The First Hurdle

A/N:

Here's the action chapter! It's my first time writing this kind of thing so criticism and advice are more than welcome.

Anyways, happy reading :D

3rd Person POV

—BAM

The carriage was sent tumbling. It was only thanks to the carriage having been made by the best artificers of the elven kingdom that it didn't fall apart.

"Kyaaaak!"

"Aaaagh!"

The people in the carriage screamed in a panic as they bounced from wall to wall in the carriage like they were balls in a pinball machine.

However, amid the chaos, only two people kept their calm. They were Arthur Leywin and Asher Aureus. Despite them crashing against the walls of the carriage like everyone else, they enhanced their senses to try and grasp what had hit them.

Then, the second they spotted an opportunity, they blasted through the carriage door and deftly landed on the ground.

The second they landed, they turned their gazes up to see what exactly had toppled their carriage.

"Those are…"

Arthur quietly muttered under his breath.

"Taurillas"

Asher quickly answered.

The monsters were pretty much exactly what their name was. Taurus, which meant bull, and gorilla. In a way, they were kind of like a minotaur, but their bodies were closer to that of a gorilla, and they were lower ranked as they lacked the same intelligence.

"…But why are they grey?"

Indeed, usually, taurillas were either brown or black colored or something between but they were never such a dull grey color. Even the signature white pattern on their back, shaped like the Taurus constellation with the stars connected, was greyed out.

—ROUAAAAAAAA

The apparent herd leader roared, causing the rest of her underlings to do the same, thumping their chests.

Herd leaders were always the strongest and oldest female of the pack.

—Boom boom boom

"…Damn."

Arthur laughed dryly.

"That's intimidating."

"Amen."

Asher chuckled lightly.

"Left."

Asher was quick to make his claim.

"…Tch. Fine. Right."

Arthur was discontent that he had to take the boss, but he realized he was probably better suited to one versus one rather than one versus many.

'…Actually though. Why was that so natural?"

Arthur questioned why planning went so smoothly.

It felt like they were old time comrades who had experienced enough life-or-death situations that they could communicate almost telepathically.

'…But the only people that worked with was them."

Arthur couldn't help but glance at Asher's hooded form again.

However, Arthur wasn't the only one with such thoughts. Even though Asher had been the one to initiate it, even he was confused by how smoothly it went.

'…Do I know him from somewhere?'

Arthur and Asher wanted to continue to think, but the earth shaking roar of the taurillas caused them to return to reality.

"… Let's go."

With a somewhat lackadaisical stance, Arthur bolted forward faster than light, his elemental augmentation roaring about. On the other hand, Asher simply ran.

It wasn't that Asher wasn't capable of such a flashy charge, but it was that he couldn't.

Unlike Arthur, who could devote 100% of his brainpower to combat, Asher needed to do two things simultaneously. One, he had to fight, and two, he had to control his acupoints. Though controlling 360 acupoints sounded difficult, Asher had been practicing this for over 3 years ever since he managed to fully use his mana channels.

Thanks to this, controlling them was a cinch, but no matter how much he trained, manipulating his acupoints while fighting was simply too difficult for him.

To put it into perspective, it was like drawing with one hand and writing a paragraph with the other. But that was just describing it roughly. If we were to proportion the complexities of the tasks, it would be like painting the Mona Lisa with the left hand while writing War and Peace with the right, and this was if you were right handed.

Though it sounded exaggerated, Asher was someone who had never graduated from puberty before being transported into the body and mind of a baby.

For him, it was a monumentally difficult task.

But that didn't mean all hope was lost. No, not by any means. Though it wasn't a complete mastery, Asher's years of work had paid off. Although it wasn't at the level of doing the two tasks simultaneously, he was able to make broad adjustments throughout a fight.

This was possible due to his obscene mana pool, which allowed for a constant waste of mana, trained muscle memory from four years of non-stop training, and combat intuition that was honed in his previous life.

This combination of body, technique, and mind allowed Asher to be able to not need to devote 100% to any one of the things. It allowed him to divide his brainpower, albeit inefficiently. (Body here refers to all aspects of his body which includes mana core). For example, if he were in combat, he'd perhaps be able to expend 70% on fighting while 30% on regulating his acupoints.

The ultimate goal was to give a perfect divide of 50% to combat and acupoint control, but ideally, it'd be best to be able to give 100% to both. But, for any normal human, that was impossible. They only had one mind, after all.

So, Asher could only hope that he could train enough to be able to depend on intuition for some of the things.

In any case, back to the fight.

**

Asher POV

It truly was difficult managing two processes at the same time. Still, it was something I needed to be able to do if I wanted to exert my maximum potential in the future.

"Haaat!"

I brought my sword around, decapitating another one of the taurillas, the silvery white blade pulling along a trail of bright crimson blood.

I glared at my second next target.

My sixth sense was already on to the first next target.

I whipped around in a spinning motion and carved out the neck of a taurilla that tried to jump me. Then, using the same centrifugal force, I flung my sword into the chest of my "second next target."

I didn't have time to celebrate, however. I dashed forward to grab my sword and leaped. I fell from the sky, my body reinforced with man, and skewered the head of yet another taurilla.

"…Hahh, hahh."

I panted.

Was it supposed to be this difficult? Taurillas are only D-ranked mana beasts, but these guys have to be at least C-rank, maybe even B-rank.

The taurillas around me hesitated from charging, most likely due to fear from seeing their comrades so mercilessly slaughtered, which allowed me to look over at Arthur's fight.

If what Sophus taught me was right, the highest ranked taurilla herd leader that was recorded was B-rank. But the taurilla that Arthur was fighting had to be A-ranked.

To be honest, It was hard to believe that the 7 year old was actually fighting such a monster. But, his augmentation and his elemental augmentation were absolutely brilliant to the point that my mana pool and absorption felt lacking in comparison.

—GRAAAAAA

The taurillas seemed to have regained their courage as they began charging me again.

"…Dammit, why are there so many."

I said that, but the numbers had gone down significantly. Initially, there were about 30 taurillas, typical of a herd, but now the numbers had been reduced to about 14… 14?

I tried moving some mana into my eyes, which was a great ordeal as I had to be careful with the adjustments of the acupoints.

"…No, there aren't any mutants that are camouflaging."

But I swear I only killed 9—

I was forced to stop thinking as I had to return to fighting the ugly bull gorilla hybrids.

Sheathing my sword, I enhanced my body to the limits of what I was capable of and grabbed the horns of a charging taurilla.

I then immediately compressed mana at my feet and exploded it, causing me to fly up. However, as I was holding the horns of the taurilla, I swung forward in a circular motion. I quickly changed my grip, and then, using all the mana I could without destroying my body, I threw the 5 meter tall mana beast forward.

It crashed into another charging taurilla, which skewered it on the charging taurillas horn.

It was a useless show of strength, but I was growing frustrated with the seemingly never ending numbers of these things.

"Dammit, when are those losers going to come out—!"

I muttered angrily while redrawing my sword.

—Attack!

Then, in the distance, I could see the source of the shout. A group of charging elves.

"…What did that one girl say again?"

Seeing this, I twisted and dodged a couple attacks.

"Ah, right."

Remembering the line, I smiled deeply.

"The cavalry has arrived."

…Damn, goosebumps in the middle of a bloodbath are not the nicest feeling.

**

Arthur POV

Killing the boss wasn't too hard.

Of course, it was difficult in the sense that it was a fight against a reasonably high ranked mana beast, but it wasn't difficult in the sense that it was hard to fight… the mana beast.

…Did that make sense?

Anyone with a half bit brain could figure out its attacks, and anyone with a full bit brain could figure out a counterattack strategy.

Fortunately, I was in the full bit brain category.

The mana beast's attacks were quite limited. Its attacks could be broadly grouped into three categories. Fists charge, and laser cannon.

For the fists category, its attacks were limited to basically swinging its massively bulky arms around like any old monkey. If I got struck by, it'd be game over. Still, as it made a massive telescope and was relatively slow, I could dodge it fairly easily.

As for the charge, well, it literally was a charge.

I just needed to give it a wide berth.

As long as I followed these two strategies, I could deal with 99% of its attacks.

Right, 99.

That 1% is the fucking laser canon.

Yeah.

You know the stuff that you saw in those science fiction movie posters? That's what I'm talking about. The thing shoots out a freaking laser beam from between its horns.

So far, it used it only once, but my hair almost burned off when it did.

"…Huuuu."

I exhaled.

There wasn't a need for me to hesitate anymore.

I readied my sword.

Truthfully, I wasn't actually that accustomed to fighting non-human targets.

All of my training so far has been for, by, and of humans, but I had observed Asher's fighting techniques.

It was a strange mismatch.

Although his combat sense was excellent, his swordsmanship was bland and average. Still, by observing him fight, I got a basic idea of where to attack.

"…The neck should be easiest."

—ROAAAA

The hulking beast, at least 8 meters tall if not 9, brought its arm down again.

—BOOM

I dodged before the hand struck me, and it slammed into the ground.

Chance.

I took the opportunity given to me and hopped onto the arm. Then, I ran up the length of the cheap minotaur knock-off's arm and quickly leapt off, using wind magic to help my spinning as I did so.

Then, I imbued fire magic into my cheap sword, copied Asher's sword movement, and carved out part of its neck.

"Tch."

I clicked my tongue.

Shallow.

My lacking swordsmanship in this immature body just had to show itself now.

—Kak

…Kak?

I was expecting the bad cg minotaur to roar in anger, but for some reason, it was acting like its throat had been cut through.

Deftly landing, I quickly looked up.

Although I was positive I failed to cut the mana beast's throat, it seemed like… I had succeeded?

"What is—?"

My voice cut off as a raucous cheer broke out from over on Asher's battlefield.

The elvish youths and the carriage drivers (who turned out to be mages of moderately high caliber) were all celebrating.

Seeing this, my earlier confusion was replaced with a new one.

"…When did those kids come out?"

**

For the record, Sylvie had been safely tucked away in Asher's robes the whole fight.

**

Asher's POV

Night had fallen after the fight.

Currently, I was taking a piss behind a bush.

Shush. We've all done it once.

Anyways, I thought back to what had transpired after I had thrown that one taurilla. The elvish youths and the carriage drivers had all come charging forward. The conjurers started spamming spells from the backline while augmenters all began attacking at the front, joining me.

Thanks to that, we managed to wrap up the fight fairly quickly.

But something still bothered me.

Even after the rest of the elves had come, throughout the fight, it felt like there was some kind of mysterious support.

Even Arthur felt it in his fight.

He told me, "I'm pretty sure something weird interrupted my fight."

As if that wasn't strange enough, none of the mana beasts dropped a singular core. But that was something that should be left to smart people like Sophus. For now, I should deal with what I can.

I quickly wrapped up draining mighty Poseidon of the salty seas and walked further away from the camp, which was illuminated with the glow of fire and filled with the laughter and victorious joy of the elves.

Once I reached a far enough distance, I looked up.

The stars and the moon were particularly endearing tonight. I could even call them… enchanting. But I wondered if that was just because they weren't obscured by the canopy of leaves like in Zestier or if it was because of someone's magic.

Right.

In all the Kingdom of Elenoir, only one person had the skills to go through a battlefield completely unnoticed while efficiently dispatching their enemies.

It was also that same person who was the only one that could make something like the scenery enrapturing.

I turned my gaze to the empty air in front of me.

I was pretty much certain 'they' were here.

Under the clear night sky, I gathered my breath and called out to the person that everyone knew, yet no one... knew.

"…Candidate Asher Aureus greets Successor Aya Grephin."

Then, behind me, a quiet yet alluring giggle could be heard.

A/N:

Fun fact, the original title of this chapter was going to be "Bad Plot" but I couldn't find a place to write it as a punch line or something so I changed it to "The First Hurdle."

Anyways, thanks for reading!

Rua