Monster Hunter: This Dragon's Built Different-Chapter 399: The Fifth Fleet’s Speechlessness

Aki's return finally made Mother Chameleos breathe a sigh of relief. However, once her mind relaxed, a dense and irrepressible curiosity quickly gained the upper hand again.

As an Elder Dragon standing on the absolute front line of gossip in the New World, for hundreds of years—from the far eastern reaches of the Wildspire Waste to the western boundaries of the Ancient Forest—there had never been any gossip she dared not eat, nor any gossip she could not eat.

Thus, Mother Chameleos directly forgot all of her previous worries, clinging to Aki and incessantly probing for news.

It was only when Aki could no longer endure it and directly blasted her with a mouthful of fire that Mother Chameleos, aggrieved, let out a small croaking sound and was driven out of the nest.

"Gwa!"

Muttering to herself, Mother Chameleos lowered her head and walked out of the nest. At a glance, she saw her own good-for-nothing son—fat like a ball—chewing absentmindedly on a Terastal branch shoot that he did not know where he had plucked from, looking exactly like a picture-perfect example of "I'm a useless dragon again."

The moment she thought of the blast of fire Aki had just sprayed at her, she was already in a bad mood. Now, seeing her son's utter lack of ambition, her anger instantly flared sky-high.

Back then, she had cruelly driven him out of Astera to survive on his own for two or three years. At the time, he had finally begun to look like an Elder Dragon.

But who would have thought that in just a few short years, he would actually degenerate to this extent!

Especially when she thought about how the little Chameleos, every single time Logan's offspring came to Astera, would trot along behind little Loren, not showing even the slightest shred of an Elder Dragon's pride—

Her anger value skyrocketed straight to the limit!

"Gwa!!"

Amid a burst of orange-yellow smoke, the little Chameleos—who never expected his own mother to suddenly strike—had not even recovered from his face-down, sprawled-out posture before, with a head full of question marks, he fell into a paralyzed state.

Watching Mother Chameleos creep toward him in a sinister manner, like a vicious ghost, the little Chameleos exhausted all his strength and forcibly squeezed out a few hoarse sounds from his throat.

"Gwa!!" (Don't come over here, gwa!!)

After a thorough beating, Mother Chameleos—now feeling refreshed, with most of the pent-up frustration dispersed—strode off with a swaggering, utterly defiant gait, heading along the road in the direction of Blazefire Village.

Since Aki could not provide any useful information, then surely Blazefire Village would have something to say, right?

Mother Chameleos believed she still had at least that much face!

As for the little Chameleos, who was still in a paralyzed state—although the wounds on his hide had already been treated by Mother Chameleos, ensuring that nothing looked unusual from the outside—he could only twitch his limbs, lying on the ground and wriggling like a grub.

He silently shed tears, praying that no well-meaning cat would see him in his current state and then, without another word, force-feed him a specially made Nulberry juice—thereby worsening his paralysis all over again.

After all, there were precedents for this!!

...

At Blazefire Village, Mother Chameleos was full of question marks.

She did not know whether her face truly had become useless, or whether the cats of Blazefire Village genuinely did not know what had happened.

She asked many familiar cats—among them even the current Blazefire Village chief—yet the information she obtained was all the same: Boss Fire Wyvern had suddenly issued an order, dispatching a large amount of combat power to various parts of the forest to stabilize the ecology.

As for why—what exactly was the reason that made the Radiant Fire Wyverns, who had always only cared about this "one small patch of land" within the Ancient Forest region, collectively go and carry out such dangerous tasks—

These cats all knew nothing at all.

It made Mother Chameleos feel as though she were being lightly scratched by a cat in her heart—itchy!!

Aki's return was like a signal. Under the baffled gazes of the people at the Ancient Tree research base, over the following few days, the Radiant Fire Wyverns that had gone out began returning one after another, bringing the cats back with them as well.

Only, from their injured bodies and their exhausted appearance, it was obvious that these Radiant Fire Wyverns had encountered more than one battle.

Otherwise, given that they were originally skilled at group combat, and moreover had cats assisting at their side—able to allocate potions at any time—yet still ended up in such a battered state, one could imagine just how big this matter involving the Radiant Fire Wyverns was.

By the time the Fifth Fleet pulled in most of the hunters it could notify and hurried over to the Ancient Tree, aside from a small number of top-tier Radiant Fire Wyverns, all the others had returned.

This left the Fifth Fleet hunters—who had rushed hard all the way, and after arriving at the Ancient Tree were still in a state as if facing a great enemy—falling into silence.

Are you kidding?

At the critical moment of pursuing Zorah Magdaros and figuring out how to upgrade their own equipment to something better, they had issued such an urgent order, making everyone anxious—only to say that it was a misunderstanding?

The Radiant Fire Wyverns—including the Sunblaze Dragon's mate, Aki, who had recently been named the Cinder Moon Dragon by the scholars—had already returned to the Ancient Tree. Aside from the Sunblaze Dragon, whose whereabouts were still unknown, the Ancient Tree had already returned to its former order.

Although there was a tight, stifling feeling in their hearts, there was no helping it. Since they were already here, they could hardly do nothing at all and then head straight back to Astera.

Leaving aside whether that would be somewhat inappropriate, just considering how much time a round trip like that would consume—

Rather than that, it was better to take advantage of this opportunity to register their identities at the Ancient Tree Hunters' Guild, take on some quests in exchange for rewards, and, while they were at it, see if they could collect some resources along the way to craft equipment.

Thus, aside from sending two people back to Astera to deliver the report, the remaining hunters all proceeded to register as hunters. The originally overstocked guild quests—even the Blazefire Village quests—were swept clean in one go.

The Ancient Tree region—this area that Logan had originally planned to deal with last—was thus infused with a large number of elite hunters, and the ecosystem began recovering toward normal at a very considerable pace.

...

After painstakingly completing the Rajang hunt, Darren dragged his somewhat weary body as he lay down in the temporary camp. At his side, Mia kept complaining nonstop about the guild's intelligence system.

They had clearly said there were only two Rajang, yet upon arrival, there were a full three!!

And all of them were Rajang that could enter the enraged state and had passed the trial.

One against three—fortunately, Darren had brought enough Dung Pods. Otherwise, just those three Rajang would truly have been more than enough for this set of equipment to suffer badly.

Aside from Mia's constant muttering, Darren, helpless as he was, also carefully reviewed the previous battle.

How should it be put?

Perhaps because the life energy of the New World was overly abundant and active, the Rajang here were completely different monsters from those Darren had encountered in the Old World.

More agile and mobile physiques, rapid punches that were variable and utterly without warning, higher combat intelligence, even more abundant stamina—and after entering the enraged state, an abnormally over-the-limit power that was enormous, like that of a physical-type Elder Dragon.

With three acting together, the hunting difficulty was even far higher than that of an ordinary physical-type Elder Dragon.

Upon their first encounter, it truly made Darren somewhat unaccustomed to it. In the subsequent battle, fighting one against three left him with almost no opportunity for proactive attacks aside from defending and evading.

It was only after he managed, at one point, to pull open some distance and successfully deploy Dung Pods and Smoke Bombs—forcing one of them to retreat—that, fighting one against two, he finally managed to take them down.

In the end, of the three Rajang, one died and two were injured. As for the injured one, if it failed to find suitable medicinal herbs, it would likely not survive either.

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