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MHD Chapter 4: The Rathian Who Raised Me
🕑 Added 2025-06-29 01:34:43 +0000 UTCLogan lay dazed on the ground, unmoving, allowing the female Rathian to sniff and inspect him all over.
Even though he had recovered a bit of strength, he still didn’t dare move—not a twitch that could be misinterpreted.
Of course, there was another reason: his acceleration trait hadn’t activated. That meant this beautiful female Rathian bore no hostility toward him. Maybe she was just curious.
Sure enough, once she finished these odd motions, she gave him a glance filled with some unreadable emotion, then lost interest. She turned around and returned to the corpse of the herbivore, lowering her head to tear into it with great, greedy bites.
Logan couldn’t decipher that look in her eyes, but her actions made it clear—she had lost interest in him. Perhaps she had just been assessing whether he posed a threat.
After all, unless they were mates, female and male Rathalos typically led separate lives. Each had its own hunting grounds, and they usually stayed out of each other’s way.
Once he confirmed that this stunning female Rathian really didn’t care about him, Logan finally let his guard down and refocused on regaining his strength.
He was exhausted, aching, and starving. The sooner he recovered, the sooner he could hunt.
If this plain had enough herbivores to attract a Rathian, then there must be plenty more herbivorous creatures—maybe some Shepherd Hare or other small prey. Even if there weren’t any Shepherd Hare, there should at least be mushrooms in the forest in the distance, right?
Come to think of it, female Rathians typically brought their kills back to the nest. If they didn’t, they would usually only eat the softest, most delicious parts of the prey and leave the rest behind.
Since this particularly beautiful Rathian hadn’t taken the kill away, did that mean… he might get to eat the leftovers?
Even if the tastiest bits were gone—it was still meat! Better than mushrooms any day!
As the thought took root, tears of frustration welled up at the corners of Logan’s mouth. He really was that hungry.
[Thud. Thud.]
The sound of heavy footsteps startled him. He opened his eyes—and saw that same beautiful Rathian walking toward him, prey clamped in her jaws.
Logan didn’t dare hope she was coming to share the meal. Most likely, she was just taking it back to her nest.
So... he wouldn’t even get the scraps?
Oh, gorgeous Rathian, couldn’t you spare just one bite for this poor baby wyvern?
He hadn't even had time to start daydreaming before it all came crashing down. Was he really doomed to gnaw on mushrooms for the rest of his life? If he had known it’d be like this, he might’ve preferred reincarnating as a Gypceros. At least then he’d love mushrooms.
...Ugh. Just picturing those creepy, clever Gypceros eyes made Logan shudder. He quickly shook off the terrifying thought.
While Logan was busy spiraling into random thoughts, the herbivore’s blood-soaked corpse suddenly dropped right in front of him. Its abdomen had been ripped open, revealing glistening red-and-white fat layers. Just the sight of it made his stomach growl uncontrollably.
Faced with such a feast, Logan’s hunger hit its peak. He no longer cared if eating would provoke the dazzling female Rathian—there was only one thought in his mind now: Eat!
Eat like hell!
Watching the fledgling wyvern tear into the meat, the Rathian’s eyes showed a trace of satisfaction. The way he gulped down chunks of raw muscle as if he’d never eaten before… it was honestly kind of pitiful.
Poor little guy. Just how long had he been starving?
Once Logan was fully absorbed in devouring his meal, the Rathian no longer hesitated. She stepped up to the herbivore’s hind leg and took a powerful bite.
The belly was certainly the most tender, but if you could chew through it, the legs and back weren’t bad either.
And so, this unfortunate herbivore was shared between two hungry fire wyverns—one large, one small, one male, one female.
The meat was plentiful. Just the two hind legs and a slab of back meat were enough to fill the female Rathian. As she licked the blood from her lips, she glanced over at Logan, who was still enthusiastically ripping into the exposed belly.
She stepped into the lake, washed her head and claws, then quietly lay down nearby, watching him in silence.
Some time passed. She saw that Logan had nearly finished off the already-exposed part of the abdomen. Then, to her surprise, he leaned in and tried to sink his teeth into another area that still had intact skin.
Without hesitation, the female Rathian got up and walked over to him.
Without caring about Logan’s resistance, the female Rathian bit down on the back of his neck and lifted him up, just like a mother carrying her hatchling.
Logan, who had been fully engrossed in devouring his meal, suddenly found himself pulled away from the food. Instinctively, he struggled, flapping his wings frantically, his claws kicking and scratching in a desperate attempt to return to the feast.
He was terrified of being hungry again. From the moment he had crawled out of his shell until now, this had been his one and only full meal. Even though he could already feel a bit stuffed, he still didn’t want to stop eating.
But the Rathian had no intention of indulging him. Her grip on his nape tightened slightly, and with a couple of firm shakes, she silenced his struggling. Only after he went still did she suddenly spread her wings and, with a rush of wind, take off into the air.
Once she had confirmed her direction, she began flying toward her nest.
The howling wind whipped across Logan’s face, snapping him back to his senses. As he watched the clouds sweep by beneath his feet, a complex mix of fear and excitement welled up inside him.
The excitement, perhaps, came from the genes of the Rathalos. As a king of the skies, flight was his birthright. The sky was the domain of the male Rathalos.
But the fear—came from the fact that he couldn’t fly yet.
His skeletal structure and wing membranes were still too underdeveloped to support flight. This wasn’t one of those games from his previous life where people joked about unkillable hunters or glass-boned witchers. This was reality. At this altitude, if he fell, Logan doubted he’d survive.
With that in mind, he obediently let the female Rathian carry him, allowing her to take him to whatever unknown place she had in mind.
The eyesight of a Rathalos was exceptionally keen. Even at this height, he could clearly make out the landscape below.
He saw a forest pass beneath them, then a river. As the dense canopy below began to thin out and gusts of yellow dust swept into the sky, she began to descend.
At the border between the Wildspire Wastes and the Ancient Forest, on a steep cliffside, the female Rathian slowly landed with Logan still clutched in her jaws.
Here, nestled within the cliff face, was a hidden cave. A small stream ran through it, originating from the Ancient Forest and flowing down toward the Wildspire Wastes. It was this terrain that gave the female Rathian the ability to hunt alone. After leaving her siblings, she had spent considerable time searching before finally claiming this site as her nest.
In this area, grounded creatures couldn’t reach it, and those that could fly weren’t a match for her. Over time, the region became her exclusive territory. Apart from one shrewd Gypceros who occasionally wandered the upper canopy in search of poisonous mushrooms, few wyverns dared to trespass.
The nest itself resembled a structure clinging to the side of the cliff. Above lay the Ancient Forest; below stretched the Wildspire Wastes. Nearby, a waterfall poured down, feeding the stream that trickled through the heart of the cave.
...
Logan had never imagined that his survival mode would suddenly switch from 'Hard' to 'Easy'. If there was one thing still giving him a headache, it was the fact that he seemed to have lost his freedom.
In the Monster Hunter world, creatures with high ecological status generally possessed considerable intelligence. Some of the Elder Dragons, sitting at the top of the food chain, even had intellects surpassing that of humans. While Rathalos hadn’t quite reached that level, their species still had ways to distinguish individuals within their kind.
The Rathian who had carried Logan away naturally had her own designation. In human terms, her name would be Aki.
Ever since Aki brought him back to her nest, she had been watching over Logan like a mother doting on her own hatchling. Every day, she fed him, shielded him, and made sure water from a nearby stream was within reach whenever he was thirsty.
Thankfully, Logan no longer looked like the fragile wyvern fresh out of the egg. Otherwise, Aki might have gone as far as mimicking other female Rathalos—chewing the food before feeding it to him.
In short, under the care of this still-not-fully-matured but beautiful female Rathalos, Logan was experiencing for the first time what it truly meant to be a juvenile in this world.
On the flip side, as a hatchling, he wasn’t allowed anywhere near the edge of the cave. Aki feared that, unable to fly yet, he might tumble off the cliff to his death—or worse, get spotted and killed by other flying wyverns.
So Logan’s days were terribly dull. When he wasn’t lying on the ground absorbing leylines, he was either munching on meat Aki brought back or reluctantly choking down the poisonous mushrooms she insisted he eat, all under her stern gaze.
The poison in Rathalos is produced through their venom glands, but consuming certain toxic mushrooms native to the Ancient Forest could further enhance the potency of their venom.
Logan could feel it—Aki was holding herself to the standards of a mother wyvern, and she was putting her heart into raising him.
And yet, Logan couldn’t help but feel awkward about the dynamic. It was like: “I see you as my future—why are you trying to be my mom?”
