Bigfoot roared, slamming its large, furry hands down towards Ren. Even though it was on one knee, it still had a height advantage, and with its immense strength, blocking the attack was out of the question.
In turn, with the attack, Ren rolls to the side, sword in hand, as rocky debris mixed with bloodied grass explodes everywhere. Ren positioned himself behind the arm that slammed the ground, preventing the monster from grabbing him with his other hand. This also gave him an opening, an opening that he wouldn't miss.
From the side, his blade thrust forward, stabbing into the neck of the monster, causing it to bellow with anger. Another wound was added with the many others the monster had sustained from the previous fights, but the crimson blood that poured was much less than the others.
'Too shallow!'
Continuing the momentum of the attack, he moved from the side to the back of the monster, but his eyes widened, and instead of attacking, he moved back in retreat.
'3 steps back!'
The monster, believing that Ren would strike its back, swung at an astounding speed backwards. If Ren hadn't retreated, his body would have been pasted on the surrounding trees!
But that didn't mean Ren was safe; the sheer wind generated by the swing caused him to stagger back in surprise.
'D-Damn it's way too strong!'
The result was clear: compared to the pale monsters, Ren was both weaker and slower. His only advantages were his small size and the heavy injuries that restricted the monster's movements.
Quickly regaining his stance, the monster was soon upon him, but its movements were more of a pounce than a full assault. The monster crawled instead of standing. When it did manage to stand, its legs limped across the bloodstained grass due to the injuries inflicted moments ago.
Despite Ren's apparent weakness, he was still strong enough to do a good amount of damage, especially when targeting the weaker points of the body.
'Its upper body is much thicker than its lower, that's why my attack on the neck was so weak! It also can't regenerate from its wounds.'
Even though he targeted the weak-looking neck area, it didn't do much compared to when he targeted the leg of the monster. After observing it for a while, Ren had also noticed that none of its injuries was healing.
Typically, monsters had a higher level of regeneration and, at a minimum, could stop their bleeding. This was due to the special properties of mana; even if this were a different world, the principle would remain the same.
Ren recalled the first monster he fought. It was a mere slime, yet it took him half a day to kill it. It was partly due to its regeneration but mainly because he was a weakling.
A roar snapped him out of his thoughts as the large arm descended upon him. With widened eyes, Ren quickly dodged to the side like before, but this time the monster, realising Ren was a threat, went all out, giving him no openings like before.
'He's angry!'
The fight continued as Ren ran around, taking advantage of the monster's inability to run at him. He didn't have a hard time evading its strikes, but that didn't mean the situation was safe. With the immense strength of the creature, only one mistake would spell Ren's end.
Soon, nearly a minute passed since the fight started.
Mr Night:[Where are you!?]
Putting one portion of his mind into messaging and the other into fighting was difficult, but having done this many times in his past life, it had already become a natural skill.
Ms Star: [Position him in a more open area. I'll use a spell to kill it in one go.]
Mr Night:[On it! But if you had a spell, why didn't you tell me sooner?!]
Ren messaged frantically, his pale face about to turn even paler as the attacks became more and more rampant and aggressive.
Ms Star: [Isn't it obvious? I just remembered it!]
Mr Night:[You little! If you didn't have a plan, we should have attacked together!]
Ms Star: [Hmm, but by the time my mana was full, he would already lef- Duck!]
" ! "
As the words appeared on the screen, Ren rolled to the side as the monster attacked with a large swing, slightly grazing part of his clothing, tearing it to shreds. Looking up, the red eyes of the monster met him. It appeared angered by his distraction as if Ren were belittling it.
Once more, the monster raised his arms high up into the air. With the grass covered in black blood and great anger in its eyes, the arms descended before stopping.
"?"
The monster quickly turned around, noticing an incoming attack, but it was far too late.
Aria appeared running forward, mere meters away, with sharpened rocks floating in her hand, and at the tip of her staff was a ball of wind magic that was churning at a rapid speed.
It all happened in a matter of moments. The floating rocks in her hand moved in front of the ball. Ren and the monster watched as Ren instantly grasped what she was doing.
Ms Star: [Get down!]
He was currently standing, but seeing the message made his eyes widen, while throwing himself towards the ground in a lying position
Upon touching the ball of wind, the sharp rocks shot out rapidly, landing all across the body of the monster. Notably, some rocks landed all over the monster's face, blinding it and ruining its already menacing mug.
Some rocks hit the other parts of the monster's body as well, causing blood to splatter as the monster howled, now blind, and collapsed on the ground.
'Headshot!' Aria internally celebrated!
'Nice shot!' Ren smiled before it soon froze.
Mr Night: [Was that supposed to kill it?]
Ms Star: [Yep! Crazy, right? Right?]
Mr Night: [It's still moving…]
Ms Star:[Moving?]
Aria looked ahead in astonishment as the monster rose once more with a low growl. Without hesitation, Aria raised her staff and launched another set of rocks straight into the temple of the monster's head.
But it still rose, facing the direction where Aria's attack came, relying on instinctual feeling rather than sight, it started to move by first picking up a rock with its damaged arm and hurling it with miraculous accuracy towards Aria.
Her eyes widened as she reacted instantly and threw herself away from the line of fire with both luck and skill, dodging the flying rocks. The rocks, upon hitting the trees, obliterated a large chunk of the tree bark, which flew everywhere.
Aria stared with a slightly sweating face, her skin turning slightly pale as a chuckle escaped her.
Ms Star:[I…. require assistance.]
Mr Night: [Oh? What happened to killing it in one go?]
Ms Star:[Mr. Night…]
Ren chuckled. Despite his words, he was already rushing towards the monster's back, jumping on top, his sword stabbed into its nape, causing it to roar, crimson blood erupted from the wound, landing on Ren.
The monster tried to shake Ren off, but to no avail. Unable to see, it couldn't determine Ren's exact location, and due to its large size, it couldn't reach him as he moved around its back, narrowly avoiding being grabbed when its hands approached.
Using the embedded sword to hang off the monster, Ren reached for his belt, pulling out a dagger and stabbing the monster in the temple repeatedly, the black grass soon turning a deep crimson.
Two, four, then eight, and soon the monster was stabbed nearly a dozen times, finally collapsing face-first into the grass as the chilling aura and twitching of death was felt. It let out one final weak howl, succumbing to its injuries.
Ren got off the monster, wiping the blood off his pale face, staring at the corpse for a moment before he started to cut it open, looking for the mana crystal.
Footsteps behind him indicated Aria's approach. He turned his head slightly while his dagger stabbed into the monster, enlarging the already wounded areas to save time.
"That was a good spell, how'd you do it?"
"I found some rocks, surrounded them with the element using [Wind Discharge], and you know the rest."
Aria had surrounded the rocks with wind element, allowing them to fly through the air with less resistance. She then used a variation of [Wind Blade] called [Gust] that didn't do damage but instead pushed objects. It was the spell she used on Ren during their meeting to push him away. After that, launched by the magic, the rock reached an absurd speed, piercing through the monster.
It was a simple-sounding process: coat rocks with the wind element, then shoot them out, right? But it was far from it for a big reason. It was the accuracy. Aria had pressed the rocks against a dense ball of wind magic called [Gust], but the spell was chaotic in nature, so it was like trying to shoot something with a large yoga ball or those water blobs you see online. Although the strength was there, the accuracy wasn't.
Aria solved this problem by closing the distance between herself and the monster, but despite this, nearly a third of the rocks flew away from the monster. Even though such a large amount missed the target, without proper knowledge of the spell, only 2 or 3 of the dozen would have hit the monster.
It required immense concentration to use, a concentration that would be disrupted during any movement, especially Aria's run towards the monster, as well as her casting a second spell on top of that to coat the rocks with wind magic. Using more than one spell at a time required complex calculation and mana control that was usually meant for the 2nd rank, a whole 2 ranks above Aria's 0th rank.
It was something that Ren found surprising, not by the fact she could do that, he knew better than most of her strength, but by the fact that she intentionally pushed herself to the extreme.
He gave her a sideways glance, noticing sweat pouring down her face, her eyes filled with exhaustion, her breathing heavy, causing Ren to sigh internally.
'Thankfully, she isn't injured'
"Why didn't you just make a wind arrow? I'm sure you can do that?"
If it had just been a tier 1 [Wind Arrow], it would have been a simple cast and fire. Since it was a single spell, it wouldn't have been mentally taxing. But in response, Aria shook her head.
"If I were a rank 1, maybe, but currently, it's more efficient to coat an already existing object in wind magic."
The spell [Wind Arrow] was an upper-level tier 1 spell, making it difficult to cast compared to the mid-level [Wind Blade]. If Aria had tried to cast it, she wouldn't have been able to shoot it far and could only shoot one shot before all her mana disappeared.
"It's most efficient to use all that I can, right?"
Spells were a skill that required a balance between mana, physical, and mental exertion. If she had just used a [Wind Arrow], she would have maxed out her mana exertion, but not her physical or mental, the damage would have been good, but not the best. What Aria did maximised all those aspects, creating the strongest possible attack she could have at the cost of making her very weak currently.
"Ah, that makes sense, magic efficiency is important at this level, huh?"
"That's right and…"
"... if I didn't, you would have been hurt…", she mumbled after her explanation.
Ren, focusing on cutting the monster, didn't hear her words, turned to look at her.
"Did you say something?"
"Nope! Anyways, how are we going to move such a big body?", Smiling Aria asked with curiosity.
Ren turned back, looking at the corpse of the furred monster. It was large, much larger than both him and Aria. Moving it wouldn't just be difficult; it would be impossible.
'There is also the problem of smell, as well as the hard-to-clean blood. What to do, what to do?'
In his thoughts, Ren was also counting how long it had been since the battle started. He noted that merely 5 minutes had passed since they first descended the cliff to the present, but even though such a short amount of time passed, it felt far too long a stay.
"Monsters are going to come soon, we need to hurry" Aria, scanning his face, understood his concern.
"Yeah, here catch."
Ren tossed a shiny crystal towards Aria, who caught it with surprise. Scanning it, she felt dense mana inside; the mana crystal shone a dense dark blue mana, and it had a very clean octahedron shape, unlike the first crystal they gained. Her eyes sparkled at the sight.
"This density…. It's!"
"That's right, it's a rank 3 crystal"
"What a boon!"
Aria held the crystal as if it were a precious gem; it was, her golden eyes glittering close to starlight. The reaction caused Ren to smile as he started to pack up the meat he cut, wrapping the meat in parts of the monster's fur and putting it in the duffel bag that he had hidden nearby.
"But.. it's odd"
Aria tilted her head at his words,
"Odd? Do you mean its rank?"
"Yeah, if it were a rank 3, no matter how injured it was, we would be dead, but its battle power was at the peak of rank 1 to the lower levels of rank 2."
That was its power, it showed when fighting the pale monsters, so after that fight, considering its injuries and its full stomach slowing it down, it was at the middle to lower level of rank 1.
"Didn't it rank up by absorbing the mana crystals of the other monsters?"
Aria pointed at the blotches of grass covered by the black blood of the pale monsters. The pale monsters were now all inside the furred monster's seemingly endless stomach, but Ren countered her argument,
"If that was the case, why eat the whole monster and slow itself down? And Aria, you know as well as I do monsters can't rank up that fast."
"It's as if the monster wasn't getting stronger but…."
Aria's eyes glowed, and realized what Ren was trying to say
"It was regaining its power."
"That's right."
The two looked around, thoughts and questions lingering in their minds. Despite being the same rank as the pale monsters, it was strangely confident in its abilities. What could have caused the monster to be weakened? At the first rank, mana crystals could be sensed if they wanted to regain their strength. Why not just grab the mana crystals? Why eat the entire body?
"It's like it's storing food", Ren finished packing, saying those words and slightly hurrying his movements.
"Storing? For itself? No… It had so much confidence it would have just eaten here then…"
Aria spoke before her eyes scanned the corpse,
"It was storing food for other monsters, monsters like itself."
If the pale monsters could come in groups, why couldn't the furred monsters? As those thoughts occurred, both of them heard a roar resound in the forest; it sounded similar to the furred monster's roar, causing the pair to pale.
"Back to running, gosh! And here I thought we would have a brea-…Ah! M-Mr Night?!"
Ren swept Aria off her feet, carrying her by the back and the legs while carrying his duffel bag on his back as he ran forward in the opposite direction of the roar.
"You can't run right? I'll carry you, so hold on."
"Y-yeah… thanks."
With one arm around his neck, the other holding her staff, they both moved back into the forest, back into the night once more.