Chương 48: [B2] Chapter 6: Wings and Thoughts

Zero's herding worked because the eagle finally had nothing left to correct toward. He'd spent the last four passes narrowing its available routes through the canopy, breaking branches, and closing gap after gap until only one remained, straight and low across the clearing floor, directly into the widening arc of Viria's draw.

"Now!" he called down. Viria's fifth arrow left the string before her mind had time to doubt her hands, and this one didn't skim past anything. It took the eagle through the wing joint, not a killing blow on its own, but enough to break the aerodynamic confidence that had kept it two steps ahead of all of them since the first feather fell. It dropped, screeching, into a controlled spiral that Miho ended the instant it reached the ground. [Skill Acquired: Novel Marksmanship, Lv. 1] First successful ranged strike under combat conditions logged. Viria stared at the notification, at the bow still in her hand, and then at the dead eagle Miho was already crouched beside.

"I… hate that this works," she said, quietly, none of her usual performance in it.

"Nobody asked you to enjoy it," said Miho, though not unkindly. Zero landed beside Viria, wings folding back into shoulder and skin. He watched her turn the bow over once in her hands, testing its weight the way someone tested an object they hadn't decided yet whether to trust, and said nothing, because he understood, without needing it explained, that there was nothing useful he could add to whatever she was working through on her own.

Miho's own Identify confirmed what Zero's earlier one had already suggested. Identify: Stymphalian Eagle (Deceased) Level: 50 Classification: Non-Apex Predator"That thing was level fifty," Miho said again, slower.

"And it was not even the strongest creature to live in this territory." The implication sat there, plain enough that adding words to it would only have dulled it, and Zero filed the fact alongside everything Predation Analysis had already given him. Whatever had killed at least two apex predators across both sectors was operating on a threshold this eagle couldn't come close to reaching.

They found the third animal corpse less than an hour later, smaller than the previous two. It was a scaled crocodilian, with hide the color of wet bark, and its wounds telling the same story they'd heard twice already. Zero didn't run a full Identify pass this time, nor did he need to. Predation Analysis had already logged enough for the pattern to confirm itself without ceremony. [Predation Analysis Lv. 2 → Lv. 3] This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Third consistent specimen logged. Confidence interval narrowed. Structural weak-point projection now available for future targets matching this attack profile.

"Same time window," Miho said, barely glancing at the body.

"Five to eight months, every time. Whatever this is, it did all of this in a narrow span, and then just… stopped."

"Or, it didn't stop," Yukito said.

"But ran out of apex predators left to kill." Nobody had a comfortable answer to that.

That night, once the fire had settled and Miho's watch had passed to Viria, Zero found Yukito standing at the edge of the firelight the way he'd stood every night since the first attempt, shoulders loose, watching his own shadow pool across the ground in front of him. It rose. Held. Thinned at the edges into something that resembled, if Zero squinted at it, the beginning of a wing rather than a shapeless pool of dark.

"Nineteen seconds," Zero said automatically when it collapsed.

"What are you trying to achieve?" Yukito took several deep breaths before responding.

"I've been thinking," he glanced at Viria for a moment before continuing, "about what would have happened if Viria hadn't found that bow. I… didn't realize just how limited our options were against aerial threats. I don't want to have to rely on only having a single option again. What if you and Viria weren't there? We would have…" Zero recognized Yukito didn't want to finish his thought, so he offered one of his own observations.

"You're making wings?" Yukito nodded.

"It's not holding weight, though." He sat down hard, breathing like the effort had cost him something physical rather than purely spiritual.

"It's shadow. It doesn't have a spine. I… don't know why I keep expecting it to behave otherwise."

"Water doesn't have a 'spine' either, and yet Miho says it carries things." Yukito huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh, and tried again anyway. The shadow rose thinner this time, wider, less like a wing attempting to lift a body and more like a wing attempting to slow a fall that hadn't happened yet. Twenty-two seconds before it dissolved.

"Not yet," Yukito said.

"But closer than this morning."

Later that night, when it was Zero's turn to keep watch, Viria unexpectedly exited the makeshift tent. She sat closer to Zero than the temperature required.

"I… keep thinking about what I said," she said, eventually, not looking at him.

"During the fight. About how I'd never touched a bow."

"Was it true?"

"No. But it is true that I haven't picked one up in over five years." The silence stretched for minutes until Viria spoke again.

"But… I keep thinking about how I was proud of the refusal. I built an entire identity out of not being the thing my family wanted, and today I picked up the exact thing they wanted from me the most, in front of witnesses, because the alternative was watching someone I actually chose get hurt." She turned the bow over once more in her lap.

"I don't know what that makes the refusal worth now." Zero considered this carefully, because it deserved care.

"It makes the refusal a decision you were still permitted to revisit," he said.

"A door you built yourself can be opened by the same hand that built it. That is different from someone else opening it for you." Viria was quiet for a moment.

"That… sounds similar to something that Vethra told me." Zero was surprised at the mention of her sponsor.

"That was not my intent."

"I know," she said, softer.

"But that's what makes it work."

Miho raised the subject that had been sitting unaddressed, once the canopy dyed the gray morning light into shades of emerald.

"We are relying too heavily on one source of fruit," she said.

"It's been days now. I would rather raise this issue before it becomes a crisis."

"It hasn't failed yet," Viria said.

"Everything in this jungle eventually does." Miho's tails flicked, sharp and displeased.

"We do not have any alternative food sources identified. If our fruit turns, for any reason, we will be making decisions on empty stomachs and worse judgment." Zero looked toward the dark tree line in the direction of the stand, and filed her warning the way he filed every warning she'd given him that had later proven correct, and said nothing else about it, because there was nothing useful left to say until the warning either resolved itself or didn't.

He did not yet know how little time the warning would have to wait.