Meanwhile, Isis maintained a steady offensive as she battled Kuarusepu.
After considerable effort, Alma finally managed to catch one of the metal minecarts with the hoist's iron hook. Using the pulley system, she slowly raised it twenty to thirty meters above the ground.
She had no idea how many safety regulations she had broken in the process, but what she planned to do next was hardly safe either.
Straining at the mechanical winch at the base of the hoist, she slowly turned the frame until the precariously suspended minecart hung directly above the battlefield.
Kuarusepu was not in the habit of looking up, so it failed to notice. Isis, however, caught sight of the turning hoist and the suspended cart from the corner of her eye.
She froze for an instant, then quickly realized that this was Alma's doing.
The corners of Isis's mouth curled into a grin. She hopped back to evade Kuarusepu's downward head slam and deliberately began moving toward the area beneath the cart.
Kuarusepu had spent its life deep underground, feeding on various ores. With no need to outwit prey and no natural enemies to threaten it, the Monster was not particularly intelligent.
It noticed nothing unusual about the Hunter's movements. Whenever she moved, it simply chased after her, snapping relentlessly.
Soon, both Hunter and Monster stood directly beneath the suspended minecart.
"Now!" Isis shouted.
But the minecart did not fall as she had expected and smash the thick-skinned Monster to the ground.
Kuarusepu swiped at her again. Isis hurriedly raised her shield to block and slid back several meters under the force of the blow.
Perplexed, she glanced over her shoulder at the apprentice Handler beneath the hoist.
That had been the perfect opportunity. Why had Alma not sprung the trap? Now the target had left the ideal position, and Isis would have to lure it back...
Panic flickered across Alma's face, but she still raised her voice and shouted, "The cart isn't secured tightly! Use your Slinger!"
Only then did Isis realize that she was supposed to trigger the trap herself.
She had no choice but to keep circling Kuarusepu and slowly bait it back into position. Fortunately, the Monster still noticed nothing unusual. After considerable effort, she managed to lure it beneath the trap again.
Taking a risk, Isis pressed the attack and forced Kuarusepu back half a step with her red-hot blade. She immediately raised her Slinger, fired the Clutch Claw into one corner of the suspended cart, and gave it a hard tug.
The minecart had only been loosely hooked onto the chain and was already teetering. It swayed several times before finally slipping free and plummeting toward the ground.
Clang!
The cart landed squarely on Kuarusepu's head with a sharp metallic crash.
The steel cart used to transport ore weighed nearly a ton. If it had struck a Monster on the level of a Yian Kut-Ku, it might well have cracked the creature's skull open.
This time, however, their target was Kuarusepu.
The impact was like a small vase tumbling from the top of a bookshelf and shattering over someone's head. It would certainly hurt, but it would not inflict much serious damage.
Instead, the cart's metal panels were pierced by the sharp, prism-shaped crystals on Kuarusepu's head, leaving the entire cart dangling from its skull like a strange hat. The sight was rather comical.
Kuarusepu shook its head twice and flung the innocent cart aside, then unleashed a furious roar.
It felt insulted.
Isis: "..."
"..."
"A fine falling-object trap. Next time, remember to use something heavier."
Alma stared in disbelief.
She had considered the possibility that the cart might fall too early because it had been secured too loosely. She had considered that the trap might be sprung at the wrong moment and miss a vital spot. She had even considered that Kuarusepu might react in time and knock the falling cart away.
But she had never imagined that such a heavy cart could strike Kuarusepu squarely on the head, only for the Monster to shake it off.
As she began to question not only her failed trap but her own intelligence, a nimble figure darted forward.
It was Clawdia.
She seized the massive hook that had come loose and fallen to the ground, then dragged it toward Kuarusepu along with the iron chain behind it, which was as thick as an adult's arm.
Seeing this, Isis immediately launched a fierce attack to cover her hunting partner.
Despite dragging the heavy hook and chain, Clawdia remained remarkably agile.
She bounded up Kuarusepu's foreleg and reached the back of its neck. There, she looped the chain around the base of its neck, then threaded the hook through one of the chain's rings to form a sturdy noose.
Alma reacted at once. She dashed to the winch and spun its wheel with all her strength, gradually drawing the chain tight.
Kuarusepu's neck was long and slender, and its head was streamlined. Logically, it could have shaken its head from side to side, backed up a few steps, and easily slipped free of the noose.
Its own prism-shaped crystal clusters proved to be perfect anchors, however. They locked the chain firmly in place, leaving it no chance to slip free.
As the chain tightened and drew taut, Kuarusepu finally felt the restraint and began to struggle.
Alma kept turning the winch with all her strength, trying to reel in the chain and hoist Kuarusepu entirely off the ground.
Her strength might not have been even one percent, or perhaps one-thousandth, of Kuarusepu's. But with the aid of machinery... she still could not budge a Monster that weighed hundreds of tons.
The moment the chain went taut, the winch at the base of the hoist locked solid. If not for the anti-reverse mechanism built into its axle, Alma would have been flung away while clinging to the crank.
"ROAR!"
No creature enjoyed being restrained. Kuarusepu struggled violently amid furious roars, its tremendous strength making the chain groan under the strain.
Before the chain could snap, however, the tall hoist built from thick timber gave way. Beams broke with a harsh screech as the structure in the center of the mine toppled onto Kuarusepu, which was still straining against the chain.
The minecart had been like a small vase falling from the top of a bookshelf, painful but little more. This was the entire bookshelf crashing down and pinning someone beneath it.
Even the enormous, thick-skinned Kuarusepu howled in pain beneath the massive hoist used to lift ore.
As the dust dispersed, Isis stared for several seconds, then cheered and charged forward. She unleashed a full-force assault on Kuarusepu's exposed, vulnerable belly.
To prevent the barrel from overheating and bursting, she ejected the heat canister to accelerate cooling. Then came a slam, Rising Slash, Full Burst, Wyrmstake Cannon!
After flowing through the full "Gymnastic" combo, she drove the muzzle deep into the charred wound on Kuarusepu's belly and pulled the trigger hard.
"Wyvern's Fire!"
"BOOM!"
Blood and shredded tissue erupted from the wound with the explosion, nearly drenching her in red.
She slammed the butt of the Gunlance down, rapidly reloading its shells and Wyrmstake Cannon. Without even wiping the blood and grime from her face, Isis roared and pressed the attack with all her might.
At the slow, steady pace she had maintained earlier, she might not have finished off this mineral-scaled giant even after fighting all day and night.
Whether she could capitalize on this hard-won opening and deal a fatal blow would determine the outcome of the Hunt.
"RUMBLE!"
At the most critical moment of her offensive, an ominous, muffled rumble rolled across the sky.
The Hunter, the Handler, and the Felyne all looked up at almost the same moment.
Mountain weather was always unpredictable. The night sky had been clear moments ago, but a vast bank of dark clouds flickering with lightning had appeared without warning.
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5 bonus chaps for every 100 power stones