Chapter 1: I Wonder if My Wife Isn’t Warming Up to Me Because I’m Naked?

Chapter 1:
I Wonder if My Wife Isn’t Warming Up to Me
Because I’m Naked?

HEY, EVERYONE, Yoshida Shuta here at the old hunter’s shack. Oh yeah, and feel free to call me “Shooter” if you want.

My new wife Cassandra just handed me her late father’s clothes, probably because I’d been running around in the buff since Gimul sliced off my loincloth. Hey, I’d take anything at that point.

Including a fur vest. Just a fur vest. “Um, Cassandra? Did your dad wear pants?”

“I sold them to scrape by. All I have now are his vests.”

Three fur vests, to be precise. I wore one and stuffed the others in a small wicker chest of drawers. She wasn’t joking. There were no pants.

Well, nothing I could do about that. Might as well wear what I got and show off my interdimensional junk to the whole world. I was kind of bummed not to have any underwear, so I took an old raggedy hand towel and tied it around my waist for a makeshift loincloth. The end result? Depressing. The hand towel was in even worse condition than my old loincloth, and it was so short there was barely any point to wearing it at all.

“How’s it look on me?” I asked Cassandra, strutting my stuff like a hobo supermodel.

“It, uh, looks…incredible,” she said while averting her eyes.

“It does, huh?”

“I’m sure my father would be proud.”

“Thanks. I’m happy to hear it.” Very polite, super sweet, absolutely a lie. This wouldn’t look good on anybody. Still, I tried giving a short bow to show my appreciation…but the towel was too short. The ratty thing came undone, and out came the goods.

“W-well,” I stammered, “the village chief’s calling for me, so I have to get going.”

“Be, um…careful…”

With my new wife’s half-hearted farewell, I left our house on the edge of the village.

On our first night together as newlyweds, we didn’t so much as hold hands. We slept in separate beds, the one that was hers and the bed that used to be her father’s.

Cassandra was afraid of me. She curled up in her bed with her back turned to me, and all I did was lie alone in my own bed, sulking. On the first night of my marriage. Very romantic. Was the next step a child?

Now that brought some weird thoughts, having a kid with a pretty girl like her. I bet she could see those thoughts too, with me wearing such a small, ratty loincloth. Ugh, no wonder she was freaked out by me.

The next morning, a goblin named Wak’wakgoro waited for me outside. I couldn’t see a difference between him and N’aniwa the woodcutter, but apparently they weren’t even related or anything.

“The village chief prepared everything you need for hunting,” he said.

“Thanks, glad to hear it.”

“I heard you were a warrior before coming here. They say hunting’s just another part of warrior training, so it must be your specialty, right? I’m looking forward to seeing your technique.”

“I’ve gone hunting before, but I wouldn’t exactly call it my specialty.”

“But your name’s Shooter! That means you know how to use a bow. I might be uneducated, but even I know that.”

Out of all the villagers, Wak’wakgoro was the nicest one I’d met. He kept the conversation going on the way to the village chief’s manor.

“Cassandra’s a good girl,” he said. “She’s been through a lot since her father passed last winter, but she’s got you now. About time some good news came her way.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“Come on now, any man worth his salt knows how to be a good family man! Get your act together!” he shouted and punctuated it with a smack on my bare ass. Shuta Jr. bounced back and forth between my thighs.

A family man. As a thirty-something-year-old hopping from part-time job to part-time job, I never even really thought about marriage. Hell, I hadn’t even thought about dating anyone.

After dropping out of college and getting disowned, I stayed with one of my old karate teachers in Okinawa. Their house had a dojo that I slept in, and in exchange I was sort of an assistant karate teacher. I couldn’t afford to feed myself with just that, though, so I also did all sorts of jobs—plumbing, making fireworks, whatever I could get. That left no time to think about dating and relationships.

Any man would try to seek some way to satisfy his more carnal desires every once in a while, but not me. It was a religious thing. Well, kind of. Well, not really. It wasn’t that I had offered my chastity to the god of martial arts or anything, but more that I was a religious scholar attending the seminary school of hardcore hentai.

Porn mags are something else—just one glance and bang, your heart’s pounding. The only problem was that my karate teacher’s high schooler granddaughter found my stash, told everybody, and got the sacred texts tossed to the curb. Which is stupid, by the way. I mean, I was an adult keeping my stuff in a private place (under the bed), so what did it matter?

That was reasonable. My getup now—fur vest, raggedy dick-wrap—was a wee bit more objectionable.

“Anyway,” Wak’wakgoro continued, “can’t you at least put some clothes on?”

“I’ve just got fur vests in the new house,” I said with a sigh and a quick, self-conscious crotch-cover.

“That so? Then I’ll let you have one of my loincloths later. I’ve been wearing it for pajamas at night, but it’s better than having nothing at all.”

“Thanks, man.”

“How old are you, come to think of it?”

“Me? I just turned thirty-two.”

“Thirty-two? You sure don’t look it! I took you for more of a youngster, but I guess you just look way younger for your age.”

Weird thing to say, but I’d take it. “Thanks. I get that a lot,” I lied, stroking the stubble on my face I hadn’t been able to shave since I got to this world.

“Funny, I wonder if you’re about the age Cassandra’s father was.”

“Uh. How old is Cassandra going to be this year?”

“I think about sixteen or seventeen, something like that.”

Uh! Uhh! Yikes? Is this a crime? I thought to myself. I feel like this is a crime? Oh god, I’m Dad-Age here. I’m Cassandra-Dad-Age. That’s! Not great!

“Well, you humans live longer than us goblins, so I don’t think it’s anything you need to worry about. It’s not that strange to see some big age differences between husbands and wives for you guys.”

“You sure?”

“I am. The village chief is gonna be thirty-one this year, but she was nineteen when she got married to the old chief. Guy was a grandpa pushing fifty.”

“And the current village chief was the old one’s second wife, I hear?”

“Yeah, she came here from another village. She’s infertile, sorry to say, and that was her second marriage too.”

“Ah, that’s rough.” I supposed the old village chief married her so someone would be there to look after his son. She really was a looker, so the whole thing seemed like such a shame. It hit me then that, given her age, she might be closer to being a “big sister” to Gimul rather than a mother. An unrelated-by-blood and very pretty big sister that turned big meathead Gimul into a meek mess? How earthshakingly unshocking: the meathead had the hots for step-mommy.

“But what I told you is our secret, okay?”

“Oh, uh, natch! I got it, Wak’wakgoro.”

There had to be a trick to getting the pronunciation right on these goblins—it was driving me wacky.

By the time we reached the village chief’s place, she was already waiting outside for us.

“You will be a hunter starting today,” the village chief proclaimed, lording over me as I prostrated myself before her. “As such, you shall be provided with the tools to fulfill that work. These tools have only been bestowed upon you because I have recognized you as a member of our village. You are never to use them against another person.”

“Deepest of thanks. I understand and obey.” I was catching onto all that bowing, scraping, and groveling.

The civilization in this world seemed to be around our Middle Ages or so, maybe even before that. It looked like a Renaissance hadn’t occurred yet, with sprawling rural countryside as far as the eye could see.

The difference between this world and my old one was that my Dark Ages didn’t have forks. These ones were shaped differently than the forks I remembered, though, with just two prongs. More like “skewers” than forks, you could say.

Anyway, in this primitive world my hunting gear was a spear and a bow. I’d be like one of my ancestors in those old Japanese hunter-gatherer communities, wounding prey with bows and arrows before finishing them off with spears.

Besides the weapons, I also received a leather pouch and a pair of boots. I was rocking it barefoot right then, just asking to ruin my feet somehow. Those boots were going to be a lifesaver.

“From today onward, you will be working under Wak’wakgoro and the other hunters. After you learn the lay of the land, you’ll begin hunting on your own, and you’ll earn a proper share as a hunter of our village.”

“Understood. I’ll be the best hunter I can, for the sake of my wife, and for you too!”

“Good. Get to it, Shooter.”

“Yes, ma’am!” I said, and bowed just an inch lower.

I donned my new hunting gear behind the village chief’s manor, making sure to give my feet a quick scrub before slipping on those boots. They gave me socks to go along with them, but there was a strange gap between the big toe and the rest, sort of like traditional Japanese socks. There was no stretch to the material, either.

When I worked as a walking instructor, I learned that socks were sort of an extension of the skin on your feet. See, the more you change your socks, the less wear and tear it puts on the soles of your feet. I didn’t know if the village chief understood that as well, but I couldn’t have been more thankful for the ten pairs of socks she gave me.

I slipped my high-laced boots over my brand-new socks, feeling fancy. Boots were supposed to be a high-value commodity here, after all, with people replacing the soles of their boots so they could be used for years to come.

Around my waist the hunter’s pouch hung from my belt, and under the belt I tucked my old raggedy hand towel to prevent chafing. The pouch itself was filled with a canteen of water, some hard rye bread, and two dried-out pieces of cheese, all prepared by the girl working at the village chief’s place.

On my back, I wore my bow with a full quiver of fifteen arrows. The shape of the quiver meant it could probably be used a variety of different ways, but we’ll get to that later.

Finally, I carried a spear, which doubled as a walking stick, as well as a small machete for cutting through thick foliage. It was dangerous to carry it around with the blade exposed, so I kept it in a leather sheath.

“Hey, look at you!” Wak’wakgoro exclaimed. “Finally looking like a proper hunter!”

“I mean, I am one starting today, so I’d hope so,” I said with a smile.

“Except most hunters cover up a bit more,” he said with a cackle.

I was letting it all hang out, as usual. Being naked didn’t seem to matter as much here as it did back in my old world. Other people wouldn’t so much as flinch at the sight of my dangly little dude. Sure, my new wife Cassandra and the girl at the village chief’s manor would look away, but they must’ve just been embarrassed because they weren’t mature enough to handle it. Yeah. Yeah, that had to be it.

“Shooter,” said Wak’wakgoro, “you just gotta trade any extra prey you take out to get yourself some clothes.”

“Oh yeah, of course. Just because I’m wearing this doesn’t mean I’m not civilized. I’m embarrassed. Who wouldn’t be?”

“Y’know, sometimes I just don’t get what you’re saying.”

With Wak’wakgoro as my guide, we made our way to the forest. The other villagers only stared at us in silence. No one said a word.

“Everyone seems to be giving us a pretty wide berth,” I noted. “No ‘hellos’? No ‘good lucks’?”

“We’re hunters,” he said sadly. “They hate hunters in this village, and always have.”

They kept staring at us. Now I just wanted to look away.

***

Hunters know their own hunting grounds; the places get etched into their souls. My uncle wasn’t just an expert duck hunter. He also knew every nook and cranny of his ground, knew the tiniest details about his prey. The same went for his hunting dogs. They were all thoroughly trained, and every one of them could navigate the roughest terrain in pursuit of prey.

Whenever my uncle went to a new hunting ground with his friends, he’d have a local hunter show him around, treating him like an honored guest in unfamiliar territory.

A hunter is the master of his grounds, the king of his wilds.

My prior hunting grounds happened to be a little more…computerized. But it was a video game about hunting monsters, you see, so doing the same thing in this world seemed like a perfect match. Wyverns? They were nothing to me…I mean, in video games.

Wak’wakgoro and I made our way through the lighter woods to the east of the village until we pushed our way into a darker, more foreboding forest.

“The locals call this place the ‘Apegut Forest,’” said Wak’wakgoro.

“Apegut?”

“Mmhm. Apparently they call it that way because they found the guts of some kind of giant ape around here.”

Oh, so this world had gorillas now? Or maybe we were talking yetis, a bigfoot, or some other relative to the great apes.

“How do a bunch of ape intestines get slathered everywhere? Does that mean something killed it, ate it, and just flung pieces all over the place?”

“Probably something like that,” he said, sighing through his hooked nose. “There’s a wyvern nest located deeper in the forest.”

“And that’s what Cassandra’s father died facing.”

“That’s the one. But Shooter, listen up.”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t try going all gung-ho on me here. I don’t care what they call you—any hunter only just setting foot in this forest wouldn’t be able to take one down. Not now.”

All of his humor, all of his friendliness, had given way to seriousness.

“Of course. I’m only a part-time warrior, and like you said, I just got here. I’ll be listening to everything you say until I’ve got a better grip on our hunting grounds.”

I didn’t even know what a wyvern looked like, and I didn’t care to find out. As a matter of fact, every moment spent not in the presence of a wyvern seemed like a teensy victory. My video-game wyverns were huge flying dragon-things. What kind of idiot would try hunting that with a dinky bow and arrow? Even a rifle seemed barely adequate.

“Good to hear. Our target is something else.”

“Got it. So, what’s your specialty when it comes to hunting?”

You hear the word “hunter” as a blanket term, but anyone who hunts animals has their own area of expertise, whether that be birds, deer, wild goats, foxes, rabbits, whatever. My uncle’s specialty was wild birds—ducks, turtle doves, pheasants, you name it. Wild boars and bears were said to be some of the nastiest targets, real violent bastards. The safest way to hunt them was to lie in wait and take them by surprise before finishing them off. Even then, there’s always the danger of losing your hunting dogs to an attack.

“Me? This is my specialty.” Wak’wakgoro stuck out his pinky with a hearty laugh.

“You…I don’t get it, what do you mean?”

“Females. I especially like ’em young. I’m not talking about human ones, though.”

“Goblins, then?”

He was a goblin himself, so I guess it wouldn’t be strange for him to specialize in going after all the little loli-goblins.

Wak’wakgoro gaped. “Wha—I—no, what are you talking about? I can’t just go around nabbing goblin girls, the village chief would have my head!”

“Then what do you mean?”

“Kobolds, Shooter! The females usually travel around with kids, and if you attack a group of them, there’s a pretty good chance the females will get left behind.”

Oh, duh. Fantasy world. “Females” could mean just about anything. “What are kobolds like?”

“C’mon, you serious? They’re like little monkey people, but with yappy jackal heads.”

It sounded like the kobolds he was talking about weren’t much different from what I knew from in folklore, games, and the like.

“So you capture them?”

He went on, “They breed like rabbits, and they’re a pain in the ass, always ruining our farmlands.”

“Kobolds are pests, then.”

They were, and Wak’wakgoro treated them that way. My good goblin friend used the captured kobolds as bait…by killing them. It felt crappy, but the kobolds put the livelihood of the whole village in danger. My uncle used to capture the weasels that would attack his chickens as well, so it wasn’t like I didn’t get it.

“They attack the livestock, too. Nothing good comes of kobolds, and the awful things are dumber than a box of rocks.”

“They’re beasts, after all. What happens after killing the kobold?”

“We use them as bait to lure out the real prize—lynxes. Their fur is some real high-quality stuff, and you can sell them for a good price to merchants.”

“Lynxes?” Was that a magical thing? No, wait, they were like those big cats from my world. “Doesn’t that mean we can’t get any meat from the kobolds?”

“Nah, kobolds aren’t my real target. I hunt my fair share of deer and rabbits, for meat. They’re good eating, and you can find them all over Apegut.”

“Deer and rabbits, gotcha.”

“Deer around here aren’t all that big, so you can take them down even if you’re all on your own. Now come on, follow me.” He gave me a pat on the back, pulled out his machete, and started hacking through the foliage, trekking deeper into the forest.

There I was, hiding myself in the thick overgrowth of the forest. According to Wak’wakgoro, herbivores passed through all the time. Not just deer and wild pigs, either—kobolds.

“How good are you with a bow?” Wak’wakgoro asked.

We took our bows off our backs and readied them to fire, should our target cross our paths. As for being any good at one, well…I played a role in an Enka folk singer’s performance as a hunter back when I was job-hopping. The bow I used then was made of carbon, but I never ended up firing the thing.

“I used to have a longbow before, so this one feels a bit different,” I said, which was almost not a lie.

“Gotcha. You are a warrior, after all, so I get that. Don’t underestimate a nice shortbow, though. Doesn’t matter if you’re experienced or not, it only takes a little getting used to and then it’s a breeze.”

Bows were for bleeding your prey dry, and the spear was to put them out of their misery. Handling poles was my forte, so the spear would be no problem. The shortbow, on the other hand…

“I’d love to practice firing it sometime.”

“Yeah, I bet. Let’s meet our quota for the day and I’ll be happy to help.”

Bugs feasted on my way-too-bare skin as we waited. And waited. There, rustling…and it was just another rabbit. How long had we been out there? We left the village in the early hours of the morning, but it must’ve been nearly noon.

Wak’wakgoro was more than willing to shoot the breeze with me, but he wasn’t so talkative as we hid in the forest underbrush. We decided to eat our lunches a bit early. The rye bread just made me incredibly thirsty.

All of that on top of getting profoundly itchy in the forest thickets. The bug bites weren’t helping, and worse, I was basically naked. The rocks and pebbles on the ground dug into my butt, and the grass rubbed against my skin, leaving tiny cuts. It was driving me nuts! I’d have to ask Wak’wakgoro or Cassandra for some advice on how to be even a little less uncomfortable next time. At the time I just smeared mud on my skin as a kind of makeshift solution.

“You’re pretty resourceful, huh,” Wak’wakgoro said, raising his eyebrows and watching me apply my earthy anti-itch cream.

“I learned it back when I went camping with a portable fire pump.”

“A fire what?”

One time when I worked at the apparel shop, my manager made us take part in a surprise attack on another airsoft team who were camping in the mountains nearby. I went marching through the mountains decked out in full combat gear, carrying a fire pump and a two-liter water bottle.

Bugs were just as hungry for my sweet flesh back then. We had this stuff called “bug juice” that was supposed to act as a repellent, but did absolutely jacksquat. Instead, we slathered mud over any exposed skin as a countermeasure. It didn’t protect us all day, but it kept the bugs from eating us alive.

“A fire pump,” I said, “is a magic tool you use to put out fires.”

“Wait, you’re a warrior and you can use magic?”

“Nah, not casting magic, just using magic tools. Anyone can do that.”

“Kobo!”

Aaaaand kobolds. Everywhere, fuzzy yappy kobolds. Must’ve approached us while we were talking. I almost yelped, but Wak’wakgoro’s hand shot over my mouth. They didn’t seem to notice us at all. They were probably en route to find food or water or something.

Wak’wakgoro poked me with his elbow, signaling that I should be ready with my spear. Not like I could be the one using the bow yet. As he whispered and signaled instructions, Wak’wakgoro readied his bow and took aim. His movements were fluid and precise, a thoroughly entrancing technique.

“Koboooh!” The boss of the group of kobolds, noticeably bigger than the rest, let out a howl to signal his comrades to gather around him.

I grinned. Yeah. This first hunt was gonna go well.

The goblin huntsman Wak’wakgoro cut a gallant figure. His bowstring stretched taut as he nocked an arrow from the shadowed bushes, and—snap!—let it fly. The arrow dug into a female kobold.

“Kogyehhh!” A high-pitched screech rose from the wounded kobold. Wak’wakgoro kept calm, grabbing another arrow he had left by his feet. Released it. Had to be five seconds, maybe less.

The pack panicked. A second arrow found its mark as well, and the children close to the target went running back to their mother.

The boss kobold swung its stick, scanning its surroundings…and freezing as it saw the brush where Wak’wakgoro and I hid.

“All right, go get ’em, Shooter!” Wak’wakgoro roared as his third arrow pierced another kobold. I picked up my spear with one hand and charged.

While we were hiding in the bushes, Wak’wakgoro told me that once he let loose with the arrows, my job was to rush in with my spear. Though kobolds were extremely cautious creatures, they weren’t very attentive. If they found something that piqued their curiosity, they would become completely fixated.

Not too surprising, if you think about it. I mean, we’re talking dog-headed monkeys here.

Kobolds were fairly weak on their own, so they formed packs to live together. Sure, they could use tools to protect themselves, but if they ever picked on somebody they couldn’t take, they’d panic.

Wak’wakgoro told me that kobolds only showed the bare minimum when it came to intelligence. Basically, whenever they faced something genuinely dangerous, they were just smart enough to fly into a panic about it. Sure, they could be sly and cunning if a fight was going their way, but their brains clicked off the moment the tide turned against them. Which is totally unlike any other intelligent species, right? Right. Let’s just…keep telling ourselves that.

Anyway, that’s why I leapt out of the bushes and started really raising hell. If I gave the kobolds time to react, they might decide to try and fight back. The wilder I acted, the less likely that was.

“Bogo bogeh!” the boss kobold howled. It must have been some kind of order in koboldish (or whatever you call it), because several other kobolds lunged toward me as the young and the females ran away.

I took a low stance and drove my spear straight into the chest of the kobold leading the charge. The blade slid into its flesh, wet and sickening. Nothing like karate.

I pulled it out right away before the blade stuck in the contracting muscles—I’ve heard those things happen when humans get shot or stabbed in all kinds of ways.

Warily I closed the gap between me and the kobold leader.

“The boss is coming your way, Shooter!” Wak’wakgoro cried.

The boss kobold (incidentally, wearing a much nicer loincloth than mine) rushed at me, brandishing a razor-sharp wooden stick.

Mud and dirt sprayed in all directions as the boss kobold’s spear struck the earth. The guy was fast and looked pretty strong to boot. I didn’t have to take him down, though. All I had to do was make him afraid of me.

“Take this, you damn, dirty ape!”

Times like these, you gotta be assertive. And although kobolds weren’t just primates, everything about them reminded me of something just barely past monkeys on the evolutionary ladder.

With a mighty shout, I thrust my spear toward the boss kobold. He dodged. I didn’t care. More kobolds appeared on either side of me, but I had my spear ready and waiting.

“Ratten koboh!” the boss kobold howled as they made their retreat, dragging a kobold I’d killed with them. The children and females scampered after them.

Once again, Apegut Forest was silent.

“Nice going. Just what I’d expect from a warrior like you, Shooter,” said Wak’wakgoro. He switched to his spear, and he looked carefully out at his surroundings as he turned one of the kobolds over with his foot. I just took a long, ragged breath. It was over.

“We bagged ourselves a grown male and a younger female. Usually I’d only be able to take down a female by myself, you just got us twice the bait.”

“I’ve never done something like that before,” I said. “I was actually panicking a little, to be honest.”

“You serious? You handled yourself pretty well out there.”

“How would you deal with a whole group of kobolds when you were hunting alone? Like, assuming you managed to take one down with arrows first, what would you do next?”

“I’d switch to my spear right after my first arrow and rush straight for the head honcho. You wanna try and hurt them before they get a chance to think up anything sneaky. I don’t bother with anyone else.”

Made sense. Hit the big guy, strike fear through the entire pack, and get them running away all on their own.

Wak’wakgoro beamed devilishly before unsheathing his machete and starting to slice up one of the kobolds.

“So there’s no point in really going for them, then.”

“Yup. You went after the head honcho’s lackeys too, but it’s not about numbers. It’s all speed.”

“That was my bad. Sorry.”

“Next time, I want you to just focus on the boss. They’re usually tougher than the rest, so it’d be a pretty even match even for a goblin like me. I’d at least be able to mess him up if we took them by surprise. An injured kobold is basically helpless, so when you get the ball rolling it usually ends the same way.”

The last (and only) time I was in a fight this big was when I worked at a Japanese BBQ restaurant. A couple of drunk customers got into a scuffle. I jumped in and got them to stop with a few good hits, but I ended up getting fired because of it. Huh. I wonder how that manager’s doing?

Wak’wakgoro ran his machete across a kobold throat. Fresh blood gushed from the wound. He grabbed the body by the ankles and began dragging it across the ground

“What are you doing?”

“Spreading the scent of blood. Grab our stuff, we’re gonna get our trap ready.”

I gathered our equipment and followed.

The trap was a simple snare, the kind with a rope that would loop around our unfortunate victim’s leg and hoist them into the air. Any flimsy rope wouldn’t be enough to handle something like a lynx, so we were working with a sturdy wire. It was a primitive kind of snare, made to tighten around whatever sprung the trap.

Maybe that was the limit of technology here, or maybe better traps cost too much for a tiny village. I’d have to ask, because a bear trap would be a damn lifesaver.

“Seems like a pretty well-thought-out trap,” I said.

“It may be simple, but let’s say our prey gets caught and starts thrashing. That wire’s just gonna dig deeper into their leg.”

“And we’re setting up a bunch?”

“We have to. That’s the trade-off for them being so simple. We set ’em, cover ’em, tie the front of the trap to a stake or tree branch, and boom! Snap! Thrash, dig, all that good stuff!”

“You’re really an old hand at this,” I said, admiring Wak’wakgoro’s work as I helped him get the traps together.

“I should hope so after all these years. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love a good bear trap instead, but the governor has to approve or we’d be breaking the law.”

Convenient—he answered my question before I could even ask. The answer made sense, too. Animal rights groups back in my world argued that bear traps were inhumane, which got those things tied up in red tape there too.

“That’s why we’re only allowed to use those when we’re hunting big game,” Wak’wakgoro continued, “like wyverns.”

“Gotcha. Where does the governor live?”

“In the village chief’s manor, obviously.”

“In the—?”

“The village chief is the governor. She’s been granted knighthood, which makes her the leader around these parts.”

“Really? That true?”

“This is the frontier. Who else would be the governor?”

Damn, so the village chief was a real-life knight? My mind hurtled back to some…unique manga about proud lady knights being unladylike with some very robust orcs. Was that a real knight thing? It’d be super tacky to ask, right? Right?

“Uh. Hey, man, why’re you holding your crotch? Hello? Wire? Kobold traps? Let’s go?”

“Nothing! Nothing weird’s happening, everything’s fine, let’s go!”

Look, Shuta Jr. is a sensitive guy, you know? Way too sensitive, if you ask me, especially when it came to my overactive imagination.

After we set up snares in a couple spots, the look on Wak’wakgoro’s face said everything before he spoke a word: we’d done a good day’s work.

“That’ll be it for today, so let’s head back.”

“We’re leaving already? We’re not going to nab some rabbits or something?”

“Only if we see ’em on the way back. We really just have to wait for a lynx to trip our snares. It’ll take some time for the scent of the blood to spread throughout the forest.”

Our work finished, Wak’wakgoro went back to his normal, talkative self. He asked question after question. “You slept with Cassandra yet?” was a big one. And, while we were at it, “How many kids you want?” Along with the extremely specific but much appreciated, “If you want to enjoy that newlywed life for a bit, would you like me to show you to the priest, get you some decent birth control stuff?”

I did my best to keep it casual. “No messing around yet, we’re gonna try it out as friends first. Oh, but I have seen her going number two before. I know it doesn’t count, and it’s nothing to be embarrassed about since we’re married, but she did not seem happy about it. She was angry the whole time, matter of fact!”

When I finally came home, I found that my new wife wasn’t exactly on the edge of her seat waiting for me.

“I’m home and ready for dinner! Saw that smoke coming up from the chimney, so I figured it’s almost ready!”

“Eep!”

When I pushed the front door of our little cabin open, I saw Cassandra staring up at me from her bed, eyes wide with shock. She froze, curled up tight with both hands between her thighs for…some reason?

“Ah! Um! Welcome home…”

“Yeah, I’m back. You, err…that smoke…you weren’t cooking?”

“N-no…I was heating the water so you could wash yourself.”

“Oh, that sounds great. I could use a good wash. Think I’ll just go ahead and get going.”

I let all my hunting gear drop to the floor. I took the wooden bucket and poured the scalding water into the bath cauldron. Cassandra stood up from the bed. She watched me. As I reached to undo her father’s old vest, she approached me. Cautiously, she reached out to take it.

Our hands touched and—she pulled back suddenly and dashed to a corner of the room. Cassandra’s fingers were moist for some reason. A bit sticky, too. She shifted, looking away from me and pressing herself into the corner.

Weird wet hand, skittish run to the corner…I didn’t know this culture, but it was clear that she wasn’t warming up to me at all. She must’ve hated that order from the village chief to marry me.

Day two of newlywed life. Thirty-two-years-old, and just now it hits me that my wife probably isn’t warming up to me because I’m naked!

***

The next morning, I found Wak’wakgoro waiting for me outside my house in full hunter attire, spear in hand.

“Morning, Wak’wakgoro. You heading out somewhere?”

“Catching lynxes in our traps, I hope—and you’re coming with me.”

“Think we’ll get one so soon?”

“Who knows?” Wak’wakgoro replied with a snort. “The smell of blood should be spreading through the forest by now. Lynxes love blood. They’ve gotta be close by.”

“Right, got it. Then I guess I’ll be off now,” I said, bidding farewell to my wife.

“Um. Be careful out there.”

Cassandra saw us off. Before long, Wak’wakgoro and I were in our hunting ground once more.

The lynxes in the forest were usually solitary, Wak’wakgoro told me, and they tended to have their own territories.

“Yesterday we placed our snares on a spot where a bunch of their territories intersect with each other. Usually the males try to avoid that, since it leads to some pretty nasty fights between them.”

“Cats,” I said suddenly. “They’re like a bunch of housecats.”

“Bigger, sure, but you’re not wrong. Male and female lynxes, on the other hand, tend to have territories that overlap each other, but that’s because they gotta get that sweet pussycat lovin’.” Wak’wakgoro grinned. Ah, shit. “So,” he said, “how’re things going with Cassandra?”

“Slowly.” Even that was overstating it. She always looked away when I smiled.

“At least she’s warming up to you.”

“C’mon, have you looked at us?”

“I’ve known Cassandra for a long, long time, man. This isn’t a big village, you know? Trust me.”

My wife seemed unhappy at times, but she was damn cute. I hoped Wak’wakgoro was right.

We were on our way to our snares when Wak’wakgoro suddenly stopped me.

“Something wrong?”

“These footprints—they’re fresh.”

And gigantic, too. These cat-like footprints had to be the size of a girl’s hand, maybe bigger.

“These are some pretty big prints. Is it a lynx?” I asked tentatively.

“Gotta be. Outside of bears and wyverns, they’re the biggest animals around here,” Wak’wakgoro said, gazing out at the trail of prints. Man, these things were huge, even for fantasy-world junk. Lion-sized, tiger-sized, maybe bigger.

With a nod, we crouched and stalked along the trail. Wak’wakgoro fell quiet again—back to hunter mode, I guess. The lynx could be anywhere.

I gripped my spear tightly—no point in using the bow until I knew what I was doing, so I wanted to have something ready in case we found the lynx. Getting caught flat-footed by something so fast would be trouble.

After following the tracks for a bit, Wak’wakgoro stopped. Crouched low.

“These prints haven’t dried yet,” he whispered.

I was on edge now. The lynx must’ve been stalking close to our snare traps. Sure, they smelled the kobold blood, but they were playing it safe for now. Clever girl.

All at once Wak’wakgoro bolted upright and readied his spear.

“Shooter, there!”

I whipped out my own spear just in time—a massive, snarling cat-like creature beast rose before me. It was just enormous, big as a tiger, and its roar was as much like a pussycat’s as a wolverine’s. The lynx leapt from the bushes and swiped at me with a muscled front leg, its obsidian claws glinting in the sparse light. One hit from that would’ve been it.

I rolled out of the way, pausing only to land a glancing blow on its flank. Fast as it was, it was big. You could telegraph those movements, wait for when it readied the next move and there—right there, that’s your window.

Rising from my roll, I spun around. The lynx charged. I aimed a solid thrust as it came at me. No time to put power into it, not with such a short distance, but I didn’t have time to complain. The tip of the spear vanished into the black inside of the lynx’s mouth. The shock of impact shuddered through my right hand. I let go of the spear and jumped back to avoid the death-spasms of the lynx’s razor-claws. The spear dug into its mouth, the point gleaming red through the back of its skull. It thrashed absently, agonized, before falling to the ground, where it twitched and seized.

“You okay, Shooter?”

I took a deep breath. “That, uh. Wow. Close, huh? I’m okay. Not hurt, at least.”

“You took out that lynx with just one blow.”

The lynx was still breathing. This was a younger one, Wak’wakgoro told me. He drew his machete and, without hesitation, slit its jugular to put it out of its misery.

“Judging by its fur, I’d say he’s somewhere between three and five years old. That’s a good profit, long as we carve him up nice and proper. Bit smaller than I thought, though. The spots on a more mature lynx would be a lot bigger.”

“I guess it’s lucky for me that it was a young one, then. I’d hate to face off against a full-grown adult.”

“You’re right about that. Being a hunter means weighing your risks. Get greedy and get killed. Play it safe and you can hunt another day. We wouldn’t want to send you home to Cassandra in a pine box, you know?”

I bowed—it was good advice from a veteran hunter.

“Since I sometimes hunt male lynxes, other males start to move in this way from the deeper parts of the forest. Of course, all I do then is hunt them down, and the cycle continues. Man, I’m looking forward to seeing what we get tomorrow!” Wak’wakgoro said. He slapped me on the back, laughing.

We never imagined we’d get our lynx while on our way to check those traps. It was one lucky haul. We strung up the lynx between our two spears and decided to head back for the day.

After coming home, I started skinning the lynx with Wak’wakgoro. Cassandra was shocked when she came home and saw us.

“Your husband’s a real catch, Cassandra. This guy just took down a lynx in one strike! Just what you’d expect from a vet in the warrior business!”

“That’s amazing…”

All I could do in the face of all these compliments was sheepishly scratch at my head, maybe give a few quick bows of gratitude.

“Make sure and take good care of him, will ya?” said Wak’wakgoro. “He’s gonna make it big someday, I tell ya.”

“I will.”

I was feeling pretty good from all this praise I was getting, so I turned to look at my wife—maybe today was my lucky day—and she promptly turned to look away from me in kind. But no way was I going to let that discourage me!