Both Ajax and the fish were locked in a stalemate. The fish was not as strong as Hatchet and Ajax had gotten pretty close in power to him so with the difference in strength it should be an alright risk to take under normal circumstances.

But these weren’t normal circumstances. Not only was the fish in water, an environment that Ajax couldn’t bring his full power to bear in, the water was also heavily mana infused, while that would be neither useful nor harmful to him he couldn’t say the same about the fish for sure. On top of all that he also had to take care of Fluffy, if he left her by the side the fish could still target her and if she ran off in the woods another monster could kill her.

The fish was also in a similar situation. He had the upper hand as long as he was within the pond, but while he could go on land for limited time his strength would suffer. As such both were left staring at one another for a few seconds. These few seconds turned into a minute before Ajax felt that something was amiss. This was an ambush predator so why would he not go back into stealth? With increase in level came an increase in intelligence, even if not sapience.

A hiss from Fluffy followed by the sound of a snapping twig alerted Ajax to something behind him. A massive brown bear with fur so dark it was almost black was charging at him. The bear wasn’t too quick but was by no means slow, so Ajax wanted to use [Judge Threat] on him to see what he was up against.

Before he even got a chance [Danger Sense] acted up again. He didn’t even turn to look as he dodge a second water jet that came from the fish. Suddenly it all started to make sense, the wounds on the big shadow cat were from these two, the fish crushed its front paws while the bear tore into it with its claws. A quick [Judge Threat] let him know that the bear was even stronger than the fish was. Luckily for him the bear was focused on Strength Endurance and Vitality, making it slow enough that he could outrun it.

Ajax didn’t even think twice before he started running. With a bear on his trail already he kept clear of the woods as another monster ambushing could delay him too much. Despite the danger that running alongside the small river that flowed down from the pond posed from the fish that had disappeared Ajax still chose that over running in the woods as a clear path also let him bring his full speed to get away from the bear. For the first time Ajax had also understood the true meaning of the old saying ‘better the devil you know’ as he looked into the woods wary of anything else deciding to join.

A quarter of an hour later he had finally lost the bear and there had been no sign of the fish. With no immediate threat he took a bit of distance from the water and finally stopped to catch his breath.Adrenaline was still running through him from the near-death experience. He explored his surroundings with his mana sense but found nothing dangerous. One thing that did stick out to him was that the water running in the river was a lot less potent than it had been in the pond.

He could finally see the food chain take place in this forest. Neither the bear nor the fish could have monopolized the pond at the start but together they ran off every other animal. This resulted in them both growing strong enough to not really need the others help but as one was dominant on land and the other in the water they couldn’t forcibly take the prize for themselves. Thinking about this, Ajax was even more impressed by the shadow cat he had seen. Sure it had died in the end but it managed to get away after being ambushed by both the fish and the bear.

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Back when he got Fluffy he could only take the core of the shadow cat and the cub as the rest of the body went to the other hunters as they all went as a party. Now he had the fangs and claws of an even stronger specimen to give a smith for making weapons for him. The only sad part being that the fur was too damaged for him to make armor out of, a few snug coats was the most he could hope for.

After resting for another ten minutes he finally got to work getting his bearings. It was starting to get late and he wanted to make it back to camp before it got dark. It took a half hour but he finally found a reliable point when he spotted the mine the entire war was fought over in the distance. The river had flowed into a tight caver a few hundred feet back so he was now coming down the hill and heading for a road that should be able to take him all the way back to camp.

When he was half a mile off the road he heard the sound of rushing water return so he decided a quick look wouldn’t hurt, after all the pond and river weren’t placed on the map and they would surely be important resources, it was best to have all the information when reporting about them.

As he closed in on the sound he found a small outpost of armed men surrounding the small spring. All the men wore the colors and insignia of a noble house, one that seemed familiar but Ajax didn’t know the name of. Focusing his senses on the water he could tell that it had lost even more of its mana potency as it ran all the way here, it was down to a third of what it had held back in the bond but it was all being collected by the outpost into barrels.

Deciding not to approach things he turned back around and made his way back to the camp. On the way there he finally remembered why the sigil had seemed so familiar, it was the house sigil of the noble leading the other side of this conflict. It seems that he has found another resource close to the disputed silver mine and decided to keep quiet about it.

Not only that according to Tom the leadership was surprised to see that the other side had conscripted four cities and not only three as the fourth was quite a ways off from here, but if you considered that he had hoped for a quick victory to hide the presence of a mana infused spring it all added up.

Ajax’s first instinct was to go and report his finding to the commander after all he has been helping him for a while now. But as the camp got closer and Ajax thought more about it, that didn’t seem like the best course of action for himself. Reporting the find of the pond so soon after everything with the bug had just blown over was sure to place a spotlight on him. That was something he would rather avoid so he decided it would be best to keep all of this to himself and only report it towards the end of the conflict.

Not only that but he also wanted to try his luck against the bear and fish again. Sure he stood no chance against both of them but the fish was bound to the pond. He could take his time hunting the bear, even if he was not strong enough to bring him down in one on one he could use his skills with a bow and mana to slowly build up damage before killing the bear and then moving on to the fish. Both of them should have some valuable corpses considering they were both closing in on level fifty.

Though he wouldn’t admit it to himself Ajax wanted to be the one to kill the bear and the fish for another reason, that was the purring warm blanket of fur that rested on his shoulders. Though he had only killed her mother in self defense he still felt a bit guilty about it but there was nothing he could do. Now that he had a chance to personally avenge her other parent however he was surely going to take it.

The bear and the fish also presented him with a chance to push himself to his limits, something he couldn’t really do in the war. It also allowed him to secretly work on his mana skills in a dangerous situation pushing his experience gain out of the funk it had been in for the last few weeks since spending his free points.