CH 18

Chapter 18 - Two Against One

When Tatsurou looked in Ai’s direction, all he saw was a girl throwing an upwards punch and a giant bear unable to take the force of that punch, resulting in a shower of blood for the girl right below it.

The bear’s tough fur that he couldn’t even penetrate with his strongest fire magic was utterly destroyed with a single punch from this frail-looking girl.

Who wouldn’t be surprised?

Even the golden bear was terrified of her, slowly backing away in hopes of not drawing her attention.

“I fear no bear. But that thing… no, my girlfriend, she scares me…”[1]

To make the bear that they thought was a monster end up like this… Tatsurou vowed to never make her angry again.

“That’s not it! I have to help her too.”

However, his fire magic could not even hold a candle to the power that Ai just unleashed. The best he could do was to raise his level while cursing at his own weakness.

With his current strength, there was no point for him to help Ai out. His presence there would just be a burden to Ai, who will have to spare some of her focus on protecting him. In addition, with his firepower, Tatsurou’s attack does practically nothing except tickling the opponent.

Hence, Tatsurou turned his attention to the SP he had. Devouring the level of the two bears, he had gained a substantial amount of EXP as well as SP.

“I’ll have to use these things now.”

His first thought was to max out [Fire Magic].

Not only will he have a high level skill, it was also one which Tatsurou is most used to. Next, he considered the other attributes.

“Fire and Light— sounds about right.”

With everything decided, he booted up the system. Upon locating the two attributes, he played Osu with their buttons until they hit Lv 10.

[You have earned the title [Master of Light].]

[You have earned the title [Master of Fire].]

“Title? Now’s not the time to think about that.”

Shaking his head, he tried to get a feel of his newfound powers.

“Alright, this can work— I think.”

And thus, Tatsurou ran over to link up with Ai.

On the site of the battle, the golden bear that had been fearlessly attacking Ai just a few moments ago was nowhere to be seen. Instead, it was vigilantly circling around her, observing her every movement.

The golden bear wasn’t aware that Ai had used up all her strength in defeating the blue bear and was in a vulnerable state. Though she was grateful for that, Ai still felt that something was out of place.

Nevertheless, the golden bear’s cautiousness allowed Ai to recover a portion of her Ki. The dullness of her body gradually weakened and she could slowly move her body normally again.

The golden bear stopped circling around Ai and stopped dead in its tracks. If it was a one on one battle, it still had a chance of winning, was what it thought. However, seeing Ai’s display of power earlier, it discarded all of its pride and prioritized on staying alive.

GROOOO——–AAAAAR

In the end, it was the golden bear who re-engaged in combat. When it was 3 meters apart from Ai, it gathered its strength and planned to bite the human’s head into a million pieces.

But Ai thought differently.

Viewing it as a last-resort attack from the bear, she stepped back and prepared to dodge the attack. The scent of the bear’s bloody breath and saliva was scattered all around her. However, instead of feeling disgust, Ai sent a knee to its jaw and shifted her head sideways to evade the bite.

The bear, not discouraged by Ai’s dodge, stretched out its hind legs in order to get closer and have more means of attack. Seeing its fervent assault, Ai had no choice but to step back even further.

“What’s with this thing? Its movement feels completely different from before,” Ai said as the bear released another growl in response.

Ai had her mouth wide in surprise at the sudden change while lowering her posture and gathering power in her legs. As a bad premonition crept its way into her heart, Ai quickly jumped to the side. After a moment’s delay, the sound of an explosion rang out.

“What a monster…”

If the bear could speak, it would have replied with a “Coming from you?”

The bear had charged towards where Ai had been but was only met with the solid ground, creating a massive crater. Though it was all for naught, Ai knew that even being grazed by that attack would cause a fatal wound on her.

At this juncture, she thought “it’s getting harder and harder to fight like this,” before something in the air caught her eye. A flickering red ball of light – no, eight flickering balls of light flew through the air towards the bear.

Seeing the mysterious object flying towards him, the bear did not dare underestimate it and quickly tried to counter it with [Claw Attack]. However, the skill would not activate and his paw ended up cutting through the empty air.

Not being able to comprehend what was going on, it could only roar in an attempt to intimidate its opponents.

Resolving itself, the bear decided to ignore the spheres and focus solely on Ai. It gathered power in its legs and was about to unleash the wide AoE skill [Charge] when…

GYAAAA

The bear released a high-pitched shriek which even he himself was surprised by. A gaping hole, a few centimeters wide, opened on its left hind leg and blood started flowing out ceaselessly.

Thinking “what did this?” while looking around frantically, it soon found itself surrounded by the red spheres of light floating just a bit higher than its head.

The spectacle surprised Ai as well. Just when she thought the bear was about to use [Charge], eight spheres of red light suddenly appeared near it, gathered and grew in size. From the bigger sphere came out a laser beam that was combat-effective, before reverting to their original form again.

“These things should be Tatsurou’s. Fufu… Now it’s back to a 2 V 1, but the tables have turned on you.”

As if confirming Ai’s words, the spheres of red light scattered, each in a random direction. From those small spheres came out lasers that were weaker than before, aiming the bear’s parts unprotected by the crystal shell.

Though the actual damage dealt by the lasers was close to zero, it irritated the bear tremendously. If one were to describe it in a way that humans can relate to, then it would be akin to getting forehead flicks with a bit of strength in them, but all around your body.

And because of that irritation, the bear lost its focus in battle, allowing Ai to close the gap between them.

“HA!”

GRR

Ai launched a surprise kick onto its chin. Being manhandled by Ai caused more damage to the bear’s morale than its body. Unfaltering, the bear raised its paw for a counterattack but right at this timing, the red spheres fused together and shot another giant laser beam towards its arm.

GRRAA!?

Stopping the bear’s paw mid-swipe, Ai managed to retreat to a safe distance unharmed.

GROOOOOWL!

Stuck in a hopeless situation, the bear lost its mind and allowed his anger and instinct to take the wheel.

Seeing the bear go berserk, Tatsurou started to use his light sphere earnestly. Distracting it with the weaker lasers, he gathered half of the spheres and shot a laser beam at the bear’s open wounds, aggravating it.

Ai, going with the flow of this impromptu plan, repeated the hit-and-run tactic whenever she saw an opening.

After some time, the bear finally learnt how to deal with the mid-powered laser targeting its wound.

When the spheres gathered together, it promptly turned to its side to allow its crystal shell to take the blow, nullifying its damage. Watching the bear adapt to his attacks, Tatsurou was elated.

For within the sphere, it contains a secret.

Whenever the giant laser hits a target, it places a marker made of mana at the location, informing Tatsurou of its location like a radar or GPS tracker.

Tatsurou, being the person that he is, would gladly take full advantage of such a tactical tool.  Distracting the bear with the weak lasers as usual, he gathered all of eight of his spheres together. The bear, thinking that it was the same as the previous iterations, left the attack to its crystal shell while focusing its attention on Ai.

With no idea that its doom was slowly spelt out.

Tatsurou invested all of his mana into the sphere, releasing the most powerful laser he has ever used. The laser, as if being sucked into a gravity well, homed in onto the wound on the bear’s hind leg, drawing a beautiful curve in its wake.

Just when the bear thought it was going to avoid further damage from the laser…

BZZZ

The laser aimed true and blasted the wound, taking part of the bear’s flesh with it as it flew out.[2]

And the bear’s screams went on.

The small crack on the bear’s leg bone was further damaged by the laser and soon after, completely broke, sending the bear tumbling down. Feeling an extreme pain for the first time, the bear could not even let a groan out as it fell to its side.

Watching on helplessly, it regretted the fact that it was unable to take its enemies down despite all it did.

Ai, on the other hand, was already preparing the same technique which she delivered towards the blue bear.

“HAAAAA!”

Within her fist was an enormous amount of violently raging Ki. Ai swung it down onto the bear mercilessly, as if wanting to end the fight right here, right now.

BAM

The strike was powerful enough to create a crater on the ground. It broke a few of the bear’s ribs and damaged its internal organs, resulting in internal bleeding. The strike, however, was not enough to open a hole in its stomach. Compared to the blue bear, it was expected as the golden bear was a higher-leveled monster and hence stronger and tougher.

Ai, surprised by the fact that the bear was still alive, paused momentarily before executing her follow-up attack.

That small delay was all the breathing room the bear needed. It swung its huge paw down at Ai, wanting to knock her out of the fight.

“ＡＩ！！”

“—- Oopsies… I’m fine, Tatsurou.”

Without a tinge of nervousness in her voice, Ai retreated back swiftly, showing that she still had a lot of leeway to dodge earlier. Giving out a sigh of relief, Tatsurou stood up from his prone position and used Earth Magic to remove the dirt and gravel stuck on his body.

When Tatsurou ran over to the battlefield, he thought that hiding himself and attacking from an unseen position would give them the upperhand in battle. To realise his plan, he was reminded of a chameleon and used Earth magic to camouflage himself into the ground. Seeing how the bear was not alerted of his presence, it was a great success overall.

Similarly, Ai had no idea that Tatsurou was near the battlefield all along.

“And here I thought that that would be the end of it…” Ai mumbled.

“How many times can you do that again?”

“I think I have one last shot.”

“In that case, you might get injured if you go in again.”

“What about that giant laser?”

“I think I’m about to dry out my mana pool too, I can do it one last time. But even that wasn’t enough to finish it…”

Compounding both his Lv 10 fire and light magic together and sending out the most powerful attack he had might finish off the bear but Tatsurou did not have enough mana nor mana control to do so.

“N… But can’t we just run away now?”

“That’s true but…”

In front of them lay a limp, three-legged bear that was already on death’s door. Even though it was impossible with its injuries, it kept trying to stand up, fully understanding that it would most definitely die if it stayed there.

“If we don’t finish it now, it might get its former strength back later. If that happens, it’ll most likely hold a grudge towards humans. It might start looking for humans to kill even if it meant going outside of this forest. If someone died because of that, then we’ll be partly responsible for it. It’s gonna leave a bad aftertaste…”

“I understand what you mean but even if we want to, we don’t have enough firepower to do so so it can’t be helped, right?”

“N… That’s true but… Firepower… Firepower, is it?”

“If we can somehow combine our power, then it would be a piece of cake, you see…?”

“Combine our powers…? I mean, who’s stopping us from doing that!?”

The casual words spoken by Ai gave rise to a new hope.

A hope that, to Tatsurou, meant a certain possibility.

TL Notes:

[1] He started speaking in slang that was supposed to be funny (I think). This is the best I can do lol

[2] Yeah, I have no idea how a laser can drag things with it too but… It’s Magic!