CH 133

This disastrous scene leads one adventurer to scream and jump into the forest to get away.

No one stops him. No one takes their eyes off the enemy in front of us.

“Master, any tricks left?”

Asks Sera.

“I do have a countermeasure, but I only get one shot with it.”

“Got it. I’ll attract its attention the best I can. But if you’re making a move, who will protect Mia?”

I look at Mia, and she doesn’t seem well. Would it be safer if she ran from here?

“I’m fine. H-hum, we should be more worried about that person and heal him.”

“Is she talking about that wounded magic user? Even now, she’s still concerned about other people.

Me on the other hand… I only care about the safety of these three to be perfectly honest.

“Big sister Sera, can you hold it back?”

“Hikari?”

“We’ll meet up with the others and have them defend big sister Mia. I’ll do it too of course, so master…”

I look at Sera, and she nods.

It’s time to make a decision.

“Sera, I’m counting on you.”

Sera hears that and takes off running, and we do the same.

Sera attacks, and the shadow wolf dodges, even though it has its shadow armor back. Instead of blocking with its shadow armor, it attacks with shadow strikes mixed in.

It’s clearly using those shadows better, and although her physical abilities are very good, these continued attacks are leaving Sera out of breath.

Mia fires a Holy Arrow while running. The shadow wolf tries to defend with its shadows, but the arrow pushes through and towards the monster.

But this time, the shadow wolf calmly evades it, like it knew this would happen. It’s like it was trying to see if it really couldn’t block an Holy Arrow with its shadows.

Sera takes this opportunity to make a move too, but the shadow wolf also handles her attacks. It’s clearly used to fighting by now.

We reach Fred and the others, and Mia starts healing the wounded magic user.

“Do you still intend to fight?”

I ask Fred, as he watches Sera fight the shadow wolf with a blank look on his face.

He snaps out of it when he hears me and turns around. His eyes look dead. It looks like he’s given up, and is prepared to lose.

“You’re still fighting it?”

He asks, like it’s hard to even muster up the strength to speak. I feel like I can hear it in his voice that he just wants this to end.

“I don’t know if it will work, but I have one move left. But for that, I’m going to need to get close and attack it, and that leaves only Hikari to defend Mia.”

“So you want us to protect her?”

“You’re the ones who brought us here, right?”

“I guess…”

“If you wanted to just give up, you should have said so instead of putting us in danger too. If you can’t do it, then take them and get out of here. At this point you’re just in the way, to be honest.”

It’s true, it would be easier to fight with them gone, because it would broaden the battlefield. Although that would make it trickier later when people asked us how we defeated it.

“All right… I’ll stay.”

“Fred!”

“It really is irresponsible. We’re the ones who asked them to come here. You pull back, we might get reinforcements from the guild.”

Fred has an amused smile on his face as he says this. But there’s also something refreshing about his expression, like he pushed away the uncertainty from earlier.

“So what’s the plan?”

“Just focus on defending her. Hikari, do you still have potions?”

“Yes, no problem.”

“Mia, do you need mana potions?”

“It’s all right. I can’t drink them all if you give me more.”

Says Mia while smiling. She’s right.

And I think she’ll be fine if she can still joke. Although she could be putting on a brave face.

“I think you can just clear away the shadow attacks. Mia… I think it’s best to prioritize Heal. If you can fire an Holy Arrow, or rather, if it isn’t dangerous, do it to scatter the shadows.”

Should I use a barrier? Three of them? That would empty my MP. I could drink a mana potion and charge.

But first, I take out my spare sword and attach it to my waist. I can pull things from the Item Box whenever I want, but it would be slower.

Everything’s ready, so I approach the monster from a different direction than Sera.

The shadows come to keep me in check, just as I thought, although it definitely sees Sera as more of a threat. Maybe her blows are doing some damage even with the shadow armor. It’s not really reacting to me.

The fact that its attention is mostly on Sera is perfect for me. Keep being careless until I can get close.

I destroy shadows coming at me. Focusing on attacking, or rather, on only me is actually less of a burden.

I’m not going berserk or anything, but I’m actually feeling kind of elated. Wait, is this a sign that the stress is getting to me!?

My Parallel Thinking is going in a dumb direction.

Oops, it changed the pattern slightly and threw off my timing.

Careful careful. But apparently it’s getting irritated.

I feel like its attacks are getting less precise. Is it starting to lose focus?

The fact that it’s learning and getting better means it had very little combat experience. There’s the fact that it was born recently too, but having such high abilities from the beginning means it never had to fight for this long.

Monsters and people are different. Their ecology is a mystery, but if someone studies it, I’d love to learn about it.

One of Sera’s attacks connects, and while the shadow armor protects the monster, it doesn’t stop it from being pushed back.

I try to slash at it too, but it does nothing. I’m making magic energy flow to my weapon, but all I did was scratch the surface a tiny bit. There’s a huge difference in the toughness of the shadows and its main body.

Even though my attacks are supposedly stronger.

It counters with its shadows, and I repel them with my sword. But defending puts me in an awkward stance, and each attack is draining my energy. The fact that I can’t plant my legs firmly means I have to let my arms do all the work.

The next attack pushes my sword back, and I won’t be able to guard against the one that follows.

I brace myself to eat that strike, but the shadow wolf actually takes evasive action, before a shining arrow passes right in front of me.

Mia is backing me up, even though I told her not to push herself.

Not to mention that the attack made it change its target, and it’s now dashing towards Mia.

I can’t get there in time. Sera is after it too, but she’s further away than me.

It’s really going fast. Is it trying to tackle and send her flying?

I infuse a throwing knife with magic energy and throw it, but it’s easily repelled. It didn’t even slow it down.

Fred stands in front of Mia to try to stop the monster’s charge.

The tip of his sword is shaking, but it’s obvious he won’t back down.

It’s almost there, will I make it in time? But then, Mia activates magic again.

She can’t focus it very well, and magic starts flying around and dispersing, but it works.

The shadow wolf stumbles as it sees something it hasn’t seen before. I think it’s under the impression that the spell dispersing like that is some kind of area attack.

I can reach it.

I power up my magic energy and slash at it. No, I smack it with the sword. The Sword Slash skill is raising its power and speed too.

It feels like I did some damage to the shadow armor.

The shadow wolf shrieks, and it feels like it didn’t really mean to.

It turns around and our eyes meet. I see its eyes filled with hatred.

Are you sure about that? I’m not the only one you have to worry about.

Sera slashes its paw as hard as she can, and the shadow wolf shrieks again.

I try to attack again, but shadows strike at me from a blind spot and fling my sword away.

I groan, but that noise is drowned out by Sera continuing to attack. She mercilessly strikes the same spot again.

The shadow wolf’s attention is completely on her again.

I unsheathe the sword hanging from my waist, and magic energy is immediately sucked from me. I can’t control it. At this rate, it might drain all my MP. But at the same time, the sword is enveloped in a divine looking shine.

The shadow wolf senses something bad, and quickly stops to take evasive action, but Sera moves not just to attack, but to stop it too. She crosses both axes on its paw to stop it from moving.

I have to aim for the neck.

The shadow wolf also knows what I’m aiming for, as it focuses its shadow armor on defense and makes it thicker.

Is it doing that instinctually? At this point, I feel like it’s also upped its game in terms of how it fights.

But sadly, for the monster at least, this is different. I leave a white trail behind as I swing, and rip through the shadow armor, the arm it raises to try to defend, and keep going all the way until I cut its neck.