Arc 1 - Chapter 2: The Cat (2/3)

Downstairs was separate from the sewer system, just as her mother had said. There were bugs here too, and cobwebs in the corners of the walls, but without a river of excrement running through the middle of the road, it was a more acceptable route than upstairs.

"Thou can carry me on back."

Neko's suggestion was rejected by her mother's silence.

At other times, such rejection would have been devastating for Neko, but knowing that her mother was overly focused on a mission, she was only a little saddened by the rejection.

"Do you want me to carry you?" asked Sharley.

"I'd rather swim in the river of shit up there."

He snapped at Sharley rudely and began to walk more carefully so as not to stain his shoes with the blood of an insect.

"Interesting, I got tired very quickly."

This time it wasn't an excuse for being carried. In fact, the things she had said before also were not excuses but logical truths, but this time she meant it. Neko was really getting tired and there was something unnatural about her getting tired so quickly.

Since she had night duty, she had slept beforehand and when she was awake she was energetic like a normal child. Neko was not the kind of person to get tired easily after a little walk.

"I feel a little tired too. Maybe it's the smell of the sewers."

"Actually, I'm not really tired."

It bothered her to agree with Sharley. If Sharley was tired, Neko would have enough energy to stand for hours. After all, she was stronger, smarter, sweeter and more special than Sharley. Neko was the only one who worthy for Rie's love.

Neko's superiority aside, she was really tired. Maybe the smell had something to do with it, as Sharley had said, but Neko was immune to it thanks to her magic. Neko knew that the reason she was feeling tired right now was something else.

"I don't need to worry," she thought. She might just be psychologically tired because she didn't want to be here. If it was something else that was making them tired, her mother would have already realized it and taken precautions. They were completely safe with her.

Sharley moved ahead of Neko and Rie to ensure the safety of the road. The flames of the torch Sharley held in his hand illuminated the path and revealed the webs woven between the wall and the ceiling.

After a few minutes in the tunnel, they came to a fork in the road. Sharley stopped abruptly at the junction.

"We'll turn right." Rie looked at the map in her hand and pointed in the direction.

"Wait a minute." Sharley sounded agitated in a way that worried Neko. "I'm sure I sense something ahead."

Sharley kept himself close to the wall and took a step onto the path to the right. Then he turned around and checked the surroundings.

Neko might have thought it was a false alarm, since Sharley had worried them for nothing several times before. Neko wouldn't have been surprised if it was Sharley's misunderstanding, but the tense look on Sharley's face scared Neko.

If Sharley had frightened her for some ridiculous reason, he would have to be punished severely. And even if Sharley was worrying unnecessarily, Neko decided it was a good idea to be prepared for danger. She began to gather the wind around her body, ready to cast a spell at any moment. She wanted to protect her mother.

The silence increased Neko's uneasiness with every passing second. It would be best if they left. She grabbed her mother's arm and opened her mouth to ask her to leave.

"AAAGHH!"

Sharley's scream stopped Neko from speaking. Rie hugged Neko and jumped away from Sharley.

Before them stood a large creature with four arms, beast's orange scales glowed like armor in the light of the torch that had fallen from Sharley's hand. Sharley was crushed under the beast's feet, which resembled a hand.

No, crushed was not enough. The creature's hand-like feet had long claws, and those claws dug into Sharley's torso.

Neko's hand tightened around her leg at the creature's sudden exit, and she hugged her mother tightly, not knowing what to do. She had no love for Sharley, but she was horrified to see him like this.

Sharley's bones must have been broken and his organs ripped apart by the beast's claws. He was as mortally wounded on the inside as he was on the outside. Yet he could still move his fingers.

The types of magic that Neko was most familiar with were wind and light. She could heal Sharley with using light magic. Since Neko was the only one on their team who could use light magic, healing was her job.

"But I can't heal very severe wounds right away."

Even if she could, she would have to spend her mana, and Neko wanted to save it for her mother.

Locking eyes with the beast, Rie lowered Neko to the ground, handed her the map and put it behind her back.

"Stay away."

Rie continued to stare at the beast, waiting for the first attack from her opponent. The creature didn't wait long, leaping over Sharley towards Rie. Sharley was crushed and vomited blood as the beast pushed Sharley with his feet.

Rie remained calm as the monster came at her, and in the blink of an eye she erected a purple wall of dark crystals in front of the creature.

"Mom!"

Neko shouted, wanting to help her mother, but Rie didn't have time to answer her. The creature broke the crystal wall and Rie jumped back as the wall she had erected collapsed.

Even though the wall was down, it stopped the creature from coming at her and gave Rie a brief moment to think of a plan.

The beast roared and ran at Rie. Rie built a stronger wall this time, but the running beast broke through it with its shoulder.

Rie and Neko backed away, the beast still running at them.

"It's a hunting gorilla," Neko remembered the beast's name.

Hunter gorillas were four-armed beasts that usually made the forests of the Aram Empire in the western continent their home. Their enemy was by no means a dumb animal. Not only were they intelligent enough to devise complex plans for hunting, they also possessed high speed, the strength to easily crush a human head, and hard scales that served as armor.

The so-called hunter gorilla's favorite thing was mana, and since humans had more mana than any other animal in the forest, they developed strategies to hunt humans, especially hunters in the forests.

One of the strategies used by the dangerous four-armed hunters was to exploit human emotions. The hunter gorilla had devised a quick-thinking plan to capture the main target it had set his sights on. Although Neko had a higher mana level, Rie's was no less, and beast targeted her because she was a bigger threat in the creature's eyes.

If Rie had been the first to fall into the hunter gorilla's trap, beast would have finished it off quickly, but sensing Sharley's uneasiness, he decided to catch him first.

So the gorilla captured his rival's friend. If Rie chose to fight to save Sharley instead of running away, the hunter gorilla's plan would work and he could hunt her down.

Rie seemed determined to stand up to the beast. Little did the hunter gorilla and Neko know that Rie was not fighting to save the life of her apprentice Sharley, but for her own benefit.

Neko's mother was faster and stronger than a normal human due to the dense mana circulating in her body.  Yet relying on her own strength and underestimating the hunting gorilla could have led to a bad ending.

What they should have been worried about was why they didn't sense the hunter gorilla until it appeared. Since the hunting gorilla is a creature that carries mana in its body, Rie, Neko and Sharley, who are mages, should have been able to sense it.

But they hadn't sensed him until he showed up, and even though they could see him now, they could hardly feel the mana in his body.

Neko and Rie had never heard of hunting gorillas having the ability to completely hide their presence. Rie could feel her senses dulling and an unexplained tiredness came over her body.

"Did we walk into a trap?" Rie muttered in a low voice that Neko could barely hear.

Instead of waiting for the gorilla to attack next, Rie cast shadows around herself. The shadows solidified and turned into purple crystals, which turned into pointed spears. With a single sweep of Rie's arm, the spears flew at the creature.

For the hunter gorilla, meeting the attack was simple. Gorilla shielded his arms over his head to protect his face. Rie's spears smashed into the scales of the hunting gorilla, leaving the creature unharmed.

In fact, it was not even hurt, let alone wounded. To demonstrate his superiority, beast raised his four arms and roared, displaying his three-meter body in all its majesty.