Monster Hunter Gathering

"Very good! Let's go! Badlands!" Nie Chiwu stepped on the accelerator and drove directly to the outskirts of Night City.

And now a place in the Badlands... has become a temporary nest of a powerful creature.

Depressing dark clouds piled up in the sky, and faint thunderstorms gathered in the clouds.

Those thunderstorms were gathered because of the existence of Qilin.

And this... is just the instinct of Qilin.

When Nie Chiwu drove the car to a stop on the bad land, he squatted down and carefully observed some traces on the ground.

The guide insects have been released by the hunters and are following the traces found by the hunters, gradually beginning to look for the traces of the Qilin.

"Footprints that look like horse hooves... There aren't many people raising horses near Night City. This is Night City, not Wild West." Nie Chiwu pinched the soil where the footprints were and could vaguely feel the hair on the back of his hand standing up.

"Ooooh!" Laos stuck his head out of the window, his hair standing up. "This electric current! My hair is all standing up! This means we're very close to the Qilin, right?"

"Yes."

Nie Chiwu handed the telescope to Tanjiro, the co-pilot, and said, "Naofumi Iwatani, our main goal this time is to gather intelligence, so I'll leave the defense to you."

"Yeah." Iwaya Naofumi's expression was a little serious: "I will try my best to delay."

"Grand Commander! I saw it!"

Tanjiro suddenly became excited and waved to the people in the car: "On the hillside over there! There's a silver shadow!"

"What!" Following Tanjiro's information, several people also stuck their heads out of the car window.

In the yellow wasteland, the silver figure in the distance appears particularly clear and dazzling.

The figure walking slowly on the hillside is elegant and sharp.

With the telescope, Nie Chiwu could even see the Qilin gnawing on the few plants in the evil land.

However... Nie Chiwu always felt that the Qilin in front of him seemed a little...

Eating a little too fast?

"Grand Commander."

Laos observed as he said, "Doesn't this Qilin look a little...hungry?"

Although the Qilin looked very elegant and majestic while eating, seeing it chewing up a tree in a blink of an eye, Laos felt that it seemed to have been hungry for a long time.

However, Laos didn't know much about Qilin and wasn't sure if Qilin was meant to eat that much...

"I do not know either."

Nie Chiwu was also confused: "Why does this Qilin look like it's starving... Gaga Xuan..."

新年 快乐

Happy New Year!

……… ...

Chapter 214 Furious Qilin

"Are Qilin such a greedy species?" Laos looked at the Qilin in the distance. "The stronghold records I read don't seem to mention that."

"Qilin aren't exactly gluttons," Nie Chiwu said, peeking through the car window. "After all, there's a rumor that Qilin can survive on dew alone... If Qilin were showing off their food every day, they'd have been discovered long ago."

"Is there something unusual? Should we continue?" Naofumi Iwaya asked the same question.

"We've already come this far, we definitely can't stop here." Nie Chiwu looked at Qilin: "But why is Qilin in this state... And speaking of which, Qilin's previous initiative to attack that power plant is also very strange..."

As Nie Chiwu was driving and muttering this, Laos suddenly thought of something.

"Captain, I suddenly thought of something..."

Laos put forward his own guess: "The reason why Qilin is so hungry is because it came to this world..."

"After all, compared to Qilin's original world, the environment here is really a bit... hmm..." Laos thought for a moment and looked at the somewhat desolate badland: "It's a bit barren."

"That makes sense." Nie Chiwu scratched his chin: "In other words..."

"The Qilin, who had been living peacefully in his own territory, left his homeland, where the grass was lush and the sun was bright, and where he could find nutritious food just a few steps outside, to suddenly find himself in a desolate place like Night City..."

"Let's not even talk about whether there's any difference in nutrients between the vegetation in the two worlds. There's not even a decent forest here in Night City..." Nie Chiwu scratched his head and put himself in the situation. "And according to Kazuma, when he heard the Qilin appear, the people in Night City pulled out their guns and shot it without a word..."

"If it were me, I wouldn't be so docile." Nie Chiwu showed a sympathetic expression on his face: "I was already hungry, and there were two idiots next to me hitting me in the face with something. Who can resist?"

After listening to Nie Chiwu's description, Tanjiro imagined it and showed a sympathetic expression: "Qilin... so pitiful."

"So, do we really need to fight the Qilin?" Iwatani Naofumi asked, "Can't we find a way to live in peace with it?"

"……How to do it?"

Nie Chiwu looked at Iwaya Naofumi and asked, "Do you think Qilin knows what you are thinking?"

"That's not a hungry horse, that's an ancient dragon."

Nie Chiwu pointed at the dark clouds in the sky, which were still roaring with thunder. "Do you see those thunderclouds in the sky? They are all caused by the Qilin. As long as someone angers the Qilin, violent thunder may fall from the sky at any time."

"Even if we just want to bring Qilin back to its original location, we can only do that after repelling it head-on." Nie Chiwu withdrew his hand, stepped on the accelerator, and continued driving in the direction of Qilin. "Let's continue as we did before and gather information about Qilin."

Nie Chiwu said to the four hunters in the car: "Grab your weapons, we're going to have a tough battle."

As Nie Chiwu said this, he had already driven the car into Qilin's sight.

The hunters who were about to say something also felt some tingling on their skin.

They were already in the high-voltage electric current environment surrounding Qilin.

Qilin also heard the sound of the car starting, stopped eating temporarily, and looked in the direction of the sound.

"Captain, we've been discovered. Should we continue to get closer?" Laos reminded while continuing to observe Qilin through a telescope.

But Laos suddenly noticed that Qilin bent down slightly, as if it was gathering strength.

Laos, who was familiar with and understood the creatures, instantly determined what Qilin was going to do and immediately reminded Nie Chiwu in the front seat: "Captain!!! Qilin is about to attack us directly!"

"Hold on tight! Unfasten your seatbelts! I'm going to charge straight ahead!" Nie Chiwu cursed as he changed gears and stepped on the accelerator to the bottom.

The roaring engine of the fuel vehicle made a loud noise, causing the hunters' car to speed up again.

But... even so, Nie Chiwu still felt the stinging sensation on his skin becoming more and more intense.

"Mr. Nie Chiwu! Turn left!" Tanjiro made a judgment at the first moment and pushed Nie Chiwu's hand to push the steering wheel to the left.

The car turned suddenly and almost flew out. Fortunately, Naofumi Iwaya used the spiritual shield in time to straighten the car's course.

The moment the car deviated from its route, rows of violent thunderbolts fell behind the hunters, causing devastating damage to the road they had just traveled on.

"What's going on! We didn't actively attack it! Why would it attack us directly!?" Naofumi Iwatani punched open the slightly malfunctioning car sunroof, then leaned out of the sunroof, slapped the car with his right hand, and attached some shields extending from the Four Sacred Shields to the car under him.

In Iwaya Naofumi's other hand, he took out a folding heavy crossbow from his backpack and placed it directly on the roof of the car: "Nie Chiwu! What should we do next?!"

"There's no other way! We can only charge!" Nie Chiwu gripped the steering wheel tightly with both hands, showing off his driving skills: "Shangwen! Open fire! I'll drive! Just attack!"

"Tanjiro! Watch Kirin's movements carefully! Be sure to remember every possible movement of Kirin, and see if you can imitate it for others when you get back!"

"Laos... This is the second time we've seen an ancient dragon! Don't let me down!"

"Understood!"

After the hunters each received their tasks, they saw the Qilin in the distance leap directly, jump down from the hillside, and charge directly towards the hunters.

As Qilin charged, the thunderclouds in the sky began to roll. The next moment, a huge thunderbolt struck Qilin directly, causing a violent electric current to wrap around Qilin's body.

"Oh my god! What's the grudge? Why are you already going red-eyed right after the fight started?" Nie Chiwu saw this in the rearview mirror and cursed angrily, "What the hell is this Thunder Pony? You've lost all your dignity!"

"Fire!"

Naofumi Iwaya also aimed at Qilin. He loaded the heavy crossbow in his hand with mechanical dragon bullets and started firing directly at Qilin, but when the bullets hit Qilin's body... they splashed a lot of sparks.

Chapter 215 Arasaka Yorinobu Witnesses Everything

Leos and Tanjiro, who were in charge of observation, could clearly see through the telescope that the bullets fired from Naofumi Iwaya's heavy crossbow did not directly hit Kirin's body, but just hit something when they reached Kirin and then shattered into bunches of sparks.

That is the force field formed by Qilin using electric current to cover its body, which is also the reason why the Qilin becomes harder and more difficult to deal with when it is strengthened by electric current and angry.

"No harm done."

Iwaya Naofumi shouted to Nie Chiwu who was driving, "Qilin has slowed down a bit, but there's no other reaction at all."

"Wait until the dragon bullets are used up before changing the bullets!"

Nie Chiwu stepped on the accelerator and shouted, "Have you brought your armor-piercing grenades? Your fragmentation grenades? Your diffusion grenades? Any of them will do! Go after it!"

"it is good."

Naofumi Iwatani's eyes became serious as he stared at the attacks launched by Kirin. At Tanjiro's reminder, he released the spiritual shield as a defense. At the same time, after the mechanical dragon bullet was fired, Naofumi Iwatani quickly pushed the huge cannonball he took out of his backpack into the heavy crossbow.

Armor-piercing grenade... a giant shell made using the Monster Hunter native Explosion Fruit and gunpowder powder.

The explosive fruit and gunpowder powder blended by the hunters gave the armor-piercing grenade a considerable impact force, allowing it to steadily break through the monster's defense and penetrate the surface of the monster's skin.

And after a short time, the armor-piercing grenade will explode again.

The huge impact force has the effect of a sledgehammer, and can even knock monsters unconscious...but the problem is that hunters can't carry more than a few rounds.

Although on-the-spot reconciliation is possible, it's clear that Naofumi Iwatani hasn't mastered this technique yet...

Naofumi Iwaya also wanted to know how Nie Chiwu managed to take out new explosive fruits and gunpowder powder from his backpack while the monster was attacking, and then use that tiny gap to rub out a few new shells with his hands!

So what exactly is a hunter?

"boom!"

The huge recoil of the armor-piercing grenade made Naofumi Iwaya feel like his shoulder was hit hard by a heavy crossbow.

The armor-piercing grenade flew directly towards Qilin's head, causing Qilin, who originally didn't want to dodge in his rage, to feel a hint of danger. He turned his head away at the last moment, allowing the armor-piercing grenade to only embed under Qilin's neck.

After a short while, a huge explosion sounded under Qilin. This time, Naofumi Iwaya's attack actually caused some damage to Qilin.

But this amount of damage is obviously not enough for the ancient dragon species with extremely tenacious vitality.

"I brought armor-piercing grenades, too!" Laos shouted, clinging to the car window as he observed Qilin. "And diffusion bombs and other raw materials... During my earlier research, I figured ordinary bullets wouldn't be effective, so I brought them ahead of time."

"I'll help mediate." Leos said so, and took out the armor-piercing grenade he was carrying from his backpack...

"I understand... Nie Chiwu! Can you drive faster? Qilin is about to catch up!" Iwaya Naofumi roared, and Qilin was about to catch up with the car that had reached the maximum speed in anger.

"How much faster can it go? I've already stepped on the accelerator!" Nie Chiwu pressed his foot firmly on the accelerator, his hands firmly grasping the steering wheel. "How fast can Qilin go?"

"I think it should be even faster." Laos said while holding the telescope. "I think this Qilin seems to be trying its best now..."

"It seems... to be driving us away?" Laos thought as he observed.

The huge noise produced by the chase between the hunters and the Qilin can be clearly heard even from a long distance.

Many scavengers living in the Badlands became nervous when they heard the sounds of fighting here, fearing that some big companies were causing trouble.

But there are also people who witnessed the following scene with their own eyes.

Arasaka Yorinobu, who was riding in a fleet of hovercraft to go to Night City, was now sitting in his own hovercraft and saw the scene happening on the ground clearly with the camera.

Just when Arasaka Yorinobu was about to arrive in Night City, he was suddenly affected by a strong electromagnetic force, because Arasaka Yorinobu also deviated from the route with the floating convoy, and then used a long-distance camera to clearly see the scene over there.

Perhaps because the distance was far enough, the equipment in his car was not interfered with. Even at such an extreme distance, Arasaka Yorinobu also saw the chase between the hunters and the Kirin.

"What is that?!" Arasaka Yorinobu looked at the Qilin, which looked like a unicorn in mythology, and his previous worldview was shattered.

Is this a product of some kind of technology? Is it some kind of mecha that's simply been made to look like a unicorn, or is it some strange biotechnology?

Just as Arasaka Yorinobu was doubting this, he saw a figure that didn't look very tall coming out from the sunroof of the car that was being chased by Kirin.

It was a young man with dark red hair, who pulled out an extremely large sword from his back.

"?!"

Under the shocked gaze of Arasaka Yorinobu, the young man jumped out of the speeding car and swung the huge sword directly in the direction of Kirin.

The next moment, a huge bolt of lightning pierced through the ground, electrocuting the car into a piece of charcoal and causing a violent explosion.

Originally, Arasaka Yorinobu thought that the people in the car should have been killed in the explosion, and the young man should have been quickly killed by the unicorn-like monster.

but……

Several figures slowly crawled out from the wreckage of the exploded car.