A Powerful Foe — Part 1

Editors: Sebas Tian, Speedphoenix, Joker

I stood before a station wagon sized praying mantis monster with two scythes on each side of its body. It used all four of its weapons to launch a series of rapid attacks. I dodged most of them by weaving left and right and parried those I couldn't with Zaien. Warding off my opponent's attacks was something I had learned from the adventurer I fought in the capital. My skills were shoddy at best. The steps I took to repel the oversized bug's strikes were but a pale imitation of what I had faced. Even so, I was somehow able to successfully deflect the mantis' deadly strikes and hold my ground. Although my fight with the battle-crazed pervert had provided me with quite the amount of useful knowledge, I never wished to have to engage in anything even remotely like it ever again.

My ability to stave off the incoming blows provided me with the opportunity to retaliate. I returned a slash just as heavy and sharp as my foe's, but the stupid bug flapped its wings and leapt backwards before Zaien's edge could connect.

And in doing so, it sealed its fate.

"Rir!"

At my command, the wolf activated Extreme Speed, one of its unique skills, and closed in on the mantis in the blink of an eye. The wolf used all of its momentum to deliver a blow heavy enough to tear both the bug's right limbs right out of their sockets. The mantis screamed. It screamed so loudly that my ears began to ring and complain. A foul liquid began gushing from its wounds, a liquid that I would never want to touch purely on the basis of its colour. I took the opportunity Rir had created for me to leap right in front of the creature and swing Zaien straight at its exposed chest.

Despite being nothing more than an oversized insect, the cheeky bastard constructed a spell the moment its compound eyes noticed the incoming blade. It had composed the spell for the sole purpose of interception fire. But because I'd seen the flow of its mana, I had cut it short and prevented it from activating. Dispel Magic, the spell I had used back in Zombieland, completely nullified the bug's attempt to save its own life.

Zaien cleaved right through a thin part of the monster's carapace, the part that connected its head to its body, and severed its body's connection with its brain. The big ass mantis wriggled around a bit as dying insects did before finally collapsing and ceasing all further action.

"Whew. That's that. Good job, Rir."

I hoisted my weapon over my shoulders as I looked down on the mantis' corpse. I had two options. The first was to turn it into Rir's midday meal, but I wasn't cruel enough a master to force my pet to eat something so slimy and disgusting, so I instead opted to turn the bug into DP. I didn't even bother entertaining the idea of stashing it in my item box and turning it into something useful later down the line.

Its corpse began dissolving the moment I willed the dungeon to consume it, so I turned my gaze away from it and glanced over at Rir, who had laid himself down beside me. Man, that was… easy. Like, really easy.

The mantis monster was by no means a weakling. Magic and Dex aside, all of its numbers were higher than my own, and by a whopping 200 or so at that. But despite its stats, Rir and I had easily managed to dispatch it through a different sort of numerical advantage.

Rir played a major role in my success. His mere presence calmed me. Knowing that he was there had allowed me to ward off any thoughts of anxiety despite fighting against numbers significantly higher than my own. And then there were the options he opened up. His assistance provided me with opportunities and openings aplenty.

Being the more experienced and combat oriented of the two of us, Rir was able to frequently determine the best possible way to support me and follow up on his deductions without having to wait for orders. For example, he often used Everchanging Chains to lock down any foes I happened to mess up my attacks on, and he would always opt to cripple our prey if he realized that he would be unlikely to take it down in a single hit. His decisions had effectively rendered the two of us unrivalled. Neither he or I had taken even the slightest bit of damage. Seriously, Rir makes all of this hella easy. We would've screwed over that one adventurer dude hella hard if Rir had been there back in the capital.

The mantis was a resident of the western part of the Wicked Forest, the domain that was home to its most powerful monsters. It was in fact one of the weakest that could be found in the area, but it was still much more powerful than most of the monsters that lived in any of the other three cardinal regions. Still didn't stand a chance against me and Rir though. Go team!

You know. I kinda get the sense that this isn't really working all that well as training. I should really be doing all the fighting myself and not having someone cover my ass. But that's a bit of a tall order for a pacifist like me. And honestly, it's kinda scary. I'd really rather not.

Pairing up with Rir allowed me to fight at a much higher level than usual, but I still wasn't about to wander any deeper in the western subregion. I didn't need to move any further to see some of the freaks of nature wandering around within it. A single glance was all it took to convince me of that. That place just screams, 'Boy, you ain't ready to be handlin' that just yet.'

One of the creatures that dissuaded me was a literal dinosaur, a lizard that looked to be at least seven stories tall. How the actual fuck am I supposed to beat up one of those? That thing's neck is so god damn thick that it probably wouldn't even think of Zaien's deepest cuts as anything more than just tiny little flesh wounds.

Wait a second… Right! Zaien's still got two magic circuit slots! I could totally make one of them extend its blade or something. Even better. I could make it shoot out a sword beam and use that to lop the big ass dinosaur's head right off. Though that's assuming I can actually rip through its defences, but whatever.

I had no idea whether or not adding a second offensive magic circuit was even practical. There was a chance that the second circuit would interfere with Crimson Blaze's circuit and cause both to go off simultaneously. Wait, do magic circuits even work like that? I should probably test it before actually putting anything else on Zaien, huh? Yeah, might as well see if Leila can help me figure things out once I get back.

I was wrenched from my thoughts as one of my skills started to go off. Enemy Detection had started blaring alarms through my head. Rir also seemed to have caught on to the presence of a foe, as he got up, turned his head in its direction, and started to growl. Likewise, I also positioned myself for battle by taking up a stance with Zaien.

The thing, the bestial creature, that came out from the forest's depths was about the same size as Rir. The fangs that lined its mouth looked tough enough to grind down boulders and its muscular legs were tipped with claws as sharp as daggers.

A gross pair of grey, bony wings made out of hundreds of individual segments extended from its midsection, and a pair of scorpion-like tails extended from its rear. It gazed at us in a vicious, snake-like manner, like a predator that had just found a brand new toy.

And analyzing it informed me that it was exactly that.

***

Race: Manticore

Class: Sadistic Beast

Level: 96

***

Oh, fuck me. I just had to go ahead and bitch about everything being too easy, didn't I?

Only one thought passed through my mind as I attempted to peek at the manticore's stat page. Holy shit. It's strong.

The gap between our stats was far too large. Analyze was unable to show me anything beyond its race, its class, and its level. And that was in spite of the fact that I used Analyze so often that it had become capable of displaying basically everything. None of the few things that I could see could be interpreted as good news. Its class demonstrated a powerful propensity for violence, and Lefi's aside, its level was the highest I had ever seen.

I clicked my tongue. The circumstances that had led up to my current predicament could only be described as unfortunate. I hadn't been able to detect the threat in time because it had come from just outside the dungeon's boundaries. I wanted to say something along the lines of "sayonara sucker," and run like the wind, but I highly doubted that the manticore would allow us to escape.

Much to my displeasure, the monster gazed at us with a composed, sadistic smile. Its intentions were clear as day. It wanted to torment us, to treat us like playthings until it felt hungry enough to finally consume its next meal. I had no doubt that it would chase us to the ends of the earth if we tried to run away. Welp. If flight's off the table, then fight it is.

A part of me had wanted to challenge the beast regardless. The smug look on its face pissed me off to no end. Fuck you too furfag. You know what? When I kill you, I'm going to skin your dumb ass, turn you into a fucking rug, and use that stupid looking face of yours to wipe the dirt off my feet every time I get home.

The first to attack was Rir. He grasped my intentions the moment I first took up my stance, so he immediately activated Everchanging Chains. Fetters burst from the ground underneath the furfag's feet and attempted to restrain it.

Likewise, the furfag had no qualms springing into action. Literally. It dove at us the moment it sensed the chains appear near its feet. We avoided the attack by splitting up and dodging in two different directions.

Dirt and dust flew everywhere as the monster landed and smashed its paws into where we had been standing just a few moments prior. The simple attack had hit like a truck. It contained so much power that it created a small crater. Hoooooly shit. I do not want to tank one of those. That just looks like an easy way to get myself reincarnated as a lump of ground meat.

Rir corrected his posture the moment he moved out of the furfag's way and retaliated by clawing at the smug-looking asshole, but his attack was evaded. Sir Douchebag had dodged it by taking a small step to the side.

I took the opportunity to get behind Mr. Cockypants and swing my sword at what was supposedly a blind spot, but one of the furfag's scorpion-like tails suddenly began to move like a creature with a mind of its own. There was a loud clang as it caught Zaien's blade head on and stopped it in place. It almost sounded like two metal substances had collided.

A heavy shockwave pulsed through the blade and ran up my arm. The weight of the impact caused me to freeze up for just a second, an opening that the furfag failed to miss. Its second tail immediately darted straight for my heart.

I clicked my tongue as I backed off and dodged the incoming strike. Though I had left my melee range, I had no intention of abandoning my offensive. I quickly channelled my mana and let loose the usual water dragon spell at the sadistic douchebag the moment I landed. It was my fastest magical attack. The reptilian creatures it created tore through the air like arrows and threatened to tear into the manticore's rear.

But they were stopped short.

The beast had manifested a barrier akin to an AT Field and repelled the attack. The fuck!? [1]

Furfag's counter came before I could wrap my mind around exactly what had happened. The asshole suddenly turned around, leapt at me, and drove its claws towards me at an incredible speed. I somehow managed to raise Zaien and intercept the attack, but I hadn't braced myself enough. The force sent me flying.

I groaned as I crashed into the trunk of the massive tree behind me and knocked it down. Only after smashing into a second tree did I finally lose my momentum.

It hurt. Bad.

The pain was so intense that I felt like I was about to pass out, but I somehow managed to bear with it and remain conscious. My eyes were blurry; I had started tearing up, but I did my best to ignore my suffering as I opened my inventory, grabbed a potion, and downed the whole thing in one breath.

"Whew…" I heaved a sigh of relief. Thank god for pots. These things can basically let me fight like a zombie so long as I don't actually die.

I glanced downwards as soon as the pain began to recede and confirmed that Zaien was still doing alright. Welp. That's immeasurable quality for you. This thing just took a super heavy attack but isn't even nicked or anything.

After inspecting my weapon, I turned my gaze back up towards the battlefield. Rir was still fighting the manticore. In fact, he was in the midst of casting a spell. The sky right above the cocky furfag had started to glimmer.

Not even a moment later, everything, everything turned white. There was a deafening roar as the earth was blown away by the attack.

It was a lightning spell, a spell that he had refrained from using because he hadn't wanted to get me caught in it.

His spell would have taken any normal monster from full health to nothing. It was so powerful that it had torn the earth asunder and burnt the area around the strike so horribly that it looked like the site of a munitions experiment gone wrong. And yet, the douchebag remained unharmed.

The sight that I was greeted with once the light finally faded was that of its AT Field. Sir Douchebag was standing right where he was before with his grin as cocky as usual. He went out of his way to make a show of "curiously" gazing at his surroundings. It was a clear display of provocation. The asshat was asking Rir whether or not his spell had done anything at all. That thing's defence is fucking ridiculous.

Seeing the AT Field in action made me want to swear at the furfag until I exhausted every last curse word in my vocabulary. But rather than wasting my time, I directed my efforts into contemplating its weaknesses. I highly doubted that the creature's AT Field was powerful enough to provide it with straight invincibility. I mean, it defended when I tried using Zaien, and dodged when Rir tried swiping at it with his claws. There's no reason it'd bother if it didn't have to, right?

There was a single common point that all the attacks the manticore had consciously avoided shared: they used physical force. Does that mean that its stupid barrier can only defend against magic?

I observed the sadistic asshole as it engaged Rir in a classic Godzilla vs. King Kong style clash of the titans. And its behaviour seemed to coincide with my expectations. It either avoided all of Rir's physical attacks or fended them off with its tail whilst repelling all of his spells with its AT Field. …I think I've got an idea.

Maintaining the status quo didn't seem to be in our favour. The manticore clearly wasn't feeling any pressure despite the two on one scenario, which meant that things would only get worse for us if nothing changed. We needed to act and utilize a power that was neither of our own.

"Rir!" I shouted. "We're getting the hell out of here and heading back over to where we were earlier!"

The wolf paused for a split second to think before dashing over. He had caught onto my plan. I leapt onto his back as he passed me, and the two of us made a hasty retreat.

Sir Douchebag narrowed his eyes in a manner akin to a cat tormenting a mouse before taking off after us in order to chase us down.

***

TL Note

[1] Evangelion. An absolute terror field is the thing that stops regular weapons from murdering angels.

Editor's note (Joker): Hey, guys! Joker here, coming atcha live from Anime Matsuri in the sunny, sunny city of Houston, Texas. God, it's so damn hot…how do they cope with it? I've had to drink copious amounts of water just walking to the car and back, let alone being out in it constantly. But yeah, if anyone's at Anime Matsuri this weekend, (June 13-16 2019) hit me up on Discord and we can see if we can meet up. That'd be cool, aye? Getting noticed by senpai IN REAL LIFE? All right, all right. Enough shameless plugging aside, let's get to what everyone wants to see, Joker's Question Corner! Lessee… 7 lovely letters for me today, and multiple Nirvash headpats to get through, so thanks to zekkendo, جهاد السعيدي, Karmarov, CaTastrophy427, Sylphian, Mischa, and kx for your lovely letters. Nirvash would like to thank Head parts for everyone, جهاد السعيدي, Mythical_Supremacy, Anime Dragon, Karmarov, Tonatsi, Sylphian, Grauncher, and kx for all the lovely headpats and would also like to thank crismofern for his question. If you'd like to ask me a question, or headpat Nirvash, leave it below in the comments and get featured here! See y'all in the next chapter!