On the Hills of Eden

“You want our hunting logs?”

The man raised an eyebrow at him, his tall Kitsunite ears wiggling slightly as he tilted his head.

“Yes, the, uhm,” Soleiman’s eyes darted elsewhere, the Japonic words not quite coming to him in the moment. “The beast hunting logs in particular.”

“For what reason?”

The library was quiet. As was all libraries, of course, but this was a different kind of silence. The library of Shirobanegawa, a modest building set on the outskirts of the Shrine, was dead quiet. The kind of silence that comes with a complete lack of any action, where the air stands so still even the minute particles of dust floating about seem frozen in time.

“Me and fellows plan on offering our services to the Shrine Master,” Soleiman explained, the silence that enveloped the entire building so viscous even his near-whisper of a voice felt deafening. “To help manage the situation.”

“...Okay,” the librarian relented, pulling his hand out from beneath his desk to reveal a handful of rough, paper-back books. “If that’s that case.”

“Thank you-”

“But,” he cut in, hastily placing his hand back onto the logs before Soleiman could. “You do know that we don’t really need any help, right? Our hunters are more than well equipped to deal with the threats themselves.”

“Well,” Soleiman countered. “I mean, we could offer better prices..?”

“The hunters don’t have salaries,” he replied. “They serve the Shrine only seeking food and shelter in return.”

“Oh.”

The sky above lightened up slightly, and the beams of the light that spilled through the windows of the second floor fell upon the two of them.

“Is…” Soleiman struggled. “Is there any way we could be of use to the Shrine Master?”

The librarian paused slightly, leaning back in his chair as it croaked softly.

“You could go North,” he said. “Far, far north.”

“What’s up there?”

“Usually, the fringe Shrines take care of things there,” he said. “But recently, the Sahlbarid have been establishing an increasingly permanent population in the area– dealing with the beasts at the same time.”

“That sounds good.”

“Yeah, but, instead of maintaining a good read on the situation,” he continued. “The fringes have just decided to stop sending hunting parties altogether.”

“I see.”

“Mm, yeah,” he said. “So it’d be good if you offered to help out with that, since Shrine operatives tend to stay within the boundaries of their home divisions.”

“Oh, right,” Soleiman nodded. “Okay. So we just have to make some observations on the area there?”

“Yeah,” he responded. “I’ll demarcate for you on a map you can pick up later. Just because there hasn’t been very many reports of bestial attacks doesn’t always mean the beasts aren’t thriving, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Soleiman responded. “Like a smooth pebble in a fire waiting to blow.”

“See? You get it,” he said, raising his hands up momentarily in celebration. “Alright, go on now. Have as much of a gander as you want at the logs. No one else here to share the books with, anyway.”

Records of Shou Nakayama

The paperback sat before him, its off-white cover stained by several blotches of brown liquid, their crooked rings forming halos upon its uneven surface.

Looking through the first few pages, Soleiman discerned that the book was about the activities of the man mentioned in the title and his two accompanying partners as they partook in a relatively routine hunting expedition alongside some other Shirobanegawan teams.

He flickered through the pages some more, eyes darting up and down and he skimmed their contents for the beginning of the logs.

14/5/1100

First Day Hunting

Ah. There it was.

We’re going into the woods today. Akira has with him a bunch of bear traps, and we plan on spiking an entire area with them before hiding up in the trees with our bows.

The Coordinator says the objective for today’s just to collect information on the beasts. He says that we shouldn’t lean so hard into the hunting, just in case we get caught off guard by anything out of our record.

But we’re fine. The three of us have bows, and more than enough bear traps to ensnare anything that comes our way. Takeshi didn’t want to budge at first, but after I showed him how far I could hold my slowed time he caved in pretty easily.

And besides, they’re giving away bonuses to those with the most successful downs by the end of the expedition, anyway. That includes today.

Will report back with our downs later on. The rest are already beginning to mount.

End

Soleiman flipped forward, his eyes skimming over the contents of the following entry. His eyebrows raised slightly, and he found himself nodding subtly at the sight of their killcount.

Fair enough, he thought.

He continued onwards, entries on other days’ hunts and outstanding happenings at camp all passing through his mind.

It was certainly a shame that the only recent report book the library had on hand happened to belong to one of the few teams that didn’t actively follow the policy of early intelligence gathering.

He stopped.

19/5/1100

First Night Hunting

We’re going in the night.

The Coordinator’s said that this is just a part of the usual routine, set up specifically to throw off the beasts that switched to a more nocturnal living arrangement to avoid getting caught.

I’m not so sure how I feel about this.

Akira and Takeshi even less so.

But we won’t be in the vanguard. Our job is just to ensure the integrity of the traps the first team set.

Will write back with updates.

End

Soleiman turned the page.

20/5/1100

They’re Gone

It’s morning now, and the Coordinator and his vanguard still haven’t returned. The plan was to rendezvous back at camp 4 hours ago.

The other teams also have no idea what happened to them. But given that none of us currently here have sustained any casualties, it’s either something entirely manageable– or entirely lost– that happened.

But I doubt they died. All their traps were in perfect condition when we came to them. Same for the other survivors.

I don’t know. But if the Coordinator doesn’t come back soon, he’s going to be replaced.

Takeshi wants now more than ever to back out. I managed to convince Akira though– told him that it was up to us to try and find out what happened to the rest of them.

We can’t leave now. Not when we’re midway through to getting our bonuses. Not when we’re midway through changing our families’ lives.

And besides. If we weren’t putting ourselves through this, then we would be putting something else through this.

End

Huh. So the entirety of their vanguard vanished in the night?

Soleiman leaned back in his chair, eyes rolling up to meet the distant ceiling of the library above head.

Yet all the traps were in perfect order, and all the surviving teams had sustained no casualties.

Hmm.

Soleiman read on, pilfering through more reports and entries. Interestingly, the number of times they found a bear trap that had been broken out of began to skyrocket following the 20th, rising to account for up to half of all of their traps’ outcomes just four days later.

And on the fifth day after the incident, the final day of the expedition’s outward march, it was decided that they would go on a search.

25/5/1100

Search

We’re going. The plan is to try and lure whatever it was that killed the Coordinator, except this time we ambush it with our full strength. All four remaining teams, all at once.

We’ve been assigned the rear guard. A miracle, in all honesty, for Takeshi. He’s been having breathing fits almost all day thinking about going back out there in the dark.

At least we won’t be taken off guard.

End

Soleiman stopped, his finger just midway through peeling the page off and continuing onwards.

Please don’t die.

31/5/1100

Logbook recovered from the forests adjoining the site of engagement by travellers from Ezomatsu Shrine on the 27th.

Logbook returned to the Library of Shirobanegawa on the 30th.

Reports from surviving expedition members have led to the designation of a new Fiend– the ‘Three Eyed Deer’. It has been reasoned that this Fiend has been responsible for the losses of the expedition as of the 31st.

Sir Shou Nakayama’s body has not been recovered.

- Tonan, Librarian

Soleiman paused for a moment, setting the book back down onto the table as his eyes drifted off to the librarian.

He felt the skylight fall onto his skin, the air still almost as unmoving and asphyxiating as a blanket.

He sighed, taking the moment after to draw in a deep, slow breath.

The Three Eyed Deer.

He set the logbook aside, picking up a book named ‘Shirobanegawan Record of Fiends’.

Slapping away the paperback cover, his eyes landed on the index. They ran down its length, sprinting from name to name until his eyes finally recognised that of the Three Eyed Deer’s.

The Three Eyed Deer, not unlike other Fiends, controlled domains of magic not entirely within our current consensus understanding of how mana functions. While the exact mechanism behind its mobilisation and use of mana remains unclear, it can generally be assumed that it followed a typical lobe-based system of mana control.

The Three Eyed Deer has been observed attempting to override the native lobes of hunters during engagements, characterised by a feeling of partial paralysis and acute weakness in the targets it pressures. Furthermore, successful attempts at this overriding have been observed to result in a state of severe weakness, impaired cognition and a complete inability to employ one’s magical techniques– all consistent with previously recorded cases of externally-caused lobular collapse.

The Three Eyed Deer has also been observed creating remote explosives in the air using its mana. It is assumed that it uses its highly manipulatable lobes to position and concentrate its mana at the point of detonation– where it then releases it from the bounds of its lobes to allow for its detonation.

This theory has been supported by reports from hunters who claimed to have been able to sense the onset of the explosives, describing a sensation of ‘exhilarating power’ permeating the air just prior to detonation.

Following the failure of the May Expedition, arrangements were made to couple the June Expedition with support teams from other nearby shrines, including Ezomatsu Shrine.

This renewed force engaged the Three Eyed Deer on seven different occasions, failing to neutralise it on each attempt. However, the force was successful in slowly driving the being further north, away from Houzeni and Oldenburger centres of population.

In preparation for the eight engagement, the June Expedition discovered the rotting corpse of the Three Eyed Deer just along the fringes of Houzen’s previously established border with Siraj al-Nahr. The corpse had sustained a singular circular wound, approximately equivalent to an arm in size, that had torn through its chest cavity.

So… they didn’t even kill it? They just found it dead?

Soleiman flipped back to the index page, picking out a few other names he found interesting.

The Red Bear.

Found dead with several wasp-sized cavities in its abdomen.

The Iron Monkey.

Found dead with its iron-reinforced skull having been split open by a deep, compound fracture.

Two more… found dead?

“Hmm,” Soleiman hummed. “Interesting.”

He looked up, the light that poured in from the second floor now having been dyed just the slightest bit yellow.

“Alright,” he said to himself, rising from his seat. “Time to go.”

Though…

He looked around, eyes wandering the tens of shelves sat stocked to the brim with books. Books that weren’t being read.

“Well,” he said to himself. “I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt to borrow a few more.”