"Hey, co on, don't be angry…"
"I am not angry in any shape or form."
"Then why won't you look at ?"
"Because I'm embarrassed!!"
Schnee was asleep for about 30 minutes. The fact that she had fallen asleep and that Shin had looked at her sleeping face prompted her to verbally attack him, blushing even more, about why he didn't wake her up.
Schnee went to the kitchen to prepare dinner: as ti passed after she had woken up, she cald down a little.
"Your face wasn't weird at all, don't worry! …..I did take a screenshot though."
"Shin? What did you just say?"
Schnee didn't let Shin's mumbles go unpunished. She was facing away from him, but in the blink of an eye she had grabbed his shoulders.
"Well, you know, you were really cute, so…my hand slipped…"
"Your hand what!? Don't take photos of sleeping without permission!!"
"You don't have to get so angry…do I have to delete it?"
"Of course!!"
Schnee had started showing Shin more of her defenseless sides, but photos were still prohibited, apparently.
"But you show sides like that sotis, don't you?"
"Because I don't stay that way, and I show them because I trust you. Anyone could see the photos, so I can't let them remain…and besides…"
"Besides?"
Schnee paused, so Shin encouraged her to continue.
"I want to look pretty before the person I love. Photos can be looked at many tis…so I believe that even more."
As Shin seed to fail to grasp how a maiden's heart worked, Schnee made him sit down properly before starting to preach again.
"I just don't get it."
"Shin?"
"N-nothing!!!"
In the end, they had dinner later than usual that night.
◆◆◆◆
The next day, Shin headed outside the castle walls, with Lecus, Myu, and Gian in tow. Other students had joined Shin's training sessions, but — unlike the three with him now — they were average, so he didn't bring them with him this ti. He was planning to have them fight monsters which didn't normally appear in the area after all.
"Awright, it's ti to release the frustration piled up in the training dungeon!!"
"You're getting too excited again. If we die outside, it's over, got it?"
"I already promised Mr. Shin that I won't do anything reckless! And I know that, thank you very much. I'm just getting focused!"
"Sure you are."
"Easy there, you two. Myu, don't make us worry, okay? Gian doesn't talk like this to people he doesn't care about, after all. Having high morale isn't a bad thing, so let's be careful on our end. Myu is different from before, after all."
"Got it!"
"Hmph."
Myu was 100% eager while Gian looked at her, grumbling. Lecus cald their bickering and tried to make them focus in the sa direction. The three were also balanced ntally.
"You've hunted outside the castle walls before, right?"
"Yes, I think we've fought with all the monsters that normally appear around Erkunt."
Like all other students, Lecus' party had also experienced fighting outside the institute. The monsters' level were not very high, however, so the training dungeon was more effective for practice: they hadn't ventured outside too often.
"The wolf boss was pretty strong!"
"There was a Forest Wolf pack, with a stronger one among them. I think it was level 150 or 160."
Lecus added an explanation to Myu's vague comnt. He continued saying that they found another group of students being attacked and helped them: Gian took down the boss of the pack and chased the monsters away.
Their strategy consisted of Myu going wild to attract the monsters' attention, Lecus casting 【Hiding】 on Gian and ambushing the monsters. After crushing their legs to prevent them from escaping, Lecus finished them with magic. If the spells weren't enough, Gian would deliver the final blow.
"If the monsters weren't focused on the group that was fighting them before us, it wouldn't have gone so well, though."
Lecus said that they had chased away the monsters, so even if they took down the boss they couldn't do the sa with the rest if the pack. They could have chased them down, but prioritized tending to the wounded.
"I think you made a good decision. The people that were fighting before you were in a pinch, right? If you pushed yourselves to chase the monsters and suffered a counterattack, your assistance would have ant nothing."
So might protest that it would have been better to chase the monsters and finish them off, to prevent other people from being attacked. Forest Wolves, however, normally appeared around Erkunt: there were likely to be other packs too, so it wasn't so important to finish them off then and there.
"I doubt we'll see Forest Wolves this ti. According to guild research, the monsters spawning around here changed a lot: Mystic Wolves, and the powerful versions of Orcs and Goblins. It's not 100% confird, but Baghnakh-like monsters have been witnessed too. Stay on your toes, okay?"
"Yessir!!"
Myu answered with energy, while the two boys simply nodded. Maybe not as much as her, but they were focused and eager too.
"What kind of monster is that Baghnakh, by the way? We have looked it up, but didn't find much."
"To put it simply, it's like a huge mouth, about two l tall. Imagine the head of a wolf-type monster, without ears and with a massive amount of fangs."
Baghnakhs were monsters quite similar to the weapon with the sa na. Their level ranged between 150 and 200, about the limit that an average person could handle. Their fangs inflicted poison and paralysis: as they bit down on their prey, the victim would taste the fear of being slowly crushed to death as their HP slowly decreased.
That also happened if the victim was equipped with armor to resist the bites however. Baghnakhs did not have much attack power, compared to their high HP and defense, but their biting attacks had level 200 offensive power, which would crush to bits any armor grade Rare and lower.
At the sa level, only defense-oriented jobs could resist their bites. It just ant that they didn't die on the spot, however: being caught usually left no way out.
"That's…pretty dangerous."
"It depends on the person, but even Chosen Ones get eaten by them."
Shin used a word he knew Lecus and the others would know. Even Gian, who had the highest defense of the three, had a 50/50 chance of surviving a Baghnakh bite. Myu and Lecus would have probably resisted only a few seconds.
"It's not confird that we'll find any, but the possibility is there. So of them are difficult to detect even using skills, so never let your guard down."
Even the easily excited Myu nodded seriously now. They weren't in the area inhabited by monsters yet, but there might be dangers hiding everywhere.
Outside Shin and Schnee, Myu had the highest detection skills. There was the chance of finding monsters that, if Myu didn't detect, would leave Gian and Lecus incapable of reacting in ti. Shin's warning probably made her realize it.
"Okay, Myu, you're in front. We will only assist you if there's danger. Even though we're here to help you, don't treat this lightly, got it?"
"Yes sir!"
The three students answered in unison, then advanced, with Myu leading them. Gian was behind her, with Lecus in third position.
After a while, they started seeing trees along the road. To save ti, Shin's group picked a path that cut through a patch of woods. It was shorter, but presented a higher risk of being attacked by monsters or bandits than the more roundabout path.
Both for people and monsters, the woods were an ally that helped them conceal their presence. According to the information Shin gathered, the path they were walking on was the area with the highest number of reported casualties. Bandits were routinely wiped out by Erkunt's military and vigilantes, so they rarely caused any real damage.
Shin reviewed this information ntally while walking, when a presence in the woods started moving towards the path.
"Sothing's coming!"
When the presence was about 20 l from their position, Myu spoke up. She had spotted the sa presence Shin had noticed and stared to their right.
"It's just one unit, but it seems pretty big."
Myu continued focusing on the approaching presence, trying to obtain as much information as possible before the fighting began. A player would be likely to use 【Clairvoyance】 or similar skills to see the monster's appearance imdiately; for Myu and the others, however, acquiring skills was not an easy feat.
Looking at the three students drawing their weapons, Shin pondered whether to teach them skills or not.
(I know that skills can be taught in the sa way as the ga. But this is different from the ti with Tiera…)
Using 『Secret Book』 was easy, but would create all sorts of problems. In this world skills were extrely precious. Shin wanted to spread them, as ans of fighting against monsters, but skills could be used against other people too.
Looking at the history of the continent of Eltnia, conflicts and battles had broken out ti and again. Shin had learned of them when he looked up the Dusk of Majesty in Bayreuth and Falnido.
He couldn't know when, where, and how the skills he taught would be used, so he finally concluded that just teaching them on a whim could have ultimately worked against Lecus and the others.
"It's coming out!!"
While Shin was lost in thought, the monster had almost reached them. It rushed through the woods. A rustling sound could be heard from the bushes. A few monts after Myu's warning, a shadow jumped out of the shrubs, as if leaping over Shin's group.
"Defend!!"
Shin shouted to Myu and the others, who stared at the flying shadow without moving. The shadow had launched an attack towards them from the air.
The students reacted to Shin's order: he had told them that against monsters defense was the first thing to focus on, as he put them through the wringer during training. Thanks to that, Myu and Gian parried the monsters' attack with their weapons and Lecus used the spell he was chanting to deflect it.
"It's a Greygunn."
Shin caught the projectile shot towards him and looked at it: it was a pointy scale. Myu and the others looked at the shadow, which had landed on the ground. It was a lion-like monster covered in lead-colored scales.
Its level was 248, a bit higher than Greygunns' usual range. The size was approximately three l long. Even with all four of its legs on the ground, its eyes were on the sa level as Myu and the others.
Even though it looked like it was wearing armor, its movents were very quick and agile, its scales providing high defense. The large hooked claws on its front paws had very high attack power; while it didn't use magic, shooting its scales allowed the Greygunn to launch long-range attacks.
So mutated species had elental scales, which could be recognized by their color. The Greygunn facing against Shin's party had colorless scales, signaling the lack of elental attributes.
"I've never seen this monster before."
"This guy is tough."
Myu and Gian, their weapons pointed at the Greygunn, growling and ready to pounce, tried to find the ideal distance to attack. They knew that it could shoot long-range attacks, so they didn't go too close without a plan.
"Mr. Shin, could you let us handle this?"
Shin thought that it was a bit too difficult for their first opponent, but Lecus asked him to leave it to them.
"….go ahead and try."
In the future, they would probably have to fight opponents they had never seen before. Thinking that he could help them if sothing went wrong this ti, Shin decided to let them fight on their own. Just in case, he prepared a defense skill that he could activate at any ti.
"I'll limit its movents with magic, so you two find an opening and strike. Attract its attention while I chant."
"Got it!"
"Yeah."
Lecus gave instructions to Gian and Myu, then gathered magic power. The Greygunn noticed that Lecus was trying to do sothing, so it looked in his direction. Before it could attack, however, Gian stood in its way.
"I'm here too!!"
Gian stepped to the Greygunn's right side, while Myu struck her gauntlets together to attract its attention. Just as the monster looked in her direction, Gian struck his shield with his lance, causing a loud tallic sound to resonate in the surroundings.
Causing the monster's attention to shift just before it attacked, they disrupted its timing and forced it to be wary of both of them, blocking the monster from focusing on attacking a single enemy. In the ga it wouldn't be very useful, but in the real world it was an effective strategy.
Myu and her party were putting in practice one of the tactics that Shin had taught them.
"Here I go!!"
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