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

The creature did not let its guard down, quickly checking Sharley behind it to make sure he posed no threat. According to the hunter gorilla, it was Rie's desire to save him that made her fight.

As Sharley tried to crawl towards Rie, he looked so pathetic that even Neko felt sorry for him. The hunter gorilla didn't feel the need to do anything about Sharley. Because Sharley needed to keep his mana in his body to avoid dying, he didn't expect an attack from him.

A strong attack by Sharley at this moment would be suicidal and too weak for the hunter gorilla to see as a threat.

As Neko watched the battle between her mother and the creature, she kept the wind around her body. She waited for the right moment to attack the beast.

And as her mother continued to fight the gorilla, Neko found an opening to attack.

She pointed both hands at the gorilla and in two seconds, she exploded the orb of light she had accumulated in the palm of her hand. Neko's skill would have burned the eyes of Sharley, who was watching the battle behind the gorilla, but Neko didn't care what happened to him at that moment.

When the gorilla's eyes burned and it briefly lost its sight, Rie gathered the shadows around the gorilla, and the shadows hardened into crystal blades.

Suffering from the burning of his eyes, the hunter gorilla had no chance to meet the second attack with his arms. However, Rie's attack, which would have riddled a human with holes, only knocked the gorilla off balance because of his hard scales.

But one of Rie's dark crystals was able to hit the beast in the face. Although not fatal, it cut deep into the beast's face, shattering his nose.

Screaming in pain and enraged, the gorilla lunged at Rie. With Neko on her back, if Rie did not meet her opponent's attack, the hunter gorilla would overtake her and reach Neko. Of course Rie did not want her daughter to be harmed.

Even though she knew the walls would collapse, she built a wall in the path of her opponent to slow him down. Then another wall, then a third.

When the hunter gorilla managed to break down all three walls, crystal spears charged towards his head. The gorilla met them with his hand. Rie, whose aim had been to slow his opponent down and avoid his attack, had failed to slow him down, and as the last thing to do she focused on neutralizing the lethal effect of the attack.

The hunter gorilla raised both right arms and swung his hands at Rie, accompanied by Neko's scream. In order to slow down the hunter gorilla's blow, Rie created another wall right next to it. After the wall, she directed her mana in the direction of the beast's hands to strengthen her body against the blow.

When the blow slammed Rie against the wall of the tunnel, at least she was not caught off guard as Sharley had been. She coughed up some blood but suffered no wounds that would prevent her from moving. If she was lucky, her internal organs would still be intact.

Rie quickly wiped the blood from her mouth and began to gather the shadows again as the hunter gorilla raised his arms to avenge its snout.

"Wind!"

When she heard her mother's voice, she knew it was her turn, and she directed the wind she had gathered around her body so far to her fingertips, and from there she sent it towards the feet of the beast.

Neko's wind attack knocked the beast off his feet and onto his back. Seeing the opportunity she had been waiting for, Rie transformed the shadows she had gathered into spears and unleashed them at the orange beast.

The spears struck the gorilla in the face, unprotected by the scales, causing it to roar again. As the gorilla writhed in pain, Neko wasted no time in jumping off the beast and joining her mother. Because Sharley unable to run, Rie put him on her shoulder and together they ran away.

They going forward was a decision Neko was against. She would have preferred to turn back and get out of here because there was no telling what trap, perhaps a dead end, awaited them ahead. But Rie was determined to reach her goal.

It was hard for Neko to keep up with her mother's pace. Her mother was trying to prepare herself for the risk of a second attack. She channeled the mana in her body into Sharley to keep him alive. Since Rie was not a healing mage, the mana she sent only helped to keep Sharley's soul in his body for a while longer.

They continued straight ahead in the direction Rie had indicated. When they heard the roar of the hunter gorilla behind them, Neko knew they were not far behind. The creature would catch up with them.

"Neko, I want you to heal him."

When Rie realized she had to fight again, she began to save her mana in her own body instead of wasting it on Sharley.

Neko couldn't focus on casting spells as she ran. She grabbed Sharley's limp arm and tried to cast a healing spell. Sharley was already unconscious.

As the sound of earth-shaking footsteps grew closer, they emerged from the tunnel they had traveled so far and reached a large cave. Many tunnels converged here and the ceiling was very high. After a quick scan, Rie dropped Sharley next to a rock and showed Neko the tunnel they needed to enter.

As Neko dragged Sharley into the tunnel, her mother prepared herself for her opponent. As the horrible creature with orange scales entered the cave, Rie threw a crystal of light from her pocket into the air to illuminate the surroundings, the crystal exploded in the air and turned into a temporary light source.

The face of the hunter gorilla illuminated by the light was covered in blood and he had lost an eye. Rie did not want to prolong the fight and waste more time with her opponent. She had to kill the hunter gorilla quickly and small attacks would not be enough to achieve this.

Rie formed a purple ring on the ground as the hunter gorilla ran towards her. When the creature who unaware of the ring came upon Rie's trap, Rie's ring filled and rose into the sky in the form of a pillar.

The pillar on which the gorilla remained rose up and crashed into the ceiling of the cave. Hunter gorilla caught between the ceiling and the pillar, roared again in pain.

When the mana that made up the pillar dissipated, the hunter gorilla crashed to the ground. Rie sent more crystal spears at the beast. This time the spears managed to damage the scales of the gorilla on the ground and knocked some of them off.

Rie kept her distance from the creature as she saved mana for the next attack. The creature stood up and started running towards Rie.

The hunter gorilla continued to hurl magic crystals at it as it ran towards him, damaging his scales, weakened by the blows. When the beast closed the distance, Rie somersaulted several times in mid-air, dodging beast's punches and pulling the beast away from the tunnel she was about to enter.

With her back to the cave wall, the hunter gorilla raised his fist to strike Rie in the face. Rie jumped behind his opponent and the gorilla's fist slammed into the cave wall.

The hunter gorilla's fist was so powerful that the crack where it struck traveled the length of the wall and reached the ceiling.

Noticing the falling stone fragments, Rie realized that the ceiling had been weakened when she had just pinned the gorilla to the ceiling, and that the hunter gorilla's current attack had only strengthened this weakness. The ceiling could collapse.

If, despite all the attacks she had made so far, the hunting gorilla could still throw such a powerful punch, she had to try something more effective to kill it, and Rie was going to try to leave the hunting gorilla under the debris.

Rie jumped again and approached the tunnel she was going to enter. The next step had to be executed before her opponent closed the distance between them.

She formed purple circles on the floor in the same way she had just done. As the hunter gorilla ran at her again, this time he noticed the traps on the ground and being experienced from the previous attack he was able to dodge the crystal pillars rising into the air.

Rie had calculated her opponent's move. She activated the trap she had set before the hunter gorilla reached her. Just in front of his opponent, a crystal pillar appeared out of nowhere, struck the hunter gorilla and threw him into the levitating pillars.

As the hunter gorilla landed on other pillars, the pillars continued to rise rapidly and the hunter gorilla was crushed again, caught between the pillars and the ceiling of the cave.

The attack cracked the ceiling of the cave, the cracks spread rapidly and when the mana that made up the pillars disintegrated, the ceiling of the cave collapsed with the fallen hunter gorilla.

A cloud of dust covered the area. Neko could not see her mother who was jumping to avoid being trapped under the collapsing ceiling.

Needless to say, Rie was more important to Neko than Sharley. Even if there was a chance that Sharley might die, she stopped her healing spell and ran into the dust cloud.

When the dust dispersed, there was someone she didn't recognize standing in front of her. A strange young man who had fallen down with the collapsing cave ceiling and had miraculously survived.

The young man barely pushed the boulder off him and managed to get to his feet, groaning. He was coughing blood out of his mouth. He put his weight on one leg and locked eyes with Neko.

The young man had a strange air about him. His brown hair was disheveled and matted with blood and dust, his elegant violet eyes were shocked and horrified. His face and arms were bruised and it was easy to see that he was in pain.

As Neko and the strange youth looked at each other, the rubble moved and a hunting gorilla rose from the rubble. He roared in all his majesty, as if to say, "I am not failed, I am standing!"

When the youth saw the beast and took a step backwards, Neko heard her mother shouting behind her.

"Neko! Run now!"

Her mother then stepped in front of Neko and used the rest of her mana to form a purple orb in her hand. By the time Rie noticed the young man behind the creature, it was too late. The purple orb she threw grew into a deadly attack, destroying both the hunter gorilla, who was barely standing, and the stranger who had fallen here by chance.