The glider swooped toward the ground, then pulled up like a nimble swallow just before landing. Sajji jumped off in front of Altaïr.
"Found the target, meow." Sajji removed his goggles and shook himself, scattering the volcanic ash clinging to his fur.
"Roughly four kilometers east-southeast, in a small canyon between two low hills. It's sleeping there, meow.
"We also swept a ten-kilometer radius and didn't spot any other large Monsters, meow. You can Hunt without worrying, Boss. Nothing should interrupt you for a while, meow."
"Good work."
Altaïr took out his map and confirmed the location of the small canyon Sajji had described.
The map was covered in crosses of every size, each marking a trace of the Brute Tigrex's movements that Altaïr had found during his reconnaissance over the past few days. Even the farthest lay no more than twenty kilometers from their current position.
That was a remarkably small range for a Tigrex, and it confirmed one of his theories.
Of all the Monsters he had studied, Tigrex were undoubtedly the ones he understood best.
Whenever he encountered a book, article, or even rumor concerning Tigrex, he found a way to read it. He even kept a notebook dedicated entirely to recording information about them.
As apex predators, Tigrex had highly unusual habits.
Unlike Rathalos and other large Flying Wyverns that occupied similar ecological niches, Tigrex generally had no fixed territory.
They wandered aimlessly, hunting wherever they went. Their exceptional adaptability allowed them to roam across astonishingly vast areas.
Tigrex could be found both in the frigid Great Snowy Mountains of the continent's north and deep within the scorching, arid sand sea of the southwest. Some sightings might even have involved the same individual... Their tracks had even been found in the New World, far across the ocean.
How a species with such poor flight capability, able to glide only short distances, had reached the New World remained an unsolved mystery.
That was why Hunters generally could not ambush a Tigrex simply by identifying and watching its territory.
Whenever reports arrived of a Tigrex causing trouble, Hunters had to begin the pursuit immediately. Otherwise, the creature would disappear to parts unknown in no time.
The same was true of the Grimclaw Tigrex. It roamed across the continent, and its habit of migrating through the Great Desert on a six-year cycle had only been discovered by chance after scholars compared past attack reports.
Whether that pattern was unique to this exceptional individual or common to Tigrex as a species was difficult to determine.
There were so many reports of Tigrex attacks that no one could confirm which incidents involved the same individual. Nor did any scholar seem idle enough to spend decades following an ordinary Tigrex and charting its migration route.
Even if one did, who could guarantee that an ordinary Tigrex would survive every accident it encountered over those decades? Not every Tigrex was like the Grimclaw, willing and able to throw itself at an Elder Dragon.
Brute Tigrex, however, were a rare exception among their kind.
They were exceedingly scarce, and little had been written about them. Almost everything Altaïr knew about Brute Tigrex came from Madam Marydan and her husband.
Marydan was a Tigrex expert whose own nickname was "Brute Tigrex," while Lamarck was a veteran scholar with the Royal Paleontology Scriveners. Almost no one in the world understood Brute Tigrex better than they did.
Thanks to his close relationship with the couple, Altaïr knew something most Hunters either did not know or had never considered. A Brute Tigrex's range was far smaller than that of a base-species Tigrex.
Brute Tigrex appeared almost exclusively in hot volcanic regions. A few had been sighted in desert regions, but there were no records of them anywhere else.
There was an accepted explanation for how the subspecies had emerged. Volcanic ash and metallic minerals from deep underground settled onto Tigrex through lava eruptions and abrasion against rock. Over the years, those deposits fused with their scales and carapaces, forming armor far harder than that of the base species.
But that raised another question. If Tigrex never remained in one place for long and constantly wandered, why had a small population stayed in volcanic regions long enough to gradually evolve into Brute Tigrex?
And why, beyond their harder carapaces, did Brute Tigrex possess mobility and cardiopulmonary function far surpassing those of the base species?
Mr. Lamarck had proposed a hypothesis.
Brute Tigrex did not prefer hot environments. They could only survive in them.
Their extraordinary mobility and cardiopulmonary function came at the cost of a metabolic rate far beyond that of a base-species Tigrex. In cold environments such as the Snowy Mountains, these Tigrex with "metabolic abnormalities" would die from heat loss.
They were not Deviljho, after all, and lacked that species' terrifying digestive capabilities. Even if they caught enough prey, they could not digest it quickly enough.
This forced them to remain in the scorching Volcano, where exposure to volcanic minerals gradually transformed them into Brute Tigrex.
The handful of individuals sighted in the Desert had merely strayed there from the nearby Volcano.
The Desert's low nighttime temperatures were equally harmful to them, so they rarely remained there for long and never ventured through it at night.
As for why Brute Tigrex also roamed within such a limited part of the Volcano... considering what lived in its depths, any individual that wandered too far probably did not survive for long.
The Volcano had given Brute Tigrex their strength, but it had also become their prison.
Altaïr had built his hunting plan around that information.
The Brute Tigrex would not roam far, or at least not far enough to prevent a battle of attrition. Altaïr had no intention of chasing it all the way into the volcano's core area.
At the same time, the Cool Cleavers' Ice and Water Element attacks would rapidly drain the Brute Tigrex's body heat. Given its unusually high metabolism, that loss of heat might prove fatal.
If Altaïr's relentless pursuit kept it from feeding, the Brute Tigrex should tire quickly. That would be his chance to claim victory.
Until then, he absolutely could not rush.
As he ran, he reviewed the seemingly simple plan in his mind once more, carefully considering each of the many factors behind it.
Altaïr soon reached the small canyon where the Brute Tigrex lay.
Before entering, he drank a Cool Drink followed by a Dash Juice. He had brought plenty of both specifically for this prolonged battle.
The Earplugs Talisman Teacher Haifa had given him was strapped around his wrist. He planned to save the more powerful offensive Talisman he had recently acquired for the final confrontation, when he would switch to his Long Sword as well.
The Earplugs Talisman alone would not be enough.
The protection afforded by this Rook Talisman could shield him from the roar shockwaves of most large Monsters, but Brute Tigrex were notorious for the volume and frequency of their roars.
According to Madam Marydan, a Brute Tigrex's roar could not only immobilize a Hunter for a short time, but even shatter rock.
For the sake of his eardrums and his life, Altaïr had prepared two layers of protection.
After tossing aside the empty bottle, he took out a pair of Disposable Earplugs and fitted them into his ears. With both the Earplugs Talisman and the physical earplugs protecting him, he was now completely deaf.
Once every precaution was in place, Altaïr drew the Cool Cleavers, entered the small canyon, and quietly approached the sleeping Brute Tigrex.
The perfect opportunity for a Wake-up Slash lay before him. He glanced at the Dual Blades in his hands, and a trace of regret flickered through his eyes.
He quickly dismissed the pointless thought, stepped in front of the Monster, reversed his grip on the Dual Blades, and entered a state of Focus.
Then he drove one blade deep into the Brute Tigrex's nostril and followed it with several more vicious strikes.
"ROAR!" Its dark-yellow eyes snapped open at the sudden, searing pain.
Startled awake, the Brute Tigrex instinctively opened its enormous maw and lunged forward to bite.
Altaïr was ready. He planted one foot against the Brute Tigrex's lower jaw and used the force of its rising head to propel himself into a backflip.
As he turned in midair, he adjusted his posture and fired the Clutch Claw.
The claw hooked into the back of the Brute Tigrex's neck. As the cable rapidly retracted, Altaïr accelerated into a spin and became a storm of blades that swept across the Monster's back.
In the distance, Morgan had set up his Heavy Bowgun and was watching through its scope. He turned a doubtful look on Sajji beside him.
"And he calls this 'probing harassment'?"
P.S. Disposable Earplugs are a consumable item from Monster Hunter 4. The use animation depicts a Hunter tossing them into their mouth and swallowing them.