Chapter 39 Part 2: Wildflowers

After finishing character customization, Cheongha opened the hull door and stepped out.

Just then, the expedition members admiring the desert scenery greeted her.

“Looking at it like this, I really am quite pretty.”

I muttered unconsciously upon seeing the protagonist revealed under the sun.

Even though I made her, the result turned out better than expected.

The cat following beside me is pure white too, which is cute.

See? There’s no need to spend hours on customization.

「Naro? What’s wrong?」

Just then, Naro, who was standing blankly by the railing, pointed towards the vast desert expanse.

There, several monsters were wildly digging through the sand.

Their actions, leaping out of the sand repeatedly like breaching dolphins, created clouds of dust everywhere.

「….Over there, there’s a person!!」

And within that cloud, a girl riding the newly added mount, the Secreet, was desperately racing forward.

The Forbidden Land, where no humans supposedly live.

Witnessing a real person there ignited the exploratory spirit within their hearts.

However, there was no time to rejoice over the new discovery.

「She’s being chased!!」

「….Damn it, the speed is too fast!」

This ship was a cargo vessel designed for expeditions, carrying all necessary supplies.

With the speed generated by its heavy body, it couldn’t possibly catch up to the monsters swimming rapidly through the sand.

「Ah, there’s something over there!」

A single Secreet, identical to the one the girl was riding, was running alongside the monster pack.

Judging by the saddle and packs on its back, it seemed to be an individual already tamed by someone.

「Alright, I’ll give it a try.」

There was no more time to hesitate.

Cheongha quickly jumped down and mounted the Secreet’s back.

「Kweeek?!」

「Please, just help me out a little.」

Although she almost fell off midway, she desperately regained her balance and began pursuing the girl.

[Using the gauntlet’s crossbow allows you to destroy terrain features or fire equipped attachments.]

Following the tutorial displayed on the screen, Cheongha started using her secondary weapon to gradually drive the monsters away.

“This really feels like hunting now.”

It was a system that existed in the previous installment, ‘World’, as well.

But as the overall quality of the game improved, the immersion was even greater.

「What do we do! They’re still following!!!」

「We don’t have any more Sonic Bombs either!」

Perhaps greatly angered by the interference with their hunt, one Balahark changed its target and started charging towards Cheongha.

「Hey, Hunter! Catch this!!」

And then, a helping hand came flying from her allies.

It was the fundamental weapon of a Hunter, the Great Sword.

「Haaaah!!」

As soon as she grabbed the sword, Cheongha leaped from the Secreet’s back and swung the Great Sword.

Kuwooorrr-!

The Balahark, its face slashed by her Great Sword, was startled and fled into a sandpit.

「Are you okay? Little one.」

The tearful girl nodded her head.

The reason the child was here alone was simple.

「My brother…!」

While practicing riding the Secret with her brother, they were attacked by a pack of Balaharks. Her brother tried to lure them away but got separated in the process.

“Well, he’s probably still alive though.”

-??? Is the streamer a T (Thinking type)?

-Show some empathy… the kid’s crying…

-Waaah!!

The viewers started protesting my cold reply.

But who was that last one?

And besides…

“Have you ever seen anyone die in Titan Hunter besides us?”

-Ah, well, that’s true.

-That way they can sell the game more easily lol

-And then they beat us up with unfair hitboxes?

-Those evil bastards…

In the first place, the only ones who die in this series are the protagonist Hunters.

Everyone else gets hit directly by a Black Dragon’s breath and walks away fine without carting.

Any time I might have had to feel sad for them completely dried up the moment I crossed the River Styx after taking two hits from a Black Dragon myself.

「Then, where is your brother?」

「….The Secreet remembers my brother’s scent.」

Eventually, the rescued girl departed first with the base camp group, leaving the three of us in the middle of the desert to find her brother.

Alright, all the exciting scenes are over now.

Now, what remains is the Hunter’s greatest task.

Cheongha cautiously looked at the chat window.

Just as expected.

-Charge Blade! Charge Blade! Charge Blaaaaade!

-Hello? We’re from the National… no, the Japan Gunlance Association.

-Can you resist Dual Blades’ Beyblade move?

-Honestly, isn’t Tachi the coolest?

-Streamer, are you abandoning Japan?

-Please give our Hammer some love too.

-That one’s officially a one-trick pony though.

-Great Sword has directional control now, it’s broken, wanna give it a try?

…..I pretty much expected this, but it’s already chaos.

---

「Uwaaahk!!」

Finding the girl’s brother wasn’t difficult.

The Secreet that remembered his scent led us there automatically.

“It’s finally hunting time.”

What happened just now was merely a cutscene.

The real hunt, wielding an actual weapon, starts now.

Entering the cave from which the scream echoed, I saw an amphibian-type monster on the cliff below.

「Quick, we have to escape!」

To flee from the approaching monster, the man helped his Secreet up.

「Kweeee….」

However, perhaps its leg was injured during the escape.

His Secreet couldn’t go far before collapsing to the ground.

If things continued like this, both would become a meal for the toad.

「Damn it!!」

The protagonist wasn’t one to stand by and watch.

She broke off a thorny vine hanging from the ceiling, loaded it into her wrist-mounted gauntlet, and fired it at the monster.

Pak-!

「Getkooooool-!」

“Ouch, that must hurt.”

While the Chupacabra with thorny vines stuck in its face thrashed about wildly, the Handler and the man evacuated with the Secreet.

Now, only the protagonist remained.

「Target is the amphibian monster Chupacabra! For the protection of civilians, the Guild formally requests its extermination!」

[Quest Accepted]

Along with the Handler’s voice echoing from afar, a window indicating the quest start appeared on the screen.

Admiration leaked out at the natural yet high-quality presentation.

Screeech-!

Cheongha then drew the Tachi slung on her back.

-Oh, Tachi.

-Indeed, Tachi is the coolest.

-I could never get the hang of that Foresight Slash.

-But maybe she chose it because she knows how to use it?

“Well, it’s my first time using it too, so it might be a bit difficult.”

Contrary to the viewers’ expectations, this was my first time drawing the Tachi.

Honestly, I debated a bit between Great Sword or Dual Blades, but the Tachi just looked the coolest.

Can’t I practice something cool for a change too?

And since I’ve actually held one before, I decided to just try using this.

‘Ah, was that one an Uchigatana though?’

It’s been a while since I filmed that scene, so I don’t remember well.

Judging by the shape of this sword, it looks like a regular Tachi.

Well, both evolve into Odachis anyway, so it probably doesn’t matter.

It was an exceptionally powerful weapon, capable of easily attacking enemies with its wide range, and if you could properly grasp the opponent’s patterns, you could even counterattack with Foresight Slash and counters.

Ding-!

As the combo attack landed fully, a sound effect played, and the Tachi’s blade turned yellow.

“Just filled one level of coating.”

The Tachi’s blade color changes progressively each time a combo attack fully connects, increasing its power each time.

You could also consume the coating to unleash even stronger attacks.

With many new motions added in this installment, the attack animations certainly became more flashy.

[Attacks can wound monster parts. Attacking wounded parts deals increased damage.]

I began controlling the character according to the explanation window that popped up on screen.

As the Tachi in Cheongha’s hand drew a large semicircle, the green toad staggered significantly.

A red aura pulsed from the wound on its shoulder.

Kicking off the spines on its shoulder, she leaped high into the air.

「Hyaaaaat-!」

With a kiai, she descended, bringing the Tachi down in a powerful slash.

Chwachwachwachwajwak-!

It was the technique that could be called the pinnacle of Tachi gameplay.

The Helm Breaker.

“Oh!! I did it!”

Seeing the rapidly ticking damage numbers, Cheongha trembled with joy.

How many times before had I tried to land a Helm Breaker only to waste that damn coating?

Although the damage wasn’t huge, the sheer fact that I hadn’t futilely wasted the coating I’d worked hard to build up brought immense happiness.

-?? What did I just hear?

-Is this the first time the streamer’s been this excited?

-Is that really our Cheongha?

-What happened to the chic image?

-That flew out the window during the horror game lol

-Why does this person break new records every time?

-But why isn’t this person encountering any bugs?

-That’s just the streamer being lucky.

-Everyone else is suffering from bugs, but things are fine here.

“Ah, right. Honestly, I was worried too after seeing those clips.”

Frankly, I was also quite shocked when I first saw the bug clips from Wilds. 

Character models were distorted like dough rolled flat with a rolling pin.

To think such a horrific visual, unlikely even in the first game, would appear in the latest installment, Wilds.

With testimonies online about even high-spec computers like mine crashing constantly, this could only be called luck.

“Still, it’s good if it doesn’t crash, right?”

-Honestly wanted to see the streamer’s reaction though.

-Too bad.

-I’m starting to want to see a normal hunt…

-It crashed enough elsewhere, give her a break here.

-Seeing characters levitate where there’s no ground is honestly getting annoying now.

「Kweeee!」

How much time passed while chatting with the viewers? Unable to withstand the continuous attacks, the toad collapsed and breathed its last.

“Looking at it like this, it seems kind of cute, doesn’t it?”

Cheongha said, closely examining the sprawled corpse of the Chupacabra.

Just moments ago, when it was licking its palms trying to grab me, I hated it intensely.

Is it because its color scheme resembles a certain frog sergeant?

Maybe it’s less creepy because it’s big. Bigger is better than ambiguously small, after all.

Hmm? What about the Pale Alien then? Its very existence is my trauma.

-??? What?

-You think THAT’S cute?

-Streamer’s taste is really…

-You gotta interpret quickly. So she’s saying that thing is us.

-Son of a biiiiiiich

-You really are…

-Should I like this or not?

“Anyway, let’s just hurry up and carve.”

-What, you just said it was cute.

-Poacher mode activated ㄷㄷ

“What are you talking about, I just got permission.”

Well, appearances aside, dead is dead.

I can’t just let these precious materials go to waste.

Crafting weapons and armor using materials from hunted monsters is the core identity of the Titan Hunter series, so I have to make proper use of them.

This is absolutely not rationalization.

“It’s so big, but why does it only give three carves?”

After finishing the three carves, Cheongha muttered softly.

#[Anonymous Supporter donated 1,000 Won]

-Because of poachers like you.

Really, who designed it like this?