Chapter 4 - Killing the Monster Bear?

After about an hour of Cecil playing tag with the monster bear. The bear finally looked tired out from the chase. It was heaving, spouting out a white fog every time it exhaled.

Cecil was also breathing heavily, he was clearly exhausted but not as much as the poor monster bear since he could take small breaks every time he ducked behind a tree and charged past him.

All that running and charging around finally made the bear utterly exhausted.

Cecil was totally elated and ran towards a particular tree and hid behind it, the tree was the had the largest trunk compared to the other trees in the surroundings. The monster bear was glaring at Cecil. Taking in his every move.

It was cautious since the tiny little thing kept on chucking stones at its face for the past hour.

Cecil matched its gaze while slowly weaving the vines that he had gathered into thick braids. These were the vines he was able to gather while constantly exhausting and annoying the bear from their earlier game of rock throwing tag.

Of course Cecil didn't carry the vines on him during the chase. It would just add an unnecessary burden to him, that could have costed him his life. So, after gathering them, he would quickly put them down by the trees in the surroundings and let the bear continue to chase him around in circles while he took his time gathering the said vines.

After braiding the vines, he glanced back at the bear, making sure it was still lying in place. After confirming that the bear was just laying down on the ground with it's eyes closed, Cecil slowly started to climb up the tree next to him, while still keeping his eyes on the bear.

'It's time to put phase 2 of my plan into motion.'

His reckless plan was to exhaust the bear, and try killing it by strangling the bear with the vines he collected from earlier.

He already took into account the bears claws and blades when he was developing his plan. He can only hope that nothing would go wrong when he execute it.

He had two braids of vines, with both ends of the vines tied to a boulder that he found earlier. It was somewhat large, weighing at least 40 kg. He had Silver slowly push it towards the tree he was at. It took awhile since it was heavy and Silver was also injured, but everything went without a hitch for now.

'Luckily this fella was close enough to the tree.'

Reaching the top, Cecil quickly slung one end of the vine onto the thick tree branch while the other vine was still on the ground. From the top of the branch he slowly pulled up the boulder and placed it on the branch of the tree.

He had Silver keep an eye on the bear resting in the clearing.

He untied the braided vine from the boulder and continued braiding the vine until it was as thick as his waist.

After a couple of minutes, he retied the vine onto the boulder and pushed down the other end of the vine onto the ground again.

THUD

'Crap!'

Since he re-braided the vine and made it thicker, when the vine landed on the ground it produced a huge thud. It was a good thing the bear's only reaction was to twitch its ears.

'Phew, that was close.'

Now all he needed to do was somehow wrap the vine that he tied in a loop, around the bear's neck and have Silver pull the other end of the vine, bringing the rock down which would tighten the vine around the bear and strangle it.

He quickly climbed back down from the tree using the vine he dropped earlier.

'Good, it could support my weight. Seems sturdy enough.'

After reaching the ground, Cecil turned his eyes towards the monster bear. He found the bear still stationary where it was resting, eyes now closed. He had thoughts that he could probably make a quick getaway now that the bear was sleeping but–

'Run away? No way, not with how I can obtain sharp weapons from it if I can manage to kill it.'

Silver slowly started limping his way towards Cecil, in its mouth was a bundle of vines that he had gathered and put behind the other trees in the vicinity.

After reaching his side, Silver put down the vines and started keeping watch on the bear once again.

Cecil took the vines and started braiding them again. The braids were much longer than the earlier ones.

After he finished braiding them, Cecil slowly moved to the tree adjacent to the tree with the trap and wrapped the vines tightly around the tree's trunk.

After wrapping them around securely, he laid the vines down, a little closer to the tree with the trap.

This vine he would use to tie up one of the monster bear's arms . Since the tree was a bit far away from the trap, he hoped that it would somehow keep the arm of the bear stretched out so it couldn't wave it around to try and cut the vine that was strangling it later.

As for the other arm, he would try and draw its attention by repeatedly throwing sharp rocks at its face and eyes and hopefully make it raise its other arm to defend against the attacks.

This wasn't a fool proof plan, heck, it was a totally naïve plan, but this was due to the fact that Cecil was only 13 years old and hadn't really faced a real battle where his life was in danger of being reaped if he didn't carefully plan things out.

Thinking that things were okay, he proceeded with the plan. He hoped that it would go without a hitch.

"Okay, everything's ready. Silver, get ready and be on standby to pull the vine when I tell you to."

"Woof!"

Reaffirming the plan in mind and resolving himself once again, Cecil started picking up bigger sized rocks and gathering them around the area near the trap.

After doing so, he picked up another handful of smaller rocks, and started walking towards the clearing where the monster bear was resting.

After looking at it once more, he took a sharper looking rock and aimed. He took a stance and slowly drew back his arm. He aimed at the bear's face, he couldn't locate the eye since after the bear closed it, all he saw was a face full of fur.

He started storing power in his arm making the muscles on his arm visibly swell. After acc.u.mulating enough strength into his arm, he threw the rock at the bear's face, towards the area where he thought the eyes would be with all the might his small body could muster.

SQUELCH!

The result was a disgusting sounding impact.

"ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRR"

The bear was rudely awakened! It started roaring and thrashing around.

When Cecil took a look again, he found that the eye of the bear was actually punctured by the sharp rock he threw earlier. It looks like he busted its eye, it was bleeding and didn't show any signs of stopping. He was surprised at first, but then he quickly regained his bearings and started yelling at the bear while throwing more rocks at its face.

"HEY! HEY!! OVER HERE STUPID!!!"

When the bear took another rock to its face and hearing him shouting, the monster bear turned towards Cecil with its remaining opened eye, and started charged at him while roaring angrily.

"ROOOOOAAAARRRR"

"That's right. OVER HERE!!!"

'Good, the bear is moving according to plan.'

Cecil continued chucking rocks at its face while running towards the trap he set.

After arriving slid and caught the vine that was on the ground and ducked behind the tree. After ducking behind the tree, he quickly started climbing up the tree while holding one end of the vine where the loop was.

Reaching a part of the tree trunk where there was a protrusion of what seemed to once be a branch, he waited for the bear to come.

"ROOAAR"

Seeing that Cecil playing the same tricks as earlier, the bear smartened up and slowed down. It turned around the tree but, couldn't find where the tiny little bug that busted its eye.

What the bear didn't know was that a pair of black eyes glaring down at it from above. After positioning himself to jump off the tree with the vine in hand, Cecil heard Silver start roaring at the bear.

"RAAAAAHHH!"

The attention of the bear was momentarily directed towards Silver who came out of his hiding place. Cecil quickly thanked Silver in his heart. With the bear's attention shifted on Silver, Cecil immediately jump down onto it.

Having something heavy slam onto it, the monster bear was startled, it roared and tried to slash at the bug that landed on its back. But before it could do so, Cecil had already wrapped the loop on the vine around its neck and jumped off its back with the vine still in hand. With him jumping off, the loop started to tighten around the bear's neck.

"AAAHHHH"

"WOOF!"

That was the signal.

Silver quickly bit down on the vine that was on the ground, pulled on it and started to run back quickly. Cecil landed on the ground with a roll and started to sprint towards the vines that he was going to use to wrap around one of the monster bear's arm.

Woooooshh~!

It was the sound of the boulder falling.

When Cecil reached the vines, the monster bear had its roar abruptly cut off.

He quickly slid and picked up the vines, he kicked off the ground and bound towards the bear again.

Thankfully enough, it was being strangled. Cecil saw one of its arms moving to cut the vine above, so he responded by quickly throwing the vine with one hand while his other hand threw a rock at its face.

With some luck, the vine that Cecil threw was able to wound around one of its half raised arms. Seeing that it was hooked on, Cecil quickly pulled onto the vine and tightened the loop around it.

Yeah, it only wrapped around the arm, it didn't really restrain it all that much since the vine was longer than expected, but it was enough to hinder its claws or blades from reaching anywhere near the vine that was strangling it.

Although it didn't turn out as planned, it was enough. He quickly sprinted past it while chucking rocks at its face, aiming for its other eye.

'Damnit, the good eye is exactly at the opposite location where I gathered those rocks. Damn, another blunder.'

Yes, it was another blunder. Cecil didn't expect the bear to wisen up and slow down instead of charging past like it normally would. Still he had a couple of rocks on him and there were plenty scattered around the ground.

Cecil kept chucking the rocks that he had on him towards the bear's face while moving around to pick up more rocks and finding a better angle to aim for its remaining eye.

"Haha, it's protecting its face with the other arm!"

It was pure luck that the rock from earlier had penetrated the monster bear's eye causing the current situation where the bear had to focus on protecting its face from the projectiles launched by Cecil.

The pain in its right eye reminded it of the injury the small bipedal creature had caused.

It was a coincidence that worked to the benefit of Cecil and Silver. Cecil kept throwing rocks at it while waiting for the vine to choke the bear to death.

"Just a little more, it's already frothing.'

Suddenly the bear jumped up in the air.

"WHAT THE–!!!"

BOOOOOOOOMMM

The monster bear landed back down on the ground, causing a mini-quake. The jump surprised Cecil and the resulting quake caught him off guard, making him stumble and fall on his butt.

"OH SHIT!"

"WOOOF!"

The vine was still wrapped around the neck of the bear, but it was no longer strangling it.

"DAMN!"

Cecil scrambled to his feet, but the bear had already turned towards him and started roaring.

"ROAAR!!"

SNAP CRACK BAM SNAP CRACK

"Eh?"

"Rah?"

BOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM

SNAP! SQUELCH!

Blood and gore flew across the air, landing just in front of Cecil.

"Eh?"

A thick tree branch landed at the area where the monster bear was standing on earlier.

"What? What happened?"

Although it didn't really turn out according to what Cecil had planned, the subjugation of the monster bear was completed, somehow.