Chapter 76: The Mountain Hunt
The village appeared at the base of the mountain like something from a storybook. Small stone houses with steep roofs to shed snow, smoke curling from chimneys, a central square with a well and a statue of some forgotten hero. The kind of place that had been here for centuries and would be here for centuries more, assuming nothing came along to change that.
Gray and Juvia walked through the main gate as the afternoon sun began its slow descent behind the peaks. The villagers stopped what they were doing. A woman carrying water froze mid step. A blacksmith lowered his hammer. Children peeked out from behind doorways, eyes wide.
"They're from Fairy Tail," someone whispered. The whisper carried.
"The guild that fought Phantom Lord."
"Look at the blue hair. Is that the water woman?"
"And the ice mage. They sent both of them."
Gray adjusted his shirt, which was still on, thank you very much. Juvia walked close enough that her arm brushed his with every step.
An elderly man stepped forward from the crowd. He had the weathered face of someone who had spent his life in the mountains, skin like leather, eyes sharp and assessing. He looked at Gray, then at Juvia, then back at Gray.
"You're the ones who answered the request?"
Gray nodded. "Gray Fullbuster. This is Juvia Lockser. We're from Fairy Tail."
The man's expression shifted. Something like relief, something like hope. "I'm Elder Terrence. We're grateful you came. The beast has been taking our livestock for weeks. Two days ago, it took something worse."
He didn't say what. He didn't need to.
A woman stepped forward from the crowd, younger, with red-rimmed eyes and a child clinging to her skirt. She looked at Gray and Juvia with an intensity that made Gray's chest tighten.
"You'll kill it?" she asked. Her voice cracked on the last word. "You'll kill the thing that took my boy?"
Juvia moved before Gray could respond. She took the woman's hands in hers, her expression soft, her voice gentle.
"Juvia and Gray-sama will find the creature. Juvia and Gray-sama will stop it. Juvia promises."
The woman's face crumpled. She nodded, once, and retreated back into the crowd.
The elder cleared his throat. "You'll want to rest before the climb. We have rooms prepared. Food. Whatever you need."
Gray shook his head. "We should go now. While there's still light."
"The mountain is dangerous at night. The storms come fast. The cold kills faster than any beast."
"We'll manage," Gray said.
The elder studied him for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly. "I see. The Fairy Tail mages have a reputation. I won't pretend to understand your magic, but I understand determination." He looked at Juvia, then back at Gray. "You make a fitting pair, you know. Ice and water. Cold and cold. The mountain will respect you, maybe."
Gray's face went red. Juvia's hands flew to her cheeks.
"Juvia and Gray-sama are not..." Gray started.
"Juvia and Gray-sama are honored by your words!" Juvia finished, beaming.
The elder's eyebrows rose. The villagers who had been watching the exchange with anxious faces suddenly found something else to smile about. A woman whispered something to her neighbor. A man chuckled.
Gray wanted the ground to swallow him whole.
"The beast was last seen near the old hunting path," the elder continued, mercifully changing the subject. "Three hours up the eastern slope. There's a ridge where the goats used to graze before winter. The creature has made it his territory."
He gestured to a young man standing at the edge of the crowd. "Elias will show you the start of the trail."
The young man stepped forward, nervous, barely old enough to be called a man. He looked at Gray with something between awe and fear.
"It's big," Elias said. "The beast. Bigger than anything I've ever seen. White like the snow. You don't see it until it's on you."
Gray nodded. "Show us the trail."
---
The path wound up the mountain, narrow and treacherous, the snow deepening with every step. Elias left them at the fork where the old hunting trail split from the main path, pointing toward a ridge that disappeared into the gathering dusk.
"Up there," he said. "I can't go further. No one goes further."
Gray thanked him and watched the young man retreat down the mountain, his footsteps fading into the silence.
Then it was just the two of them. The mountain. The snow. The cold.
Gray took a breath. "Ready?"
Juvia nodded, her expression serious. "Juvia is ready."
They climbed.
The snow was deeper here, untouched, pristine. The trees grew sparse, then disappeared entirely, replaced by rock and ice and the kind of silence that weighed on a man's chest. Gray's breath misted in the cold. Juvia's water magic made her almost invisible against the white, her form shifting, blending.
They found the first tracks an hour into the climb. Massive. The prints were the size of dinner plates, sunk deep into the snow, spaced far apart. Whatever made them was big. Very big.
Gray crouched, examining the tracks. "It's fresh. Within the hour."
Juvia knelt beside him, her hand brushing the edge of a print. "It is warm. Juvia can feel it. The creature passed here recently."
They followed the tracks through a narrow gorge, the walls rising on either side, the sky a ribbon of grey above. The snow here was disturbed, churned up, signs of a struggle. Gray's stomach tightened.
And then they smelled it.
Blood. Thick and copper sweet, hanging in the cold air like a curse.
Gray moved faster, Juvia at his side, their feet silent on the snow. The gorge opened into a bowl shaped clearing, a natural amphitheater ringed by stone and ice. And in the center of it, something moved.
The creature was white as snow, ten feet tall if it was an inch, built like a mountain given form. Its fur was thick, matted with frost and something darker. Its hands were the size of shovels, tipped with claws that could gut a man in one swipe. Its face was flat, featureless almost, just a mouth full of teeth and eyes that glowed yellow in the fading light.
It was eating.
Gray's stomach turned to ice. He saw the body first. A child, small, too small, the body broken and discarded at the creature's feet. Then another. Two of them. Limbs twisted, clothes torn, frozen blood black against the snow. The creature held something in its massive hand. An arm. The arm of a child, dangling from its mouth, the fingers still curled, still reaching.
Gray's hand went to his chest, where his shirt suddenly felt too tight, too thin, too little protection against what he was seeing.
Juvia's hand found his. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was iron.
"Gray-sama," she whispered.
He didn't answer. He couldn't. The children. The village woman's boy. The elder's words. Took something worse. This was worse. This was the worst thing Gray had seen since Deliora, since the demon that had taken Ur, since everything he had spent his life trying to forget.
The creature dropped the arm. It turned. Those yellow eyes fixed on them. The mouth, still wet, still red, opened in something that might have been a smile or might have been hunger.
Gray stepped forward, ice forming at his fingertips.
"Stay behind me," he said.
Juvia stepped forward with him. "Juvia stays beside Gray-sama. Always."
The creature roared. The sound shook snow from the cliffs, echoed off the stone, filled the bowl with the promise of death.
Gray raised his hands.
"Then let's finish this."
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Next Time: Ice and Water - The Battle on the Mountain