Book 3: SS 1

Book 3: SS 1

Crying to the Moon

One day, at one time, a beast was suddenly born to this world from a certain space.

It didnt have any father or mother, and in the first place it didnt even know whether it had gender or not. Even so it at least knew that it existed in this world even without being taught.

It was born with powerful body that overwhelmed other living creatures. It had high intellect that could understand something without being taught just from looking at it. Although it had an immature form from being just born, the aura that the young beast had made the low ranked monsters in that forest to not dare attack the beast or even got near it.

The beast was aware that it was considered among the strong in this world. But, for a creature there should be a meaning to its existence.

The beast didnt know of any beast that was the same species with it. It didnt even feel the need to leave behind descendant because it was born powerful. It also didnt need to eat a lot. In the first place it would be alright as long as it absorbed a certain substance that could be found in food. It actually didnt even need the meat.

Then what did its fangs existed to tear apart?

Then what did its claws existed to fight?

Even so there was an instinct that sought battle inside its body. Was it born to this world just for the sake of fighting? Was it existing simply to hurt other?

Was it the only individual that was thinking like this? Or perhaps all the other individual was questioning about the meaning of their existence like this and lived with conflicted feeling?

What was it born for? Seeking the answer of that question, the beast entrusted itself to the only thing existing inside its body, its battle instinct and threw itself into an endless battle.

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Its body immediately turned mature right after it began fighting. Its body turned bigger as though it was adapting to battle. Its fur became able to deflect enemys attack, its claws and fangs became harder than even iron and could easily tear apart hard shell.

It was then the beast saw it for the first time. It encountered the strong other than itself.

Its height reached two meters. Its whole size was also a whole size bigger than the beast. Its upper body was that of a giant falcon while the lower body was the body of lion. That creature even looked beautiful.

It was a creature with a shape that was impossible to occur normally. The beast felt that it was an existence with a nature that was close to itself, but although that creature had high intellect, it didnt have the intelligence of a higher form of life to complement it. It saw the beast as a threat and attacked without even trying to communicate.

It was a battle against the strong that was equal to itself.

The beast couldnt do anything when its opponent flew to the sky. It seemed to be a disadvantage for the beast, but the whiskers that grew from its ears like feelers was able to generate similar power like the lightning that flashed in the cloudy sky. Knowing that, the beast used that power to disturb the enemys sense of balance and made it fell on the ground. It defeated the enemy after fighting for a whole day and night.

High ranked beast could block enemys attack with their fur. That eagle lion most likely also had the same ability, but the fur of the beast was able to defend against that creatures claws, while the beast was able to tear apart the eagle lions skin. That was the cause of its victory.

From there the beast finally learned that it was able to train the ability it possessed and that would decide the superiority or inferiority between it and opponents of equal level.

By repeatedly fighting like that, the beast was able to become powerful even among its equals. But, the answer that the beast was looking for still hadnt come to it. Only the time was passing idly for it.

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After that the planet finished it revolutions several times and many seasons had passed before a single creature appeared in front of the beast.

It knew about this creatures existence. It belonged to a species that was the most prevalent in this world. That species didnt have any strength to hurt the beast, its value as food was also not much, it boasted the prosperity of its species only based on their great number, an uninteresting existence. That was how the beast thought of that race.

When members of that species encountered the beast, they would either fear it or pointlessly opposed the not hostile beast. They were simply a frail creature, but this specimen before it introduced itself as human and attempted to hold a meaningful communication with the beast which was the first time for it.

The word human too was something that it learned from that particular specimen. During that process it also learned that it could communicate using the lightning that previously it only used to send other creatures senses into disarray.

That human possessed high intelligence regardless of its appearance. The beast showed interest toward the existence of human for the first time. It conversed with that human who called himself as a scholar and like that both sides increased their knowledge, heightened their intelligence, and it also learned that it was a mythical beast called Coeurl that appeared from other world.

The human sometimes also showed unnatural fear or emotion as befitting a frail creature it was, but the beast didnt look down of that as weakness due to the humans race. Far from that, it even grew to harbor a type of respect to the species of human for possessing knowledge that even itself didnt know about.

But that was nothing more than one side of the species called human.

That human who was investigating about the beast suddenly poisoned it. Then it called for unknown humans wearing iron shells to its den and of all things to do they attempted to capture the beast.

From the start the objective of the human was to capture the beast and sold it to other person.

The beast was enraged. Even if they werent equal in status, it was an existence that it could consider as an equal in intelligence for the first time, but then it learned that it was actually a wretched creature that harbored a thought this foolish. The beast felt scorn.

The human investigated the beast and made a preparation to be able to capture the beast. It certainly showed some result however, it was a pity but the short life of human was completely insufficient to know everything about the beast.

At least five more yearsif the human spent that much time, he might be able to capture the beast, or perhaps realize that it was impossible to capture it.

But, the human was unable to reveal everything just from one year of investigation. He foolishly used common poison to drug the beast. The beast overcame the poison and he ended up getting killed.

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The beast was disappointed by the wretched and sly the weak. It lost interest to them just like before.

That was a creature that it had no need to understand. They heightened their intellect not for living but only for their greed. It thought of them simply as a creature that only excelled in crafty plan that they disguised as intelligence.

Because they were weak, it shall forgive them in exchange of their life. He would allow their existence if they lived without getting involved with the beast.

But, the beast that was disappointed by the race called human had stopped having any higher expectation than that for them.

The beast became alone once more.

There was no existence that was of the same race like it, all beings that were of equal status to him were enemy, and someone who it thought as intelligence turned out to be entirely foolish.

The beast thought once more.

What kind of being was itself? What was the meaning of its existence?

Was there any other existence in this world that was equal to it?

The beast was lonely. Only the moon that was floating in the dark night was staring at it.

The moon was always accompanying this world.

That persons name was Ariashe was the only existence that Nero recognized in this world.

It wouldnt cry to the moon anymore.

Because a moon had finally appeared beside it.

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Gaa

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But, the moon(Aria) that Nero recognized seemed to be a human who was living in great hurry.

Aria was strong. But, she was still weak. She was an existence that Nero recognized. One day she would surely become as strong or stronger than itself. But, that wasnt now.

It would look after Aria until then. But, Nero thought that staying at her side like a guardian would be an act that dirtied the pride of someone strong like her.

Aria seemed to find something that she had to do. Nero moved through the forest while secretly following behind her. When there was a moderately strong monster called ogre passing nearby, it secretly crushed it thinking that it might get in her way.

Where was Aria going? Nero didnt know. But, as time passed Aria was heading toward an area with a lot of humans.

It didnt hold any interest toward human other than Aria but, it would become troublesome if the weaklings found it. Seeing that Aria was a human, it should avoid coming into contact and be hostile toward humans more than necessary.

It was necessary for Nero to wait for her somewhere. Then, where should it wait?

The frail and sly human had the habit of forming group to protect themselves from other threats. Human also used their intellect as weapon but, Nero understood that their greatest strength was their number.

The largest nest of human around her was surrounded by a wall that even Nero needed to look up to see the top. Outside the wall there was forest, plain, rocky mountain, and so on but, it could see humans everywhere. There was no place where it looked like Nero would be able to hide at.

Nero searched for a good place of hiding. Then he found it at the southern part of the forest. The place had a lot of undulations and it was like a natural fortress that hindered monster and even human to come to.

Even that place had been touched by human hand but, only immature humans were there and it had an excessively vast ground but, the number of human there was surprisingly little.

Was this the learning place for humanthe academy that it once heard from that sly scholar?

There were quite the number of human there but, human didnt enter the forest that surrounded the place like a fortress and there was also no external enemy. Nero thought that it was a good spot for hiding.

But, Nero found a previous occupant there.

Even though human rarely entered this place, when this place was being opened up, there were also people who directly went through the forest. In that place, there was human belonging that could be brought but couldnt be transported and abandoned midway. They were left behind half rotten.

Among those there must be also human who tried to move along with family. Nero had heard how the frail human sometimes kept animal to be used as their livestock. Perhaps there was monster attack or there was accident, it didnt find any human corpse but, there was that animal left behind together with the belonging. That animal was dwelling in that place now.

Naa

That animal was called a cat. Furthermore there wasnt just one cat. The cats seemed to have multiply in that place. Several cats mature and immature were existing there.

Based on the information it had, Coeurl was apparently very similar with a panther that was a carnivore that was categorized as feline animal. This cat was also classified as feline but they were just so small.

Coeurl wasnt a feline despite its close resemblance with a large feline species. In the first place it wasnt even an animal. It was a type of creature that originally didnt exist in this world.

Despite the resemblance in their form, Nero didnt consider these cats as its relative, but it seemed the cats didnt think the same. The immature cats rubbed their body on the leg of Nero who suddenly appeared there. Even the mature cats that should be protecting their children didnt show any wariness or fear toward Nero. They looked at Nero like seniors watching a newcomer and meowed before walking to somewhere.

Naa

A cat stopped walking and looked back and meowed at Nero as though to urge it What are you doing just standing there?.

What was happening here? Should it follow after them?

Nero was bewildered by this first time experience. But, it was true that Nero was the newcomer here. Throwing weight around toward small existences that didnt harbor any hostility toward it somehow felt just a bit right and also wrong.

In short Nero was confused. It didnt know what was going on, even so it got interested by the action of the cats and Nero followed behind the previous occupants of this place.

And then the place they arrived at seemed to be the dwelling of the cats. Apparently the cats were using the belonging that the humans left behind as bed.

The cats led Nero forward before each of them entered into their own box that they used as place to sleep. Then they started relaxing inside.

Even from Neros perspective, the boxes looked small, but most likely the cats had the trait of liking cramped place. They werent inconvenienced at all by the small size, they even looked like they were intentionally choosing the box that was somewhat cramped for them.

Naa

!?

There the cat that guided Nero poked at Neros front leg and guided it to that box.

There might be something inside thatit already decayed from wind and rain or perhaps some wild animal had wracked it until not even its original shape remained but, perhaps there was some kind of magical protection, because one wooden box among them still retained its original shape.

Its size was around two meters at all sides. Nero stared fixedly at it as though it was entranced. It took out all the leaves that were piled up inside and threw them to the surrounding, then it felt like an instinct drove it for the first time and it entered into the cramped box and made itself comfortable.

It was so cramped there wasnt any extra space remaining with it inside the box. Indeedit actually felt good because of that.

It wasnt like it needed to be fixated with this place. But, there was also no reason for it to not be here.

If Aria was also an immature human, then one day she should also come to this academy place. With that thinking, Nero decided to wait for Arias coming in this place. It didnt decide that because it lost against its instinct or anything.

Gaa

Naa!