Free Web NovelChapter 311: Martial... Martial Soul True Body?
"Go wait for me at the Meowscular Chef’s place?"
Given how long it had been since those words were last relevant, Andrew blanked for just a moment when he heard what aibo said — then immediately caught up.
Knowing her as well as he did, he could deduce with certainty that when she ran off to the Meowscular Chef’s place, there was exactly one thing on her agenda.
Eating.
She already knew he had food lined up as a gift for her later — and yet she was still going to squeeze in a meal beforehand? Truly something else, this Odogaron. Even Andrew had to admit her appetite was in a league entirely beyond his own.
Not that he actually said any of that out loud. After all, he’d only just coaxed her back into a good mood with the gift, and without some new solution ready to deploy, Andrew had absolutely no intention of starting over from scratch.
There was courting death, and then there was just being stupid.
Even so — restrained as he was — the sheer disrespect packed into that one involuntary glance was enough to set off aibo’s radar in an instant.
She turned a sharp, piercing gaze on Andrew, and the pressure radiating off her body surged without her even meaning it to — utterly overwhelming.
Then she spoke.
"Andrew," she said. "Are you thinking something incredibly rude again?"
"No, no, absolutely not, why would I?"
Startled — again — by just how unnervingly perceptive aibo could be in certain respects, Andrew immediately averted his eyes. He started whistling nonchalantly, doing his level best to project an air of complete innocence.
It did not work.
The gaze bearing down on him only grew more intense, and Andrew found himself with a very distinct and very unpleasant sensation crawling up his spine — as if an actual Odogaron were standing directly behind him.
What was this?
Had she manifested her fighting spirit in physical form or something?
Having spent years getting to know both him and Sapphire Star, aibo had long since developed a sixth sense for both of them. Just as she was preparing to press further, Andrew quickly cut in:
"Oh, my dearest investigator-sis — before you worry about any of that trivial nonsense, haven’t you forgotten something you were supposed to be doing?"
As they say — masters exist to be sold out.
His reminder landed like a splash of cold water. aibo clapped a hand to her head, eyes going wide.
"Oh, right! Because you suddenly came back from outside together with me, I totally forgot what I actually came here for!"
Andrew exhaled quietly in relief, his gambit confirmed.
Beside him, aibo — now fully recalling the reason she’d been waiting here in the first place — abandoned her pursuit of Andrew without a second thought and snapped her attention to Sapphire Star.
"Sapphire Star! You were the accompanying instructor on this commission, and it was taken at young Claire’s reception desk! You’re the only one who still hasn’t gone to settle up with her — the poor receptionist has been waiting on you for ages!"
"And as the accompanying instructor, the Commander has explicitly required you to submit a detailed written report — no fewer than five thousand characters — for his review!"
"And that report is going to be distributed to the other instructors afterward as a training reference, by the way!"
The cheerful grin that had been plastered on Sapphire Star’s face vanished completely. An expression of pure, undisguised suffering took its place.
Writing a report. It was the hunter’s equivalent of doing the dishes after cooking — cleaning the kitchen after you’d already done all the real work.
For a hunter, there was no greater misery.
He’d thought he could stall a little longer — and then this little punk Andrew had gone and sold him out just like that?!
The fire had jumped to him without any warning whatsoever, and Sapphire Star was caught completely flat-footed.
But aibo wasn’t interested in whether Sapphire Star was ready or not. Now that she’d remembered her actual business, she grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him away. freewebnovel.cσ๓
Caught completely off guard — and far too afraid of accidentally hurting her if he resisted — Sapphire Star didn’t dare fight back. He clutched his Tachi to his chest and stumbled along after her in a helpless, involuntary shuffle, heading off to face whatever grim fate awaited him next. The whole thing happened so fast there wasn’t even a gap to get a word in.
As aibo whisked Sapphire Star away in her characteristic whirlwind fashion, the introduction Andrew had been planning to give for Miyabi fell apart completely — there simply hadn’t been a moment for it.
Not that Andrew particularly minded. He gave a casual shrug.
They’d run into each other again soon enough, one way or another. This could wait. With that thought settled, he led Miyabi toward where the Commander was stationed.
The Exchange Area wasn’t particularly large.
It didn’t take long before the two of them cleared it and spotted the Commander, standing at attention in the meeting area.
And there, for the first time, Miyabi laid eyes on a strikingly vigorous old man.
Years of exposure to the elements outdoors had turned his skin a deep, rough brown — yet even that couldn’t hide the marks time had left on it. No matter how sharp his spirit burned, it couldn’t undo the passage of years.
Compared to the image Andrew carried in his memory from when he’d last left the New World, the lines at the corners of the Commander’s eyes had deepened just a fraction further with the flow of time.
But that was all. Beyond those slightly deeper lines, Andrew could find no other trace of time’s passage on the man.
Back straight, posture immaculate, standing before the meeting table and carrying out his duties as Commander with absolute precision.
His silver-grey hair, neatly kept and clean-cut, gleamed under the sunlight — exactly as Andrew remembered it.
Clad in the same fine steel armor he had worn for as long as anyone could remember, arms folded across his chest, he stood before the topographic map of the New World spread across the meeting table, assigning different tasks to the assembled hunter teams in a voice that carried plenty of force behind it.
When the Commander finally saw the long-absent Andrew walking toward him — with Miyabi at his side — a genuine smile broke across his weathered face.
"Good lad. You’re finally back."
But before Andrew could even open his mouth to greet him, the Commander raised a hand and cut him off.
Now that he’d confirmed Andrew was safe, his immediate goal was achieved.
After a brief round of introductions,
With just a slight nod as his acknowledgment, the Commander dispensed with pleasantries entirely and spoke with characteristic decisiveness:
"Save the small talk. If you’ve come rushing back this urgently, there’s clearly real business that needs handling. So go handle it."
"Same as always — you walked out of the New World as one of its hunters. Whatever you need, just say the word."
"The New World will always have your back."
A gleam of quiet intelligence passed through the Commander’s eyes. He looked at Andrew and added with a light smile:
"Your wyvern has been released from the enclosure. She’s in the area and on standby whenever you need her."
"When you have some time to spare, come tell us about everything you ran into during your time in that other world."
Sapphire Star hadn’t come to brief him yet — and still, the Commander had deduced on his own that Andrew’s disappearance had involved crossing over to another world entirely. No question about it.
Because it wasn’t just the countless little details that gave it away. More than anything, Andrew himself hadn’t made even the slightest effort to hide it.
If even that hadn’t been enough for him to figure it out, he wouldn’t have had the wit to earn the title of Commander of the New World in the first place.
Hearing this from the old Commander, Andrew had no intention of dragging things out any further either.
He gave a nod and moved to take care of the immediate business first.
Since his wyvern had already been let out...
Stepping out from the meeting area, Andrew put two fingers to his lips and let out a familiar whistle. In the next instant, a pale-yellow wyvern — noticeably two sizes larger than an ordinary one — came sweeping down from the distant sky on powerful wingbeats.
And what set it apart from all others:
A streak of vivid crimson ran naturally along its neck, while its wing membranes were a deep, fathomless black.
The moment it recognized Andrew, it lit up with excitement and immediately hurtled toward him at full speed — like a jet aircraft slicing through the air, leaving behind a sweeping arc of pale yellow laced with that distinctive red streak.
"Hayabusa! Head to the Third Fleet’s research base!"
That’s right — you read that correctly.
Hayabusa. Full name: Victory Hayabusa. That was the name of Andrew’s wyvern.
Though to avoid passing on any conceptual curse about crashing on every sortie, Andrew generally didn’t use the full name.
Back when Andrew had first found her, it was precisely because of her coloring — identical to the Hayabusa he remembered from childhood — combined with a physique noticeably more robust than any of her peers.
Those two things together, and Andrew had picked her out on the spot.
With Andrew’s frame plus his full gear load, an ordinary wyvern might not actually be able to carry him reliably. And even if it could, long-distance flight would quickly become a serious problem.
With Hayabusa, none of that was an issue.
It was just the coloring...
A Lynian scholar had told him that a unique coloration like hers could only result from a spontaneous mutation somewhere along the line.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, nobody could say — but after all these years, Hayabusa remained as full of energy as ever, with a particular fondness for tearing things apart around the den. Whatever the mutation was, it was clearly a benign one.
Andrew fired his Slinger hook, which locked cleanly onto Hayabusa’s leg — and at the same time, just as he had done countless times when they’d traveled together in the Ancient Forest, he instinctively reached out a hand toward Miyabi.
As for having Miyabi take control of a separate wyvern — setting aside the question of whether she even knew how to handle one, she didn’t have a Slinger hook on her at all right now.
Which made the question of how to ride one entirely moot.
So Andrew saw absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing — and for her part, Miyabi hadn’t raised a single objection.
Under the circumstances, that habitually extended hand of his found its place without any deviation — exactly as it always had — settling at Miyabi’s waist.
For her part, Miyabi had long since stopped finding this unusual. The moment she felt his arm around her, she instinctively reached up and wrapped her arms around Andrew’s neck, securing herself firmly so there’d be no risk of an accident.
The whole sequence was seamless — practiced and fluid, smooth enough that the Commander, who had been watching the two of them from a short distance away, blinked in spite of himself.
He’d been about to carefully ask whether they needed a dedicated escort.
But Andrew had moved too fast. Before the Commander could even get the words out, the two of them were already airborne and streaking off toward the Coral Highlands.
Watching them go, the Commander stroked his chin and muttered to himself with something between amusement and genuine wonder:
"At first, when I heard that young Andrew had brought a girl home to meet the family, I didn’t believe a word of it — those kids gossip so much I’ve built up a resistance to it."
"But as it turns out — even if the way they put it was a bit much, the general gist of it was actually about seventy or eighty percent true."
Just then, a dissenting voice cut in from nearby.
"I’m not so sure about that..."
The Sword Master — who had been sitting on a bench through the entire exchange, watching everything in complete silence without uttering a single word — now offered a different perspective.
"The way those two moved just now still seemed quite measured to me. It doesn’t look like they’re close enough for that kind of relationship."
"Couldn’t it be that you’re reading too much into it? This might just be the kind of ease that forms naturally between comrades."
But faced with this challenge from his longtime First Fleet counterpart, the Commander simply gave a light chuckle.
"Ha. Coming from a man who’s spent his whole life embracing a Tachi and never once had a wife — it makes perfect sense that you wouldn’t understand what I’m talking about."
Facing the Sword Master’s clearly displeased glare, the Commander’s smile only curled wider, like a man who had already seen the whole picture.
"Don’t get it twisted. Judging purely by the aura that young lady carries — if she didn’t actually feel something substantial for him, she would have sent that boy flying the very first time he pulled that move."
"And even if circumstances had somehow forced her to tolerate it once, she would never have let it happen again under any deliberate scrutiny. The idea that it could have repeated itself enough to become this natural, this habitual? Forget it."
"Mm... when you put it that way... I suppose you’re right?"
When it came to the Tachi, the Sword Master had always been among the very best — even if age had cost him a good deal of his raw power, his technique had never stopped improving.
But matters between men and women were a complete and utter blind spot for him.
Faced with the Commander’s well-reasoned and entirely coherent argument, the Sword Master found himself thoroughly convinced.
After all, the man had always been sharp.
And more importantly — the Commander already had a grandson who’d risen to lead an investigation squad. In matters of the heart, at the very least, the man clearly knew far more than he did.
Meanwhile, Andrew — suspended on his wyvern and already well away — had no idea whatsoever what the Commander and the others were saying about him behind his back.
As Andrew’s Slinger hook shot out and locked cleanly onto Hayabusa’s leg, the wyvern felt that familiar tug — and in an instant, the old feeling came rushing back.
Wings surging with power, Hayabusa launched into a full-speed charge toward the destination Andrew had named.
—
Coral Highlands.
The vast swaths of enormous coral growing out of solid land gave Miyabi yet another view she had never imagined existed.
She’d heard Andrew describe it — but no matter how vivid his words had been, nothing could ever match the experience of seeing it with her own eyes.
Flying through the air and yet surrounded by scenery that made it feel like the bottom of the ocean — that singular, impossible quality kept Miyabi’s eyes shining without stop.
It wasn’t until they reached the Third Fleet’s research base — housed aboard the beached wreck of a ship — that Miyabi finally pulled her gaze away from the breathtaking surroundings, reluctant to stop looking.
New Eridu had the sea too, so Miyabi was no stranger to coral. But coral in an aquarium display case was one thing. Coral this massive — growing here, on land — was something she had genuinely never heard of before.
As the two of them stepped inside the ship, the unique interior — designed and outfitted to accommodate the vessel’s permanently grounded state — immediately caught Miyabi’s attention and widened her eyes with curiosity.
But more eye-catching than the unusual décor were the countless bookshelves lining the cabin walls, ranging from small to enormous.
Every single one of them was filled to capacity with books of varying thickness, without a single exception.
And even then, without exception, every shelf was bursting at the seams — stacks of volumes piled on the floor around every platform as well, accumulated into small mountains.
The distinctive scent of ink unique to books mingled with the particular smell of burning candles, and the two together occupied every corner of the base’s interior completely.
Strangely, though — threading through it all was a faint, barely-there hint of... alcohol?
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