An active hunter from Hokkaido was thrown into another world - Chapter 1

An active hunter from Hokkaido was thrown into another world

Chapter 1    The circumstances of how I came to a different world.

…It’s dark.

Why is it so dark? Is this what it’s like after death?

I’m scared of bears…

Slowly, I sit up.

“Are you okay?”

I’m startled as a woman suddenly speaks to me.

Where am I? Is this a hospital? A nurse?

It’s dark! Wait, could it be that I can’t see?

I reach out my hand and feel around.

Squish.

I touched something.

“Kyaa!”

A small scream from the woman.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Did I touch you? I apologize!”

“It’s okay. Please relax. It’s dark here because there is no lighting. I’ll turn on the lights now, so don’t worry.”

Poof.

The flames lit up, illuminating the area.

There’s a person kneeling in front of me, peering into my face…

Who is this?

She’s wearing a white dress, and she’s a foreigner with blonde hair… incredibly beautiful!

She’s holding a ball of light in the palm of her hand…

What kind of lighting is this?

“Um, uh, excuse me? Isn’t this a hospital?”

“No, it isn’t.”

“But I was attacked by a bear…”

“This is the afterlife. Nakajima Shin-san, I’m sorry to inform you, but you have passed away…”

“I’m dead…”

“Yes.”

“Attacked by a bear?”

“Yes.”

“…Wait!”

I lean forward and ask.

“What about the girl? The girl who was behind the elementary school, what happened to her?”

“She’s safe. Thanks to you.”

“…I’m glad.”

Three days ago, there was a sighting of a brown bear in the mountains behind the elementary school. It was also spotted near the school route, posing a danger to the students. As a result, the Hunting Association decided to carry out its removal.

I work as a staff member at the local town hall in a rural town. When my grandfather retired as a hunter, he said to me, “Why don’t you become a hunter?” So I became one.

My grandfather was an active hunter until last year, dealing with pest control using his hunting rifle. Even at the town hall, we are troubled by pests such as deer damaging the fields and foxes attacking livestock. Despite providing assistance to farmers by installing nets and fences around the fields, the damages have not significantly decreased.

According to my grandfather, even the hunters are aging, and there are no young ones joining the Hunting Association. Since I graduated from the local high school and became a town hall employee at the age of twenty, the age at which I can obtain a firearms permit and hunting license, my grandfather said he would give me his hunting rifle.

“I want someone like you, a young person, to join the Hunting Association,” my grandfather earnestly pleaded. I couldn’t refuse his request.

So, I cleared the difficult requirements for firearms possession and hunting licenses and became a rookie hunter. As I was a town hall employee, I also received the qualification of a pest control operative from the town that year. When requested by farmers, I would use the old shotgun handed down to me by my grandfather to hunt deer and foxes.

My grandfather passed away from pancreatic cancer six months later, having entrusted me with all his guns and hunting gear…

Looking back, maybe he wanted me to succeed him…

Today, we received a request to remove the brown bear. Members of the Hunting Association gathered, surrounding the mountains and planning a strategy to drive it away. Since I still can’t carry a rifle, I only have my shotgun.

As a precautionary measure, I volunteered to patrol the school vicinity instead of entering the mountains.

Gunshots echoed continuously in the mountains behind, accompanied by voices from the digital handheld radios attached to our shoulders, saying, “It went that way! Towards the school!” As I removed the gun cover from my beloved Remington M870, which I inherited from my grandfather, I loaded two sabot slugs into the magazine tube. At that moment, I spotted a child, a girl, observing the mountains from behind the school building.

“It’s dangerous to stay there! Go back to the school building!”

I wondered why there was a child there.

Shouldn’t they have been given a temporary closure of the school?

Rustle, rustle, rustle!

The trees in the woods behind the school swayed, and a dark mass came running at an incredible speed.

Firing a gun like this behind the school building is a violation of the firearms control law.

With such thoughts in mind, I rushed to the child’s location.

I pulled back and released the forend, chambering a round from the magazine into the chamber.

While running, I loaded another round into the magazine tube, making it a total of three rounds!

“To the school building!”

I gestured with my hand to usher the child away, standing between her and the bear.

“Grrrrrroooarrrr!”

The bloodied brown bear leaped out of the trees and roared.

Boom!

A shot rang out!

Did I miss?

I pumped the forend of the shotgun, ejecting the spent shell and sliding it forward for another shot.

Boom!

I hit it!

As the bear in front of me tried to rise and attack, I aimed for its throat with another shot.

Pump! Boom!

And then, I was sent flying by the bear’s swiped arm and pinned down…

…My memories only go as far as that.

“…Who are you?”

“I am a goddess. I am known as Nanotesu, the goddess who governs the afterlife.”

…I see.

There’s no way such a beautiful foreign woman would be in the rural town I live in.

“Your bravery in protecting the child from the bear, it would be a shame to let you die like this… That’s why I summoned you.”

“You summoned me?”

“Yes. You have passed away. I cannot send you back to your previous world. However, I want to grant you a little more time, a chance for your life to endure.”

…What will become of me then?

“I will send you to a different world.”

“A different world?”

“So that you can start a new life. So that you can live happily there. It is Earth, yet not Earth. A world where humans exist alongside things that are not human.”

“Like in manga?”

The goddess softly smiled.

“It might be something like that. A mysterious world, perhaps.”

“But I have work… Family, friends. I can’t just abandon them and go to a world like that!”

“I apologize.”

“I can’t accept that I died like this!”

“You may not be able to accept it. But the fact that you have passed away is true. Can you find it in yourself to accept it?”

I couldn’t hold back my sobs. All I could do was cry.

I regretted dying. Thinking of my parents, my older brother, and my younger sister, tears flowed.

To be attacked and killed by a bear at the age of twenty-one…

If only I had continued my normal job at the town hall, this would never have happened…

Regret filled my mind.

“May fortune be with you in your new life.”

How presumptuous!

“I will lend you a hand as much as I can. First, survive.”

That’s impossible!

…

When I woke up, I found myself in the middle of a forest.

Is there no room for negotiation? Is this a forced relocation?

What on earth is happening?

There are so many things that I can’t accept!

―――Author’s Note―――

In the bear incidents that claimed the lives of two hunters in 2006, there were cases where a 7mm Remington Magnum round struck the shoulder, a .30-06 round hit the neck, followed by five slugs from behind, and a final slug entered through the ear, reaching the brain and causing instant death. The resilience and ferocity of a wounded bear are truly terrifying, reminding us that bears are genuine monsters. Due to the decline in hunter population, even shotgun hunters without rifles are being engaged in bear extermination. It is crucial to note that they should not use shotgun shells but instead opt for powerful slug rounds.