Sajji, with his keen senses of smell and hearing, was the first to detect the danger.
He shrieked, "Four o'clock! A Cephadrome is approaching, meow!"
At that moment, the young hunters felt the hairs on their bodies stand on end. Why was a Cephadrome here? Shouldn't it be fighting the seniors from the Desert Fins?
It couldn't be...
Nuri gritted his teeth and pulled his Gunlance from the mouth of the Cephalos corpse in front of him. "I'll hold it off! You two, retreat now!"
"Why are you always the one trying to cover the rear?!" Asa emptied another magazine, riddling the chest of the Cephalos before him with holes before it could recover.
Altaïr, having also dispatched a Cephalos, temporarily deactivated his Demon Mode to regulate his breathing. "We'll cover each other. We can all make it back together."
In that brief moment, the Cephadrome had already drawn near.
The massive beast, nearly twice the length of a normal Cephalos, leaped out of the sand like a fish and lunged toward the young hunters.
"Scatter!"
Nuri roared, sliding sideways to leap out of the way.
Even with his large shield, he couldn't possibly block the pounce of a large Monster that weighed several tons. If he didn't want to be flattened into a pancake, dodging was his only option.
The remaining few Cephalos, which had been knocked down by the Sonic Bomb's noise, were also gradually regaining their mobility, hissing as they charged the nearest hunters.
The roles of hunter and hunted had now been reversed.
The Gunlance user, Nuri, was in the most critical situation. As the vanguard, he had to bear the responsibility of drawing the Monster's attention. As he fired his Gunlance continuously, the Cephadrome's "gaze" indeed fell upon him.
But the danger didn't end there. Besides the Cephadrome, another Cephalos was approaching him from his rear flank with a staggering gait.
A veteran defender could calmly handle enemies and attacks from multiple directions, but Nuri, who had only recently been promoted to 2★, was clearly not yet capable of this.
Choosing the lesser of two evils, he could only focus more of his attention on the Cephadrome before him.
"Asa! Cover Nuri!" Reactivating his Demon Mode, Altaïr used his speed to shake off the pursuing Cephalos and tried to support the vanguard.
Asa, the only Gunner on the team, also began to fire rapidly, but his target was different from what Altaïr had planned.
In Asa's view, the Cephadrome posed the greatest threat. If he could divert its attention, Nuri's situation would be much safer.
But Altaïr didn't think so. He felt Asa should be attacking the Cephalos behind Nuri.
With Asa's current strength and equipment, it was impossible to suppress the Cephadrome with firepower, but he should be able to handle a Cephalos.
That being the case, rather than launching an ineffective attack on the Cephadrome, it was better to help Nuri deal with the threat from behind, allowing him to focus on the Cephadrome in front of him.
The situation was too critical for verbal analysis and explanation. Altaïr, who was charging at full speed, pivoted and changed his target from the Cephadrome to the Cephalos approaching Nuri's back.
If he could successfully intercept that Cephalos, the result would be the same...
No! That Cephalos is already too close to Nuri! I can't intercept it in time!
Seeing that the Cephalos was about to launch an attack alongside the Cephadrome in front of it, Altaïr could only grit his teeth and desperately quicken his pace, praying that Nuri could withstand this first wave of assault.
At the critical moment, several ice-blue bowgun rounds shot over from a distance, precisely hitting the head of the Cephalos that was trying to ambush Nuri from behind.
Frost imbued with a chilling aura spread out. The Cephalos, which feared low temperatures, cried out in pain and staggered backward.
At the same time, another figure charged forward, inserting himself between the Cephadrome and Nuri. A Hammer, carrying the force of the charge, was swung violently upward, striking the Cephadrome heavily on its lower jaw.
The Cephadrome, which had been so menacing a second before, was knocked backward by the blow, its attack brought to a halt.
The Dual Blades user, who had also activated his Demon Mode, swept past the young hunters at a speed far exceeding that of Altaïr's strange "one-handed version of a Demon."
A flash of blades, and the biting frost clinging to them erupted. In what seemed like an instant, the throats of the few remaining Cephalos were slit, and they collapsed to the ground, lifeless.
After dispatching the few Cephalos with astonishing speed, the Dual Blades user deactivated his Demon Mode.
He didn't even bother to look at the battle with the Cephadrome. He had absolute confidence that the Hammer user alone could firmly suppress it.
"Didn't I tell you guys to guard the area southwest of the camp? What are you doing here?" The Dual Blades user's tone was tinged with helplessness.
Altaïr opened his mouth, unsure how to explain. He couldn't just say, "Because we got greedy," could he?
Seeing the speechless look on this excessively young lad's face, how could the experienced old hunter not guess what they had been thinking?
Shaking his head with a mix of amusement and exasperation, he said, "Get ready to head back to camp. This will be over soon."
—--
A warm bonfire illuminated the hunters' camp.
Due to the chaotic battle earlier, their hopes of finishing the quest early, returning to Loc Lac before sunset, and selling the Piscine Livers for a good price while they were still fresh had become a fantasy.
The desert was very dangerous at night. To ensure their safety, they had no choice but to spend the night at the camp.
In hindsight, they had brought this trouble entirely upon themselves. The senior hunters of the Desert Fins had actually made a plan long ago.
With their strength, they could have killed the Cephadrome quickly right from the start. The only reason they didn't was the fear that the Cephadrome's death would cause the Cephalos pack to scatter.
That would pose more unforeseeable risks to the nearby trade routes.
According to their original plan, they had intended to continuously drive the Cephadrome, forcing it to roam around and summon the nearby wandering Cephalos in batches to be dealt with all at once.
Considering the young hunters might not get enough kills, they had even planned to leave a few Cephalos for them to practice on.
They never expected things to be disrupted at the last minute.
Fortunately, they had already cleared out most of the Cephalos in the previous battles. Otherwise, they might have had to spend a few more days "cleaning up" the nearby desert again.
Learning all this, the young hunters felt a little ashamed and regretful, but it seemed it wasn't entirely a bad thing.
The bonfire crackled, and an enticing aroma filled the air. The Hammer user, his hair graying but his muscles still full, took a few skewers of perfectly grilled Piscine Liver, slightly charred on the surface, from the campfire and handed them to the young men.
"Here, try my handiwork!"
Altaïr took a skewer. Clear, glistening fat dripped from the grilled meat, releasing a wondrous aroma completely different from that of roasted meat.
"How extravagant," Asa said, looking at the Piscine Liver in his hand. "This is my first time trying fresh Piscine Liver."
The Hammer user laughed heartily. "Ha! Eat your fill! We can't take it all back anyway. This is one of the perks of being a hunter; we get to eat all sorts of ingredients at their freshest!
Plenty of rich folks even post special quests asking us to capture live Cephalos and Cephadromes, then deliver them to the city to be butchered, just to ensure the freshness of the liver.
But let me tell you, and don't you go spreading this around, that kind of Piscine Liver has already lost at least thirty percent of its flavor. Do you know why?"
"Why's that?" Asa chimed in at the perfect moment.
"Because Cephalos also rely on their livers to break down toxins. The aerosol from Tranq Bombs is a type of toxin, too. How could the Piscine Liver carved from a Cephalos knocked out by a large dose of tranq be any good?
Those so-called gourmands even comment that fresh Piscine Liver gives the tip of the tongue a subtle numbing sensation that's simply irresistible.
My god, they might as well go lick a Parashroom!"
"So that's how it is! Hahaha!"
The Hammer user and Asa burst into laughter together.