241 – Showdown in the Forest Depths
Aro steps forwards, and the black pig’s agitation grows.
“FugOUH!”
It cries out in anger, kicking the ground twice. The ground fragments, sending sand flying. With its third kick, it jumps forward.
Aro holds out a hand towards the incoming black pig. A light appears from her hand and touches the ground in its path. The ground deforms, creating a slight bulge.
It’s a skill she learnt from evolving, [Clay].
“Fugouh!?”
Tripping over the mound, the pig crashes shoulder-first into the ground.
That was well done. Using its direct movements against it, she set a trap to break its charge.
Its attack power and speed are low for a D-rank monster, but they’re still much higher than Aro’s. Rather than clashing from the front, she needs to maintain the initiative, seeing as a single hit would be enough to take her out of the fight.
That is why all she can do is keep her distance from it and chip away at gradually at its health in order to increase the experience she’ll gain.
She sticks out her left hand. With a clicking sound, her left arm drops out of her sleeve, detached at the shoulder. She lowers her posture, gripping her detached arm at the humerus. The rest of her left arm obeys gravity and clatters to the ground.
She wedges the bone she’s gripping beneath the pig’s forefoot and swings it up.
“Fugouh!”
Together with a dull sound, it screams out.
Umm, that arm… You’re going to reattach it later, right? It’s gonna break if you keep waving it around like that.
Aro wields her arm from the opposite side. This time she strikes it in the face.
The pig catches her bone in its mouth, and twists its head, dragging Aro along with it. She quickly releases her grip, and steps back to create some distance.
The pig bites down, biting into the bone with an audible snap. It spits it out and glares at her.
…That bone, it’s okay, right? None of it is missing, right? That definitely didn’t sound good. Even if it’s cracked, we can still fix it, right? Can we fix it?
I glance at my partner. “Gaa…”, she says, hanging her head. I-I see. It might be hard, huh… W-well, it was only the sound that was bad; from what I can see there’s no problem with it… It’s okay, right? In the worst case, I want to think evolving will fix it.
The black pig paws the ground as if to check its struck forefoot, squinting its eyes in displeasure.
If that damage will hold it back, then that was a profitable exchange. Aro’s MP pool isn’t very large. Once she uses it all up, she’ll be forced into a fistfight.
If she’s able to chip away at its leg strength, she’ll be able to hold her own better in a fistfight.
…Plus, if she picks up her bones, she can extend her reach. With a reach advantage, the difference in speed won’t hurt her as much. Though I feel uneasy watching her use her bones like that, so I don’t really want her to. She’s not going to throw her skull at it, right?
Well, then, having received such a forceful hit, its HP must have dropped. Let’s take a looksee.
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Species: Oinoin
Lv: 9/30
HP: 52/68
MP: 33/33
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…It took surprisingly little. It started off with 57 HP. In other words, that hit just now only did 5 damage.
No, that wasn’t just one hit. There’s the damage from tumbling over the [Clay] mound, the damage from the blow to its forefoot, and the damage from the blow to its mouth. All that only did 5 in total. Probably, the breakdown was something like 1-3-1.
…Well, hunting above your rank is always difficult. In my case, I think I only did it for the Great Vase Turtle and Giant Centipede. In both cases I didn’t give them a fatal wound myself. From the start I didn’t have much hope that Aro would be able to win by herself.
“Fugouh!”
The black pig charges her for a second time. Compared to before, it’s got a lot more bloodlust. Its speed has barely dropped a fraction, but it’s swaying as it charges. As expected, because of the damage to its forefoot, running is difficult for it.
Aro extends a hand towards the incoming pig. It sneers at her, kicking off the ground with all its might to leap into the air. It must be trying to avoid running into another [Clay] mound.
But it was naive. What Aro is extending her hand towards this time is not the ground, but the pig itself.
From her hand, a miniature tornado appears, attacking the midair pig. It’s the [Gale] magic.
The miniature tornado bursts and dissipates as it strikes the pig. But the pig loses its balance in the air as a result, becoming defenceless. Aro runs alongside it, striking its forefoot with her hand as she does so.
It seems her plan is to focus completely on its forefoot. That’s good, that should work.
“Obuh!?”
The pig falls to the ground, face first. It gets up and shakes its head, dislodging the dirt stuck to it.
While it does, Aro collects her humerus that the pig spit out earlier, gripping it tightly in her left hand. It seems she still doesn’t plan on putting her arm back.
W-well, improving her reach is important… It would have been great if I’d thought to borrow a spear from the Lithovar village.
Things are going well, but I can see the limit approaching. Soon enough, Aro will be reaching her limit. Up to now, she has been one-sidedly beating it down, but that’s only been possible because she’s had MP.
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Species: Oinoin
Lv: 9/30
HP: 49/68
MP: 33/33
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That’s its current status. The damage is slowly piling up, but the bottom of its HP still isn’t in sight.
On the other hand, this is Aro’s status:
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Name: Aro
Species: Skull Lowmage
Lv: 4/13
HP: 26/26
MP: 9/22
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That’s right, over half of her MP is gone already. Her best cards – [Clay] and [Gale] – have already been revealed. All she really has left is [Life Drain]. At best, she can only use it a single time, too.
From here on, it’s a question of how much damage Aro will be able to deal to it. It’s about time I get ready to intervene.
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