Mount Larshen - With one glance.

The hunters looked with concern at the human arm, pale in color and with twisted fingers, and whose dried blood had stained the blades of grass in the immediate vicinity.

"Does that mean someone got eaten?" Asked the alchemist.

"Either that, or he had his arm ripped off by teeth..." Observed the expert in ranged combat and traps. "But I don't recall seeing any reports that could match such an impressive bite."

Géandre, for his part, wondered if the arm belonged to one of the hunters whose tracks he had been able to follow for a moment in the forest, and remembered the tree pierced through and stained with blood.

Maybe the fight between the hunters and the monster had gotten out of hand, and he thought that the person who had left an arm behind was probably not very good at hunting.

It was totally stupid to be taken by surprise, and even more stupid not to make the right decision - to run away without looking back - at the right time.

Fortunately for them, their current group was competent enough to handle any eventuality, no matter how strange or unusual. If a monster charged them, they could take the hit or flee quickly enough. If another type of beast, carnivorous, was lurking around, they would be just a little more vigilant.

"Hey look at that!" Exclaimed the swordsman, who had moved a little away from the group, with a serious expression.

The other five people gave him intrigued looks, and he invited them with a wave of his hand to join him.

Leaving the severed arm, the hunters joined the swordsman, and the alchemist felt a gagging urge threatening her breakfast to rise in her throat.

An expression of disgust also passed over the faces of Géandre and the defense specialist hunter.

They had seen a lot, with their experience as hunters, but even this kind of vision was absolutely horrible and revolting.

In the middle of the tall grass laid the bloody torso of a man, without a head or arms or any part below the belly button. The body appeared to have been dismembered, but something about it alerted the long-distance combat specialist.

"It's another person," he observed.

"What do you mean?" Asked the swordsman.

"Look at the clothes," he said, pointing to the beige and black tunic. "It doesn't match the sleeve piece of the severed arm at all."

"Does that mean that two people didn't make it out?" Géandre deduced.

With a serious look on his face, he leapt onto a small rock nearby to start looking around them and having a clear view; and as the seconds passed, his face darkened even more.

"I think... That no one managed to escape..." He said with a frown.

The female alchemist turned livid, blood draining from her face as Valshesia tightened her grip on her spear.

All around the group were pieces of human bodies scattered throughout the clearing, their presence previously concealed by the tall grass.

"They were butchered?!" Squeaked the alchemist, frightened.

Geander clicked his tongue. This girl was a bad choice for their team, if she couldn't handle such a gruesome sight.

This sort of thing could happen on a hunt, and everyone was fully aware of it; though the alchemist had certainly had to work at a counter or in a store before getting into this sort of activity. She was surely too fragile to have ever willingly put herself in dangerous situations, and had had to avoid overly substantial requests until now.

However, even the other hunters who seemed to have more experience than her had had their stomachs turned by the sight. Even Géandre himself.

Yet he had already seen crushed, arrow-ridden, charred bodies. There were always bodies when a monster's threat rank exceeded normal levels: innocent villagers targeted, reckless hunters who had underestimated their prey, soldiers who had run out of mana, or travelers who had run into bad luck. But dismembered and devoured bodies? Even he wasn't used to that kind of sight, and he swallowed with difficulty.

He was good at tracking creatures, and also at training them, which allowed him to know precisely which animal left what kind of footprint or tooth. He could also identify monsters by the hairs or feathers left behind, or sometimes by their howl, when it was about creatures not afraid to give their position.

Nevertheless, the present case intrigued him more than anything else, and he was now observing in detail a piece of a woman's leg found a few meters away.

"Stay on guard," he ordered as he turned the limp, livid leg over and over in his hands.

He was sure he had followed the Behemoth's trail here, and the thick clawed paw prints, as well as the circular impact on the tree, proved it was that creature that had come this far. He suspected that the hunting party had then been surprised by another monster, too distracted by their own stalking to pay attention to their surroundings.

However, the saw-like teeth marks and the two grooves that flanked them didn't remind him of any carnivore roaming Mount Larshen, and overcome with a disturbing thought, he clenched his jaw.

"What are we going to do?" The alchemist asked fearfully. "Do we have to bring...'this' back with us?"

"We have to report the bodies," argued the swordsman. "But if there are too many, we can always warn the army, which will send a patrol to clean up."

In Géandre's eyes, the teeth that had torn away the flesh were deep but too regular to be just rows of canines.

If he was to believe what he saw, it wasn't a meat-eating animal that had caused these wounds.

"Does this mean we have to postpone our hunt?" Asked the hunter equipped with heavy armor. "I don't want to have to go all the way back again."

"Neither do I. And I don't want the reward to slip through our fingers because of it," added the swordsman.

A huge crack of wood rattled through the forest, as if a trunk had just been snapped in half, and reached them through the expanse of tall grass.

Valshesia immediately motioned for them to be quiet, a finger over her mouth, when suddenly a hoarse growl came from the other side of the clearing.

"RUUUIIIIRGH."

In front of them, a large figure slowly crept between the trees, breaking branches in eerie creaks with its hairy body and pushing pebbles and gravel with its paws equipped with four hoof-like claws. The figure inflated and deflated as the massive creature breathed in loudly and then inhaled with a loud oxblast.

Where its hair was short enough, at the shoulders and hips, the Behemoth's abnormally large muscles were dotted with prominent, throbbing veins.

Dried blood stained the creature's long hair, its large horns, but also its small mouth, and Geander gagged.

The creature's violet, bulging eyes focused on the group, and the young monster trainer's blood ran cold.

"It's going to charge!" he shouted.

The group of hunters did not wait to see this prediction come true, as they were already scattering in all directions. The goal was above all not to form a compact and unique target, but several small and very mobile targets that the creature would have difficulty approaching.

The alchemist and the distant combat expert took cover near thickly trunked trees and under the cover of the surrounding foliage, while the man in heavy armor voluntarily got in the way of the beast. The latter chanted, and three magic circles appeared and disappeared quickly in front of him, one after the other.

He had just cast an enchantment to strengthen his equipment, as well as two physical strengthening spells on himself; proof of his impressive mastery of the arts of defense.

Geander and Valshesia went to the right side, while the swordsman went to the left side to get closer without being in close proximity to the two ranged fighters. Once the creature was stopped in its tracks by their tank, a pincer attack from several sides at once would be ideal.

Hearing the heavy footsteps of the Behemoth treading the ground effortlessly and violently, he turned briefly to see where it was, and saw the beast collide head-on with the armored fighter.

However, the latter could not completely block the impact, and the inevitable happened.

The man in the heavy armor let out a horrible howl of pain, and was thrown like a rag doll several feet away; rolling in the grass before coming to a limp halt to resemble a pile of broken wood thrown to the ground.

Their tank had failed to take the impact, and was surely unconscious, if not worse.

However, the beast tamer didn't have time to linger to make sure the other hunter was okay. There was more pressing matters, for right now the Behemoth, a mass of muscle that nothing could stop, was coming straight at him and Valshesia.

He did not have the opportunity to move away from the spearwoman that already, the creature had joined them with an unusual searing speed for a monster of its size. Its two huge horns were not far from skewering them, and the young man had to make a decision.

Géandre grabbed one of the plates hanging around his neck - one of silver color and oval shape - and while holding it in the air, he shouted a name.

"Basquias!"

In a flash of light, a shape appeared in the air. Starting out no smaller than a grain of wheat, it suddenly grew in size in a fraction of a second into an animal form with four legs and a long, thin tail that was bushy at the tip.

Another second, and the light dissipated to give way to a huge white tiger with a voluminous mane, a very thick coat and two saber teeth coming out of its mouth and pointing downwards. Then, the animal opened two small yellow eyes, and with its big muscular paws, jumped towards the Behemoth roaring to give it a deep bite on the neck.

The big creature, suddenly attacked, veered to the right and slammed into a thicket, destroying everything in its path; its two huge horns nearly skewering the two hunters.

He hadn't planned on using one of his summonses so quickly, and had just enough time to call the huge tiger to save himself and Valshesia.

" Géandre, what do we do?!" Shouted one of the other hunters, the swordsman.

A feline howl sounded, and the beast tamer knew that the creature he had just summoned was still fighting ferociously against the strange Behemoth.

No, this situation was more than unusual. The monster seemed much larger than expected, as well as being completely unpredictable. The fact that the beast had also surely attacked the other hunters and devoured them was not something Behemoths did. They would trample you, throw you against trees or stone to crush your bones, or skewer you with their horns; but even if they did accidentally bite you, they would not devour you, simply because Behemoths were not carnivores. Their sharp teeth were used primarily to tear and destroy the bark of trees to get at the insects hiding there, as well as to break off branches to get at greener leaves higher up.

The image of the body parts sown in the grass came back to his mind.

In the situation they were in, the creature seemed even more ferocious and deadly than ever. However, Géandre felt that they could still take their chances. Together, they must have been able to take down a rank 20 or 25 creature, so he wasn't going to write off the reward. If they started attacking it while the white tiger was occupying the Behemoth, they could corner it to attack its exposed neck. Then they could-

He felt a hand suddenly grip his left wrist firmly, and turning his head to the side, saw that Valshesia was giving him a look of concern and sternness. He didn't need words, as the woman's eyes expressed that she was trying to bring him back to the present moment to act instead of thinking endlessly. It worked, and the young man came to his senses after this mental slap.

Perhaps he needed to put his ego aside, and put everyone's safety first.

"Defensive stance!" Geander shouted.