Testing My Luck in the New World

“Stay away from this one, boys,” Tillmann said, his voice hard. “None of ye are a match for her...”

“Hoho? How sweet of you, Rock Muncher. Long time no see.”

“Elane Bellenfort... What in the hells are you doing here?”

Elane cocked her head, smiling with nothing but her lips. Her cobalt eyes took a lap around the camp, sizing it up.

“L-Lady Bellenfort?” Yua said, wide-eyed.

Elane pointed to her, but didn’t let Tillmann out of her line of sight.

“Don’t call me that. To you, my name is Elane. Just Elane. Kitty can call me whatever she wants, though. Speaking of, where is she?”

            Unconcerned with her surroundings, Elane turned left and right, tracing the camp again for signs of the cat girl we failed to find.

            “She’s somewhere in the forest,” Yua said, trying and failing to use the distraction to worm out of Gawin’s hold. “And Alex has been poisoned.”

            “Poisoned?” Elane repeated with a grimace. “Tch. And I just used my last Cure Poison potion yesterday… Now it feels like I wasted it. Least it kill him, right?”

            Deciding this on her own, Elane tilted her head in my direction, now looking me over. She clearly didn’t like whatever it was she saw. At least, it brought a furrow to her shapely brow.

            “Don’t ignore me, Map-Fucker!” Tillmann shouted. “Why are ye here and how did ye get past my barrier?!”

            “What do you mean, how? You always use the same passphrase, dumbass. Saint Mejula, blah blah blah. I mean, really? How many years has it been and you never bothered to change it?”

            “…”

            Unable to refute her, Tillmann’s grip on his hammer tightened hard enough to make it shake.

            Wait. Do… – coat –, do these two know each other?

I must have managed something akin to a confused expression, because Elane looked to me with a laugh pulling on her lips and explained.

“Tillmann used to be one of my bodyguards back when I traveled the world. This barrier to protect us during the night. Gods, I can’t tell you how hard it was to sleep under this thing. Might as well always be daytime.

“Anyways, when you mentioned a dwarf and a barrier back at the tavern, I had a hunch you might have meant him, but I shrugged it off as just a drunken thought. Figured old Rock Muncher here was too proud to let himself fall to thievery. Once I sobered up and got some sleep, I thought to tell you. Just in case, you know? I had Erika track you down again and her nose led us to your inn. There she said your trail up and vanished. You were nowhere in the city. So, I figured that, if you left the city, then you must have headed into the forest. Then we tracked you down again. And then I saw the barrier myself and tried that Saint Mejula nonsense on a whim and, well, here I am.”

After her long-winded retelling of her day, Elane levied her axe over her shoulder and set her palm casually on her hip. Tillmann’s eye twitched.

“Ye still haven’t said why you’re here!”

“Uh, yea, I did. I wanted to talk to Alex. And I had nothing better to do.”

“Gods… Ye always were recklessly narrow-minded. If all ye wanted were ta talk, why bring the axe?”

Elane shrugged. “I bring it everywhere. Old habits, ya know?”

“Old habits, aye? And here I thought ye gave up those habits and settled down in a big fancy house.”

“And I thought you went home to go dig up your metals or whatever.”

“Ores, and yer damned king cheated me! The mine he gave me wasn’t worth pissin’ in, let alone diggin’. All that work protectin’ yer sorry arse, and what do I get fer it? Tin! Gods-damned tin!”

“Oh no,” she laughed. “Saint Mejula must have forsaken you. What a shame.”

“This ain’t a damn joke! My hammer forges weapons of war, not trinkets and baubles! I staked time better spent at the forge, years of my life, protectin’ ye and what he gave me wasn’t enough to keep me fed. Or drunk! And when I dared to complain, I was cast aside. Tricked into becomin’ a thief and…”

“And then you actually became a thief to make up for it?” Elane finished, scratching her head. “Sounds like you were just being picky.”

Tillmann glared at her, his eyes attempting to burn her with the raging infernos of hell itself. But she remained calm. Almost concerningly so.

“It ain’t that simple. Our work here and the gold we’re makin’ is my ticket home. Even then, it’s bound ta be a gamble.”

“You know, you could have just asked me for help. I might have given you the coin as a thanks for watching my back until I could fight for myself. What happened to being drinking buddies? I leaned on you when I was… tipsy. Why not lean on me when you’re sober?”

“… I seized the first opportunity what came my way. And how was I supposed ta know that the big-tittied blonde choking that boy in the city was you?”

“Right. I suppose you needing to stay under the barrier to keep it active kind of makes it hard to visit. I take it that means you’ve been sleeping under this thing since you became a thief? Suppose it keeps you safe. Well, used to, anyways.”

At this, Tillmann spun the shaft of his hammer in his hand. Elane shifted her grip on her axe, but didn’t lift it from her shoulder.

“Ye fixin’ ta get in my way, Map-Fucker?”

“Depends, Rock Muncher. Are you going to stop me from collecting Alex and his women?”

“… I might be willin’ ta part with the boy, so long as his woman tells me what I want ta know.”

Elane looked to Yua and, her cheeks dried, she quickly explained the situation.

“Tillmann’s been threatening Alex to force me tell him where to find more essence crystal caves. But I keep telling him that my people never even knew about the first one. They were about to kill Alex to make me talk when you showed up.”

“… Is that so?”

Elane hefted the battleaxe from her shoulder and let its – massive – head thud against the ground. She glanced at me, at Gregor holding me, and, presumably, at Silvano behind me. Her fingers strangled the axe’s long handle.

Tillmann’s grip on his hammer tightened in response. Then he took a breath and spoke with a surprising calmness.

“Map-F… No, Elane, work with me. For old times’ sake. If ye know these two, make em see reason and fess up. Do that and they can leave. I’ll give ‘em up for ye. But ye… With yer strength and yer love of axes, together we could swing our picks in the next cave and we’d have it cleaned out in no time. I’ll cut ye in on the gold. What say ye ta forty-percent?”

“What?!” Gawin shouted. “The rest of us only get five-percent! Why’s she getting forty?”

“Quiet, fool!” Tillmann barked and Gawin flinched back. The dwarf turned back to Elane. “How about it?”

“No thanks.”

“Do ye have any idea how much an essence crystal is worth? Theres caves full of them in this here forest.”

“I have enough gold. What I want is something much more valuable.”

She winked at me. Tillmann roughly combed his fingers through his beard. A little too roughly. Almost like he were about to tear it out before he suddenly eased up.

Stroking his beard now as if to soothe the damage, he narrowed his eyes at her knowingly.

“Big-tittied blonde in the city… Arthur, this is that woman you saw, right?”

“Ohhhh, definitely,” Arthur said, staring, enamored at a certain bodacious part of Elane’s anatomy. “I wouldn’t confuse her for nobody.”

“Right, I thought so. Ain’t ye said she was complainin’ about this boy makin’ her a thief?”

He pointed his hammer at me and Elane clicked her tongue. Yua winced – she must have been too distracted in the moment to realize Arthur had circled back to see the commotion we caused.

Their reactions were dead giveaways – obvious –, but with a seedy smirk, Arthur stood, gripped his lapel with both hands and confirmed it.

“She sure did, boss. Nearly killed him, too, from what I saw.”

“Interestin’,” Tillmann said, fingering his beard. “If he made ye a thief, why are eye protectin’ him?”

“I have my reasons.”

“And what might they be?”

At this, Elane smirked – gorgeous –. She glanced at me and broke into a brief fit of womanly giggles before I noticed her cheeks were flushed – red –.

“He’s the man I’ve decided to make my husband.”

“… What?”

Tillmann’s jaw – beard – dropped in open confusion. As did everyone else’s. Even Yua tilted her head, staring wide-eyed at the blonde’s inappropriately timed declaration.

I, on the other hand, was entirely incapable of processing this scene. For multiple reasons.

“I had a good, long chat with him over drinks.And after sobering up, I realized I’d been enjoying how he treats me as just another woman and not some stuffy noble like everyone else. He doesn’t try to chat me up. Doesn’t run away in fear at the sight of me, either. Though his eyes do tend to linger a bit more than they should,” she said and shrugged. Despite herself, Yua nodded along. Elane continued. “That, and he’s a funny drunk. Can’t keep his mouth shut. He accidentally let me in on a little secret that I am just dying to hear more of. Haha. I suppose you could say that nobody on this planet sees me, this world, the way he does. Not on this world, at least.”

With a cute smirk, Elane winked at me again. I couldn’t respond, but she didn’t seem to mind one bit.

Tillmann pinched his eyes shut, rolling his jaw in frustration.

“For years, I watched ye bat away every suitor that even looked at ye, and ye pick now of all times to choose a man?”

“Yes. And it seems you’ve hurt that man.”

She shifted her grip on her weapon, her hand closer to the axe’s head now. 

“… Don’t supposed ye’d change yer mind if I said I know a priest what can marry ye? One that would keep his trap shut about ye bein’ a thief?”

“No need. I’ve already decided how that’s going to play out.”

Tillmann hung his head. Spinning his hammer one more time, considering. He thumped it into his empty palm.

“Then it seems we are both in fer some trouble. Don’t forget who forged that axe fer ye. I know all its weak points.”

“Hoho? Are you saying you intentionally left weaknesses in what you once called your best work? Naughty naughty.”

The dwarf sighed, ignoring the insult hidden within her comment.

“All metals, no matter who forged ‘em, has weaknesses. What matters is how obvious the weaknesses are. Same as most things.”

He kicked what was left of the log bench away to make room. Elane glanced at it and a certain knowing furrow arced her brow.

She widened her stance a hair, shielding me. The massive head to her axe glinted in the barrier’s light as if it received a fresh coat of oil just this morning. His hammer, however, shiny as it was, was heavily scarred. It looked as though it had been abused and fixed countless times.

The two stared each other down for what felt like a millennium. Each one waited for the other to make the first move. Quite possibly because that first move might be all they’d need.

“Hold it – hic – right there, Boss,” Arthur said, staggering between them. The sheer stupidity it had to have taken to get between the two stunned everyone speechless. Looking full of misplaced pride, he turned to Elane. “Wait just a damn minute. If this beauty’s getting – hic – married, then I want a shot at her first.”

“Arthur! Stand down, ye great fool!”

“Oh shut it. After all the beatings you gave me, I – hic – deserve this much for all my hard work. I want to have her before you go and ruin her face.”

Elane watched him without moving a muscle as he sauntered over to her with all the swagger of a drunkard –idiot – fresh off a twelve-hour bender. She had to raise her chin to meet his eyes, he was slightly taller than her, but she might as well have been looking down on him as his gaze fell to her chest.

“Let’s – hic – have a taste, shall we?”

Without pause, without waiting for Elane to react to words, Arthur slammed his hands into her breasts, sinking his fingers into them. Grinning like a kid in a candy shop, he then began to lift and fondle them.

Elane was still. There was no shock or disgust on her face. She merely smiled at him – chilling –. Tillmann palmed his face, but made no moves to stop the man either. Instead, he looked to the bottle Arthur had reclaimed during the commotion – empty –.

“Do you like them?” Elane said. “Nice and soft? And squishy? Do they feel good in your hands?”

“Gods, yes. I’ve never seen a pair of tits like this.”

“Good,” she smiled, lifting her axe high into the air. “Go ahead and have your fill. Just hold still for me, okay?”

Passively letting herself be fondled, Elane’s axe extended as far as it could, until her grip tightened audibly. Too focused on his perversions, Arthur was none the wiser when her right foot kicked back and her axe came barreling down on him.

The sound of a butcher’s cleaver slicing through a thick rack of ribs overpowered all other sound in the forest. But then it vanished and silence returned before I could make sense of it.

In an instant, the movements of Arthur’s hands ceased. Like every muscle in his body seized up all at once. His expression, still bearing that greedy smile froze solid. Elane took a step back, letting his fingers slip off her. To me, her axe had teleported from over his head to down between his legs. Like it had simply slipped right through him. But that wasn’t it.

She rested her axe on her shoulder again.

Expression still frozen, Arthur’s arms fell limp to his sides. Their weight then caused the two halves of what had been a man moments ago to peel apart. Deep crimson blood began to spill as meat and sinew parted. The halves of his body hit the ground before my lack of focus allowed me to notice any more detail.

Several jumps through the mental image I’d just seen later and I realized she’d killed him. Thankfully, the poison wasn’t letting me focus on that fact. But only because another thought came to mind…

Do. Not. Make. Her. Angry.

Yua looked moderately stunned, but that was about it. That was the only reaction his death brought to the camp. None of the others really seemed to care. They must have hated Arthur as much as they did Tillmann.

The conversation continued as I belatedly processed what just happened.

“Gods,” Elane sighed, looking down at her chest as she readjusted her coat. “These tits are such a pain sometimes. More trouble than they’re worth.”

“Great, now I’ve lost another set of hands,” Tillmann complained. “Ye usually just break their arms when the drunks try ta have a feel. Got a taste for killin’ now?”

“He groped me right after I said I planned to marry. What would you have me do?”

“Damn fool…,” Tillmann sighed, his expression oddly neutral. “As humans go, that man was especially poor at handlin’ his drink. He was my link ta dealin’ with that shitty lord, but...”

“Lord?” Elane repeated, brow raised. “You mean Lord Argento?”

“… Yes, actually,” he said, lifting a glare back to her. If he didn’t know Elane had been in Guerraway, then he certainly didn’t know why she was in Guerraway.

“Hmm. Well, you best forget about him. By chance, the Duke and I met with him last night. I already sent him running back to his country with his tail between his legs. Took care of that pesky Sir Astore, too. And his men. Damn mut tried to sink his teeth into my maids.”

“…”

“Oh,” she continued. “And I confiscated the crystals Lord Argento had on his boat as well. You can give them back to your people when we’re done here, Yua.”

“Th-Thanks?”

Though Tillmann had twice displayed his explosive temper, he managed a breath to calm himself before responding to her jab.

“Elane, is the Duke comin’ for us?”

“Nope. Why the hell would I bother going to beg that little shit for help when I came here to talk?”

Tillmann nodded sagely, then his eyes sharpened and said, “Gregor, Gawin, you keep those two down. Silvano, Yelis, ye’re with me. We’ll have to kill her.”

Yelis, still very much one-armed and without his spear, was stunned speechless by his inclusion. Shakily, visibly unsure, he abandoned his flask and stood, drawing his dagger. Silvano was too, but for an entirely different reason?

“But Boss, isn’t she a friend of yours?”

“Ain’t no friend of mine getting’ in the way of me getting’ back ta the forges. I promise ye, if we let her have her way, none of us be walkin’ out of here alive. We no longer got a choice in the matter.”

“And no friend of mine is going to threaten my husband,” Elane said, then raised a brow in thought. “Well, future husband.”

What little mental faculties I had left in my control were banging their heads against the wall trying to understand what was going on. They just declared their intent to fight her three against one, but Elane – confident – barely looked like she was taking this seriously.

“Elane!” Yua yelled, trying again to free herself. “Get him off me! I can fight too!”

“Hoho? Sure thing.”

Without missing a beat, Elane turned her back to me and raise her axe with both hands. Gawin paled. With the threat of what letting Yua go to defend himself would mean for him on one hand, and with the thought of what just happened to Arthur on the other, he froze. Indecision made him sweat.

“Silvano!” Tillmann barked.

“Multi-Slice!”

Dashing past Gregor and me in a blur, Silvano burst into view just as he unleashed three rapid slashes with his sword. Elane spun back and threw up her axe to shield herself. Its long handle twisted and moved to block each attack with ease. In her hands, it was just as much a shield as it was a weapon.

The three rapid slashes clanged against it and, other than causing a generous sway in her chest, his strikes proved entirely useless. They just bounced off, like his sword were a child’s toy and Elane’s axe an immovable mountainside. I could practically feel his arms tingling from the shock of his own attacks rebounding on him.

Smirking, her grip on the axe’s handle shifted instantly, flowing from a firm hold to one noticeably nimbler as she pulled back to spear him with its tip.

But she stopped. Her cobalt eyes darted over to Tillmann before she spun the axe and smacked something out of the air with another loud clang. Tillmann must have thrown something, but it wasn’t his hammer. He was still holding it.

Yelis ran at her, dagger bared like the fangs of a wounded, desperate animal.

Silvano, too, chanted another ability and charged forward, his blade glowing.

Elane’s eyes darted from one to the other, but before she could decide which was the greater threat, she spun her axe again with a flourish and knocked another projectile out of the air. That axe of hers had to weigh at least fifty or sixty pounds, but she moved it as though it were weightless. But when it cut through the air, kicking up a breeze in this windless place, it felt as thick and heavy as a fully grown tree.

Once the projectile had been deflected, it slowly spun into view as its momentum petered away. It was the same hammer Tillmann used to break my sword. He was throwing tools.

Axe still spinning, she let its momentum carry her along its path. Flowing through the air, she looked almost elegant enough to mistake the forest for a ballet stage, but her axe knocked aside the glowing blade charging her with a vicious strike that sent Silvano tumbling to the ground.

At the same time, she sidestepped the dagger aimed at her unprotected stomach and dug her fingertips into Yelis’s forearm before he could recover.

Tillmann charged at her and his every step sounded like a meteor crashing in front of us. He was strong, but his short legs could only carry him so fast. He’d been bluffing when he said he was fast.

Yelis paled even more than he had after the blood loss. Without a second arm to help him, he pushed a boot against her thigh in a desperate struggle to free himself. She yanked him forward, as if she only cared about him dirtying her pants. Silvano was quick to lunge at her again. Sword bent, but still sharp, still glowing, he charged again. Likely hoping to attack while one of Elane’s hands were too occupied to fit her axe.

However, with just a flick of her wrist and a sickening crunch, Elane snapped Yelis’s arm clean in half like a twig. He fell to his knees screaming in agony as he gaped at the jagged bone that tore through his flesh. Elane stepped back and gripped her axe with both hands.

“Charge Slice!”

Roaring, Silvano closed the gap and his blade sliced through the air, aimed this time for her neck. But this time, she did not try to block it.

Elane dipped to the side, and his blade just barely missed her golden locks. Axe gripped firmly in both hands, she slammed its handle into Silvano’s head.

The hit didn’t just make him stagger, he seemed to lose consciousness all at once. His sword slipped from his hand and his body fell into Yelis, causing the man to scream out again as he had no arms left to catch the swordsman. Elane’s axe glittered as she held it aloft. Undaunted, Tillmann continued to charge.

Another butcher’s cleaver ripped through the forest and in one decisive chop, both Yelis and Silvano lost their heads. The screaming had stopped.

Tillmann barreled into Elane. As if he knew his men would fall in this way, he brought his hammer down on her before she could completely recover her swing. Unbalanced, Elane barely had the time to throw up her axe and block.

Hammer crashed into axe and thunder clapped under the barrier. Elane’s arms buckled and his unrelenting force sent her flying backwards.

He charged again, chasing after her. The two of them fell out of sight and my breath caught as I heard the repeated thunderclaps of their attacks echoing in the distance.

Elane was skilled enough to handedly defeat the two men I had struggled just to maim, and she beat them not just in a single strike, but in less than half the time.

The warnings about her had been warranted, but Tillmann’s strength was absurd. Twice now I’d seen him turn a normal hammer strike into an explosive force of nature. Given enough time, I was sure he could bend her axe enough to make it unusable, if not outright break it like he had my sword.

But I couldn’t see them.

Watching their fight wouldn’t have given me the chance to help her. I could not cast my – magic – spells and my abilities were essentially useless, but I wanted to see if she was okay. After what she said… no, before that, I had to know.

“Do you think we should help the boss?” Gregor said and I realized that he’d shifted on top of me, like he’d turned to watch them fight.

Gawin too had been watching, but he turned back with a shocked twist to his face.

“Are you insane? I’m not getting anywhere near that woman. Just look what she did to Silvano. Yelis is one thing, but besides the boss, Silvano was the strongest of us. And she toyed with him!”

“But she’ll be coming after us next if she beats him.”

“Hey, your guy can’t move. If you want to go fight, just go. But Boss will kill me himself if I let the girl go.”

“I’m not going alone! I’d get pulverized in an instant. We have to attack together to…

“Let me go,” Yua interrupted calmly, but loudly. “And I’ll ask Elane to show you both mercy after we beat Tillmann.”

This caused the men to stop their bickering. Gawin leaned to the side to meet her –emerald – eyes and I could only assume Gregor did the same.

Yua continued.

“You both hate him, don’t you? Arthur lied about a lot of things, apparently, but that part was definitely true. You all hate him.”

“… Of course we do,” Gregor said. “Do you have any idea how many times I almost died mining in the cave? The damn thing collapsed at least once a week, but once it settled, he forced us to keep going, spewing some nonsense about how a dwarf could tell it was safe.”

“Then there were the stamina potions he’d force down our throats,” Gawin added. “We just had to keep working. No matter how much we pulled from the cave in a day, it was never enough.”

The clashing continued out of view, every blow shaking the trees. Yua glanced at me, worry – grimacing – marring her face.

“Then help us beat him,” Yua said. “Your mutiny plan was a lie, but what if it wasn’t? Together, with Elane’s help, Tillmann really won’t stand a chance against us.”

Gawin looked to Gregor. There was a long pause that was filled only with the sounds of a fierce battle near us, but ultimately, he shook his head.

“No way. It’s a gamble right now, but if we side with you, we’re guaranteed to lose both the coin and the crystals.”

“We didn’t struggle for this long just to leave without anything to show for it.”

“But you could die!”

“And you could betray us the moment we let you up. Arguing is pointless.”

“But…”

“GAH!”

A heavy clang stopped the argument and Elane flew far past us towards and past the fire. Landing on her back, momentum caused her to flip over onto her stomach before sliding through the dirt.

She brushed her golden hair out of her eyes and clicked her tongue as she speared the tip of her axe into the dirt. Using the weapon as a crutch, she forced herself back to her feet. She’d been out of sight for only a minute or two, but she was bruised in several places. Her breathing was labored, it took several concerning inhalations before she was steady again.

A trickle of blood dripped down her brow, but she smeared it away, her eyes never once turning away from the dwarf approaching her.

Likewise, Tillmann was not unscathed, though the extent of his injuries were a small smattering of shallow cuts that did little more than threaten to add to his collection of scars. The corners of his mustache curled up into a grin as he thumped his hammer into his palm.

“You’ve gotten soft, Elane. All those years of decadence have made ye weak.”

“This is nothing,” she said, hefting her axe into both hands again. “I got a good workout yesterday cleaning up after you. I’d say I’m in top form.”

“Hardly,” Tillmann snorted, looking her over. “You’ve been livin’ it up while I kept at the grind. Ye’re out of practice. A waste, really. Ye caught up ta me so fast back then, but ye wasted yer potential just as quick. I’m thinkin’ we both know this ain’t going ta end how ye want, Map-Fucker…” He paused, then grinned. “Not unless ye go a little berserk.”

Elane tensed, her once confident beauty twisted with a contemptuous anger. Her grip on her axe tightened until her knuckles turned snow white. Fury rose to redden her cheeks, but she quickly managed to suppress whatever he was goading her in to.

Taking a series of calculated deep breaths, the redness quickly faded, but not before sweat dripped down her cheek.

“Coward.”

Her eyes still as sharp as daggers, she glared at him.

“I’m no coward. I’m just not dumb enough to give you an easy win.”

“Nah, maybe not. But it’s the best chance ye got. The stories about that pup Astore must have been a bag of lies if ye managed ta beat him like this.”

 “Well, I can’t say he put up much of a fight… Raah!”

Done with her breather, Elane brandished her axe and charged him. Her axe cut a wide arc through the air, only to be blocked by the head of Tillmann’s hammer when he jabbed it into her blade. Acting as though she wasn’t even aware of the existence of recoil, she pulled back and tried again in a flurry of chops.

Again and again she chopped, like a madwoman trying to slice through every atom in his body, and he blocked every strike. Probably because of his short, stocky stature, he never bothered to dodge. Blocking and tanking hits must have become second nature to him, because his arms swiftly carried his heavy hammer right where it needed to be to block her perfectly each and every time.

Not that he needed to worry. Elane was capable of moving her axe faster than anyone back on Earth ever could have considered possible, but the sheer size of it still forced a handicap on her speed. And his hammer was more than thick enough to handle whatever she dished out.

“Raah!”

Another, insanely heavy-handed downward chop was caught with the hammer. She shifted her grip to press down on the handle, trying to drive its blade into his skull, but then Tillmann’s gauntleted fist crashed into the side of her axe head, knocking it aside before he thrust the hammer into her abdomen.

She coughed, wheezed and tried to grab hold of his wrist, but Tillmann’s quick strike pushed her away before her fingers could wrap around him. Glaring through the pain, she touched a hand to her stomach. As if she could feel the skin there darkening into a bruise, she quickly thrust her hand into her coat pocket and pulled out a small red vial – potion –.

 Just as she uncorked and pressed it to her lips, another small hammer flew at her. 

“Tch...”

She’d gotten maybe a sip, a mere trickle of the life-saving juice to grace her tongue, before she had to let the vial drop to deflect the speeding bullet. A couple of her bruises had faded some, but not nearly enough.

Tillmann grinned and quickly closed the gap between them to restart the fight.

This was a battle between seasoned adventurers. Neither were going to let up enough for the other to have time to recover. Neither could afford to.

And Tillmann was right. Unlike him, Elane had spent the last few years drinking herself silly in her mansion. She was out of practice – lost her edge – and she was quickly losing ground as Tillmann took the offensive.

She was going to die. She didn’t even need to be here and she was going to die. I was able bodied. I could help. But my damn brain wouldn’t let me move!

“Alex!” Yua cried. “Calm down! Your heart is…”

“Quiet, you!” Gawin shouted, stretching her arms further behind her back and she grit her teeth.

Then her ears flicked and her attention turned elsewhere. Seconds later, another clash of steel shook the forest.

Elane staggered back, she’d blocked his hammer with the handle of her axe, but its force rippled through her arms down to her legs. And still she stood. Still she swung her axe. But the pain in her expression was too obvious.

I tried to move. I failed. I tried again.

“Mana!” Yua shouted, her voice cracking with desperation. “What are you waiting for?! Stop hesitating and do it!”

“I told you to be quiet!”

Looking like he wanted to punch her, Gawin pulled her arms even further, forcing her chest to lift off the ground as her back bent painfully. She grit her teeth, her ears flicked, and then… she – smiled –?

“Damn bitch,” Gawin said. “Stop fighting, would you? Keep it up and I’ll have the boss break your… Hrk!”

With a small spray of blood, an arrowhead ripped straight through his chest and out his back before his flesh killed its momentum, leaving it embedded.

[Slave Mana’s Archer Class Has Reached Level 2. New Ability Obtained: Sure Shot]

“Gawin?!” Gregor shouted.

Shocked beyond comprehension, Gawin’s chin dipped down to look at the shaft digging deep into his chest. He looked at it as if he’d never even seen an arrow before.

His brow taut in its furrow, he tried to suck in a breath, only for nothing to happen. The light in his eyes faded near instantly, but after his grip on Yua slackened.

Ripping her arms out of his grasp, Yua bucked her hips hard, lifting him into the air before pulling her legs back. Though he was already gone, she returned the pain he’d caused her by thrusting both her feet into his stomach, launching him well off her.

Spinning into a crouch, Yua growled at the man on my back.

“H-Hey wait! No, wait! I’m sorry, I’ll let him g… No!”

Feral, Yua kicked off the ground and launched herself into Gregor. His hands occupied with holding me, he couldn’t let go fast enough to reach for his sword as he was tackled to the ground.

I tried to move, but the moment the thought triggered itself in my brain, it vanished. Unable to make that round trip down to my limbs and back to my brain, it was instead completely overshadowed by an inappropriately desperate thought concerning breakfast cereal.

“Iron Fist!”

What came next was a man’s scream, followed by a series of painful, meaty blows before a sickening crunch that almost brought up the image of a – crushed watermelon –.

“Alex!”

Yua skidded in front of me, landing on her knees. Though I could feel my heart trying to claw its way out my throat, she thankfully hadn’t been harmed any further.

“Alex!” she shouted, shaking me. But all it did was shift my line of sight down to her chest – cleavage –.

 

 

“Damn it!”

She cupped my cheeks and lifted my face off the ground. Raising my head, she forced me to meet her worried – beautiful – emerald gaze.

“Alex, you need to focus! Just open your item box and give me the Cure Poison potion you got from Mother!”

Entirely against my will, another metallic screech of metal forced my attention elsewhere. Then there was the sound of exploding wood and of a tree crashing to the ground.

I couldn’t see Elane.

“Alex!” Yua cried. “Focus on me, please!”

My eyes wondered across her expression. Her big, loving eyes were now filled with worry. Her shapely brow arced with a forcefully hastened patience I didn’t deserve. Her luscious lips searched for words, but she didn’t seem to find any. She just forced a smile.

Then, as if preordained by the Goddess herself, one thought led to another, then another and another until my eyes eventually fell south again – cleavage –.

“Alex,” she said softly, almost cooing as she lifted my face back up to her. To what little surprise I could afford to consider in the moment, she didn’t look at all reproachful.

She looked over her shoulder, then back to me. She spoke slower this time, purposefully enunciating every syllable as though teaching me the language for the first time. 

“Alex. Open. Item. Box. Cure Poison. Potion.”

I stared at her. I could feel her worry, but all I could see was a strained, but very patient smile. She took a breath and tried again.

“Cure. Poison. Potion. Give. To. Me.”

“Cure. Poison. Potion. Come on, Alex.”

“Cure. Poi-son. Po-tion.”

My attention reeled. My focus flipped. My mind did summersaults trying to force action. But nothing was happening. I’d run through her words in my head enough time to understand them, but that was all I could manage.

“Come on, Alex,” she tried again, then her ears flicked with an idea. “My Mate. My Husband. My love. Give me the potion. You can do it. I’ll help you drink it.”

My gaze fell from her sweet words down to her chest – cleavage – again. But before she could lift me back to her eyes, a purple miasma flickered into existence between us before it faded.

She went still, and I worked myself to exhaustion trying to bring it back. It flickered again, then disappeared. I tried again. And again. And again. And she kept repeating her desire for the potion, just to keep it in my thoughts.

And the miasma appeared again. It flickered once or twice, like a light bulb ready to die out, but before it could, a glass bottle slipped out to land on her breasts. The miasma faded.

Yua fished the bottle out of her cleavage and ripped the cork out with her teeth. She gripped my collar and lifted me. My body limp and unable to stand on its own, she held me up, tilted my head back, pressed the bottle to my lips and poured.

Liquid rushed past my lips and only after several lapses in focus, did I realize it was draining down my cheek instead of my throat. Somehow the fact that it was bitter it was managed to stick, though.

“Damn…”

Yua stopped pouring. Instead, she leaned in and pressed her tongue hard against my cheek before dragging it upwards to collect what I failed to drink. She then drained the bottle into her mouth and tossed it aside before pressing her lips to mine.

Holding my cheeks so I couldn’t move, her tongue pushed the liquid into my mouth and, suddenly, it became very sweet.

My throat still wouldn’t obey my commands to move, but her tongue forced it to act on its own when the liquid had nowhere else to go but down the hatch.

It started as a trickle, but it tickled the back of my throat enough to force my neck muscles to move out of sheer agitation. And after just one good swallow, I felt a bit of clarity return.

One more and it was as though the wall between my thoughts and actions had begun to corrode.

And after a third, the wall all but collapsed and I began drinking on my own.

“…!”

My hand flew up to caress the back of her head and she gasped, but she held firm and she pushed the last of the potion into my mouth. Our lips parted and I gulped the last of it down and looked to her. She smiled and, finally, clarity and focus both hit me like a truck. Suddenly, it was like the mental fog had never existed.

Yua’s eyes wavered on the verge of tears, but then her ears flicked and she once again turned to the sounds of battle. I, however, opened my item box again and was pleased to see the miasma remain firm when I reached into it.

“Alex, if you can stand, we need to...!”

Mid-sentence, Yua’s eyes flew open when I pressed a health potion against her lips. She didn’t fight it and quickly drank it down. I drank one myself, though my hands shook as I held it.

Pins and needles prickled across my arms, re-lighting my sense of touch with fire. I must have fallen on them. That, or they’d been pinned beneath me the whole time and I hadn’t noticed. I couldn’t bring myself to look to Gregor for the answer.

“Come on, Yua,” I said, forcing strength back into my legs as I checked my girls’ health bars. “Mana’s fine, but Elane needs help.”

I stood and almost immediately fell back down as the fire spread to my legs. Yua jumped to help me get my bearings.

Elevated back to standing height, supported by Yua’s shoulder, my attention quickly snapped to the fight that had been raging in the background.

Tillmann brought his hammer down on Elane with enough force to shatter an anvil, but she blocked it with her axe. It was all she could do as he’d backed her against a tree. Her head bounced off the bark. She winced, but managed to kick him in the gut before he could swing again.

For all the weak points he claimed were in her axe, the thing didn’t even look scratched after all the blows they’ve traded. 

Just when Elane managed a smirk and spit out a mouthful of blood before raising her axe, she looked to us, and Tillmann’s hammer flew at her again. She threw herself out of the way, letting it explode the tree behind her before she hurried to her feet.

She kept his back to us. My mind raced for a solution.

“Get ready, Yua.”

I whispered and she nodded. I didn’t have time to question how good Tillmann’s ears were, but if he hadn’t noticed us yet, then all the better.

Needles still stabbing my arms, I pointed my hand at the thieves’ tent and unleashed several silent Fire Balls. The first crashed pointlessly into the dirt, but I adjusted my aim and the rest all struck true, searing their way through the front flaps.

Flames erupted and the tent was engulfed. The flames peeled away the tent’s outer shell, revealing my true target. The barrier crystal.

Aiming for it now, I willed my telekinesis to act on it, but it didn’t budge. I forced my legs to move and Yua carried me closer. I tried again and the stand started to knock around. We moved closer still and I focused on working every cell in my brain into action.

The essence crystal at the top of the shaft wiggled, then it turned on its side. Another couple of steps forward and it shot off the stand, rocketing through the air straight towards me. On track to smash into my face, it zipped straight past my unstable hand, but Yua snatched it out of the air.

The moment it touched her palm, the bright orange hue of the barrier began to waver. The sound of a thousand panes of glass cracking and shattering all at once stopped the fighting. Elane and Tillmann pushed away from each other to look around for the source of the noise. And as the barrier began to fall apart, as the Sun reclaimed its spot as the world’s greatest source of light, a violent wind ripped past us all.

Prepared this time, I wrapped an arm around Yua’s waist to hold us up, but its pressure hit both Elane and Tillmann hard. Both put up their arms to shield their eyes from the dust scattering through the camp like a sand storm. The campfire and the flames turning the tent to ash were snuffed out in an instant.

Just as fast, the atmosphere righted itself. Once the brief gale was gone, Tillmann uncovered his eyes. He looked to the remnants of his tent and the now empty crystal stand.

Finally, he noticed I was lucid again. “Ye bastard! No more foolin’! Now ye’re dead!”

Eyes burning hot enough to see theirs flames a mile away, Tillman slammed his fist into the still stunned Elane’s jaw, knocking her away. He then pulled back his heavily muscled arm and launched his hammer at us before charging after it to run us down.

It rocketed so fast I barely had time to toss my hands up. A portal appeared, connected to a part of the forest just outside where the barrier had been. The hammer slipped through just as the lights took shape and not a second later, it crashed into a tree somewhere behind us.

Tillmann skidded to a stop, aghast. Eyes wide, he watched as the tree it struck slowly collapsed, falling to the ground. His eyes were no doubt fixed on the hammer embedded in its base, like he didn’t know how it got there. He pointed an accusing finger at me.

“What the hells… Why ain’t I heard ye chant that spell?!”

He must have thought the hammer would hit before I could chant.

“Out with it! How did ye do it?”

Deciding to show rather than tell, I let go of Yua and aimed my palm at him. Pins and needles still rippled across my arms, making it hard to aim. Unaware of this, Tillmann put up his arms to brace himself just as a stone arrowhead shot out of my palm.

Surprised but already cautious, he shattered the stone with the back-handed swipe of his gauntlet. I fired a second and a third, keeping an eye on his movements. Unlike the thief before, he wasn’t sticking to the same patterns. Guess a trick like that wouldn’t work on someone like him.

Yua clenched her fists, forwent her usual stance and bent her knees to rush him, but I put up a hand to stop her.

“Stay with me. If he manages to get close, my magic won’t be as effective. And I don’t have my sword anymore.”

And I’d rather you didn’t get knocked out again rushing him. Or worse.

As if understanding this, the already fierce expression that took hold of her face took on a deeper shade of resentment.

“…Hmm.”

After a half glance back at Elane as she tried to stand back up, Tillmann stooped and picked up a grapefruit-sized rock. After a quick look at it, he gripped it firmly. He must have been out of options.

Undaunted and furious, he advanced and I got the strangest feeling he’d already figured out all the details of my silent casting.

I took a step back and cast Strangle Thorn. The grass in front of him turned into several thorned ropes and whipped up to coil around his calves, but he tore right through them as if they weren’t there. They didn’t slow him down for a second. He continued forwards, breaking into a sprint.

I threw open a portal, but he quickly changed direction and avoided it before the lights could take shape.

If Elane recognized the spell so easily because her experience seeing it in the past, then it only made sense that he would too if they traveled together. He wasn’t as fast as he bluffed, but he knows how to fight against it.

Assuming physical spells useless, I tried a Fire Ball, but he punched right through it. The flames collided with the steel of his gauntlets and ruptured, leaving nothing of its heat to touch him but a few scattering embers.

Sweat beaded on my forehead as I checked my mana bar. I’d been hoping to use the portal as a guillotine, but at this rate I was wasting mana. I can’t let myself fall into the same trap I had in my duel against Tama.

Damn…  

The pins and needles were gone. But so was his hammer. Assuming the thing wasn’t named Mjolnir, I shouldn’t have to worry about it flying back to him. It was as good as gone and, as a melee fighter, he had no choice but to improvise a weapon and move in close. How can I use that?

His hammer landed somewhere near to where we fought the thieves. Over near the stone pillars I made…

“…”

Suddenly, the image of my no-show father-in-law popped into mind, just to smirk at me. But I suppose I should be grateful.

“Yua,” I whispered. Her ears flicked, but she didn’t look my way. “I have a plan, but you’d have to distract him for a few seconds. Can you do it?”

The question seemed to have blindsided her, but the ease in how Tillmann knocked her out earlier was still fresh in both our minds.

After only a second’s delay, she responded with, “… Leave it to me.”

I nodded and used up the last of my dungeon stone to conjure a wall that stretched as far around us as my ability would allow. About twice Yua’s height, it completely concealed our presence. And not a moment too soon, as Tillmann had to stop his charge to prevent crashing into it.

More importantly, thanks to the combination of Material Creation and silent casting, it truly looked as though the wall appeared out of nowhere. Exactly what I needed.

“What in the…?! Where did ye pull that from…?”

Yua dashed for the wall, jumped to grab hold of its ledge and threw herself over it. The moment she vanished from sight, I opened a small portal and tossed a health potion through it to Elane. It was only a low-tiered one, but it’d have to do. Neither Yua nor I were strong enough yet. We needed her help.

“Iron Fist!”

Hearing the metallic clang I’d been expecting, I hurriedly conjured a staircase to the top of the wall, dashed up it and found Yua, knocking his attempts to bash her brains out aside by slamming her glowing fists into his to deflect them. With his overwhelming strength, this was all she could do, but each of his savage blows still forced her to move back along the wall.

Aiming at his back, I cast a full power Rock Throw and the spear-tipped projectile slammed into him right as he stepped into a punch. It knocked him off balance, but it wasn’t strong enough to pierce his flesh. Yua wasted no time in crashing her glowing fist into his cheek. His head whipped to the side, but all it seemed to do was piss him off further.

“Little bitch!”

A powerful left-hook flew over Yua’s head as she ducked backwards. The rock left a severe crack in the stone, but that was enough for me.

I hated leaving Yua to face him down while I hid in the back, but I knew I wouldn’t have been able to do what she did. And now I knew he could break the wall.

“Yua,” I said under my breath. “Smile if you can hear me.”

Her ears didn’t respond with their usual flick, but the corner of her peachy lips curled upwards. Good.

“What’s that smirk for?” Tillmann growled. “Ye think yer going ta win by dancin’ around? I held back when I knocked ye unconscious. And right now, I’m tempted ta say I don’t mind huntin’ down another of yer kind once I’m through with ye.”

Another violent roar and another dodged swing of Tillmann’s rock. Light on her feet, Yua made no attempts to hit back. Letting her fist get caught would bring a swift end to the fight. Instead, she held that same smirk on her lips. Though, it almost seemed like she was just trying to piss him off more.

I spoke low again, sure only she could hear me now.

“I want to bait him into punching through the wall.”

This ended her smirk, but I couldn’t risk giving away more details. Even though she strained to focus on her acrobatic dodging, the request clearly confused her. Still, punch by punch, she narrowly ducked and dodged his fists, always to her right. Leaving just enough room between them to entice and keep him coming, she skillfully led Tillmann away from the wall.

I fired another Rock Throw at his back, knowing it wouldn’t do much more than remind him I was there. A small chunk disappeared from his health bar, but he powered through as though he hadn’t felt it. Yua dodged further to the right.

The arc her movements traced through the grass was wide. From afar, it was easy to see she was skillfully looping back around towards the wall so she could put her back to it in a way that looked natural, but each time his fist blew past her, it grew closer and closer to connecting.

This time I aimed for the backs of his knees in hopes it’d give Yua a chance to put a little more distance between them, but he didn’t tank the spell this time.

“Damn mages…”

As if his dwarven nature could sense when a rock was thrown at him, Tillmann chanced a glare at me just in time to move his leg out of the way. He looked back to Yua, then to me and grinned beneath his beard.

“Ye think I’m fool enough ta let ye two put me in a pincer?”

Opting to ignore the Monk whose punches might as well have been made of feathers, Tillmann charged towards the wall. Towards me.

“Ye hide behind yer walls because ye can’t do any up close fightin’ yerself, right?! Fine by me! Don’t think I didn’t see that there weren’t any blood on yer sword before I dismantled it!”

I took his barb on the chin. If I’d had the will power to bloody my sword, we might not have found ourselves in this mess.

Still, this was not how I intended to get him over here, but if it works…

He’d be mostly right to assume I couldn’t fight hand-to-hand, but that didn’t matter. Yua chased him, her smirk now replaced with a rushed worry. I cast another Rock Throw. He deflected it. It was the same with the next two spells. They just weren’t moving fast enough.

“Iron Fist!”

Rushing to his side, she once again slammed her fist into his cheek. He grimaced, a small trickle of blood escaped the corner of his mouth, but he ignored the pain to charge me.

She followed, punched again, only for him to throw up an arm to block. Aiming at his beard, I cast Fire Ball, but the moment the flames appeared in front of my palm, the rock he’d been using as a bludgeon flew at me.

From this distance, I had no choice but to dodge. I threw myself to the side and nearly off the wall before catching myself. Heart pounding, I forced my sweaty grip to hold and pulled myself back up. I had to see his punch coming or all this would pointless.

He threw his only weapon without stopping his charge and in the time it took me to climb back up, he’d closed the distanced.

Fury dyeing his expression in red, Tillmann pulled his fist back, intending to put all the speed he’d picked up behind it. Giving my best impression of a cornered rat, I stayed put and opened a portal directly behind the wall.

“Raaah!”

 Bellowing an almighty roar, his fist drove into the wall right beneath me. A violent vibration struck the stone, ripped up through my legs to weaken my knees as it shattered like cheap clay, but the wall itself didn’t collapse. I’d built it so he’d have to break it down to get to me. And more importantly, I’d purposefully made it thin enough for his fist to plow clean threw it… and into my portal.

The second his knotted fist sank into the blue lights and appeared out the other side, I cut the spell. The portal vanished in the blink of an eye, cutting the connection between the two ends of space as if to return the world to its natural state. And a lump of bloodied flesh fell into the thieves’ campfire. The fire that once burned bright there had long since been snuffed out, so all it did was kick up a small plume of ash.

 While I’d been hoping he’d tackle the wall and fall through the portal himself, I was proud to say I’d relieved him of the hand he used to smack Yua.

But before I could pat myself on the back for cutting his fighting potential down several pegs, a sudden realization nearly me lose my footing.

I heard no cries of pain.

Another fist drove into the wall and my footing disappeared. I hit the ground, hard, and my ability to breathe was suddenly gone. Stone chunks rained down from the opening he’d made. His eyes burned with hatred. He gripped the wall with the hand he still had and pushed his bleeding stump against the opposite side. Pushing, forcing the wall to crack further, he forced the gap to widen so he could step through. Its hastily-constructed base weakened, the rest of the wall started to fall apart. He already had a potion in his mouth.

Deprived of oxygen, my lungs sucked in a gasping breath as I forced myself back to my feet. His stump of a wrist hadn’t stopped bleeding, but he showed no traces of pain in his expression. There was only fury carrying him forward.

His whole reason for being here was to eventually make his way back home. Back to his forge. Where he intended to return to the life of smithing he’d been longing for. And I just robbed him of one of his metal-working hands.

“Iron Fist!”

A shout came and his head whipped forward as if punched, but he continued as though he didn’t notice. Had the potion dulled his ability to feel pain?

“Shit...”

I threw open another portal and jumped through it to land beside Yua just as she hammered another punch into the back of his head. Her ears flicked the second I stepped out of the portal, but I wrapped an arm around her waist before she could react and pulled us back through yet another portal.

Keeping him in sight, we put some distance between us. It was endlessly frustrating to know my plan had both succeeded and failed at the same time, but we had to regroup and start over. All it took him was a quick look around the forest before he found us. And the blood loss didn’t seem to affect his ability to run at all.

Geez… High-leveled people were basically walking cheat codes.

“Don’t suppose you can take him now that he’s down a hand?”

Clenching her jaw, Yua gave a frustrated shake of her head.

“I hit him as hard as I could and it still doesn’t look like it did all that much.”

“And my spells are too weak.”

My memories of fighting in the dungeon were clear enough to realize that leveling my Magic stat had actually caused my Fire Ball spell to fly a little faster on top of doing more damage against the bosses. In theory, I could boost the stat enough to allow a single cast of Rock Throw to pierce his defenses, but that wouldn’t do us any good right now.

Dimensional Step was our best bet, since it could likely cut just about anything regardless of my stats.

That, and Elane.

Trying not to let Tillmann know I was looking at her, I saw that she was once again using her axe as a crutch. I couldn’t say if she managed to drink the health potion I tossed her, but she’d pulled out another of her own. The smaller vial was pressed firmly to her lips. She’d be back in action soon. We just had to hold out for her.

But Tillmann was getting closer. The bleeding in his arm had stopped. He must have snuck a potion when we teleported away.

“We’ll have to delay him the best we can until Elane…”

“Hey! Big Bro! Big Sis!”

Stunned by the voice I wish I hadn’t heard, I turned in the direction Yua had, only to find Mana jumping up and down, flailing her arms over by the tree line.

“Big Bro! Big Sis! Look who came to help!”

Deciding she’d gotten our attention, she pointed far to her right. Where I was finally expecting to see a muscle-headed jackass bowing in apology for being late, I instead spotted a pair of vaguely humanoid, plant-like creatures emerge from the forest.

Well, I say vaguely humanoid, but one did look distinctly more feminine than the other.

“The spriggans? Where they waiting outside the barrier again?”

“All the fighting must have attracted them,” Yua said, managing a small grin.

But then the ground quaked. Tillmann stopped dead in his tracks.

The trees shook and the leaves that couldn’t hold on rained all across the forest floor. Flinching, Yua’s ears quivered. Her hand grasped mine in the confusion and squeezed me tight. She stared wide-eyed into the trees, seeing something I couldn’t.

The ground quaked again and a pack of a dozen black wolves, a handful of foxes and even a pair of slithering snakes all broke through the bushes in a stampede. We readied ourselves to fight, but they didn’t run us down. Instead, they all rallied beside the spriggans.

They watched us, all of us, indiscriminately. The chorus of their fang-bearing snarls was haunting, but not enough to prevent noticing a flock of birds from swooping down to land on any branches that would have them, as if they just wanted to watch the show. Each of their beaks were not only sharpened into a hook, but the sickening shade of green they bore demanded they be understood as poisonous.

One such bird fluttered down to sit on the feminine spriggan’s head.

The ground quaked again. This time harder, closer. Yua’s grip on my hand tightened, but I could feel her trembling as her emerald eyes refused to budge from the same part of the forest she’d been staring at since the spriggans showed up.

Nobody said a word and nobody moved, not until the ground shook yet again and I finally realized Mana was standing over in that mess of forest dangers. But when I looked, all I saw was that girl standing there, her small chest puffed up proudly as she held her hands on the hips of her skirt. Her tail flicked about excitedly.

Just before I could call out to her, another mini earthquake shook the forest. Still staring, Yua pulled me back a step, then another, before a pair of glowing golden orbs pierced the darkness of the forest.

Another quake made a few of the wolves whimper as a hulking mass of fur and muscle broke into view. Just under two stories tall and as thick as a small house, its snarling, mangled snout loomed over the trees. Its mass as wide as a house, it had to push the trees themselves out of its way to step into the sunlight. With each of its limbs as thick as a car with muscle, a few of the tree trunks cracked beneath its pressure.

It paused beside the spriggans without so much as a glance at them, as if they were too small to notice. It sniffed the air. My legs shook when it turned its massive head towards Mana, locking its crazed eyes on her, and snarled. The low, soul-rending growl that rippled from its throat made everything with a beast’s ears take a step back. Rows of sharpened teeth lined its jaw. The thick saliva that dripped from them landed on a paw bearing a set of claws that were each the size of a curved greatsword.

“Y-Yua… What the hell is that?”

“A Brawler Bear.”

“Oh… Wait, wait, wait! Didn’t you say your dad fights those things?!”

“Yea,” she said, shaking her head as though coming out of a trance. “But I don’t think that’s the alpha-male. It’s too small. What’s it doing in this side of the forest?”

“Too small? You mean those things get bigger?!”

“Alex, under no circumstance can we fight the bear without Daddy.”

“Then what do we do?”

Unwilling and unable to wait for an answer, I slipped my hand out of hers to open a portal beside Mana, but before she noticed it, the feminine spriggan touched a branch-like hand to the bear’s snout and the beast seemed to almost calm. In seconds, its growling slowly stopped and its attention dropped low, almost bowing to the much smaller creature.

Its hulking frame lowered to the ground and the spriggan leaned in close, as if intending to whisper to it. And with its fangs still bared, as though it didn’t know how to put them away, the bear listened obediently. There was a long silence and the bear did not move a muscle through it all.

Then the spriggan pointed at Tillmann.

Turning to him, the Brawler Bear growled again, this time loud enough to deafen. Its front claws dug into soil as it prepared itself, sizing up its next opponent. And the multitude of scars barely hidden by its fur said it was just as experienced as he was.

“Damned forest…”

Tillmann took a step back, gawking, before his hand shot under his beard and he pulled out a pair of bottles. The info box of the first read that it was another high-tier health potion, but the second was a Greater Potion of Fortify Strength.

He quickly uncorked both with his teeth, spit out the stoppers and lifted the bottles over his mouth. Before I could question whether he actually intended to fight the bear, I threw open a small portal between his lips and the bottles and two differently-colored liquids splashed to the ground beside us.

Noticing the lacking taste of potion on his tongue, and seeing the portal before it fizzled out, Tillmann’s face grew red with fury all over again as he crushed the empty bottles in hand.

“Damn you! If I’m going ta die, then so are… ARGH!!”

Before he could finish his threat, before he could take another step towards us, Elane buried her axe deep into his shoulder blade.

The blood on her face dried, and the bruises covering her body now mostly faded, she grinned.

“Ye bitch…!”

“I don’t know much about spriggans,” Elane said, ripping her axe back out of him to let him fall to his knee. “But I know better than to interrupt a wild beasty during their hunt.” She looked to the bear and it watched her right back. “You should have just tracked me down and asked for help.”

“Fuckin’ bitch…Graah!”

Somehow, despite the copious blood loss, Tillmann managed to summon enough strength to turn and lunge for Elane. Just as surprised, Elane couldn’t bring up her axe in time to block the hook he drove into her cheek.

Dropping her axe, she flew back, straight into another portal and into my arms. Her cobalt gaze met mine for only a second before she smiled faintly and closed her eyes. Though the chunk of red that disappeared from her health bar was concerning, she was only unconscious.

Taking care not to cause her more pain, I set her down and handed Yua a bundle of health potions. Confused, she cradled them to her chest.

“Make her drink.”

Tillmann quickly scooped up Elane’s axe. With only one hand, it’d be awkward to use. He understood this with a grimace, but turned on us anyway.

“But what about…”

“Make her drink, Yua! I’ll handle it from here.”

I stepped in front of them, but nothing could have shielded us from the ear-splitting roar the Brawler Bear set loose to curse the world. It was done listing to the spriggan’s instruction. Its claws dug up massive clumps of dirt and grass as it and the rest of the horde of wildlife charged for the dwarf.

He looked to it, to the charging bear, then to us. Fury burning in his eyes, he took a shallow grip on the axe and sprinted towards us. He’d made his choice, and so had I. We’d both bitten off more than we could chew by coming here.

Fresh out of dungeon stone, Material Creation conjured a wooden baseball bat directly into my hands. I aimed it at the dwarf and readied myself to take a swing at him. At a glance, I could tell he’d make it to us long before the bear made it to him. He had to think I meant to cross blades with him.

“Ye bastard, human!” he bellowed. “I just wanted ta go home! Back ta my forge!”

I said nothing and waited. He’d already reached the fastest speed his weary legs could handle. I suppressed the mounting dread the best I could. The timing was going to have to be perfect or the bear was going to end up running us both down. The spriggans may be controlling it to some extent, but I wasn’t about to risk a fight with that thing.

Tillmann was on me in a second that passed like a blur. Close enough to see that his face had gone pale, I waited still. Down a hand, when he hefted the axe over his head to cut me down, he no longer had the ability to block my magic.

I peeled a hand off my weapon, aimed a palm at him and...

Lightning Bolt!

A bolt of blue lighting shot from my hand and struck his left knee.

“Graagh!”

He grimaced, the damage had not been as effective as I’d hoped, but the bolt still managed to twist and paralyze the muscles in his leg just before his foot hit the ground. Sapped of strength, his ankle buckled and he toppled forward straight through the portal I conjured to keep him from crashing into me.

Staving off a sigh of relief, I watched as he tumbled through the other end of the portal, right in front of the Brawler Bear’s warpath.

He was quick to spot it, its thundering charge was unmissable.

“Damned mage!”

With no other choice left to him, Tillmann rose to his feet. He staggered, set the axe down for but a moment to lay a firm punch on the leg I’d hit with my lightning to steady himself. Lifting the axe once more, he faced the bear and, with a mighty howl that matched the rampaging animals, he swung it without hesitation.

“RAAAAAAAH!”

For all his strength, for all the blood loss he lost, and only because the wild animal wasn’t smart enough to dodge, the head of the axe buried itself into the side of its neck. But the blade head only sank in an inch or two, as if he’d taken a half-hearted swing at a massively thick tree. It was more than enough to kill a human, but all it did was cause the bear’s charge to grind to a halt.

“Hrrah!”

Tillmann kicked his boot on the bear’s face as it howled and ripped the axe out. He moved to swing again, but the horde of wildlife was on him before he could.

A series of fangs dug into him. The foxes could only bite and latch onto his legs, but the larger wolves were free to clamp their jaws down on his sides, his back and even his arms. All snarling, all growling, they bit onto every part of him they could reach.

Forced to drop the axe, Tillmann howled in much deserved pain, but grit his teeth despite it all. He punched the animals one by one, his still mighty blows knocking them aside. The rapid series of punches would have put any boxer to shame, none that received his fist got back up. But they’d done their part.

As if the spriggans had planned this from the start, the moment Tillmann knocked the last wolf off him, and as the spriggan’s whip-like branches coiled around his ankles, rooting him in place, the Brawler Bear had recovered enough to swipe at him with its massive paw.

It must have felt like a brick wall flying toward him, but when it collided, all it did was slam him to the ground. He croaked a gasp, but clawed at the vines binding him. The male spriggan lashed him, but it didn’t stop him from trying to free himself.

The feminine spriggan looked up, up to the bird nesting on its head and it flew. Diving to land beside Tillmann, it jabbed the tip of its beak into his shoulder. It was followed by the pair of snakes, who sank their fangs into his stump wrist as the phantom hand attached to it flailed and failed to grip his bindings. It was possibly the only place on him they could pierce.

He paled further at the sight of them and tried to knock them away. It ripped its beak back out and returned to the spriggan’s head. In turn, their venom spent, the snakes slithered back into the trees.

“What… What was…”

Immediately slurring his words, Tillmann’s posture wavered for only a second before he collapsed into the grass. He twitched for less than a second, but his entire body fell still.

His info box read that he’d been paralyzed outright.

The spriggan’s released his ankles and stepped back, apparently content with letting the bear loom over him, its own blood dripping as it raised its right paw to blot out the sun.

Showing far more resilience than I could have anticipated, Tillmann continued to twitch violently, but his limbs failed him. Remembering how he broke free of my Force Sleep spell, telekinesis grabbed hold of Elane’s axe and I pulled it to me.

I then immediately thought better of it when I saw the spinning guillotine soaring towards me. Remembering how all my attempt to use this ability so far ended, I opened another portal at let the axe fly through it.

And just when the blue lights vanished, and I felt a twinge of mana fatigue, Tillmann roared one last time, his voice muffled by the lips he couldn’t move. The bear as it raked its claws across his torso, slicing straight through his leather apron.

Tillmann’s muffled roar echoed into nothing and I turned away the moment I saw his health bar vanish, before I could see the bear’s greedy follow up. Enraged by the gash in its neck, it continued to claw at him long after I looked away.

Just then, a small bundle of cuteness-incarnate barreled into me. Rubbing her cheek into my chest, Mana beamed in delight as she grinned up at me, her tail flicking happily. Seeing her like this, it would have been all too easy to assume I’d hallucinated the last few minutes.

She certainly didn’t seem to mind what was happening. Sheer enthusiasm for the result must have blinded her to the means.

“Big Bro! We did it! Now Daddy can’t complain about us being mates! And the spriggans get their cave back!”

I hugged her tight, but I refused to give into any urge to celebrate just yet. Weary of the fact that the bear seamed to hate this girl for simply being cat-kin, I lifted Mana by the backs of her thighs. Smiling still, she let me hold her and wrapped her arms around my neck. I grabbed the freshly-healed Elane by her coat and hefted her over my shoulder before opening another portal leading to where her axe landed. To safety.

With no need to wait for an order, Yua jumped through and the three of us followed.