"Roar~~"
"Welcome, everyone. Boss Fire Wyvern merely wanted to take a look at what kind of warriors you are—the ones who are about to launch a hunt against that Elder Dragon."
Tonkotsu stepped out from the side. The Gold Rathian armor he was wearing, along with the Flame Rathalos Hammer strapped to his back, nearly dazzled everyone present.
As members of the recommendation group, no one there could be called inexperienced. Yet in truth, aside from Darren, everyone—including Aiden—had never worn any Elder Dragon armor, let alone the equipment on Tonkotsu's body: a Rare Species set said to be even rarer than Elder Dragon gear, and an even scarcer Flame Rathalos weapon.
Leaving aside its practical performance, the sheer rarity alone was astonishing.
Even Darren, who had been focusing more of his attention on Logan, could not help but glance sideways.
"Roar~"
At that moment, Logan let out another low roar. Tonkotsu quickly began translating. In reality, it was nothing more than a few polite formalities, yet those words inexplicably stirred the members of the recommendation group.
After all, praise from humans was something these geniuses had heard far too often. But praise from an Elder Dragon—that was a first.
Setting aside the gap in strength, even from a broader ecological perspective, Elder Dragons occupied a position in nature far above that of humans. Simply having taken part in a battle against an Elder Dragon was something worthy of boasting about for a lifetime—so what about receiving an Elder Dragon's praise?
For a moment, these still very young hunters felt lightheaded with excitement, their hearts brimming with satisfaction.
The brief meeting—largely Logan speaking while the recommendation group listened—ended quickly. But when they heard that, after the subsequent hunt against Nakarkos concluded, Logan would use his own scales as a reward and personally grant them to the hunter who performed the best in that battle—
Every hunter in the recommendation group was fired up with boiling blood, itching to pick up their weapons and head straight to the Dragon Graveyard to fight Nakarkos three hundred rounds.
Even though it was only a single scale, one personally bestowed under an Elder Dragon's acknowledgment was an entirely different matter from something obtained only by scraping through a hard-fought battle.
This was the highest-tier monster's symbol of recognition of a human—a story worthy of being recorded in the annals of history. Faced with such temptation, forget these young people; even the Admiral, someone accustomed to grand scenes, could not resist it.
On the way out of the palace, Darren carefully recalled that brief meeting.
Sunblaze Dragon truly was different from past Elder Dragons. That pressure on the ecological-position level was normal; regardless of the gap in strength, there was indeed a difference between them in ecological position.
But aside from that pressure, what he saw in Sunblaze Dragon was only an Elder Dragon's pride—he did not see that kind of arrogance and indifference Elder Dragons showed when facing non–Elder Dragon beings.
That point alone was enough to show Sunblaze Dragon's absolute difference from other Elder Dragons. He would not be the kind of "evil god" who, merely because he was in a bad mood, would trigger large-scale disasters, slaughter life at will, and destroy ecosystems.
Not to mention what they had seen and heard these past days on the Ancient Tree—changes that had all been brought about by him in just a few short decades.
"A scale bestowed by such an Elder Dragon… I have to fight for it." Darren clenched his fist, a trace of fighting spirit flashing through his eyes.
...
As the recommendation group's presence disappeared into the distance, Logan turned and went back, lying down quietly deep within the nest.
In his mind surfaced Logan's recollection of how Aiden and Darren—who seemed to be the "Sapphire Star"—had performed when facing his Pressure. As expected of the Research Commission's main combat strength, was it?
Even without weapons or armor, when facing that kind of targeted pressure from him, they still carried themselves with neither servility nor arrogance.
"Is it confidence brought by one's own strength, or is it that they possess absolute courage to begin with? Either way, they are people worthy of praise."
Logan slowly raised his head, feeling the warmth of the sunlight falling through the gaps onto his face.
"Let me see it, then. Humans clearly sit in the mid-to-low tier of the ecological position, yet in a world where monsters run rampant they can still hold a place—and the strong can even shoulder the responsibility of maintaining the ecosystem. What exactly does the top-tier combat power of such a group look like? Without the boost of 'gameplay,' without the halo of a 'protagonist,' is the so-called Sapphire Star an honor that belongs to one person alone, or the brilliance of the entire group?!"
Logan's eyes brimmed with an emotion called anticipation.
After becoming an Elder Dragon, he often found himself thinking about one question.
When facing an Elder Dragon's natural disaster, could someone really do it—could someone, single-handedly, relying on nothing but their own legs, and those hunter weapons that barely posed a threat, manage to kill an Elder Dragon and end the catastrophe?
He had also dealt with quite a few Elder Dragons and knew very well that Elder Dragons were extremely intelligent and highly protective of their own lives.
At the very least, he had never seen an Elder Dragon that truly fought to the death.
Even the Admiral and his group—the backbone of the Research Commission—had shown no combat capability that could pose any threat when facing an Elder Dragon that avoided close combat and freely unleashed natural disasters.
Even taking Logan himself as an example: if he truly wanted to incarnate as a calamity and destroy ecosystems, then without interference from other Elder Dragons, relying solely on his stamina—enough to keep flying continuously for a month without landing—and his exaggerated flight speed, did humans in this era of the Monster Hunter world really have any way to deal with him?
Did those so-called hunters whose combat power rivaled Forbidden-level beings have the ability to fly up to ten thousand meters in the sky to hunt him?
The more he thought about it, the stronger the sense of dissonance between the game and reality became. Was that so-called "plot" from his previous life really reliable?
Could hunters truly force back Zorah Magdaros, hunt Xeno'jiiva, then nearly kill Shara Ishvalda, and finally complete the three consecutive Forbidden-level battles?
In its original form, that game from his previous life had merely been a game made to "hunt" for the sake of "hunting." No matter how outrageous the "protagonist's" performance was, or how exaggerated the enemies' "settings" were, everything existed solely to serve gameplay.
But now, he was truly living in this world—having endured life-and-death trials over these years to become the lord of a land, and even a "god" worshipped by a civilization.
Therefore, the more he understood his own strength and the world's will, the less Logan dared to gamble. After all, every single one of these matters carried enormous consequences.
The years he had lived in this world had already far surpassed those of his previous life. He not only had a partner, but even bloodline descendants.
These bonds and attachments had firmly bound him to this world.
Thus, as the arrival of the Fifth Fleet drew ever closer and the signs of the "original plot" approaching became increasingly clear, Logan ultimately chose to trust himself rather than trust the "original plot" of the game from his previous life.
This was also the reason why Logan had tested the operating mode of nature's will a few years ago, and why he was now using that half-dead, thoroughly battered Nakarkos to test the "Sapphire Star"—or rather, the future top-tier combat group on the human side.
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