Early the next morning, Ray stood alone on the grasslands, watching the sun rise as he stretched. He could barely contain the grin on his face. It was the same kind of grin he'd worn after landing his first true charged slash during his very first solo hunt with a greatsword.
It was the satisfaction of knowing he had finally broken through another limit.
"System, you've been with me for five whole worlds now, and with all your so-called help, I've only managed to reach the second rank. Half the things you give me are so difficult to adapt that I have no idea how long it'll take before I can fully master them and move any further.
"But now..."
Ray's grin widened as he lightly ran a hand along the greatsword planted in front of him. Faint violet light flickered across its surface.
"My new dad gives me one lesson, and suddenly I've got a clear path all the way through the third and possibly even fourth rank. Really proves you've got to make your own luck."
With Caelus's help the previous night, Ray had stepped onto the Path of the Hunt.
And fittingly enough for someone named Ray, the power he awakened manifested as lightning.
The thought brought the events of last night back to mind.
"Based on everything you've told me, I think the Hunt suits you best," Caelus had said.
"The Hunt? But isn't that Path mainly about vengeance and pursuing justice? I'm not exactly some righteous hero, and I don't have anyone I'm desperate to avenge. Are you sure it fits me?"
"The Hunt isn't limited to those things. At its foundation, there's another principle: restraint."
"...What?"
"You've played through the story, so you know what circumstances led Lan to ascend. THEY witnessed what happened when the Abundance was allowed to grow without limit. THEY saw what unchecked proliferation could turn living beings into, and from that came an understanding of the need for restraint.
"The Hunt isn't merely vengeance, justice, or retribution. It's also about knowing where to stop. Revenge without limits and killing without restraint eventually become indistinguishable from Destruction.
"The Xianzhou Alliance practices restraint upon itself. The Galaxy Rangers, another faction aligned with the Hunt, focus that principle outward by restraining those who abuse their power.
"And in that respect, the hunters of your own world already understand the same idea remarkably well. Their purpose is to preserve the balance of nature, not to slaughter creatures indiscriminately. You might not consider yourself particularly righteous, but you've never abused your strength. You understand what you should do and what you shouldn't. That's moral restraint.
"If one day nothing restrained you anymore, if you used your strength however you pleased, indulged every desire, and followed every impulse, then eventually you'd end up walking toward either voracity or Destruction.
"What this seed becomes, and what kind of fruit it eventually bears, will depend entirely on you."
When the power of the Path had flowed through Ray's entire body, he'd felt lighter than ever before.
If he retraced his journey with the strength he possessed now, many of the monsters he'd once needed every trick and strategy to defeat would probably be far easier hunts.
"Restraint, huh?"
Ray smiled to himself.
"I may not be exceptional at everything, but self-control is one thing I've had plenty of practice with."
After all, from the day he'd reincarnated into the Monster Hunter world until now, he hadn't even wasted time on so much as a lonely night with his own hand. Every bit of energy that could have gone toward pointless distractions had been poured into training instead.
Once he finished reminiscing, Ray rose to his feet.
It was time to head toward the site of his first hunt.
According to the original story, Shalltear Bloodfallen would encounter a special unit from the Slane Theocracy while scouting outside Nazarick. During the confrontation, she would be affected by the World Item Downfall of Castle and Country, leaving her mind-controlled and effectively turning her into a stationary hostile boss.
That would be the ideal time to hunt her.
Fighting Shalltear normally would be far more troublesome. She could teleport and possessed too many ways to disengage from a fight, and Ray currently lacked reliable counters for enemies like that. But once she entered that neutral hostile state, she would remain within a fixed area instead of freely leaving.
"Wonder if I'll run into the Nail Clipper too."
Ray muttered the thought to himself, slung his greatsword across his back, and took off.
Faint violet electricity flashed beneath his feet. His body shot forward like an arrow from a bow, leaving several small patches of scorched grass behind him.
Meanwhile, within the Great Tomb of Nazarick, the protagonist who had originally been destined to become this world's great villain, Momonga, or rather the undead ruler now known as Ainz Ooal Gown, was still trying to understand the world he had suddenly entered.
The world he came from had been an extreme cyberpunk dystopia where nearly all of his waking hours were divided between work and gaming. He had read very little fiction, and his formal education had ended at elementary school.
As a result, concepts such as being transported to another world were completely unfamiliar to him.
Only after spending considerable time adjusting to his circumstances did he finally begin to understand what had happened.
Somehow, he and his entire guild base had crossed over from a game into a real world.
That realization immediately raised another question.
Could other players who had still been online when the servers shut down have been transported here as well?
At this point, Ainz was still largely an ordinary man desperately hoping to find others like himself and escape the loneliness of his situation. His undead body had already stripped away much of his emotional reaction toward bloodshed and human death, but mentally and emotionally, he remained relatively close to the person he had once been.
Unfortunately, changes to the body and soul inevitably influenced the mind.
As the story continued, he would gradually become a true Sorcerer King in every sense.
Compassion would fade.
Sympathy would disappear.
Even the most basic human sense of morality and justice would eventually cease to matter.
And the NPCs created by Nazarick's players were hardly better. Almost none of them possessed anything resembling conventional human morality, with many effectively falling somewhere within the spectrum of evil. There was one dragonkin butler whose karma value was notably positive, but even his better nature would never outweigh his absolute loyalty to Nazarick or drive him to openly oppose his companions.
For the people of this world, Nazarick's arrival was nothing short of a catastrophe.
After a series of early encounters gave Ainz a basic understanding of the New World, he decided to divide their efforts.
He would personally venture outside and eventually operate as an adventurer, gathering information while earning money to fund his activities.
After some persuasion from Albedo, who effectively managed Nazarick's affairs, he reluctantly agreed to take Narberal Gamma, one of the strongest members of the Pleiades Battle Maids, with him.
Shalltear would lead the other operation. She and her subordinates were tasked with capturing local warriors so Nazarick could study the unique Martial Arts of this world while also gathering information about the surrounding region.
E-Rantel.
Ainz walked through the streets clad from head to toe in black plate armor, two massive greatswords strapped across his back as part of his disguise as a warrior rather than a magic caster. Between his conspicuous appearance and the striking beauty of the woman beside him, they attracted glances everywhere they went.
Then, while internally complaining about all the attention, Ainz suddenly noticed something ahead that looked completely out of place.
Someone was running a street stall.
And the person behind it was wearing a distinctly modern black coat.
Ainz stared.
"What the hell? This place looks like medieval Europe, so why is some guy in a modern coat running a street stall here?!"
He barely stopped himself from saying it aloud.
Someone who looked as though he'd wandered in from an entirely different genre had suddenly appeared in the middle of the city.
(To be continued.)
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◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)