Arc-7 Ch-51
169
Chapter
The Beast of Calamity
2026
If anyone were to draw close, they'd realize that the black surface was actually the color of its fur, and its rock-like appearance was simply the result of the creature lying there with its body tightly coiled and twisted.
It was highly doubtful whether a state so devoid of reaction to any stimulus could even be called “living.” Only by pressing an ear against what seemed to be its head and straining to catch the faint sound of its breath could one finally confirm that it was, in fact, still alive.
Just how much time had passed since this creature was first confined in this room? Even the one imprisoned there found it difficult to grasp.
While the room’s temperature and humidity were kept perfectly constant by air conditioning, that very stability, the utter lack of any environmental change, steadily eroded the mind. There was no sunrise or sunset brought by the sun, nor even the slightest shift in seasons marked by rising or falling temperatures. Any living thing would suffer a distortion of thought after spending a long period in such conditions.
Or rather, under normal circumstances, any creature would’ve long since succumbed to hunger and thirst. There was a reason this beast still clung to life: a way of existence warped by the twisted desires and prejudices of others.
In the depths of a sunless cave, located within a forest on a vast floating island, the beast had been cast out from its mother’s womb into this world.
The creature’s species was a type of carnivore widely distributed across the world, though they were gradually falling into decline. The reason this beast’s kin had once been able to flourish on the vast floating island was likely due to the abundance of food provided by its rich natural environment.
Of course, no matter how plentiful the prey, the natural world remains merciless toward the weak. Those lacking strength draw their last breaths within a single day of being born, becoming nothing more than nutrients for others to survive on.
Under such circumstances, this beast was a "strong one" from birth. Compared to its siblings born to the same mother on the same day, it was an anomaly, born with a clearly sturdier frame and a brilliant intellect.
The beast, which retained memories even from its time inside the womb, opened its eyes less than an hour after birth. It crawled forward and sucked its mother’s milk as if driving its fangs into her teat.
Whether this was an action born of an excessive survival instinct or a cold judgment made by its sharp intelligence was unclear. Even during the period when a newborn can’t survive without parental protection, the beast recognized others as either its nourishment or as subjects that should quietly submit to its will.
However, the ones who prospered most on the floating island were not the beast’s kin. There was a species with meager bodies that possessed neither thick fangs nor sharp claws, and lacked even the fur to cover their skin. This species, which the beast recognized as "Two-Legs," referred to themselves as "Humans," and they enjoyed prosperity by building nests throughout the floating island.
Perhaps the reason the beast possessed strength and intelligence that transcended its species was rooted in a conflict between the "Two-Legs" that occurred while it was still in its mother’s womb.
One day, while the beast's mother, carrying her young, was roaming the forest in search of prey, a roaring sound began to echo through the sky. Shortly after, massive, fire-covered chunks began falling one after another onto the island’s grasslands and forests, burning the vegetation and claiming many lives in the collateral damage. It appeared that different tribes of "Two-Legs" had begun a fierce struggle.
To the animals fleeing in terror, the relationship between predator and prey mattered not in that moment; everyone was desperate simply to survive. Fortunately, the fires sparked by the objects falling from the sky did not spread, or else the ecological damage to the floating island was not catastrophic.
Except for the beast's mother.
Inside those strange masses made of wood, metal, and strange intent that fell from the sky, the corpses of "Two-Legs," more than the mother's intellect could count, had apparently been stored. Grateful for the sudden windfall, the mother gorged herself on the remains of the "Two-Legs."
She had been suffering from chronic malnutrition as the fetus inside her continued to absorb the nutrients she needed for childbirth. While visibly growing fatter by the day, the mother retreated from the strange wreckage before the corpses could fully rot, hiding away in the forest cave that served as her birthing ground.
The territorial dispute between the great tribes of "Two-Legs" eventually ended with one group absorbing the other. Humans would later record this in history books as a war that destroyed a nation called the Principality of Fanose, but that was a matter beyond the concern of the beast’s kin.
Only one point was significant: from the time it was in its mother’s womb, the beast had learned the taste of the "Two-Legs" and made them its nourishment. Whether this was an accident at the end of the food chain or the inevitable result of the concentrated resentment of those who lost their lives in war was something only an omnipotent being might know, a level of understanding far beyond the reach of humans.
The beast’s growth rate was far too abnormal compared to its kin. While its siblings born on the same day were content to suckle their mother’s milk, it never stopped demanding more nutrition. It reached a point where the father, who usually stayed near the cave to guard against external threats, was forced to go out hunting.
The parents felt a sense of dread toward their own child, suspecting that if they did not provide enough food, the beast might very well consign its own blood relatives into its stomach. The days spent hunting tirelessly and hauling prey back to the cave caused the relationship between parent and child to transform into one of master and servant.
Barely a year after its birth, the beast had already grown to a size comparable to its mother. While its siblings were growing up on meat provided by their parents, the beast was already capable of hunting entirely on its own.
Naturally, its lack of experience and youth led to many failures, but it never made the same mistake twice. Instead, it utilized its superior intelligence to observe its prey and devise foolproof methods to bring them down. Even when its kin were starving, the beast constantly kept its own belly full.
When the younger members of its kind realized that one of their peers was conducting highly efficient hunts, they began to follow the beast one after another. With a massive physique and a wealth of wisdom that dwarfed others of its age, the beast eventually formed its own pack, increasing its power and influence as the months passed. By the time its siblings were ready to leave the nest, the beast reigned as the young leader of the entire clan.
From the day the beast became the leader, the clan's hunting methods became more streamlined, evolving to allow them to take down far more prey. It knew where every creature hid, what they ate, where they slept, and where they relieved themselves. Its superior observational skills quickly saw through the ecology of other living things, leading with certainty to the optimal hunting methods based on their behavioral patterns.
Land beasts, birds of the air, and fish of the river, none were exempt. Even megafauna with bodies far larger than its own species were turned into carrion through relentless pack hunting. The beast and its clan enjoyed a period of prosperity that threatened to devour every living thing inhabiting the island's grasslands and forests.
With the arrival of its peak, the beast’s personality also began to shift. The grasslands, the forests, and even the rivers were already their hunting grounds, they were the absolute rulers. The arrogance of believing that no one could surpass it in strength or wisdom turned into excessive hunting, gradually eroding the floating island’s ecosystem.
As a result of its kin enjoying a stable life and continuing to breed, their total numbers increased to the point where they were on the verge of eating every other species on the island into extinction. Chronic hunger began to plague the clan, conflicts between members increased daily, and eventually, some even attempted to devour their own newborn kin.
The beast realized that, despite its wisdom and massive frame, it had no hope of winning if the entire pack turned against it at once.
In that case, it had no choice but to find a new hunting ground. The beast had already identified a place suitable for its new frontier.
Beyond the dim forest, across the wide grasslands, and on the other side of the river it had swum across. There was no place other than the territory inhabited by the "Two-Legs," who prospered even more than its own kind. Furthermore, the territories of the "Two-Legs" were inhabited by species other than themselves.
Docile wolves, flightless birds, hairless boars, and milk-scented cows—creatures that did not exist in the beast's own habitat were all coexisting there together.
"I shall devour every living thing in their territory."
Taking only the strongest of its kin—those capable of enduring the migration—the beast began its journey. Within the clan, there were many who insisted they did not want to leave the lands where they had been born and raised, but the beast deliberately abandoned them. Too many companions meant a smaller share of the spoils; besides, kin who grew more defiant by the day were of little use to the pack anyway.
The expedition, consisting of several dozen brethren, spanned several days. Along the way, the beast saw those who fell behind and collapsed, but it paid them no mind.
The new hunting ground they reached was teeming with an unimaginable bounty of prey.
Hairless boars and milk-scented cows slept soundly within enclosures fashioned from wooden planks. Flightless birds were crammed in great numbers inside strange "caves," ceaselessly laying eggs. Spiritless wolves barked and threatened pointlessly near the stone-piled dwellings of the "Two-Legs." There were cats as well—fickle creatures that curried favor with the "Two-Legs" to receive scraps of food.
Every creature lacked even a shred of vigilance; they were easy marks. Unlike the animals of the forests and grasslands, their meat was tender, and their blood was clean and delicious.
I shall build a new pack here, in this new hunting ground. With its resolve hardened, the beast slaughtered its prey with increasingly efficient methods day after day.
It was then that it happened across a "two-legged" stray that'd wandered from its pack, and it hunted it on a whim.
The "two-legs" resembled the monkeys that lived in the forest, but they didn't have much body hair and their flesh was soft.
The high-pitched screams it let out when it brought it down were grating on the ears, but after it tore its body apart with its claws time and again, it finally grew quiet.
Normally, it would have a younger member of the pack taste the prey first to ensure it wasn't poisonous, but for some reason, it felt no such inclination with this "two-legs."
Struggling to suppress the frantic pounding of its heart in anticipation, it sank its teeth into the meat.
The flavor was so exquisite it nearly lost consciousness; before it knew it, it was howling repeatedly in rapturous joy.
It knew this taste, an unforgettable memory from the very moment it first became aware of its own existence.
It was the sublime flavor it had tasted countless times back when it was still in its mother’s womb, before its eyes or ears were of any use.
It does not know for certain how its mother, who was far weaker than it, was able to feast upon the flesh of the "two-legs."
It only knew one thing for certain: the "two-legs" were the ultimate prey, the only ones worthy of its continued consumption, and it had absolutely no intention of sharing even a single one with its subordinates.
From the moment that beast first killed a human, it ordered its kin to raid the domesticated livestock while it focused solely on hunting humans.
Its physical stature had grown to an abnormal degree compared to the rest of its tribe, reaching a size rivaling that of a grown man, and it was no longer picky about which humans it targeted.
With its brute strength and sharp claws combined, it could easily tear through clothing and flesh alike; with its crushing bite and thick fangs, it consumed humans entirely, leaving nothing behind of them at all.
The beast particularly favored women and children as its prey.
Women, with their higher fat content, had tender meat and were weak enough to be brought down with ease. Children, though small in quantity, could be devoured entirely from the crown of their heads to the tips of their toes without leaving a trace.
Above all, the sheer number of humans, vastly outnumbering its own kind on the floating island, was intoxicating.
With such a magnificent feeding ground, the beast wanted to monopolize the "two-legs" for itself. It'd even begun to harbor the intent to slaughter its own kin should other food sources ever run dry.
It was an undeniable fact that the beast’s perception had been naive.
Having existed on the side of the strong since it was in its mother’s womb, it’d lived recognizing all other life forms only as beings that either followed it or served as its prey. Because it’d never known failure and never experienced defeat, it’d kept stacking success upon success; this likely resulted in the harmful underdevelopment of its ability to sense the crises inherent in surviving the harsh natural world, or even to imagine how an enemy might strike back.
In the first place, treating the "two-legs", humans it’d never encountered in the wilderness where it was born and raised, as mere fodder while neglecting to observe them was a blunder it never would’ve committed in its youth. It failed to realize that humans possessed an intelligence far beyond its imagination, and that they wielded both strategies and weapons capable of overturning the tide of battle, no matter how much it surpassed them in raw physical strength.
Above all, the fact that the beast had specifically chosen women and children as its prey only served to fan the flames of the humans’ murderous intent.
A great bird that soars gracefully through the sky will only sink into the ocean as its feathers soak up the water. A great fish that swims as if it owns the sea will suffocate on land, unable to breathe. For this beast, which had built a mountain of victories through its own power, an opponent against whom strength didn’t prevail, or an enemy that didn’t fight using fangs, claws, or horns, was completely beyond its consideration.
Metal rods that spat stones with a roar; metal rods with a sharpness exceeding any claw; and flames and lightning discharged from the very bodies of the "two-legs."
Over tens of thousands of years since humanity separated itself from the brutal natural world, they had mastered fire, developed agriculture, refined metalworking, and acquired the arts of magic.
In exchange for discarding their animal instincts, they used their accumulated wisdom to build an advanced, civilized society.
Facing humans armed with fire, metal, and magic, weapons almost never encountered in the natural world, it was clear that the beast would gradually and increasingly be pushed into a disadvantageous position.
Even if it had possessed experience fighting magic-wielding monsters from a dungeon, the outcome would likely have remained the same.
The deep-seated hatred and resentment of the humans, whose lovers, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, and grandchildren had been attacked and devoured, transformed into a blade more fierce and cold-blooded, beginning to ruthlessly and mercilessly corner the beast and its kin.
Even as its fellow tribesmen vanished one by one, day by day, under the humans' relentless counterattack, the beast initially paid it no mind at all.
To this creature, which had been endowed with power so far removed from its kin since birth, the others were still merely existences meant to handle its nuisances.
They were essential to patrol the territory for abnormalities; they were essential to raise the young birthed by the females; they were essential to reduce the labor of hunting for food.
It had only permitted its kin to stay by its side for the purpose of alleviating these bothersome tasks; had it ever been able to win a head-on confrontation against the entire pack simultaneously, it would have already struck out on its own.
It had originally left its birthplace to escape the shortage of even the bare minimum food needed for the tribe’s survival, and also to cast off its heavy, burdensome role as leader.
It likely never even crossed its mind that that decision would instead lead to such agonizing consequences.
Burning with a desire for vengeance, the "two-legs" studied the beast's kin in meticulous detail, laid ingenious traps within their territory, and at times even took up arms to confront them directly.
No matter how many hunts the beast had once led with its pack, its previous opponents had only ever been animals of the natural world; moreover, its tactics were limited to just two options: cooperating with the pack to hunt weaker creatures, or overwhelming stronger ones through sheer numbers.
The sight of the "two-legs"—against whom fangs, claws, and raw strength were utterly useless—attacking in swarms that matched or even surpassed their own numbers was a living nightmare.
To make matters worse, there were even individuals among the "two-legs" capable of invoking natural phenomena such as fire and lightning.
Trembling with the first true fear of death it had ever felt since birth, and tormented by the searing pain that clawed at its consciousness as its own blood spilled from its wounds, the beast could do nothing but finally come to the realization that there existed beings in this world that surpassed it.
After six months of searching and combing through mountains, the beast was finally captured by the people of the floating island.
An investigative report compiled by the victims of the attacks, members of the countermeasure headquarters, and specialized scholars detailing the largest-scale animal attack in the history of that floating island was later submitted to the high-ranking officials of the Hölfort Kingdom, along with reports of an incident that had occurred in an elven village.
> "The origin of the incident is believed to trace back to the war between the Hölfort Kingdom and the former Principality of Fanoss more than ten years earlier."
> "It started from a complicated chain of circumstances in which animals, having developed a taste for human flesh after consuming the corpses of those killed in battle, descended upon human settlements as the number of prey in forests and mountainous regions declined."
> "It is thought that the damage escalated exponentially as animals grew accustomed to the taste of humans and food waste, specifically the emergence of strong, abnormal individual specimens."
> "The captured abnormal specimen possesses a body more than twice the size of its kin. Testimonies from hunters who entered the mountains before the incident show that it has lived at least twice as long as other adults."
> "When the abnormal specimen was first captured, the victims and bereaved families demanded its immediate execution. However, the lords and scholars declared that it would be held for a period of time for research. This sparked backlash among the inhabitants and became a trigger for new riots within the floating island."
> "Furthermore, it was discovered that compensation for the bereaved families, as well as for the soldiers and hunters mobilized for the hunt, was delayed due to the riots caused by the animal attacks, pushing the territory into an economic crisis."
> "At that time, someone who had heard the rumors negotiated to purchase the captured animals at a high price. The lord accepted without hesitation, and the large sum of money paid was used as compensation for the victims."
> "Evidence that it was the elves who purchased the animals at a high price was revealed through a later incident, which later became one of the reasons for tightening laws regarding the trade of rare animals in the Hölfort Kingdom."
The incident still hadn’t reached its conclusion.
The beast was confined in a metal chamber with not a single blade of grass inside. It didn’t know how much time had passed since it had been thrown into a cage of interlocking iron bars by the "two-legs" who had come to hunt it. In this place where neither sun nor moon existed, there was no concept of day or night; the only change was when the "long-eared two-legs" occasionally brought fodder.
At first, its kin who had been captured alongside it were meant to be kept in the same place. However, every time it fell asleep and woke again, they disappeared one by one. There was no way to tell whether they had been killed and eaten, or simply toyed with and slaughtered.
It had once believed itself to be the ruler of the world, but the power of the "two-legs" was terrifying. To think there were opponents against whom its fangs and claws were completely useless. It felt almost no regret that its weapons had failed; all it felt instead was pure curiosity.
Next time, it would do better. If it observed the "two-legs" and acquired the same power, victory would surely belong to it. It felt no frustration over its first defeat since birth; if anything, compared to the forests and grasslands that only repeated similar cycles, the territory of the "two-legs" was overflowing with stimulation. First, it would repeat the cycle of eating and sleeping to ensure its wounds healed completely. Its next move could wait until then.
At one point, when it ate the raw meat brought by the "long-eared two-legs," its body gradually became numb until it could no longer move properly. It had experienced similar things many times before—when it had accidentally eaten poisonous herbs in its homeland, or through traps and belongings set by the "two-legs."
Are they going to kill me? it thought, trying to howl, but only breath leaked from its mouth. Unable to sink its fangs or tear with its claws, it was carried away to another location by the "long-eared two-legs."
Moved into a space larger than its previous room, its limbs were forcibly restrained, sealing off all movement. No matter how desperately it tried to exert its strength, its four limbs did not twitch in the slightest; it was as if its body had become a corpse. It tried to glare at the "long-eared two-legs" moving busily around it, when something strange suddenly entered its field of vision.
It was a mass of black metal. Though its shape resembled the arm of a "two-legs," it was clearly something different. It was decisively unlike its kin, its prey, the "two-legs," and even the "long-eared two-legs."
The beast writhed desperately, but it was useless. Several tube-like objects were thrust into its body; the fact that it felt no pain was, in itself, deeply repulsive. Through its hazy consciousness, it saw a "long-eared two-legs" looking down at it. Only those eyes—shining not with hatred, but with contempt and clinical interest—were burned into its memory.
"Commencing the transplant surgery now."
Without understanding the meaning of the words—so clearly different from the cries of the "long-eared two-legs"—the beast’s consciousness sank into deep darkness.
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Authors Note
┻━━━━━━━━━━┻
A new original character, "The Beast" (tentative name).
The models are based on various real animal attack incidents such as the Sankebetsu Brown Bear Incident and the Beast of Gévaudan.
Its biological characteristics are conceived as a quadrupedal beast, with its staple diet being animal meat, and its social structure consisting of packs ranging from several to several dozen individuals.
The most difficult part of writing this chapter was researching the details of the animal attack cases that served as the inspiration.
I can write erotic or grotesque content myself, but I’m not good at looking at other people’s work in those genres...
From here on, the story route shifts from ethnic conflict and interspecies issues to monster panic!
But humans do have ways to fight back!
Postscript: At the request of the client, Yuu Kisaragi-sama has provided an illustration.
Thank you very much.
Yuu Kisaragi-sama: Pixiv
I would appreciate your opinions and impressions to encourage my future work.
~~~End~~~