Volume 2 - CH 42

Now we just have to take care of the second Patchwork Luce and the others are dealing with.

While I took a moment to have a breather in front of the remains of the Patchwork, I turned towards the others.

The Patchwork was swinging its three swords.

Luce kept dodging those to the right, while Celt tried to impede its movements by targeting its back and arms with his arrows.

It seems Mabel was running low on MP already, so she stopped attacking with her [Ice] and kept focusing on healing Luce.

“Celt-san, can’t you take over for a bit? Luce-san is obviously at her limit already!”

“You can be really nasty when you take off your sheep’s clothes, you damn Priestess! Hunters don’t work like that! Just be happy that I can divert its attention this much at all!”

…..his attitude got even worse somehow, but it seems Celt was staying with us for now.

“But at this rate my MP will run out and we will get wiped out!”

“If it comes to that then I will use my [Fleeing Hare] to run away! I could be running away right now, so just be thankful that I’m still here with you all in a deadly situation like this!”

It was clear that Luce was under a lot of pressure, but it seems they managed to avoid anyone dying.

Even without too many chances to go on the offensive, they not only managed to chip away its HP to less than half its maximum, but the Patchwork only had a single [Death Sword] shot left too.

If I enter the fight right now with my [Half-Dead Savage Dragon] active, we should be able to take it down in no time.

So I started running towards them.

“Kyaah!”

At that moment, Luce failed to dodge her opponent’s sword and tried to block it with her knife, but she lost out in strength and got thrown back into a wall.

“Luce-san!”

“Priestess girl! This happened because you kept rushing me!”

This is bad….she won’t be able to dodge the next attack from that position.

The Patchwork must be pissed at her too, having to chase after her all this time.

It will be going for a sure-kill move with his Skill.

Just as I feared, a magic circle was deployed.

I won’t make it at this distance.

“Luce, run!”

I shouted as loudly as I could.

Luce tried to stand up as fast as she could, but the [Death Sword] was clearly faster.

It happened then.

“Tsk….[Fleeing Hare]!”

Celt kicked off from the ground, curled up his body and jumped forward.

At first I thought he was trying to run away, but that wasn’t the case.

He arrived with a slide to where Luce was, pushing her out of the way.

“C-Celt-san, thank you very mu-”

“I’m a shameless person, but I don’t intend to be an ungrateful one. I was laughing to myself when I saw you go out of your way to try to save someone who just abandoned you. The higher rank an adventurer is, the more they tend to be assholes. If you want to make it as a B rank, then watch yourself in the future.”

Celt said with a forlorn smile.

In the next moment, a purplish blade of light tore into his body.

Crimson red blood splashed out.

Celt’s body rolled down to the floor.

“You did good, Celt.”

I used all my power to cut into the defenseless back of the Patchwork.

A large gash appeared in the rotten meat of its back and one of the arms that was stitched to it went flying.

The stitches of the Patchwork opened, allowing its large body to fall apart.

【You have gained 2478 experience points.】

We finally took down both Patchworks.

I’m glad I was able to tell them how to deal with the [Death Sword] that tends to kill people that have never seen it before.

It’s easy to comprehend in theory that it’s best to stretch out the fight when going against an opponent that has a Skill that can deal so much damage that it can almost be called an instant death Skill, but mentally you can easily find yourself impatient to finish it faster.

The fact that Luce trusted me and that the more experienced Celt stopped Mabel from overextending were important in this fight.

“C-Celt-san is, Celt-san is not moving!”

With a pale face, Mabel moved Celt’s body into a sitting position.

“It-It was my fault…..Because I was too impatient, Celt-san fell victim to….I thought he was an egotistical person, so why did he…..”

“Well….I can somehow see what his thought process was.”

The Hunter Class has a tendency towards being a jack of all trades Class.

Its main strength are its mobility and its ranged attack, but since it lacks in attack power, without any decisive blows available to it, it works best as a support dps.

Generally, the best use of his abilities in a party is making use of his mobility to cover for his teammates in a wide area, while distracting and steadily chipping away at each monster’s HP.

However, even though being able to cover multiple people in a wide range is one of the Class’ main strengths, he can also pretty blatantly decide whether to take a last hit or let someone else have it.

If he keeps letting others have them, then they will just keep taking advantage of him. However, if he snatches away even one of them, the others might hold a grudge about it.

“If he gets hated anyway, then he must’ve thought that he might as well go all the way. Doing something like that in half measures would’ve been even harder on him, and this world isn’t nice enough that he would be able to make a living if he just keeps letting others have all the monsters all the time.”

“I’m a shameless person, but I don’t intend to be an ungrateful one.”

Celt said this at the end.

Perhaps he decided that he wouldn’t start out by making compromises, since that would just make others look down on him, but if someone does him a favor, then he would do his best to return it.

Luce was the one who actually saved him, so he must’ve felt reluctant to let her die right in front of his eyes.

“Wha-why are you so calm, Elma-san! He might not have been that good of a person, but someone who was our teammate just died….!”

“Nah, he’s alive.”

“Hah?”

Mabel’s eyes went wide from hearing my words.

“O-ouch…..It seems I lost consciousness for a bit there due to that critical blow. Hey, Priestess, heal me now please.”

Celt opened his eyes.

“Celt-san! You’re alive….I’m so glad…..”

Mabel let out a large sigh and her knees gave out in relief.

I was able to tell because of how much experience points we got. It was how much we would get as a party of four.

“The Hunter has a Skill called [Fake Death].”

Celt’s shoulders twitched from my words.

When on low HP after receiving a large amount of damage, [Fake Death] can mimic a death-like state by collapsing to the ground.

It shifts the monster’s focus from the user to another adventurer nearby, and if lucky, this Skill may even allow the user to successfully escape from the fight altogether.

“D-Do you want to blame me!? If that magic hit me in a bad place, I could’ve died just now! If I was about to be out of commission either way, then of course I chose the method that may allow me to live!”

“….if you didn’t feign to be unconscious, then I may have reconsidered my opinion of you.”

Mabel grumbled in exasperation.