Rathlands [Monster Hunter] [ENG]

Chapter 17 (Acheron POV)

"...You have not an ounce of bravery in you, you miserable coward!"

Acheron woke up with shivers shaking his entire body, his skin damp with sweat as he tried to calm his erratic breathing.

"This dream again..." he thought as the spurt of adrenaline wore off.

The fireplace. The rug. His brothers. His mother. His father. And suddenly, the carnage, the guttural roar of Oxiderr, his madness, the blood, crimson everywhere ... And now, this sentence that, to better haunt him, was spat by the Oxiderr of his nightmare, before leaping to gut him.

Why did his mind insist on tormenting him like this? His claws closed angrily on his palms. It was only when he felt a soft, slightly grainy surface under his paws that he realized he was holding a book. Carefully, he put the book back on the desk in front of him, already regretting that his sweaty hands had left marks where they had been in contact with the paper. He let out a long, silent sigh.

"I'm going to go insane, if I'm not already ... Who but a mad monster would dream, as soon as he closes his eyes, that his brother would cut his throat?"

He refocused his lost eyes on the book he was studying before he dozed off.

" "Legends and Myths of Solhatar". I thought I'd find some useful information in there, but it seems like a waste of time..." he thought with a hint of regret.

Reading was his thing for sure, but any passion was fueled by a goal to achieve. Not reaching the information he was looking for naturally evoked frustration.

They needed a way to fight back if Gamala ever returned to the battlefield with the Rathiens. While his father and brothers had obviously weathered the effects of the Virus well, Acheron was not ready to go through that again. Maybe it was selfish of him, but he didn't want to die. And certainly not like this.

Maybe deep down he was just a coward... A coward whose only useful faculties were betraying him. His only salvation in this world was his affiliation with the emperor. He knew that if he had been born outside, in the bitter cold of the Nordic Mountains and poverty, he would not have lasted long. His overwhelming weaknesses would have made him a victim of natural selection, no doubt. He was torn between the pain of such an observation and the deep feeling of having something to prove. The gratitude he felt for his situation was mixed with bitterness.

"I should be happy. I have everything to be happy. And yet..."

He tried to get the pessimism out of his mind as he began to feel consumed by these bad thoughts, which he blamed on Oxiderr for persecuting him so much.

"Maybe I'm falling into Oxiderr's trap, thinking like this. That's what he would want. I mustn't let this get under my skin if I want to prove that I have value," he mused. "And I can't let him think that he's right. He is wrong, and more than ever, I feel that he will once again be the very cause of our misfortunes..."

The Stygian Zinogre rose to put the book away within the large shelf that covered an entire wall of the Imperial Library.

"I should keep looking, there must be a clue somewhere..."

"I have to think rationally ... What would a Skypiercer do?" he thought aloud.

His eyes fell on a rather large book, titled "Legend of the 3 Heroes".

"Bingo!"

He grabbed the book with enthusiasm. It rekindled all his hopes like a breeze blowing on embers.

The book dealt with the popular legend of the three heroes as well as the theories about them. And Kirin knows how far-fetched they were! Some claimed that the Heroes were nothing more than ancient Mounts, affiliated with the human Riders before the Uprising. They, unlike the rest of their people, would have asked to redeem their mistake of helping the humans during the Uprising. The gods would then have forced them to serve the Nations for eternity, offering them immortality.

What the authors of such a convoluted theory forgot was that a Mount, even as an adult, is small. Having seen Akalash and Gamala up close, Acheron could tell that they were anything but small. They were giants!

"I doubt that this 'Falkav' is an exception to the trio ... They can't be Mounts ..."

Acheron had also seen Mounts before, in the Scavenger's Brotherhood. This small state with no official leader was home to all the remaining Mounts in all of Solahtar. Several times, the one he considered their leader came to visit them in Voltarr. He came to ask for more land in the Nordic Mountains, at the border, to have access to more water. It had to be said that in this inhospitable desert enclave, the Wall, their river, was regularly dried up. Despite their small population, the Scavengers were facing a recurrent water shortage. So, just as regularly, he sent the most able to negotiate, Diakera, if Acheron remembered correctly, to Rakuria.

It had to be said that he was probably the only one who could make the trip.

Diakera was a small Diablos, in accordance with his nature as a Mount. But, like some Mounts, he was one of those who had undergone a genetic modification, which only the old Riders had the secret. Diakera had bright red horns, as well as the ability to spit lasers like a Gravios. This fire was undoubtedly of great help to him to cross the Nordic Mountains from the Scavenger side.

As a Scavenger, he could not cross any other border than the Rakuria border without risking his own life, as the other Nations despise their people, even persecute them. His only option to meet the emperor was to cross the Nordic Mountains and its terrible blizzard.

Sometimes Acheron thought about his condition. There were worse things than being born in the depths of the Rakurian countryside. Being born in this Outcast Valley was much worse in itself. But he could have been born better, too.

"Wouldn't I have been happy to be a Skypiercer?"

He would have had everything he considered most dear to him, knowledge, wisdom, and no doubt loved ones fond of those very things...

He was rambling. His goal was to find a counter to the hero Gamala.

"But what if he never came back? I would have done all this for nothing, wouldn't I?"

He grumbled at the possibility. But for once, he could have felt useful and important!

He put the book back in its place.

"We'll have Akalash with us at the next battle. It's a safe bet to assume that Gamala won't be coming back. At least, there's no reason to, if he's only after the sin. Wow, this is getting complicated."

This unsuccessful reasoning had whetted his appetite, and despite his passion for books and the habit of living next to them a good part of his time, the Stygian Zinogre felt like getting some fresh air. He took the precaution, however, once all the books were put away, to hide his personal books in his trunk. Since a misadventure with Irodim, he carefully avoided that these priceless books end up in the claws of those malicious people. He had almost lost one of these books in a lake, if it was not for his father being able to save it from certain death...

Once this was done, he sighed with satisfaction, then left the room.

"It won't hurt to go for a stroll ..." he said aloud.

He walked rather quickly in the corridors of the palace, fearing to meet Irodim in this cursed hour of the midday. The younger son of Rakuraï was waiting for Oxiderr to come back from his personal training to go hunting with him.

That's how the meals took place during the week. Rakurai was often very busy with his duties, so he hunted at irregular hours and spent little time on his meal. His sons did the same. They went about their business and hunted separately. Finally, Acheron hunted on his own, because Irodim and Oxiderr got along so well that they hunted together. On Saturdays and Sundays, however, Rakurai spent more time with them and ate with them on those two days. They also usually hunted together.

On the way out of the palace, Acheron saw the forest, which was full of easy preys and had the advantage of being close to the palace. However, the risk of running into Oxiderr in the middle of a training session, or worse, of running into Oxiderr and Irodim in the middle of a hunt, dissuaded him from going there.

With a tug of bitterness, he headed for the tundra sitting downward from the palace.

"How much longer would I be forced to endure these two in silence? How can I explain to my father all the harm that Oxiderr represents for not only our family, but also our Nation?"