Demonic Po*nstar System

Chapter 1051: Strange Activity

”Is someone hunting here?” he asked quietly.

Yunohana’s attention followed the blood up the path. There were more drops on the stones where the cart had just passed.

”I don’t know. Would you step back with me for a moment?”

She drew him into the shade behind the tree beside her bag. The driver was still watching his wheels as he eased the cart down the last stretch of the slope.

”If there are monsters nearby, I would like to know before we sit down,” she murmured. ”And I would prefer to see what these people are doing before they notice us.”

Kaiden stayed beside her while the cart reached the foot of the track. The smell of fresh blood lingered in its wake.

Instead of crossing the beach toward their boat, the driver turned along the base of the slope. Kaiden watched him through the trees until the track curved around the rocks at the end of the cove.

Through a gap between the shoreline rocks, Kaiden could see a cargo boat moored in the next inlet. A man on its deck lowered a loading ramp as the cart approached.

”They’re shipping the parts out,” Kaiden said. ”Whatever they’re killing must be up that path.”

A shriek carried down from the woods above them. Metal clanged, and a man’s shout followed it.

Yunohana turned toward the slope. Kaiden was already looking in the same direction.

”That sounded very much alive,” he said.

She picked up her bag, glancing once at the patch of sand where they had been about to sit.

”Would you come with me? I would like to see how close those creatures are to the beach.”

”Of course.”

They left the driver unloading beside the cargo boat and climbed the track he had come down. When voices became clear ahead, Yunohana led Kaiden off the path and between the trees so they could look without walking straight into the workers.

The slope leveled out around a cleared yard. A shed stood against the cliff on one side, while a steel fence enclosed the mouth of a cave on the other. Stacks of crates matched the driver’s load.

A conveyor ran from a refrigerated container to the mouth of the cave. Men were unloading monster carcasses onto it, pushing feathered bodies and slabs of scaled flesh beneath the fence.

Beyond the bars, claws scraped against stone.

”They’re feeding something,” Kaiden whispered.

A worker beside the container dipped a brush into a paint tin and began covering the emblem on its door. Yunohana caught Kaiden’s sleeve.

”That is the Circle’s mark.”

Kaiden looked from the door to the crates stacked beside it. Scraps of the same emblem remained around pale patches where someone had scraped the paint off the wood.

”Could they have bought the shipment from your people?”

”Possibly. Though I would like to hear why they are taking such trouble to hide where it came from.”

Inside the fence, a broad-backed creature shouldered into view. Its armored forelegs ended in hooks that clattered against the bars, and a row of yellow eyes followed a carcass down the conveyor.

It caught the meat before it reached the ground. Bone cracked.

”Another one!” a man called from a platform above the fence.

He spoke Japanese, but Kaiden watched the workers below. One opened a gate into a narrow slaughter pen adjoining the cave enclosure, while another used a hooked pole to drag a fresh carcass inside. The feeding creature followed the bait.

The worker slammed the gate behind it.

”SKRREEEEE!”

The monster reared as metal jaws clamped around its forelegs. Men on either side drove enchanted spears through gaps in its armor, pinning it while a heavy blade dropped from the frame overhead.

Blood splashed across the pen.

One of the workers pumped his fist and shouted. Another hurried forward with a crate while the spearmen began prying plates from the carcass.

Kaiden watched a man carry away a hooked foreleg, still dripping, and lay it on a weighing table.

It matched the severed limb Kaiden had seen beneath the cart’s loose crate lid.

”They’re bringing in dead monsters to lure those out,” he said. ”Then killing them for parts.”

Yunohana nodded to him. From the platform, the overseer called for another load to go into the cave.

”He says the plates are getting thicker,” she translated. ”They want to increase the feeding.”

Kaiden studied the fence along the front of the cave enclosure. Several bars had bowed outward, and a worker was hammering one back into place while another fastened a chain around the damaged section.

A hooked foreleg struck through the gap beside the chain. Both men jumped away, abandoning the hammer beneath it.

The overseer swore at them until they returned to work.

”They can barely keep those things behind the bars, and they want to feed them more?” Kaiden glanced down the slope toward the path they had climbed. ”If one gets out, there’s nothing between it and the beach.”

Yunohana looked at their joined hands. She had brought him here to walk beside the water and watch the sunset, pleased with herself for finding somewhere they could enjoy being alone.

Now they were hiding above another danger she had known nothing about. The disappointment hurt, and guilt followed as she remembered how carefully he had moved with his injured ribs yesterday.

”I am sorry, Kaiden. I wanted you to have one afternoon without any of this.”

He squeezed her hand.

”You gave me a lovely afternoon already. Now we can make it even better, what do you say?”

”...I would like that.” She smiled as her gaze returned to the worker reaching beneath the hooked leg for his hammer. The overseer was still shouting at him. He would lose an arm if that creature caught him, and they were being told to carry on feeding it.

”I would much rather be watching the sunset with you,” she admitted. ”But I cannot leave them doing this.”

”Neither can I. Could we get your people up here before we introduce ourselves? I’d like someone watching that fence if the workers decide to run.”

”Yes. I shall ask the captain to watch the cargo boats as well. I would prefer that shipment remained here until they have explained themselves.”

Yunohana drew her phone from her bag and sent the captain their position. She asked him to watch for departing cargo boats and bring the Circle’s protection team ashore.

They waited among the trees while the men resumed unloading the container. Kaiden kept his eyes on the damaged fence, with Yunohana close beside him.

When footsteps approached from below, she turned to greet the protectors in a low voice. She pointed out the weakened bars and asked them to spread along the edge of the yard, ready to contain anything that escaped.

Kaiden waited until the nearest protector had reached a position facing the cave, then turned back to Yunohana.

”I think I’d like to meet whoever’s paying for all this.”

”So would I.”

She brought out her folded metal fan, then offered him her free arm.

”Would you accompany me? I have some questions for our most rude neighbors.”