"Father is really something, to think he'd even recruit a guest for Masu hunting. Were we that unreliable?"
Izella, the only daughter of the Lug family head, grumbled incredulously.
She turned to look at Turan, wearing a tunic and pants that looked comfortable for activity instead of a fancy dress.
"Ah, I'm not criticizing our guest. I'm just saying father is making too much fuss."
"How dare you say the family head is making a fuss, sister."
"Mind your own business."
Another noble standing beside her, Lug's nephew, spoke in a low voice.
After their gazes met and sparks seemed to fly for a moment, the nephew turned to greet Turan.
"This is our first time meeting, isn't it? I'm Marvin Baltas. Pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Likewise."
After greeting Marvin, Turan looked at the twelve knights standing behind the two nobles.
Unlike their masters who looked as if they were out for a stroll, they all showed clear signs of tension.
It was natural, considering they were hunting an unknown enemy that had already devoured four knights without leaving any survivors.
Shortly after, the army consisting of three nobles and twelve knights marched proudly toward the north gate.
All passing residents knelt and bowed deeply at the sight of them.
The only ones who merely bowed their heads while standing were those wearing armor and carrying swords, whom Turan now knew were called police.
Commoners given weapons to maintain order within the city...
Naturally, they could never be used as troops in Masu hunting, let alone in wars between houses.
Even an inexperienced noble like Turan could probably kill thousands of such armed civilians.
As they left the city walls and headed north, they were greeted by a brick road built during the old empire era.
There were no passersby since the Masu had been attacking people for ten days.
"I want to finish quickly and go back to rest."
Izella grumbled while kicking small stones on the road.
While walking slightly behind and staring at her back, Marvin approached quietly and spoke in a low voice.
"Mr. Turan, are you perhaps interested in my sister?"
"No."
Turan immediately shook his head in denial.
Over the past few days, Izella had consistently flirted with him even after their shocking first meeting.
Though it wasn't serious, just in a light, joking manner.
But Turan wasn't particularly attracted to her.
From her frivolous, even flippant behavior that was far from his ideal type, to the fact that marrying her would mean becoming a son-in-law to her family.
Though the library here was impressive, he didn't want to be tied down for life just for that.
"That's a relief."
Marvin's face brightened at the answer.
Though Turan wasn't sure what he meant by the question, his answer seemed to satisfy the young noble.
==
After about an hour of chatting while heading north...
The subjugation party discovered a broken cart and several bloody, torn pieces of clothing in the middle of the main road.
It was evidence that someone had been attacked.
"Is it that thing?"
"Probably. Since we've been prohibiting northward travel, they must have been attacked while coming down from the north..."
While they were talking, Turan examined the debris to deduce the Masu's identity.
The blood smell wasn't too pungent, suggesting it happened a few hours ago. The way the clothes were torn indicated they were pierced by something sharp. The abnormally large handprint on one side of the cart had five fingers, just like a human's...
The last clue confirmed the identity of their opponent.
"It's a monkey."
"A monkey?"
"Look at this hand shape."
"Ah."
In fact, Turan had never seen a monkey in person either.
He only mentioned it because it matched exactly with the example shown in the Masu guidebook.
If he hadn't seen the book, he would have just assumed it was some unknown Masu.
"It seems to have attacked the merchants and returned to the forest. We should be able to track it by following the traces."
"Tracking... I'm not very good at that kind of magic. What about you, Marvin?"
"Me neither. Perhaps one of the knights-"
"I'll try looking."
When Turan stepped forward, Izella brightened up and asked.
"Oh, is that your bloodline ability?"
"I'm just used to it from frequent use."
After calmly telling this lie, Turan immediately activated his tracking magic.
The condition was the bloodstains on the torn clothes.
As his senses expanded with the spell, the blood smell intensified, and he could sense it trailing along the left side of the road.
More precisely, all other smells were blocked out so he could identify this particular one.
"This way."
Following Turan's lead, the subjugation party immediately left the road and entered the forest.
It didn't matter much that there was no proper path.
Not only the three nobles but even the knights could easily leap four or five meters from where they stood.
After following the bloodstains for thirty minutes, they arrived at a stream.
Several deer drinking water fled in surprise at their sight.
"The trail ends here. It must have washed itself."
"You're saying a mere beast did such a thing to avoid being tracked?"
"It probably just wanted to clean itself."
The guidebook also mentioned that monkeys were among the animals that had bathing cultures.
Turan deactivated the blood-tracking magic to try a different search method.
At that moment, a strong scent hit his restored sense of smell.
As he quickly turned around, he saw large golden eyes staring at them.
"Behind!"
Along with the shout, a tearing screech rang out.
A giant monkey about two meters tall.
An animal that looked similar yet strangely different from humans emerged from the undergrowth and threw handfuls of gravel.
Due to its hands being disproportionately large even considering its huge body, dozens of stones rained down on the subjugation party.
Moreover, they were imbued with strong magic power, making them much stronger and faster than stones thrown by normal people.
"Aagh!"
"Dodge!"
While several were knocked down by the stones, Turan fortunately managed to leap sideways and avoid the barrage of stones as soon as he shouted.
Looking back, surprisingly, both Izella and Marvin had each used a knight as a shield to block the attack.
"Ugh, are you alr-"
"Attack!"
Izella threw aside the knight who had taken the hit for her and shouted in a sharp voice.
The eight uninjured knights immediately drew their swords and spears and charged, but the monkey let out a "Wukeek!" scream and immediately leaped into the bushes, hopping from tree to tree as it fled.
Despite its huge body, its speed was like the wind, far too fast for the knights to chase on foot.
While everyone stood dumbfounded, a single stone followed the fleeing monkey.
It was Turan's stone throw, enhanced with his most familiar three spells: strengthening, acceleration, and pursuit.
The stone, curving and grazing past several trees, struck the monkey's waist, causing it to scream and tumble.
Unable to get up, perhaps due to a broken waist, it just twisted its body.
"Die!"
Izella shouted and stretched her hand toward the monkey writhing in pain.
The flames that bloomed before her fingers transformed into a snake-like shape with a trunk-thick body, biting the monkey and burning several meters of surrounding forest.
Both its speed and range were on a completely different level from what Turan could create.
This was the power of the Baltas family's pyromania bloodline.
'So this is...'
While creating fire was something any wizard could do, even instinctively, it was nothing compared to those whose bloodline magic specialized in it.
When Marvin followed up by creating and stabbing down dozens of flame spears, the monkey Masu was completely reduced to ashes.
Seeing this, everyone in the subjugation party breathed a sigh of relief.
"Wow, I got a bit scared when those stones were flying."
"Were you frightened, sister?"
"Shut up. You're the one who screamed like a girl..."
"I did not!"
While the two nobles bickered, Turan checked on the knights who had fallen from the stone barrage.
"Ugh, I think my arm is broken..."
"This guy's head is still bleeding, what should we do?"
"Apply this medicine first."
Fortunately, it seemed none of the knights had lost their lives.
Those who had been used as shields by the two nobles were the most severely injured, but even they only had concussions from taking stones to the head or one or two broken bones.
Turan clicked his tongue, recalling what Izella and Marvin had done earlier.
Considering that physical abilities increase with magical power, their bodies should be at least several times tougher than ordinary knights.
Yet they used much weaker individuals as shields because they were afraid of getting hurt themselves?
He keenly felt the truth in his mother's words that to nobles, knights were nothing more than dogs that could be sacrificed at any time.
Sensing Turan's gaze, Marvin asked curiously.
"Hmm? What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
Though he brushed it off, there was subtle contempt in Turan's eyes as he looked at the two cousins.
Just then, Izella waved her hand and called Turan.
"By the way, guest, come quickly! Let's absorb the magic power!"
"Yes."
The three nobles stood side by side next to the monkey that had been half reduced to ashes by fire.
When they reached out and absorbed the magic power, a pale green light flowed out and seeped into their bodies, a sensation Turan was now quite familiar with.
While shivering from the pleasure rushing through him, Turan checked how much his magic power had increased.
The growth gained from absorbing the monkey's power was stronger than the leopard but weaker than the rabbit.
Considering the monkey's strength wasn't particularly exceptional, it was an unbelievable amount for three people absorbing together.
'Indeed... as I heard, the enhancement doesn't seem to decrease even when multiple people absorb it.'
When absorbing magic power by killing a Masu, up to four people could absorb together and all receive the same full amount of magic power.
Though he didn't know why it was specifically four people, not three or five, he heard that noble families with many members form hunting groups of four for this reason?
The fact that they wouldn't include knights even with one spot remaining showed their sense of superiority.
"Ah, I can't absorb any more."
"Me neither."
Izella and Marvin said this while releasing some of the pale green light that had been absorbed into their bodies back into the air.
This was the process of 'dispersing' magic power.
When reaching their innate magic power growth limit, they would absorb only a tiny portion of the magic power this way and release the rest back.
Turan could feel their envious gazes directed at him, who had absorbed all the magic power.
==
On the way back to Orem city, Izella and Marvin kept going over the fight with the monkey, repeatedly boasting about how heroically they had fought.
Though it was amusing considering how they had used knights as shields, Turan played along appropriately.
"Come to think of it, we definitely couldn't have caught it without Mr. Turan. From the tracking ability to knocking it down with that attack, it was all thanks to Mr. Turan."
"It wasn't that much."
Though he acted humble, he secretly agreed.
Without him, the subjugation party would have taken a hit without even being aware and suffered greater losses, and they wouldn't have been able to chase down and kill the fleeing monkey.
What could they have done if they kept getting hit-and-run attacks without tracking ability?
Izella and Marvin might have saved their lives by just running like mad back to Orem city on the main road, but the knights would have all died from the stone barrage without surviving.
Even those two wouldn't have been unharmed if they had been hit by large rocks instead of small stones.
Though they caught it easily because the situation aligned well, it was definitely a Masu capable of devouring four knights without resistance.
"If anything, I regret noticing too late and giving it the first strike. I didn't know it would have tracking abilities too."
"Tracking abilities?"
"Yes."
Turan recalled the appearance of the monkey they had just met.
The huge body and exceptional physical abilities were typical characteristics of almost all Masu.
Among them, what stood out particularly were its abnormally large hands and eyes.
The shadow leopard he met before had developed the ability to hide its body, able to move while making its body like a shadow, and the front-tooth rabbit had developed the ability to cut through anything by dramatically improving its grinding ability.
He guessed that the monkey's large hands had developed into the ability to throw things strongly, and its large eyes into the ability to see things from farther away or see through forests.
When he shared this, everyone in the subjugation party, without exception, let out exclamations.
"Wow..."
"To think you noticed all that in such a short time!"
Everyone looking at him like he was some unparalleled sage made it seem like none of the people here had read the Masu guidebook in the library.
When he subtly asked about this, Izella tilted her head and said.
"The library? That stuffy place... no one goes there."
According to her, the Sky Library served only as a famous cultural heritage site, and few people were interested in the books inside.
Entry required the family head's permission, making it difficult, and there were far more things to do and could be done than reading books.
At most, people like Turan would come for tours once every few years, or people would visit to look up related materials when there was something special?
Come to think of it, there hadn't been any other users in the past few days.
"I went in once out of curiosity long ago, but there were only difficult books, so I left before reading even half a book."
From this, Turan learned another new fact.
Not everyone in the world finds joy in gaining new knowledge.
"Next time you have a chance, why don't you ask the librarian if there are any easy-to-read books."
Since he too would have quickly lost interest in reading if he had started with difficult books right away, Turan offered this casual advice.
But an unexpected response came back.
"Librarian?"
"Yes. The person who manages the library."
"Was there such a thing in the library?"