NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 471
And as the surroundings blurred from the sheer speed, Kurt reached the source of the sound around the same time.
Meanwhile, Mari’s battle with the zombie bear was also nearing its end.
What appeared before their eyes was the zombie bear, entangled in vines, struggling to tear them apart, and Mari, battered and bruised.
Kwoooaaahh!!
That was the last trap Kurt had prepared to deal with the zombie bear. But the vine trap, powerless against the zombie bear’s strength, snapped like a spider’s web, buying only enough time to catch a breath.
“…This is the end!!”
But for Mari, that was enough. Despite being battered, her eyes burned with determination. She slid beneath the struggling zombie bear and fired an arrow into its mouth.
The arrow she shot was sucked into the zombie bear’s mouth, piercing through its palate and reaching its brain.
Clearly, the zombie bear’s regenerative abilities were absurd.
On top of that, the thick hide and tough muscles inherent to bears perfectly protected even vital organs like the heart.
Minor wounds healed, and fatal attacks aimed at weak points were blocked by its hide and flesh.
But there was one place the zombie bear had no thick hide or tough muscles—inside its mouth.
“Haa. Haa. Can you regenerate this too?”
Kwoooaaahh…
Yet, even with its head pierced by Mari’s arrow, the zombie bear still managed to raise its paw to strike her down.
“…Huh? Seriously?”
Kwoong!
And that was the zombie bear’s last moment.
The zombie bear, unable to bring its raised paw down, lost focus, let out a “kwoong,” and collapsed.
“Hahaha. I survived…”
Finally, the zombie bear fell, and Mari had survived.
“Mari!!”
As Mari, who had hunted the zombie bear, let out a sigh of relief and stretched out, Kurt arrived with Karina and Serena by his side.
“Mr. Kurt, you’re late…”
Mari, lying down as if she couldn’t even lift a finger, let out a weak laugh.
.
.
.
The group, who had arrived late to the scene, couldn’t hide their surprise upon discovering the zombie bear Mari had taken down alone.
“Miss Mari! Are you okay?”
“Goodness… Did you take down that zombie bear all by yourself?”
“…”
Karina and Serena were speechless as they surveyed the wreckage left by the zombie bear and Mari, and upon seeing the massive size of the zombie bear, they were left gaping once more.
But soon, they regained their composure and each had something to say to Mari.
“Miss Mari! That was too reckless! It’s a good thing you took down the zombie bear, but you could’ve died!”
“Exactly! No matter how much you wanted to finish the quest quickly, there’s a limit!”
“No. Mari didn’t run away because she couldn’t.”
Kurt stopped their scolding.
“Up on that old tree. There’s a child, right? Mari didn’t fight the zombie bear out of a desire for glory. She fought to protect that child, risking her life.”
At Kurt’s words, the two turned their gaze to the trembling girl standing on the branch of the old tree.
“Big sis!! Big sis! Are you okay!?”
“Haha… Didn’t I tell you? I can take down a zombie bear.”
Seeing this, the two recalled that Mari hadn’t come into the forest alone but had brought a child with her to the outskirts of the village.
“Ah, I see. To protect the child…”
“But how on earth did you end up in a place like this?”
At that, Mari, with a bright smile, began to explain how she ended up fighting the zombie bear.
Meeting Pepper, a child who had lost her mother in the village, going into the forest to retrieve her mother’s keepsake, and how it all turned out to be a trap set by the zombie bear. Finally, how she used Kurt’s traps to take down the zombie bear in that situation.
It was an epic tale that could fill an entire volume of a novel.
But before Mari could continue, Kurt stopped her.
“Wait, let’s get the child down first and head back to the village. We can talk more later.”
“Hmph! Mr. Kurt, are you jealous because I got all the glory this time?”
“No, it’s just… it’s already late.”
“…Huh?”
At that moment.
Kwoooaaahh!!
A deafening roar from a zombie bear filled the air.
“What, what’s that!? Even after piercing its head, it’s coming back to life? Is it really a zombie!?”
“No. It’s the second one.”
As Kurt said, the source of the roar was another zombie bear charging madly from a distance.
This zombie bear, seeing Mari who had slain its kin, charged with malice and murderous intent, raising its paw.
And Mari, still exhausted and drained, couldn’t possibly dodge the sudden attack.
Karina and Serena were in the same state, leaving Mari completely exposed to the zombie bear’s attack.
But Kurt, having gathered clues during his search, had suspected from the start that there might be two zombie bears.
In any case, even if he hadn’t known from the beginning, having anticipated the second zombie bear’s existence, the second zombie bear’s attack wasn’t effective against Kurt.
Kurt’s muscles bulged as if they would burst, and in an instant, he was between the zombie bear and Mari.
Without hesitation, he thrust his spear, and with a single strike, the spear pierced through the zombie bear’s hide and muscles, splitting its heart in two.
Kwoong!
The second zombie bear, which had charged in, fell without even causing significant damage.
“What, what just happened…?”
“It’s simple. The zombie bears that had settled in these mountains weren’t just one from the start, but two.”
Only after the zombie bear fell did Mari react, a beat late, looking at the fallen zombie bear, and Kurt finally let out a sigh as he explained what he had deduced during his search.
In fact, the zombie bears that had attacked the mountain village weren’t just one from the start, but two.
Even when Kurt’s group was tracking Mari, who had erased her traces and left misleading ones?
The zombie bear Mari had faced didn’t have the time to set such traps.
The time between when she headed into the forest and when Kurt’s group started tracking was too short.
So, logically, the one who erased her traces wasn’t the zombie bear she faced but another, second zombie bear.
“…Actually, there was another reason I thought there might be two zombie bears, but anyway, that’s why I suspected there wasn’t just one from the start.”
“No wonder. No matter how cunning the zombie bear is, it’s amazing it avoided all attempts to hunt it until now. I had no idea there were two working together all along.”
“If there had only been one zombie bear from the start, we wouldn’t have set traps and would’ve hunted it down immediately. I thought there might be two, so I deliberately slowed the search and set traps carefully. If there were two, one might go berserk and cause casualties while we hunted the other.”
Thinking about it, if there had only been one zombie bear, rushing to hunt it would’ve been easier to minimize casualties than setting traps.
“If you had anticipated that much, you should’ve told us earlier.”
“I only became certain of my deduction last night after finishing the search. I was going to share the information over breakfast, but you ran off without eating…”
“What? Is this my fault?”
“…No. It’s my fault. I’ve been pushing myself too hard for the past month without considering you.”
Then, Kurt, uncharacteristically bashful, tried to apologize to Mari.
At that moment.
Kwoooaaahh!!
“Oops! Could it still be alive even after splitting its heart in half!?”
The zombie bear Kurt had taken down roared, the spear still embedded in its heart.
But the wound in the zombie bear’s chest wasn’t regenerating. The wound was already fatal.
It was just a final, desperate act driven by sheer will.
The zombie bear, knowing it couldn’t survive, targeted the weakest among the group—Pepper.
Kwaaaahh!!
The beast charged toward the old tree where Pepper was standing, raising both paws, glaring at her.
Eyes filled with malice and resentment toward humans, determined to drag as many as possible to the afterlife, even if it meant its own death.
“Kyaaaah!!”
At that moment, the sun reached its zenith, casting its light directly above Pepper.
And naturally, that sunlight entered the eyes of the polar bear glaring at her.
The shadow of the young girl, obscured by the sunlight.
The zombie bear, blinded by the direct sunlight, hesitated for a moment, and in that brief gap, Kurt’s group rushed toward the zombie bear.
But just before their weapons could reach the zombie bear, they realized it was already dead.
.
.
.
In truth, zombie bears as intelligent as these had no need to attack humans.
No. In fact, the more intelligent the beast, the more they would understand how dangerous and foolish it is to hunt humans.
The forest is full of prey easier and safer to hunt than humans.
Yet, these zombie bears persistently attacked humans. Their behavior wasn’t driven by instinctual hunting for fun or hunger.
It was a relentless obsession and malice, targeting only humans.
When knights or adventurers with strong powers appeared, they would hide, only to attack humans again once they were gone.
This clearly showed they recognized the danger humans posed.
So, there must have been a reason for these zombie bears to hold such a grudge.
Had the zombie bears themselves suffered greatly at the hands of humans?
No, that’s not it.
Beasts harmed by humans hate them but also fear them.
They wouldn’t risk their own lives to retaliate against humans.
This pattern of behavior usually appears when they lose a close kin to humans.
Perhaps they lost their mate to humans.
…Or their child.
Leaving the victim’s belongings in a conspicuous place to lure prey or deliberately erasing traces and creating false ones to slow pursuit.
While zombie bears are cunning and intelligent, could they have come up with these methods on their own?
Perhaps these were methods they themselves had suffered at the hands of humans.
And when they suffered these methods, they were hunted…
Kurt stopped there, but the rest didn’t need to be said.
Hearing this deduction, Mari looked at the zombie bear with a complicated gaze and said bitterly.
“To think the zombie bears had such a backstory…”
But Kurt firmly told her,
“But that doesn’t mean you need to pity them.”
“Huh?”
“Even if they were wronged by humans initially, in the end, they’re just beasts that harmed innocent humans. And do you think the zombie bears ever pitied the small animals they hunted, thinking they might have families? In the end, they hunted out of necessity, just as we did.”
“…Are you comforting me now?”
“Hmph. Who’s comforting you? Everything I’ve said is just my personal speculation. Judging by how you’re talking, it seems your stamina has recovered. Let’s head back to the village. You can take care of the zombie bear. I’ll carry one, and you can share the other.”
“What!? Mr. Kurt! I’m still injured!? Really, me too? What if I collapse?”
At that, Mari asked incredulously, but Kurt firmly said,
“Come on. Let’s go. It’s time to eat.”