The morning air held a distinct emptiness, a palpable silence left in Jin's wake. Kevin emerged from his tent to find the man already gone, as expected. Their conversation had stretched deep into the night, a wide-ranging exchange that felt less like a mentorship and more like being caught in a particularly stimulating intellectual storm. The only evidence it hadn't been a dream was the clarity of the theories now lodged in Kevin's mind.
"You're awake?"
The voice came from beside a dust-covered Jeep SUV. Begel Ragholt, the ranger Kevin had met briefly twice before, leaned against the vehicle. He looked no different from their last encounter—dressed in practical, worn field gear that gave him the air of a veteran soldier, a cigarette held loosely between his fingers. "Are you here to see me off?" Kevin asked, starting to gather his sparse belongings. "Sorry to have kept you waiting."
Begel wasn't in a hurry. He watched Kevin pack, taking a slow drag. "I heard you're very interested in peculiar animals and plants?"
Kevin saw no harm in the small talk. "That's right," he confirmed, splashing water on his face from his canteen. "I am indeed very interested in these things. Rare beasts, strange beasts, magic beasts, Phantom Beasts... the rarer, the better." Internally, he amended the thought: he wasn't just interested; he actively coveted the unique materials such creatures could provide.
"You're not a Hunter yet, are you?" Begel pressed.
Kevin shook his head. "No. I just submitted my application not long ago."
"Oh. Then there are still a few months until the Hunter Exam," Begel observed. He tossed his cigarette butt to the ground, crushing it under his boot. "Are you interested in interning with me for a period?"
"Interning?" Kevin paused, looking up with genuine confusion.
Begel nodded. "Let me reintroduce myself. My name is Begel Ragholt, a One-Star Conservation Hunter. I'm also Jin's disciple."
A One-Star Hunter? And Jin's disciple? The pieces clicked. Kevin had browsed the Hunter Association's website, familiarizing himself with the hierarchy. A One-Star Hunter was a master who had achieved outstanding results in a specific field. A Two-Star Hunter, like Jin—and Bisky, he recalled—was promoted when a junior they mentored earned a star. Every star-ranked Hunter was a pinnacle of their profession.
As Kevin processed this, Begel continued. "Since you've earned Jin's appreciation, you must have exceptional qualities. And your strength must be extraordinary. Your interest in special flora and fauna makes this a perfect fit. I'm stationed long-term in this reserve, focusing on endangered species conservation, as well as exploring and cataloging new species."
It was a slight cognitive dissonance—this man who looked like he belonged on a battlefield was, in fact, a protector of wildlife.
"Recently," Begel went on, "my team received a mission to explore the Lost Meller Wetland. We're to document new species and conduct conservation work for the endangered ones there."
The Lost Meller Wetland. Kevin knew the name. It was part of the same vast reserve as the Forest Park he'd been staying in, a neighboring zone marked on maps with clear danger symbols and dire warnings. His own online searches had yielded little but ominous rumors: a forbidden area teeming with lethal species, a place where the over-curious regularly vanished. His interest, already piqued, sharpened into a focused point.
"If I intern, what exactly will I be doing?"
"There aren't many Nen users, and masters are rarer still," Begel explained plainly. "Most of my team are ordinary people. You would act as their bodyguard on-site, and be assigned some of the more hazardous tasks—though 'hazardous' is relative to them, not to you. We have an established research base there with full facilities. As for compensation... I heard you have an interest in rare biological materials?"
Kevin was tempted. With months still to go before the Exam, and most of his desired destinations being restricted zones with scant information, this was an unparalleled opportunity. Practical field experience, access to a dangerous and undocumented area, and a connection through Jin that offered a baseline of trust. After a moment of consideration, he nodded.
Once his pack was secured, he slid into the passenger seat of the Jeep. As they pulled away from the campground, Kevin asked the question burning in his mind. "Can you tell me about this Lost Meller Wetland? My information is... limited."
At the wheel, Begel gave a single, slow nod, his eyes on the deteriorating track ahead. "The Lost Meller Wetland," he began, his voice taking on a lecturing cadence, "is also known among professionals as the 'Trickster's Nest.' It's an apt name. Most ecosystems operate on principles of strength, speed, or stealth. Meller's operates on deception. The majority of its flora and fauna hunt, and avoid being hunted, through mimicry, illusion, and false signals. The entire food web is built around a foundation of lies."
Kevin stared at the file, then back at the innocuous-looking "shadow" in the enclosure. A chill that had nothing to do with temperature traced its way down his spine. The description was a perfect, terrifying snapshot of Begel's earlier lecture. This creature didn't overpower; it lied. It used hope—the hope of following a seemingly sentient shadow to safety—as the bait for a horrific death.
"Incredible," he murmured, the word laden with a hunter's grim appreciation. "A predator that weaponizes despair itself."
Begel gave a curt nod, his expression unreadable behind the protective visor. "A textbook example of Meller's methodology. Notice its form? It's not a single organism, but a colony—a semi-materialized swarm. Its 'body' is a distributed network, making it nearly impossible to fully eradicate by conventional means. The 'living shadow' is just a puppet, a lure. The real threat is everywhere and nowhere."
Moagu tapped the glass lightly with a pen, causing the shadow larva to flinch and dissolve momentarily into a cloud of wriggling, hair-thin black threads before reforming. "We've managed to isolate this one by controlling light sources completely. In the wild, with shifting sunlight through the canopy, or at dusk… it would be undetectable until it was too late."
Kevin handed the file back, his mind racing. This was the reality of the Trickster's Nest. Not mere camouflage, but active, intelligent deceit targeting the very instincts of its prey. How did one guard against that? Not just with strength, but with perception. Jin's words about En echoed again. A standard, spherical En would sweep over this thing and likely register it as nothing more than a faint, ambiguous aura—if it registered it at all amidst the wetland's other chaotic Nen signatures. To find it, you'd need to feel for the lie, for the unnatural intention hiding within the environment.
"This is what we're up against," Begel said, his voice pulling Kevin from his thoughts. "Every specimen here represents a unique survival strategy built on falsehood. Our job is to unravel those falsehoods, to map the truths of their biology and behavior, and to determine which ones are teetering on the edge of extinction—not from natural selection, but from external encroachment or from being out-deceived by a more sophisticated trickster."
He gestured for Kevin to follow him out of the lab cubicle and into a more open-plan area where a few other researchers were working at terminals or preparing field gear. "Your primary role will be field security. When teams go out for collection or observation, you will be their point person. You will need to develop a sense for when the environment is lying. It's a skill we can't teach. It's one you'll have to learn… or instinctively possess."
Begel stopped before a large, detailed topographic map of the Lost Meller Wetland pinned to a wall. Swamps, acidic pools, gas vents, and dense, unnamed forests were marked in meticulous detail. "We operate on a grid system. The base is here, in Sector A-1. Our forays are gradual, methodical. We do not rush. The wetland punishes haste more severely than anything else."
He turned to face Kevin fully, his gaze assessing. "The compensation, as discussed, will include rights to non-endangered biological materials you help secure, within reason and per Association guidelines. More importantly, you will gain intimate, firsthand knowledge of one of the world's most unique and dangerous ecosystems. Knowledge that is not in any database. Knowledge that could save your life in other restricted areas in the future."
Kevin looked from the map to the shadow larva in its deceptively peaceful glass prison, then back to Begel. The temptation had solidified into resolve. This was more than an internship; it was a trial by fire in the art of seeing through deception. It was the perfect, perilous training ground for the months ahead.
"When do we start?" Kevin asked, his voice steady.
A faint, approving smile touched Begel's lips. "Tomorrow at dawn. Today, you familiarize yourself with the base protocols, meet the team, and study the profiles of the confirmed species we've cataloged so far. Welcome to the Trickster's Nest, Kevin. Remember—trust nothing you perceive at face value. Not even the ground beneath your feet."
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