Chapter 79: The First Victim

The next moment, even though there was a miniature Aqugas snake in front of him, he advanced anyway as several wind currents began to gather at his feet.

Seeing this, the snake also lunged at him, although it could not drown him as his main body would have done, it was strong enough to be able to slow Jay down tremendously.

Said person then jumped just as he was about to meet the snake, putting the snake underneath him, and although the snake tried to catch him, it was interrupted by another frail window of wind that was created at Jay's feet.

Falling, Jay now had two options, he could either give his all in attacking the snake, or he could keep running until he reached where the mage was.

While he had already confirmed that his wind slashes would not work, he still had a trick up his sleeve that he could use in order to get rid of this one snake, and what was better, it did not involve using Overload.

Therefore, with the body of the original Aqugas snake currently freezing and unable to move, it would be no problem for him to take the time to eliminate this little snake.

On the other hand, if he ignored the snake and just continued on his way, it would undoubtedly become a considerably dangerous nuisance that could even get him caught if he was too careless.

However, what he chose without a moment's hesitation was to keep running, wanting to catch up with the mage as quickly as possible.

'If the snake can split once... nothing guarantees me that it won't do it again!' he thought as he kept running.

It was quite clear to him, facing a monster whose physical properties were so peculiar, as well as breaking the norm of what a normal Aquga snake could do over and over again, Jay already preferred to think of the worst situation.

A couple of seconds later, confirming Jay's suspicions and also that he had made the right decision, several pieces of gelatinous mass fell around where Jay had originally been, turning into small snakes.

Although the Aqugas snake was currently fighting the freezing process its body was going through, it hadn't taken its eyes off them for a second, especially Jay.

The snake had already learned that if they were left to do whatever they wanted, it would mean more trouble for it!

Jay's mind then began to work at full power, thinking about what he could do to get out of this complicated situation.

If he just kept running and made it to where the mage was, there would be no doubt that all the snakes chasing him would seize the moment to attack them, this was even more the case if Jay stopped to carry him.

'I guess there's no other way, I'll have to use it... though I'll have to calculate the perfect moment...'

He quickly came to a conclusion, and at the same time he did so, his speed began to vary, first decreasing a bit, allowing the snakes that were chasing him to be able to get closer to him, and after a few seconds increasing again, managing to keep a distance.

Although there was not a great distance separating him from the place where the mage was, he was not close either, so he could afford to make these changes in his march.

Sometimes the snakes would also have brief, sudden surges of speed to try to catch him, which increased when Jay ran slower, but thanks to his radar and reflexes, he was able to dodge each of these attempts.

Finally, after repeating this process a few times, the group of snakes, which was previously led by one snake, had now become a group of 5 snakes crawling together, although there was still some distance between each of them.

'Not the best, but it will have to do...' He thought without turning his gaze, just checking the position of the snakes with his radar, 'Well, here I go!!'

After reaffirming his determination, Jay opened his mouth to slowly take in as much air as he could, causing four streams of wind to appear around his mouth, a steady stream of air slowly filling his lungs.

He was getting closer and closer to the mage, which made him a little nervous as he had to calculate the exact moment he could use his trump card without losing control of the wind inside him or the exact movement of the snakes.

Several beads of sweat appeared on his face as he got closer.

"Oi... you're seriously bringing those things here?!" The mage asked as he saw that Jay was running towards him with 5 small monsters behind him, causing him to again attempt to raise his wand to conjure a spell.

A magic circle again appeared at the tip of his wand, glowing a blue color indicating that it was the basic ice creating spell he had first used, since it was quite simple and consumed a small amount of mana, the mage formed magic circle smoothly.

*Puff*

Unfortunately, it didn't last long before one of the lines that made up the circle suddenly deformed, causing the entire circle to collapse instantly.

"...Sh*t!" Said the mage, annoyed at not being able to use even the most basic of his spells.

Unlike pugilists, who even had techniques to use their life force to keep fighting, mages were incomparably more helpless when running out of mana, having only two options to recover, either wait until they could naturally regenerate their mana, or simply use a mana potion.

The young mage also possessed the latter in his backpack and pockets, but unfortunately, all of them had disappeared the moment he was teleported to the island. At least he had been left with his wand, which was already extremely useful.

So, knowing that he could only wait until his mana regenerated, the mage came to the conclusion that right now, the only option he had was to leave his fate in the hands of this stranger whose name he didn't even know.

At that thought, he inevitably began to try to draw another magic circle.

*BAM!*

At that moment, a person suddenly appeared right in front of him, interrupting his moment of concentration.

Sure enough, this person was Jay, who right now had a rather puffy chest, indicative that he had taken all the air he could in his lungs.

"Hey, the snakes!!!" Shouted the wizard, who had a much better view of the snakes than Jay thanks to still being on the ground.

However, Jay disregarded his words and kept running, apparently abandoning him, the snakes upon seeing this changed their target and focused on the young mage, who was a much easier prey.

"...Bastard!!!" He shouted again, several beads of sweat appeared on his red colored face due to the nervousness and anger he was feeling, desperately trying to move to try to flee, although without any success.

The snakes advanced quickly, being only a few centimeters away from him, their bodies no longer having the defined shape of a snake and once again turning into tentacles.

*WOOOSH!*

"Argh!"

However, before they could even touch a single hair of the mage, an extremely strong wind current sent them flying several meters backwards, some of them even crashing into trees and unable to come down due to the current continuing.

The young mage was also affected by this, but he still managed to see what had caused it. Right now, behind him, Jay was letting out all the air he had inside him, focusing especially on the snakes.

Although it looked like it was totally under control, in reality Jay's lungs were under a great deal of pain, as they were not used to such an action, but of course, even if they were, the result would be quite similar.

This was something Jay had initially used quite some time ago with Sarah as a joke, but after his wind control had become stronger as its percentage increased, he had tried to recreate it.

The result was quite good, showing quite a bit of strength when expelling wind currents, much more powerful than what he would be capable of simply using the wind control alone.

It only had one bad point, which was the tremendous damage Jay received in his lungs, something that limited its use to only twice a day at most, otherwise, he would have to rest in bed for a long time before his regeneration would be able to heal him.

Then, before the mage could say anything, Jay put him on his shoulder, causing the wind current to stop and release the snakes.

*Tap tap tap tap tap tap*

Jay quickly began to flee, enduring the pain he felt in his lungs, to which the snakes also began to chase him.

Because he had created a good distance by the time he sent the snakes flying, even though his speed had slowed considerably as he was now carrying the young mage, he was still able to maintain a distance.

Thus began another chase, although this time it lasted longer than the one just a few seconds ago, now that Jay didn't have to make any stops, he could just keep running without being interrupted, managing to make the snakes stop chasing them.

Though of course, this was not because the snakes got tired or anything like that, but because as they got some distance away from the main body, their body control became more and more clumsy, indicating that they could no longer get farther away and forcing them to turn back.

With this sudden stroke of luck, finally, a pained Jay and a young mage with no mana managed to escape from one of the most dangerous predators on this island.

***

Back in the vicinity of the lake, the snake Aqugas, who originally had a large part of his body frozen, now had only a light layer of frost covering his entire body that looked like small scales, giving it an even more snake-like appearance than what it already had.

It was evident that it had managed to break free of the spell, but not only that, it even seemed to have gotten something good out of it, with the layer of frost giving him a resistance to the cold as well as making its body more resilient.

If one took into account that it had also learned to move out of the lake and could now divide its body into small snakes, it could be said that from the encounter it had with Jay and the young mage, the Aqugas snake was the one that had gained the most benefits.

The snake was also aware of these abilities, but despite this, its mood was not cheerful at all. It had been a while since the snakes it separated from its body had returned, merging with it again and conveying the information that the two preys had escaped out of its grasp.

At the thought of this, the snake couldn't help but feel even more annoyed, emitting a pressure that would undoubtedly make any super average rank (C) tremble.

*Tap tap tap*

Just at that moment, at the same time as the footsteps of a person were heard coming from the forest, in the opposite direction the snake was facing, a young man slowly appeared from the trees.

His appearance was muscular and healthy, as was to be expected of a pugilist attempting to take the Eitsirc Academy entrance exam.

The snake stood still for a moment upon seeing this, but that only lasted a second before four gelatinous masses fell from its body and quickly turned into other small snakes. 

These snakes then grouped into pairs and headed left and right respectively, circling the lake.

As for the main body of the Aqugas snake, it began to become much thinner, compressing its body as much as it could to stop being huge, inevitably causing its length to increase from 15 meters to 25.

However, although the length of his body had increased, now the thickness of its body was not much greater than that of a slender tree trunk.

As for the animal skeletons that made up its body, the snake had decided to leave them in the lake the moment it stepped out, so these, without a support, sank to the bottom.

Without waiting much longer, it slowly began to crawl towards a nearby stream in order to reach the lake, going unnoticed in front of the young man's sight thanks to the fact that its body was now thin but still as transparent as before.

A few minutes later, a person's scream came from this part of the forest, though it only lasted a couple of seconds before it was forcibly silenced.