The woodland had no roads.

This was the first thing Yuto noticed. Instead of roads it had paths, crooked things that wound between the trees without any particular ambition, the ground beneath them soft and layered with dead leaves that muffled every step.

He walked and thought about the Astral Realm. The place had its own logic, and it was an older one. The modern furniture of life, jobs, institutions, social rank, none of it applied here. What applied here was simpler. How strong are you. How much can you hunt. That was the entire framework.

It was like someone had reached back four hundred centuries and said: actually, let’s try this again from the start.

The thought made Yuto uneasy in a specific way. If people reverted to their most primitive selves in a place like this, what did that mean for how they treated each other? Would they rob? Kill over nothing, over a bag of crystals, over a good hunting spot? Or was the violence here neatly restricted to beasts, everyone operating on some unspoken civilized agreement?

He genuinely didn’t know. He made a note to find out before it became relevant.

Beside him, Shiny was quiet. His steps were unhurried, almost lazy, but his eyes were doing something else entirely , sweeping left, right, above, then down to the undergrowth as though expecting something to erupt from the ground at any moment. There was a gap between how relaxed he looked and how ready he clearly was, and Yuto found it reassuring in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

If something came at them, Shiny would handle it. Or at least buy him time to do something other than stand there.

And soon enough, Yuto told himself, he wouldn’t need the time. He picked up his pace slightly. The faster they started hunting, the sooner that became true.

They walked in silence for a while, long enough that the quiet started to feel like the natural state of things. Then it broke.

Both of them stopped at the same moment. Yuto’s hand found his sword hilt without him consciously telling it to, and he drew the blade and held it in front of him, feeling immediately self-conscious about how uncertain the grip probably looked.

Shiny didn’t reach for his sword at all. He just turned his head slightly toward the undergrowth on the left and watched it, hands completely still.

The bushes moved. A wild hog stepped out.

It was large, thick through the chest, with bristled fur that looked like it had opinions about being touched. It stopped when it saw them and snorted. Its small eyes moved between Yuto and Shiny with the slow, methodical consideration of something that was deciding rather than reacting.

Then it settled on Yuto.

Why always me, Yuto thought, with some feeling.

"Don’t worry, Master!" Shiny stepped forward and drew his sword in one motion, brandishing it toward the hog with an air of theatrical confidence. "I’ll protect you from this sniveling beast!"

The hog charged. Pure killing intent, straight line, no hesitation.

Shiny stepped into its path and delivered a kick that seemed, by all available evidence, to contain considerably more force than a person his size had any right to generate. The hog left the ground. It traveled through the air in a short, undignified arc and introduced itself to a tree trunk at some speed.

Yuto watched this happen. "Woah."

The hog scrambled back to its feet faster than felt fair, but Shiny had already closed the distance. Two clean slashes. The hog dropped and didn’t get up again.

[Wild Hog slain.]

[+1 Soul Core]

His profile updated quietly in the corner of his vision:

Name: Yuto

Rank: Disciple

Summons: 1/1

Soul Rank: Threat

Soul Cores: 2/30

Shiny sheathed his sword, knelt beside the hog without ceremony, reached into its chest, and began digging around with the focused expression of someone looking for their keys in a coat pocket. A moment later he withdrew a small pink crystal and held it out toward Yuto with obvious delight.

"Master! Take this! We will collect many of these and become unbelievably rich!"

Yuto took the crystal and turned it over in his fingers. It caught the light filtering down through the canopy. Pretty, in its way. He was still admiring it when he realized he had made a fairly significant oversight, he had brought nothing to carry things in. No bag. No container of any kind. He had walked into a hunting realm with a sword and a summon and not a single pocket large enough to hold a crystal.

Before he could fully reckon with this, Shiny straightened up sharply and made a sound of genuine distress. "Forgive me, Master. I’ve been thoughtless." He reached into his own pocket and produced a plastic bag, took the crystal from Yuto’s hand, placed it inside, and then held the bag up for inspection with an expression of quiet pride. "I will carry this. I will not burden you with unnecessary tasks from here on."

Yuto stared at him for a moment. Then: "Thank you, Shiny."

He looked back at the hog. "We should take the carcass too. Sell it."

Shiny considered the dead animal with a thoughtful look. "I didn’t bring a bag large enough for whole beasts."

Yuto thought about it. "Take the head today. Tomorrow we come prepared and take full carcasses."

Shiny nodded once, with the gravity of someone receiving a military order. "That is wise, Master."

He produced a second bag, handed the first one to Yuto, and then severed the hog’s head in a single unhesitating motion that made Yuto flinch slightly despite himself. The head went into the bag. Shiny stood up. "All done, Master!"

"Good job," Yuto managed, and Shiny beamed as though he had been given a significant award.

They moved on.

A second hog appeared not long after, same story, different bush. It came out, sniffed the air, grunted in their direction, and began tensing itself to charge. Yuto noted the violence in its posture and had just enough time to wonder whether it could smell its dead companion in the bag when Shiny was already moving.

One slash across the throat. The head separated from the body and hit the ground before the rest of the hog had quite caught up with events.

[Wild Hog slain.]

[+1 Soul Core]

Yuto stood very still for a moment.

Incredible, he thought. And also: somewhat terrifying.

Shiny retrieved the crystal from the carcass with practiced efficiency, held it up. Yuto took it and gave him a thumbs up. Shiny smiled and returned the gesture with sincerity, then picked up the head, dropped it in the bag, and fell back into step beside him.

Two crystals. Two heads. Barely any time elapsed. Yuto hadn’t raised his sword once.

We are going to be genuinely rich, he thought, and the thought felt so good he let it sit there undisturbed for a while as they walked.

He was still pleasantly occupied with it when the growling started.

Yuto came back to himself slowly, and then quickly, because something was wrong. Not the sound itself, the other hogs had growled too. It was the quality of it. Lower. More layered. Coming from more than one direction.

He slowed. Shiny had already stopped.

The bushes ahead parted.

Four hogs stepped out.