“The one we need to kill is the witch, isn’t it?”

“Are you serious?”

“I am. Beasts are just victims of the witch’s curse after all.”

“Then, how do you feel when you kill Beasts?”

“You don’t need to-“

While I was trying to buy time with my answer, a white flash descended from the sky.

Blanc quickly jumped back.

“…Are you alright?”

Sephira stood in front of me, pointing her sword at Blanc.