Chapter 71: An Unexpected Hunt

The next morning, Ren had meant to start making simple arrows at the riverside straight away. Instead, unexpectedly, he was walking through the forest. His original plan had been to hunt horn rabbits on the grasslands in front of the forest and, while draining their blood, to hunt the three-eyed eagles that gathered after the blood, and get his fletching feathers that way.

The horn rabbits would do as ingredients for dinner, and if he caught a lot he could have the Adventurers’ Guild buy them. Once he had hunted three-eyed eagles, the plan was to make glue at the riverside and singe branches for arrow shafts.

But at the spot in front of the forest where he had shot down a three-eyed eagle, he thought he caught a flash of vividly coloured feathers between the trees.

“Could that be a Rainbow-Tail Feather Bird?”

It was a bird-type magical beast whose existence had been on his mind for a while. If he caught one he could make rainbow-coloured quill pens, and he might be able to make arrows fletched in brilliant colours.

That was the thought that sent him running into the forest. But once he actually set foot inside, there was no sign of anything resembling a Rainbow-Tail Feather Bird.

He concentrated, strained his ears and felt for any presence. As he stared hard, determined not to miss even the slightest sign, there was a faint stir of movement up in a tree.

When he looked steadily at it, something like a film of mana seemed to waver and sway.

(…That doesn’t look like the rainbow one, though…)

He loosed an arrow, and as he had expected it wasn’t the rainbow bird-type magical beast but an Ashveil — the grey-feathered bird-type magical beast with a dark-attribute magic stone — which was thrashing and flapping with one wing shot through.

(One shot isn’t enough to bring them down… I wonder if I could, with new arrows.)

Almost at the same moment as he put the Ashveil into the small box, he pulled out the arrow that had gone through its wing. An arrowhead shaped as though it were about to crumble to pieces. Ragged fletching. It was doing its job well enough for finishing off magical beasts, but now that he had started thinking about making arrows, he found himself wishing they had more power behind them.

After draining the blood he turned back and checked that he had been putting trail markers down properly. He had only just come into the forest, so it wasn’t as though he couldn’t find the way out, but he had got lost the last time he came, so he was being careful.

Rustle. A bush a little way ahead shook lightly. Ren raised his bow. But at the same time, he felt something behind him as well.

“Small Box!”

Thud.

“Kiih!”

Something struck the small box shield he had just made behind him. A Horn Ferret.

“Here they come again!”

As he turned his attention behind him, the next one sprang at him from the front. He shoved the small box shield out to knock it flying. Striking with the small box and shutting Horn Ferret after Horn Ferret inside as he went, he ended up with eight small boxes’ worth of them scattered around him. Once he had made sure there was no sign of any more Horn Ferrets attacking, he finally let out a long breath.

“Haah… And today was supposed to be bird-type magical beast day…”

As he went along finishing them off with them still shut in the small boxes, a broken horn rolling about inside one of the small boxes caught his eye. It seemed the horn had snapped when it slammed into the small box shield.

“Ah, this…”

He took just the horn out of the small box and picked it up to look at. A little lighter than it looked. A sharply pointed cone. Ren took an arrow out of his quiver and held it alongside to compare it with the arrowhead.

“A horn might work as an arrowhead!”

For arrowheads he had been thinking of picking up stones of a suitable shape at the riverside. But with a stone, if the shape wasn’t right he would have to grind it down. Set against that, a Horn Ferret’s horn looked as though it would do as an arrowhead with only a light bit of grinding.

He looked about him. He was thinking that more Horn Ferrets would be welcome, but as he searched, what caught his eye this time was a bird-type magical beast. A rounded, deep-green bird-type magical beast slipping between one bush and the next. Only the tail stood out, in a clear, definite red.

“Red feathers!”

Ren raised his bow at once. They were in the shadow of the bushes so he couldn’t see clearly, but from the flashes of red tail there seemed to be several of the magical beasts. When he concentrated and strained his eyes, he could see glittering mana moving. Ren drew the string back hard.

“Kwah! Kwah!”

“Kwah!”

When he loosed the arrow, things grew noisy on the far side of the bushes. Ren took his knife in hand and ran.

When he got round the bushes, the bird-type magical beasts that had been noisily flapping their wings noticed him and came at him.

“—! Small Box!”

Apart from the tail feathers, the rounded bird-type magical beasts were deep green. And the tail alone was a clear red. He had a memory of seeing an entry about a magical beast with these distinctive markings in the Adventurers’ Guild reference room.

《

■ Moss-Red Cockatol

・Body feathers: deep green

・Tail feathers: red

・Build: rounded

・Distinguishing feature: when threatening, the tail feathers glow red and throw off small crackling sparks

・Meat: somewhat firm and light in flavour. Savoury when grilled

》

He hurriedly brought out small boxes and shut the Moss-Red Cockatols inside one after another, and within the small boxes their bright red tail feathers threw off crackling sparks.

“Moss-Red Cockatol… It said the meat was savoury when you grilled it.”

He thought about the meat for dinner as he finished them off, but he was pleased to have got hold of red feathers too. They were such a lovely red that they might do well as quill pens.

He plucked out one of the red tail feathers with a snap and took a good look at it. For size it looked just about right for a quill pen. But the sparks it had thrown off bothered him.

“If I put mana through it… whoa!”

Crackle, crackle, crackle.

When he ran mana into the red tail feather, sparks and smoke came off it. He hurriedly stopped feeding mana in and flapped the feather about to beat the smoke away.

“…It’d be dangerous to use it as a quill pen, then.”

He imagined sparks scattering while he was using a quill pen to copy out some piece of reference material, and frowned.