To doot is to live, and I haven't stopped living yet.
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Music used in order of appearance: Monster Hunter Wilds OST - Proof of a Hero (2025 Recording - Short Ver.) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgxWFSDhvBo
TheFunkyFr34k - Get Ya Hands Up (Mash-Up) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXW4zyDhkNA
News from the outside world typically doesn't make it all the way out here in what outsiders call the "Windward Plains", but what we know as Kunafa Village where the cheese is cheesy and the dirt is plenty abundant.
What does eventually make it here, though, seems to be nothing but legends and tall tales; I mean, c'mon, humans and Wyverians monster hunting? Wild.
The kids love hearing the stories, and the elders love yapping about them, but me? Nah, I prefer tending to the Seikret and cleaning the dirt from the dust.
The most insane stories that have been the talk of the village for the past, what, 60 flipping years, are the ones on the "Crimson Concussionists" a group of red haired "hunters" that swing around 200 pound blunt instruments - and I mean that as literally as I possibly can because they use actual functional giant musical instruments to cave monsters' heads in.
What. The. Hell.
Also, I'm not sure if the elders are finally going senile from inhaling compacted dirt for 90 years or the traders that they heard these stories from are just having a laugh at our expense because all of these characters are named the exact same - "Maya".
These stories all take anywhere from a year to several decades apart and take place all over the world, from Val Habar to Kokoto Village and beyond into the New World, and there's always a "Maya" with red hair pounding monsters with a giant flute, or saxophone, or guitars? C'mon, be real.
The elders swear on their wrinkly skin that these stories are as real as the cheese caves below the village that we dig out every other season, and while those cheese caves ARE real (look it up), I struggle to even imagine a tribe or family of red haired lunatics that might as well reproduce via mitosis venturing out into the world with the apparent sole purpose of destroying monsters with gigantic instruments, existing in the same reality as me and my dirt covered cheese spread.
The sun is going down, and a storm seems to be brewing, and with that, my 14-hour shift at the Seikret stables comes to an end for the day. Finally. Now it's time for my 10-hour shift of sweeping the dust off the dirt.
Just as I'm about to begin to my Sisyphean task, in comes a frantic villager who's name I never bothered to learn because I have been literally doing the same thing since I could stand up straight at the young age of 5 - I was a late bloomer due in part from a Seikret's kick that according to the village doctor, quote, "atomized" my toddler shins.
The guy eventually runs up to me, kicking up dust into the air and into my already perpetually crusted eyes, shouting, "LEAN DEAN, THEY'RE REAL! THE CRIMSON CONCUSSIONISTS ARE REAL!"
My name is Kai.
The whole village - my parents included (hilarious) - started calling me "Lean Dean" on account of the way I stand, because, y'know, I had to regrow my shins after they were annihilated as a toddler, and I guess I didn't do it right as I'm at a constant 95° angle at all times in any orientation I'm at.
I tell the guy to calm down, asking if he's been snorting parashrooms again, and I mean he clearly has, there's literally visible chunks of them on his mustache, but he doesn't stay to lie to me and runs off to warn the others.
Not even 5 minutes pass before the storm is in full swing, bringing down lightning and just absolutely burying the village in another additional inch of dirt.
Seems like Rey Dau, the apex monster of this region, has found his next target.
There's something "off" about the roars this time around. Whatever the Rey is hunting, it isn't another monster, no, as it's roars would also be heard here for a brief moment, but beneath the crashes of lightning and the Rey's attacks I could faintly hear... music?
My fragmented malaligned shins ached for a moment, warning me that something ominous is happening.
I hobbled my way over to where the rest of the village had gathered near the south entrance and from my slight angled position I was the first to spot a red haired woman riding one of our Seikrets towards us.
I nearly fell backwards in disbelief, but the bigger fear of having my already brittle shins explode on impact with the floor made me reach out and anchor myself on the wall next to me.
The shroom snorter was telling the truth; the Crimson Concussionists were, in fact, real.
And if the Crimson Concussionists are real, then that means anything the elders yapped about could be real as well.
I laugh, as that's the only thing I can do.
An actual Monster Hunter? Wild.