Equestria's Inventor

Chapter 18: Hunt

“...Hello?” I asked as I put down the glass of mostly full iced coffee and paused the music.

All at once, the group of Ponies surrounding me seemed to become aware of their actions, as if they hadn’t known they were surrounding me until I’d announced it. They grew visibly nervous until Lyra, who had been in the crowd, asked, “Why’d you stop it?”

“Um… The music?” I asked.

“Yeah! It was soo good! I couldn’t even hear it when the magic drew me over here,” her eyes shined.

“...There’s magic? In my music?” I asked slowly as I stood there, uncomprehending of the situation.

“Mhmm,” Lyra nodded her head as she trotted around impatiently for me to continue playing music from my speakers.

At her insistence and with more than a little curiosity to test what I’d just been told, I resumed the song that had been playing and watched the Ponies slowly lose their anxiety around me as they nodded their heads along to the music.

Interesting… I waited for the song to end. They had been listening to one of the most milquetoast pop songs I could stomach, if only from the positive memories they inspired from my adolescence, “Happy - Pharrell Williams.” This made me wonder what would happen if they heard something a little… Maybe a lot more intense.

Unlike with Luna, where I didn’t want to risk upsetting the friendly Lunar Deity, I felt no such reservation against the group of mostly xenophobic Ponies that congregated around me. Lyra was the only one I might feel a bit bad for if my little experiment went sideways, but given how much she knew about me as a Human, a little bit of “mischief” was likely to be expected.

So, as the last few bars of “Happy” ended, I transitioned from the end of that song to start playing “My Only Chance - The Toxic Avenger.”

The moment the song started, I could see a tonal shift in the audience. Dozens of ponies suddenly froze up as the chopped-up vocal clip that looped throughout the entire song accompanied a few pads and synths. Then, the bass and drums kicked in and I could almost see the apprehension turn to dread throughout the crowd.

It only got worse as the song progressed and the full extent of the variations to the melody and arpeggiation of the synth arp resounded from my speakers. Now, personally, I couldn’t understand how the ponies picked up on that distinction of tone from the song, considering that the first time I heard it, I had no context and just assumed it was a badass final boss theme.

Ironically, that was more or less what the song was, just with a depressing twist at the end of the game Furi. Without knowing the plot of that game, I would have never associated the song with anything even remotely “sad.”

The crowd around me, however, looked pretty bummed out. Despite their non-human face, they made pretty empathic frowns, their body language turning withdrawn and reserved. Some were even openly crying. Whether it was from the power of magic or the sadness of the deeper context of the music they shouldn’t have known about, I couldn’t tell.

Almost seven minutes later, the song came to an end. As I found myself standing in a depressed congregation of Ponies, I felt guilt-tripped enough to return to the “Safe For Pony Ears” playlist.

Amazingly, despite sitting through what looked like a terrible experience for them, just about all the ponies that had stuck through “My Only Chance,” remained as I kept the music going. For the next couple hours, those with enough free time to kill stuck around to listen to the majority of the songs I’d recreated by DJ Okawari.

…

Near the time evening started to set into dusk, I finished making the last of the appliances and tools I wanted for my stay in Ponyville. It was to the discontent of many a Pony, that I stopped playing music from my speakers, right in the middle of a song from the Sonic R OST. With hours having passed since I started my “not-work” in the wagon, the group of Ponies had grown from a couple dozen to nearly a hundred.

“Alright, everyone. The show’s over,” I said as I used Automate for one last time to turn the assortment of parts I’d been making for my last “tool” into a hunting rifle. As I slung the assembled weapon over my shoulder, I said, “It’s getting late and I need to get going if I want to finish the last of my, uh, errands today.”

To the chorus of groans and grumbles from the dispersing Ponies, I just laughed. To think that in just a few hours they could all go from being ill at ease and unnerved by my presence, to now openly groaning and moaning their displeasure without a care for how I might react.

Shaking my head, I got out of the carriage and headed south towards the Everfree Forest. I’d already confirmed that no one in town sold meat, so if I wanted my own, my best bet was hunting in a neutral zone where Monsters and non-sentient wildlife were fair game.

Unfortunately, by the time I reached the outskirts of the Everfree Forest, the setting sun was about to bring about dusk; meaning, I’d only have an hour or so of natural lighting to work with. Of course, with my experience roughing it out in the wilderness in my first few weeks in Equestria paired with my enhanced senses — courtesy of Hypersensitivity — I should have more than enough time to work with.

It didn’t even take five minutes to pick up on a promising trail. But, after tracking down the source, I was left wanting.

[Identified Status]
[Level: 50+]
[Name: ???
[Race: Cursed Spirit
[Class: Timberwolf Alpha (Common)]
[Details: Formed from Chaos Magic that animates the branches of a magically conductive tree. Reminiscent of a wolf in appearance, it is actually a construct of various gradients of soil, fused branches, bushes, tree leaves and chaos magic. Leads a pack of 15 total. Likely resistant to most forms of Magic and conventional physical attacks. Known to possess extensive regenerative capabilities and a weakness to flames of any kind.]

“Well, damn,” I mumbled as the pack of wolves noticed me while I appraised their leader and started stalking their way over to me.

Calmer than I expected, I brandished my hunting rifle and used Automate on the scope to detach and store it away in preparation for a close-quarters engagement. At the same time, a particularly impatient Timberwolf decided to charge me alone.

With its teeth bared and its clawed paws outstretched to gut me, I activated Bullet Time, took aim, and fired. Wincing from the recoil, I re-racked the bolt action rifle, aimed at another Timberwolf and obliterated the top half of its body similarly to what happened to its fallen comrade.

Did I mention my hunting rifle was chambered in 50 BMG? It seemed like a good decision to make my weapon have at least that amount of firepower when I knew there were fully grown Hydras and Manticores prowling in the Everfree Forest. Against those apex predators, I had a moderate amount of confidence when put against my rifle. Against the Timberwolves, though?

Boom! Boom! Boom!

It was beyond overkill as a single well-placed body shot turned the wooden constructs into piles of sawdust and dirt. Even the Alpha, whose body didn’t just straight up evaporate upon getting hit, had its entire head blown cleanly off and since that was where the core of its magic previously existed, the rest of its body simply keeled over as an inanimate pile of wood and dirt.

Fortunately, after eliminating the Alpha, the rest of the Timberwolves fled for their questionable lives; I was still on the fence regarding whether they technically counted as living/sentient beings. It was a good thing for me because I didn’t come geared with high-capacity magazines. With five shots spent, I only had three left in the gun.

I had extra magazines to pull off a few reloads, but unlike in a video game where the remaining ammo in my magazines got cycled into the rest and my character always followed a preset animation neither would apply to me in real life. In a real firefight, I had no experience in reloading under pressure. I was also responsible for keeping track of the number of bullets I shot, had remaining, and when it was time to reload.

Luckily, I came out of the exchange with the Timberwolf pack unscathed and without a single missed shot. Hopefully, that good luck would continue with me leaving the Forest with a big haul soon.

…

“O-ok, this is getting ridiculous” I gulped as I loaded up my last magazine into the hunting rifle, disbelieving in how quickly my luck could turn.

*Danger*

By the skin of my teeth, I managed to propel myself back in time while under the effects of my Body Strengthening Rune to avoid getting skewered by the Manticore’s nearly foot-long claws. I’d already shot the damn thing no less than twelve times and though it looked a bloody and gory mess, it was still fighting completely unimpeded by the injuries.

[Identified Status]
[Level: 120+]
[Name: ???
[Race: Everfree Manticore
[Class: Raging Monster (Rare)]
[Details: Tainted by Chaos Magic for an untold amount of time, this Manticore has lost its ability to reason and communicate intelligently. It acts only on its baser instincts and its insatiable gluttony for anything it can consider food. Known possible abilities include: Body Strengthening and Transformation Magic, Berserking, and Manifest Chaos Poison. Inherently weak to the extremely cold temperatures.]

At the rate I was going, my chances of winning weren’t looking too good with just eight shots left if twelve apparently amounted to jack squat. So, while I was at an impasse and my mind raced towards any answer to my current crisis, I came upon a plausible, if only slightly insane, idea.

It would take precise timing, expose me to great risk of bodily harm, and more likely than not fail. But… If I wasn’t wrong in trying to exploit the potential loophole I’d just conceived of for my Metaphysical Link Ability, I should be able to manifest a Rune on one of the few bullets I still had.

If it worked, though, and I managed to get a round to go any further than skin deep into the raging Manticore, then I would have a much better chance at finally dealing enough internal damage to either kill it outright or get it to flee.

Even with my Body Strengthening Rune, I wasn’t confident in being able to outrun the Manticore. So, it was either a battle of endurance — of waiting for the monster to exhaust itself enough to feel confident in trying to run away. Or I could take the risk of trying to empower my weapon with a different Rune at the cost of having to give up the Body Strengthening Rune that was currently allowing me to keep up with the beast’s speed.

It was either risk making a mistake while fighting against the preternaturally fast multi-ton monster for who-knows-how-long, or gamble on my own Abilities and potentially make out like a bandit right away.

It took until the Manticore managed to score a moderately deep cut horizontally across the left side of my face for me to place my hopes on using a Rune on my weapon. We must have been “fighting” for less than three minutes, and though the cut wasn’t the worst of my injuries, there was no telling how much longer it would take for the magically enhanced monster to start running out of steam.

So, I continued to bide my time, dodging and weaving through its attacks as best as I could until the Manticore tried lunging at me for what felt like the hundredth time. Right after I managed to evade it, I turned off my Body Strengthening Rune and tried applying an “Ice” Rune to the bullet through the hunting rifle I held.

[Feat Achieved!]
[Metaphysical Link (Level 1 → 2) - Unique*]

It happened in a literal blink of an eye, but the process was deceptively complex. Only possible through spamming Automate, I manifested a Wind Rune and a Water Rune, aiming to reformat their default properties to jury rig the bootleg prototype of an Ice Rune while fitting in a Capacity Rune to pump the spell with as much power as possible.

Having worked with micro-inscription tools for some of my other projects, the runescript for the Rune came out small enough to fit on the surface of one of the larger caliber bullet’s casing. From creation to application, the Rune took milliseconds to form. That was also roughly the amount of time it took me to fire its payload after making it.

The bullet left the barrel of the rifle with a distinctly sharper whistle than all the other bullets I had fired and a remarkably low bang. It hit the Manticore right on the center of its chest while it was just about to finish another leaping bound towards me which I would have no hope of dodging now that my Body Strengthening Rune was inactive.

For a split second, I grimaced as the Manticore tanked the bullet like it had the dozen others I’d shot at it and leaped at me to seemingly no further hindrance. Then, about halfway along its jump towards me the Magic contained in the Rune discharged all at once and a lance-like icicle spear formed out of the spot the Manticore had been shot all the way through to its back.

The icicle exploded just as quickly as it appeared in a burst of crystalline pieces of ice and I quickly deduced it must have been because the ratio of Wind to Water runescript must have been off.

“And there goes—” I panted, winded from having struggled to dodge the felled Manticore for the past couple of minutes at maximum effort, “—half of the damn haul.”

As I caught my breath, I stayed on my feet and kept a lookout for any potential scavengers that might have been lurking, drawn by the sounds of my gun during the fight. Eventually, I felt composed enough to take off my backpack and begin field-dressing the corpse. I had come prepared with a slew of knives, a cutting board, and an excessive amount of large opaque plastic bags so that the return trip to Ponyville did not end up obliterating all the goodwill I’d earned through playing my music by showing up with monster’s corpse dragging behind me.

It was almost completely dark out by the time I finished packing away the last meat-filled bag I could fit inside my backpack. By the heft of the backpack I felt as I slung it over my shoulders it must have been several hundred pounds and even then, I probably left a good 30% to 40% of the total yield I could have gotten if I had come with a bigger backpack.

Oh well, I didn’t feel too bad about leaving so much food to waste. Surely in a place as chaotic as the Everfree Forest, something would quickly make use of what I discarded. Moreover, “waste” was a pretty ironic thing to call it considering I definitely wasn’t going to be able to eat all the meat I was bringing back before I returned to Canterlot.

I would be happy eating a steak every day of my life, but not for every meal over the course of the next couple weeks.