Who Says A God Can't Be A Hunter Too?

Chapter 12

Mt. Split-in-Half loomed before us, true as day to its name. The large mountain was split perfectly in half, and surrounded by forests as far as the eye could see. Chairman Netero's airship finally touched down on the top of the mountain, and we departed from the craft, led by Menchi and Buhara. I had unwillingly been kept close to Hisoka on the aircraft, and we now walked together with the rest of the applicants to the mouth of the giant trench that split the mountain in two.

We all peered down into the dark abyss of the trench, and I felt a cold sweat run down my neck. In truth, this challenge already seemed harder than the last.

"Now, everyone..." Menchi started, staring with a gleeful smile down into the abyss, "Look down there."

Looking past a light fog that seemed to hang inside the trench, I could see what looked like giant spider's webs.

"What is that?"

"A Spider Eagle's web," Menchi replied, still looking down in the trench excitedly.

"They build webs down there?" Gon asked, on his knees leaning dangerously over the mouth of the abyss.

A fierce wind blew up from the trench, causing my hair to whip painfully at my cheeks and giving a fright to some of the others.

"Look below the web," Menchi called out over the gust of wind. "Those are Spider Eagle eggs."

The eggs hung in huge clusters and were wrapped protectively in the strands of the web, and seemed too far to be reached by any normal standards.

"Spider Eagles build their webs in deep ravines, to protect their eggs from predators. This makes their eggs one of the most difficult ingredients to obtain," Chairman Netero explained. I sat back from where I was kneeling at the mouth of the ravine, my back leaning against Hisoka's legs as he moved behind me. "The eggs are also known as dream eggs."

"W-Wait a minute... You don't mean we..." Todo trailed off, and the realization began to set in all of us.

"I sure do," Menchi exclaimed, her heels clacking as she took steps towards the mouth of the ravine. Shouts of horror and distress sounded out as the Gourmet Hunter jumped off into the mouth of the ravine, and I internally let out a horrified scream and I once again leaned over to watch her fall to her doom.

Diving in expertly, she was able to grab on to the thick web, flip once, and then perfectly keep her grip and keep from tearing what I assumed was a quite fragile web. She dangled there as we all looked on in horror.

"Even if she can grab some eggs, how will she climb back up?" Leorio wondered, speaking out what we were all thinking.

Menchi continued to hang there for a few seconds before she let go of the web, falling even further into the ravine, and I felt myself go white with panic. My stomach was twisted in knots as I watched her fall, and I felt bile rise in my throat. She reached out and snatched an egg from the cluster, much to our surprise, but continued to fall. I squeezed my eyes shut, already foretelling the end.

"Hey... She jumped down! Is she trying to kill herself?" I heard Leorio cry out.

"No, she's not," came Kurapika's belated response, and I cracked open a single eye to look down in the ravine.

A ray of hope...

A huge gust of wind rose from the ravine once again, powerful enough to blow me back against Hisoka, and to our surprise bring Menchi up, victoriously holding her egg.

"That looks fun..." Killua said, matching Gon's enthusiasm, and it was obvious who was going to be the first to try after Menchi.

"This ravine has updrafts that help the hatched chicks fly up to the web," the Chairman explained. Exclamations of surprise and wonder sounded from the crowd, and from my own lips as Menchi landed safely back on land.