Hunts = Slain + Captured. You don't need to slay to get achievements or titles.

I've seen some misinformation floating around in the Steam forums (yes, I know) and I figured it'd be good to put this out there. The number in your large monster field guide labelled "hunted" will always be greater than or equal to the number of captures, it is *not* just how many monsters you've slain but rather it is the sum total of all monsters you have either slain or captured. The game exclusively uses the term "slay" when it means kill and not capture and "hunt" to refer to either slaying or capturing.

Unfortunately there's some people getting toxic about this thinking they're losing out on progress grinding out titles or achievements when someone else in their hunt captures, when in reality the game doesn't have any achievements or titles tied to slaying monsters instead of capturing them. The game is very consistent about using the term "hunt" to mean either slay or capture. There's a few story missions that specify Slay, but in those missions the monster simply won't be capturable, you won't fail if you attempt to capture the target. Jin Dahaad is similarly immune to capturing and its hunt specifies Slay.

There's the "Capture Pro" achievement which requires a total of 50 captures of any monster, but there's no corresponding "Carving Pro" achievement. There *are* Carving Pro and Capture Pro food buffs which grant a boost to one or the other (carving pro also applies to servered parts, it's great), so you may want to set a custom emote to let your party know which you want to do.