A bamboo forest.
A bamboo forest situated within the Ancient Forest.
There was a clear dividing line separating it from the surrounding area. On the side where Asterion stood, there were lush, thick trees, moss, and vines—no different from the terrain he had traversed at the front lines. But once one crossed that line, everything changed.
To the Bazelgeuse brothers, these were plants they had never seen before. But Asterion easily recognized them from his memories: bamboo. Thick, verdant bamboo that made a hollow, crisp sound when tapped with a claw.
They were massive. Many of the bamboo stalks were as thick as a human thigh, and they were incredibly tall. Although they couldn't compare to the giant tree Asterion used as a nest, nor many of the towering trees behind him, this dense bamboo forest was so high that even when Asterion craned his neck, he struggled to see the tops... they towered far above his own frame.
This... what kind of dragon caused this?
For the first time, Asterion—who prided himself on being an intelligence-gathering Glavenus—fell into a state of confusion. He didn't recall any monster that had a connection to bamboo. Or was this bamboo forest a naturally occurring landform?
No, impossible.
The moment that thought surfaced, Asterion rejected it.
Because the growth of this bamboo forest was unnatural; the division was too stark.
Normally, plant seeds drift and scatter via various means. If this bamboo forest were a natural occurrence, the bamboo and the common trees of the Ancient Forest should coexist in a mixed zone. They wouldn't be separated so cleanly as they were now.
But looking at the bamboo forest before him?
Asterion could clearly see several new bamboo shoots breaking through the soil, but these shoots only appeared on the bamboo forest side. Not a single one had sprouted on the forest side.
It was hard to imagine that the vitality of the Ancient Forest's trees was insufficient to take root in the bamboo zone, yet the reality was that there wasn't a single common tree within that bamboo grove.
There was definitely something strange going on.
Asterion took a deep breath. Have I finally encountered one?
An unknown monster he had never seen in his past life, yet one that truly existed in this world.
He could no longer handle this with the ease he had shown against previous monsters, nor could he preemptively avoid the killer moves evolved over ten thousand years.
So—caution was paramount!
"Roar!" (Careful, follow behind me.)
Giving a low growl, Asterion signaled the Bazelgeuse brothers to raise their guard, then took the lead and stepped into the bamboo forest.
They had to trample the bamboo to get in. Given the size of Asterion and the Bazelgeuse brothers, there was no way to navigate through the gaps between the stalks.
This destruction of the forest made Asterion even more cautious. If this bamboo forest truly had a master, then destroying the bamboo was a blatantly arrogant provocation.
The further they advanced, the more certain Asterion became that this bamboo forest was the creation of an unknown Elder Dragon. Only an Elder Dragon could influence its surrounding environment so profoundly, forcibly halting the growth of trees and replacing them with its preferred bamboo.
But what kind of Elder Dragon was it?
A Giant Panda?
A Panda-species Elder Dragon?
Asterion's thoughts were wandering a bit. He noticed that the bamboo stalks he knocked over grew in a very orderly fashion. The distance between each stalk was roughly equal—dense yet regular.
"Roar-ang!" (Over there.)
The Bazelgeuse brothers suddenly let out a low growl of warning.
Looking in the direction the Bazelgeuse pointed, Asterion saw a path—a pathway within the dense bamboo forest where nothing grew. Could anything be more abnormal than this?
However, the path was somewhat narrow. Asterion made a rough estimate: if this path was truly left by a monster, its body width must be far smaller than the Bazelgeuse brothers, closer to the width Asterion had when he was a standard Glavenus.
This discovery made Asterion sigh in relief, inexplicably. Generally speaking, larger monsters dealt more damage than smaller ones. But considering the master of this forest might be an Elder Dragon, that rule seemed unreliable.
At first extremely narrow, just enough for a dragon to pass. After a few dozen steps, it opened up into a wide clearing.
Well, actually, it wasn't that open. The only difference was that instead of knocking down ten bamboo stalks to move forward, Asterion now only had to knock down three or four.
Suddenly, Asterion saw a flower bud poised to bloom. It was huge, fully as tall as Asterion's hind legs. Brown leaves wrapped around the base, but the tips of the leaves were an elegant white, faintly emitting a soft glow. It looked exceptionally dreamlike.
Asterion paused.
This... what is this?
Is the hook that straight and the bait that salty?
No, seriously?
In a huge, clean bamboo forest with nothing but bamboo, a giant flower bud suddenly pops up, and it glows? Do you think I'm mentally deficient??
What kind of dragon would step into such an idiotic trap!!
"Roar-ang?" (What is that? Let's take a look.)
Letting out a curious roar, one of the Bazelgeuse brothers walked past Asterion, heading forward.
Asterion: "..."
There really is one!
There is a stupid dragon here! There is a stupid dragon right here!!
"Roar!" (Don't move! It's dangerous!)
Asterion intercepted the Bazelgeuse with a direct shoulder bash, stopping him in his tracks. Asterion then began to scrutinize the giant flower bud from a distance, pondering where the unknown monster was hiding.
The bud grew directly from the ground. This meant the monster likely didn't possess optical camouflage; it wasn't fishing while invisible next to the bud.
Then the answer was obvious, wasn't it?
There is only one truth! The monster is hiding underground!
It's bait, right? Watch me shave it flat!
He launched his attack immediately. His sword-tail now accounted for about half of his total body length, meaning that by twisting his body, he could safely slash the sword-tail from a considerable distance—aiming right at that flower bud!
Whoosh!!
"Roar!!!"
It wasn't Asterion's roar, nor was it the Bazelgeuse brothers'. Just as Asterion's blade was about to strike the bud, a strange roar erupted from the distant bamboo forest. Simultaneously, the faintly glowing flower bud moved—zip—and burrowed into the ground!
It really was bait!
As the giant flower bud moved underground, one could faintly see the surface soil cracking and bulging, like a mole digging in a cartoon. Instead of retreating after being discovered, the thing charged underground, rushing straight toward Asterion and the Bazelgeuse brothers!!
"Roar!!" (Fall back!!)
When facing the unknown, Asterion always maintained maximum caution. He had no intention of clashing head-on with a flower bud that could tunnel through the earth. He immediately urged the Bazelgeuse brothers to take to the sky and retreat backward.
Bam!!
With a muffled thud, the giant flower bud broke through the soil and burst out of the ground again, and then—it bloomed!!
The bud opened.
It blossomed completely the moment it breached the surface, but it was absolutely not a flower—or at least, not a proper one. The instant it bloomed, a wave of white gas exploded outward from its center, spreading rapidly into the surroundings.
It was an expanding cloud of white gas, tinged with a faint cyan hue. Based on Asterion's experience, gas of this color expelled from a monster's mouth or body was usually sleep-inducing—like that of the Toadversary or Nightshade Paolumu.
It would cause any creature it touched to fall into a deep slumber instantly. Whether the creature then fled or seized the opportunity to attack was up to them.
The Bazelgeuse brothers were actually quite obedient at times like this. They didn't recklessly charge forward while the situation was unclear. Instead, like Asterion, they took off straight up and retreated backward—though Asterion was even faster.
As he ascended into the sky behind him, Asterion was prepared for the possibility that a monster lay beneath the entire bamboo forest. Even if the ground shattered and a monster drilled out the next second, he wouldn't be surprised.
But under Asterion's gaze, the bamboo touched by the rapidly spreading white gas began to bend and wither at high speed. It turned yellow, shriveled, and dry—Wait, is this really sleep gas??
In Asterion's memory, no sleep gas or liquid spewed by any monster possessed such corrosive effects. It looked as if the life force had been sucked out of the bamboo instantly; even the originally lush green leaves turned withered and yellow.
Asterion disliked the unknown.
The sensation of not knowing who the attacker was, what they looked like, or how strong they were made him exceptionally uncomfortable, even a bit irritable. If this monster was as massive and mountain-like as a Yama Tsukami, how was he supposed to kill it—Oh?!
Aiming the vents of his wings directly downward to stabilize himself in mid-air, Asterion saw a monster appear where the blooming flower bud had been.
Its body color was starkly different from the environment. Its limbs and underbelly seemed covered in black scales, but its body was adorned with a gradient of reddish-brown and white mane. It was predominantly white, only showing reddish-brown or tan at the roots.
The fur was quite elegant. Like hair flowing in the wind during a sprint, it drifted from behind its forelimbs into the air behind it, making those two trails of mane look almost like a pair of wings.
Four legs, no wings... He didn't know if it was a Fanged Beast or a Brute Wyvern. regardless, the unknown monster's limbs appeared exceptionally powerful, and its exterior was robust, seemingly unrelated to that flowing mane.
It looked like a miniature Alatreon—though, of course, lacking the terrifying presence of an Alatreon. Its head was crowned with a pair of layered, crimson horns that swept backward. They somewhat resembled a Kirin's horn, but there were two of them.
He had absolutely no idea what this monster was. That giant flower bud was actually the monster's tail. At this moment, it looked more like the monster possessed a tail that could serve as a meteor hammer, the contrast between the slender tail and the massive "flower" particularly striking.
"Roar!!"
Roaring once more, the monster revealed a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth, clearly capable of tearing a chunk of flesh from the Bazelgeuse brothers with a single bite.
Asterion... he still didn't recognize this monster.
It wasn't surprising. In his previous life, Asterion hadn't played Monster Hunter Frontier. After all, Frontier wasn't even considered a mainline Capcom Monster Hunter title; it was only ever mentioned by players during online "vs debates" about which monster was stronger.
Compared to the mainline Capcom monsters, Frontier monsters were incredibly broken, and the hunters were equally broken. Everyone looked like they had hacked stats capped at 999. If you dropped any random one of them into a mainline game, it would be a massacre regarding stats and mechanics.
Therefore, Asterion only knew that monsters in Frontier included something called "Zenith" species, which were far more powerful than mainline monsters—basically gods. But because they had almost no connection to the mainline works, he had never researched them deeply.
Every time he looked at Frontier lore, it felt like reading apocryphal legends; the two sides didn't feel like they belonged in the same world.
Precisely because of this, Asterion didn't know that the monster before him was an Elder Dragon from Frontier—specifically, a Zenith Inagami.
A normal Inagami's tail looked like a meteor hammer and could be swung to smash enemies. Only the Zenith Inagami possessed a tail capable of mimicry, shaped like a giant flower.
Once upon a time, Asterion had fought a Jyuratodus with a nervous and wary heart, despite knowing its attack patterns perfectly. That battle had been thrilling because he was small back then. Now, Asterion seemed to have found that feeling from years ago, but this time, it was due to the unknown.
A tail suspected of spreading corrosive, untouchable sleep gas. Sharp teeth. Asterion rapidly marked the revealed abilities of the monster in his mind. He added an extra note: this bamboo forest likely appeared because of this monster, so it very likely possessed the ability to manipulate plant growth.
Observe, summarize, analyze. Asterion was thinking.
The scorching fire gas erupting from the tips of the eight wing-bones on his back suddenly increased in intensity. Asterion angled his wings, and his entire body plummeted from the sky!
Accelerate! And then—Spin!!
Scalding fire gas even vented from the exhaust ports at the end of his sword-tail. Asterion was fast. Everything happened in less than two breaths. He dive-bombed from the sky, and as he approached the Inagami, he violently twisted his body, slashing his blade toward its head!!
A strike as fast as lightning!!
Shing!!
The sharp sword-tail screamed through the air, carrying speed and power far greater than a normal slash, propelled by the explosive gas.
Crack—"Roar!!!"
The Inagami, unaware of the severity of the attack, initially tried to block Asterion's strike with its claws. However, the sound of hard nails being severed and its left forelimb being sliced open drew a roar of pain from its throat.
If the Inagami's reaction speed hadn't been fast enough—dodging to the side just in time—Asterion's slash might have sheared off half its front paw directly.
Perhaps to facilitate movement within the dense bamboo forest, the Inagami's body wasn't large. This resulted in it being more agile than Asterion had anticipated.
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