Monster Hunter: This Dragon's Built Different-Chapter 396: The New World Is Truly Complicated

These Radiant Fire Wyverns failed to hold their territory in the Wildspire Waste. After being scattered, part of them pushed deeper into the wastes to survive, while another part banded together and entered forests with more abundant resources.

As time passed, they gradually grew up. Relying on a team-oriented way of life cultivated from a young age, coupled with combat strength that slightly surpassed the original species, they forcibly rose to become the forest’s dominant force.

This forest turmoil, which lasted for many years, allowed these Radiant Fire Wyverns to fish in troubled waters. They forcibly crossed more than half of the forest to reach the Ancient Tree region and, in one sweep, occupied several hunting grounds.

However, these Radiant Fire Wyverns were perhaps too accustomed to freedom, or perhaps they no longer needed the Ancient Tree as a breeding ground to attract Rathians. As a result, they never had any intention of coming to the Ancient Tree to settle.

Logically speaking, that would have been fine. After all, Logan is the King of the Ancient Tree. The title of Fire Wyvern King is merely an honorific used by the Research Commission, and it does not mean that, because of this title, Fire Wyverns other than those of the Ancient Tree are not allowed to survive in the Ancient Tree region.

Yet these Radiant Fire Wyverns regarded Logan’s disregard as indulgence.

Not only did they occupy hunting grounds, they also frequently invaded the water sources of the ordinary Ancient Tree Fire Wyverns, indiscriminately attacking ordinary Ancient Tree Fire Wyverns. At times, they did not even spare the cat resource exploration teams, launching repeated attacks several times in succession.

Even that might have been overlooked. As is widely known, with Logan spending so many years in the sky serving as a second sun, many areas around water sources in the Ancient Tree region have already become "temporary" safe zones. Whenever Logan hangs in the sky, living beings of any species will gather around those open water sources to enjoy the sunlight filled with gentle energy. This situation will continue until Logan returns to the Ancient Tree.

With the continuation of such behavior over a long period of time, this has almost become an unwritten rule of the Ancient Tree region. Even within Blazefire Village, this phenomenon is collectively referred to as the grace of the "Sunblaze God," and it is spontaneously maintained as if it were a tradition.

Once any monster appeared that broke this rule and showed contempt for the gods’ grace, it would be hunted by Ancient Tree hunters or hunting cats. Even if they encountered one they could not defeat, they could blow the Wyvern-Summoning Flute to call Radiant Fire Wyverns for support.

It was precisely this behavior of killing at the slightest disagreement that forcibly kept this phenomenon going in the Ancient Tree region during these years of forest turbulence.

But as those Radiant Fire Wyverns that roamed outside became more and more wantonly outrageous, all of this began to teeter on the verge of collapse.

Not only did they fight at will within those safe zones, they even did not care at all whether, when they fought, it was the time when Logan was spreading light and heat.

In the eyes of Blazefire Village, these Radiant Fire Wyverns were undoubtedly a very disorderly and root-forgetting existence. They forgot that, back then, it was the shelter of the Fire Wyvern tribe, and the Grimalkynes’ painstaking efforts at raising livestock to supply them with food, that kept them from being abandoned by the tribe and starving to death in the Wildspire Waste.

Therefore, these Radiant Fire Wyverns were absolutely a major obstacle to the Ancient Tree region returning to a normal state after Nakarkos’s death.

But!

Then the awkward part arrived.

The Radiant Fire Wyvern couples who, back then, were able to successfully reproduce and persist under conditions where even survival was difficult were, without exception, Fire Wyverns with excellent constitutions and passable talent. Many of these founding couples are still alive today and remain active within the current population of Radiant Fire Wyverns around the Ancient Tree. Moreover, as the tribe hierarchy became increasingly distinct, things that only social creatures would have—status, relationships, and so on—had long since emerged among the Radiant Fire Wyverns.

This led to the result that, relying only on hunting cats and hunters, there was no way to subjugate those roaming Radiant Fire Wyvern groups. The Radiant Fire Wyverns summoned by the Wyvern-Summoning Flute, constrained by relationships, at most would drive them off rather than kill them. Ordinary Fire Wyverns were not their opponents either.

As for the stronger batch of Radiant Fire Wyverns that had evolved from Azure Rathalos, they devoted most of their energy to guarding the Ancient Tree, as well as the battlefield to the west of the Ancient Tree region where they formed a three-way standoff with Seregios and Lagiacrus, and had no time to pay attention to these matters here.

Inside the Gathering Hub, as the reception Grimalkyne finished eating the steak in its paws and licked its paws contentedly, Darren and Mia—now knowing the whole story—looked at each other.

They had not expected there to be yet another layer of relationships in this!

"The Fire Wyverns of the New World actually have such complicated relationships—th-this... are these still Fire Wyverns?" Mia felt that making this trip to the New World had truly been worth it!

Although she had still not unraveled the secret of the stone she had obtained from her grandfather, just this seemingly very primitive monster civilization on the Ancient Tree alone had already greatly broadened her horizons.

"Nature is always full of wonders." Even the usually taciturn Darren could not help but let out a sigh.

Seeing that the reception Grimalkyne had finished licking its paws and, very consciously, picked up the now-empty plates and walked toward the interior of the Gathering Hub, Darren drained the fruit juice in his hand in one gulp. He then instinctively wanted to rub the little head of his own Felyne, who was lowering its head and counting its small wallet—but discovered that he could not bring himself to do it at all.

"Wuu~ this is the money I just managed to save up, meow!" The Felyne, heart aching, counted its small wallet once again, then finally cast a resentful look toward Darren and a certain Mia who was currently evolving toward a Deviljho cub.

That’s right—this meal, a "bribe" of cat food for the reception Grimalkyne, was once again paid for by Darren’s Felyne.

The reward from Darren’s previous quest had all been used to offset the cost of the Radiant Fire Wyvern armor he was wearing, as well as that Ancient Wyverian Terastal accessory. Any remaining money had also been spent during the purchase of supplies.

As for Mia—if she had money, she would not have let Darren’s Felyne go out to work to subsidize her in the first place!

Speaking of which, in Darren’s recommended-team lineup, the wealthiest one actually turned out to be this Felyne!!

...

Up in the sky, Logan looked down through the clouds below at two wingdrakes flying off into the distance. His extraordinary eyesight allowed him to clearly see Darren carrying the Blazing Wing.

"Even the exchange of benefits for the Sapphire Star can produce bonds strong enough. Still, has the boss of nature not yet abandoned Its plan?"

For so many days now, the Everstream had shown no activity, still flowing slowly and steadily. There were fluctuations, but they were not large.

Very clearly, the boss of nature truly left Nakarkos’s corpse to Nergigante. That was precisely why the Everstream’s energy had not been activated by receiving a massive influx of life energy in a short period of time.

Judging from the more life-saturated, tempting signals that had been transmitted from the Elder’s Recess in previous years, the Xeno’jiiva egg hidden somewhere unknown had also begun to grow somewhat anxious. It was now only lacking the amount of a single Elder Dragon that had reached the end of its life and stored life energy to the limit before Its birth.

Originally, Logan had wanted to use Nakarkos to test whether he could prematurely catalyze Xeno’jiiva’s birth, thereby altering the original course of events.

But now, it seemed that the boss of nature would rather give Nergigante the advantage than abandon the idea of using Zorah Magdaros to detonate the entire New World, conveniently killing the not-yet-hatched Xeno’jiiva in the process.

---

I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar

---