The Matriarch’s gray fur was stained with blood, but the wound was superficial. A collar of crystalline shards protected the creature’s neck. Risha’s attacks only served to anger the beast. The Matriarch huffed and stomped the ground before charging against the half-orc.
Instead of dodging, Risha planted his feet firmly on the ground and raised his iron shield. The impact sent metallic echoes through the forest, and for a brief moment, the half-orc managed to stop the beast's charge. Risha gritted his teeth as the Matriarch slowly pushed him back.
The forest bed was covered in loosened pebbles and rotten leaves, making it hard to maintain his footing. The Matriarch drove Risha back, causing his arm muscles to bulge as he tried to withstand the charge. As the Matriarch pressed forward, Risha had to drop his spear and grab his shield with both hands.
A guttural growl emerged from Risha’s throat as he redirected the creature’s momentum and pushed it to the side before it could crush him against the tree. Then, he grabbed his iron shield by its edge and used it to bludgeon the Matriarch’s head. The clash of iron against the hardened crystal shards echoed through the forest. Yet the blows were ineffective against the Matriarch’s armor.
Acting out of instinct, I drew the Matriarch’s attention with a barrage of high-speed mana shards. My mind was racing. It was highly suspicious that Risha was in the same place at the same time and even hunting the same creature as us. My thoughts were cut short because [Awareness] demanded all my attention be put on the Matriarch.
Seeing the two of us, the Matriarch hesitated. I seized the moment to examine the creature. The barrage of mana shards hadn’t left a dent in the crystalline armor.
“Don’t shoot yet! Keep charging the shot!” I yelled.
If Risha’s attempts to penetrate the body had failed, I could only assume that the crystalline protrusions provided an almost impervious defense.
I channeled my mana. If tiny shards wouldn’t work, then I needed something stronger. I summoned a bright mana blade and sent it flying toward the Matriarch, but as the blade touched the violet crystals, it shattered into a curtain of fine blue dust. My brain took an extra second to understand what had happened.
Risha took advantage of the moment of respite and recovered his spear; then, he charged against the Matriarch. I held my mana shield and followed. The charge attack was dangerous, and we had to prevent the Matriarch from gaining enough momentum.
The Matriarch violently kicked Risha’s shield, but he endured the hit.
Mimicking Ilya’s vine spell, I summoned mana chains to trap the boar’s feet. Thick chains emerged from the ground but were dispelled as soon as they touched the crystalline protrusions. The violet crystals shone as they absorbed my mana. I cursed. The Matriarch could render magic useless, which turned it into my biggest nemesis.
The Matriarch thrust with its tusks, but my mana shield held. Barely. Despite the tusks being made of bone instead of crystal, I could feel the beast draining my mana just by proximity. I cursed yet again. The violet crystalline protrusions gleamed as they weakened my mana shield.
I was going to be in trouble pretty soon if I remained engaged.
“Overcharge them! That will slow down the creature!” Risha yelled as he barely dodged a kick aimed at his head.
I nodded. If the crystals operated similarly to a battery or a capacitor, overcharging would render them useless. Feeding mana from the Fountain to monsters seemed like a bad idea, so I channeled all the mana I could muster from my personal reserves. I covered my body in full armor like the Brawler had done during our fight in the Great Hall and grabbed the Matriarch by the tusk.
I just hoped Elincia wasn’t using my mana pool to brew because I would need every drop. I pressed my mana outside my body, and the violet crystals absorbed it, gleaming and sparkling. The strength of the armor diminished as the Matriarch drained my mana. At the same time, new crystalline protrusions emerged from the beast’s back.
“I need help here!” I yelled.
Risha jumped forward, grabbing the other tusk and pressing down with all his might. The crystals multiplied, and the added weight was too much to hold after a few seconds. The Matriarch’s hind legs faltered.
“Only a little more,” Risha grunted.
The Matriarch bellowed out a mighty roar. The crystal protrusions crackled on its back as arcs of pure light jumped from crystal to crystal, buzzing and flashing. The hair on my arms stood on its ends. As if it wasn’t evident enough, [Awareness] informed me that batteries exploded when overcharged. I ignored the warnings and pushed more mana into the creature.
Finally, the Matriarch’s front legs gave up under the weight of the newly created crystals.
“Back! Now!” Risha yelled.
The beast remained down, heaving.
“If it isn’t the most famous Scholar this side of the mountains? Glad to see you, man,” Risha said, giving me a broad smile that almost made me forget Elincia’s warning. He was good.
The Matriarch roared as mana condensed on the crystalline formation on its back. Mana dangerously crackled. A shiver ran down my spine.
“Behind me!” Risha yelled. He raised his battered shield and cast a silvery aura—a protective skill.
An instant later, a beam of energy impacted against the surface, sending violet sparks all around us. Risha’s hair fluttered. I felt the scorching heat against my skin, even though I was behind Risha. The shield started to melt away.
Then, out of nowhere, a pure white streak hit the Matriarch in the head. The creature’s eyes turned blank. The energy beam changed direction, leaving a trail of burnt leaves and scorched trees. Finally, the beam lost power, flickered, and died. The Matriarch remained still.
“Elincia?” Risha asked, his eyes full of a newly found terror he hadn’t shown during the fight against the boar.
“Ilya,” the girl replied as she emerged from a clump of ferns.
The edge of her cloak was singed, and the bowstring snapped. She ignored us and walked towards the Matriarch, knife in hand. The arrow hadn’t completely pierced the boar’s skull. More than half of the arrowhead was still visible between the tiny crystal shards that served as scaled armor. The Matriarch, however, didn’t move.
“It’s dead,” Ilya calmly said, pulling the arrow. “The blow must’ve been enough to turn the Matriarch’s brain into mush. Scary, isn’t it?”
A System prompt appeared before my eyes.
Beast slain!
Level up!
I blinked in confusion. The Matriarch was a rabid pile of muscle the size of a small bus, with enough strength to put Risha against the ropes and nullify all my magical attacks. The reward could have been more impressive for such a rival. I sighed, knowing my complaints would be met with deaf ears.
Elincia had told me the System had anti-power leveling measures, but I never suspected it punished us so harshly. Risha’s presence during the fight must’ve absorbed most of the rewarded experience despite the fact both Ilya and I were Lv.1.
Ilya turned around and approached us. “It’s been a while, Risha.”
Neither of us had moved a single millimeter since the girl appeared in the clearing. Maybe I was wrong about adulthood. The gnome standing before us wasn’t a kid anymore. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but something in her presence was different.
Unlike Zaon, Ilya didn’t jump into Risha’s arms.
“So, you managed to become a Hunter after all,” Risha said with a smile.
“No thanks to you, that’s clear,” Ilya replied.
The girl’s attitude reminded me of the beginning of my stay at the orphanage. Straightforward, unapologetic, a bit brutal. She reeked of suspicion.
“I swear to the System there’s a good reason for everything,” Risha quickly said.
“I know. Zaon told me everything,” Ilya shrugged but didn’t clarify whether she believed Risha’s story. Her attitude was unequivocal. She wasn’t pleased with Risha’s presence.
Risha looked over his shoulder, asking for assistance. “Didn’t we agree to keep it a secret until the investigation progressed?”
“Zaon promised to keep the secret, and Zaon is a man of his word,” I said thoughtfully. Then my eyes fell on Ilya, but she avoided my gaze. “Something to tell us, lady?”
Ilya cursed under her breath.
“I noticed Zaon was acting strange. As trustworthy as he is, he can’t keep a secret hidden, so I pressed him until he told me everything,” Ilya admitted while gesturing with her knife. Her expression was a mix of pride and embarrassment.
Risha erupted in laughter. “Well, there are things that simply don’t change. In any case, congratulations on your Class, Ilya. You’ll be the strongest Hunter in Farcrest in no time.”
“You sound very confident for someone who hadn’t met me in years,” Ilya replied, without wasting the opportunity to antagonize the half-orc.
“Well, in the Great Hall, there’s the rumor of a certain gnome beating the youngest Kiln in a duel. I thought that was you,” Risha shrugged with a grace few actors could achieve.
“Thank Mister Clarke then,” Ilya cleared her throat. [Awareness] informed me that her defenses were crumbling down against the assault of Risha’s compliments.
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“You should also accept some of the credit. Not everyone can brag about defeating a Kiln,” Risha replied.
Elincia’s warnings echoed in my mind, but I couldn’t call Risha just a sweet talker. He was the kind of person who was pleasant to be with. Charismatic, attentive, easy-going. The fact that he had shoved me behind him when the energy beam hit us only made me like him more.
Ilya dismissed Risha’s words with a wave of her knife and turned around to examine the carcass of the Matriarch. We followed. The creature’s skin was too hard to cut with the knife, and my mana blade was still useless despite the animal's death. Even Risha had difficulties cutting the skin open, but after minutes of struggling, Ilya managed to retrieve a piece of meat no larger than a slice of ham.
Violet crystals grew along the muscle, rendering the meat inedible.
“Well, at least we know in what direction the other boars went,” Ilya said after spending several minutes trying to cut open the Matriarch.
The crystals had lost their characteristic hardness and turned into dust at the slightest touch. They wouldn’t absorb any amount of mana I fed them. I wished the System was fairer with the newbies. We couldn’t have slain the Matriarch without us working together. Ilya even had given the killing strike, yet I didn’t notice any trace of the leveling up high in her eyes.
I left Ilya alone to inspect the Matriarch’s body for anything useful and sat beside Risha. The half-orc was resting against a felled tree, bandaging his wounds. His forearms were seared product of the energy beam, and the rest of his body showed a dozen minor cuts and bruises. I rummaged through my potion pouch and offered him a high-grade Health Potion. Elincia had refused to give us anything but the best despite a high-grade potion being completely overkill to heal most minor wounds.
“Thanks,” Risha said.
He uncorked the vial and drank the contents. A moment later, the wounds had disappeared entirely, leaving tender new skin in place. Risha gave me a confused look.
“Mid-grade?” He asked.
“High-grade,” I replied.
“Elincia is brewing high-grade potions now!?” Risha shouted, scaring all the birds within a hundred-meter radius.
I didn’t answer. Instead, I examined the half-orc’s face. If he was acting, [Awareness] couldn’t notice it. However, I trusted Elincia’s judgment more than a tool from the System.
“Isn’t it curious that we met here? The valley is broad and wide for us to meet coincidentally,” I said.
Risha raised his hands in defeat. “I was going to visit the family, but then I saw you two leaving the city geared up like Hunters. I thought I could ease Ilya’s hunt by killing the Matriarch and driving the boars back here. Plus, the tusk of a Matriarch would’ve been a great present for Auntie Dassyra.”
“You truly like to follow your own plans in spite of the rest,” I pointed out.
“Guilty as charged,” Risha replied.
“I can’t say I’m completely guilt-free either,” I said.
“At least your plans seemed to work in the end,” Risha said, pointing at Ilya. “Ilya is a Hunter, Elincia is brewing high-level stuff, and Zaon seemed more self-confident.”
“You are giving me too much credit. The kids put in the hours to reach where they are,” I replied.
Ilya continued working on the Matriarch’s body. Even if the meat were inedible, she had that improving her understanding of the monster's physiology would make the next fight easier. Considering how useless my skills had been, I secretly hoped there would be no next fight.
“Kiln contacted me,” Risha said after a moment of silence. “There have been several cases of couriers stealing money, but we couldn’t connect it to the Odra-Aias family. It seems the Osgirians are helping them to cover their tracks.”
I grunted. That wasn't great news. At least nobody would dare to touch the orphanage now that the Prince had expressed his amity towards the Rosebud Fencing Academy. Firana would fight an uphill battle if she wanted to clear the name of the Aias Family.
“You are involved in the investigation?” I asked.
“I want revenge, and I don’t want to brag, but it happens that I know many people within the royal army,” Risha said.
“You look like the kind of person who knows a lot of people,” I jabbed at him.
“Thanks for the compliment,” he graciously replied.
I was about to tell Risha that Elincia already knew he was in the city when Ilya emerged from the crystalline formation on the back of the Matriarch. The picture would've been hilarious if she wasn’t holding a bright shard filled with mana. Ilya gracefully leaped off the Matriarch and approached me.
“Look what I found. It was in the middle of the crystalline formation,” Ilya said. “Do you think it’s dangerous?”
Gleaming colors danced within the crystal. It didn’t seem like it would start casting energy beams soon despite looking alive. Ilya handed me the shard, and I channeled a small amount of mana to cast an illusion. My spell was interrupted as expected, but the mana wasn’t absorbed.
“Mages will hate this if we find some way to make the bearer immune to the effect,” I said with a greedy smile.
I handed it back to Ilya, but the girl refused it.
“That’s too valuable for me. I think Mister Clarke should take it,” Ilya said.
I shook my head. “You killed it. It belongs to you.”
Reluctantly, Ilya grabbed the shard back and wrapped it in fabric before putting it inside her backpack. She seemed overwhelmed by the loot of her first successful hunt. I smiled, seeing her childish expression. None of the orphans were used to having nice things.
“Ginz should be able to craft something with it,” I said.
“Does he have the levels to deal with magic materials?” Risha asked.
“Mister Lowell raised many talented kids, it seems,” I said with a mischievous smile, making Risha and Ilya blush. “So, are we ready to return to the orphanage?”
Ilya shook her head. She still wanted to hunt down something edible to bring back to the manor. After making sure the Matriarch’s body had nothing else of use. We marched in the direction of the stampede. The forest was laid to waste. The boars had razed everything on their path, from clumps of ferns to walls of brambles. Only adult trees seemed to survive.
As we reached the feeder, Ilya signaled us to crouch. Down a depression in the forest, twenty or thirty boars sniffed through the old leaves, searching for the grain Ilya had scattered around. The girl signaled for us to stay put as she cautiously approached. The small boars seemed to be harmless compared to the Matriarch despite the chaos of the stampede.
Ilya advanced until she was thirty meters from the feeding area, hidden behind an old pine. She would be safe if the boars decided to run in her direction. Red magic fluttered around her eyes, and [Awareness] told me she had used [Mark of the Hunt] on her prey.
Calmly, Ilya put a new string on the bow and nocked an arrow.
The boars were so busy searching for winter food that they didn’t notice her presence. Ilya aimed. Mana flowed within the Cooldown Bow, empowering the shot beyond the string’s capabilities. Then, after a moment, she let the string go. The arrow crossed the distance in a blink, piercing the side of an Iceshard Boar from side to side. Then chaos ensued. As the wounded boar coughed up blood, the whole band broke, running in all directions. Ilya remained hidden until the last Iceshard Boars disappeared.
“Good shot, Ils,” Risha whispered.
Ilya didn’t reply. Instead, she kept looking in the direction the Iceshard Boar had run away. [Awareness] didn’t find any trace of the creature other than a thin blood trail, but it wasn’t a skill tailored towards hunting like Ilya’s. Her eyes retained a slight red glint.
“It’s dead,” she finally said, despite not having a clear sight of the body. “Let’s go.”
Thirty meters east, we found the body of the Iceshard Boar. It was a large male, with long blue crystalline protrusions growing from its back, not quite as armored as the Matriarch, but I could see a Black Wolf having trouble clawing through it. Ilya instantly jumped forward, knife in hand, and cut the abdominal cavity open to pull out the internal organs.
“Are you okay?” Risha asked me.
My face must’ve shown a hint of revulsion. I knew how to dress a boar or a deer. I had done it several times, but the ill feeling remained no matter how often I went hunting with my dad. I blamed Bambi.
“I’m okay. My mother used to dislike hunting stuff. I might have inherited part of her distaste for killing,” I said.
“Was she a Druid?” Risha asked.
“Something like that,” I replied.
Ilya worked on the boar with little difficulty, which made me think she had practical experience preparing animals for consumption. I waited patiently. With the cold weather in our favor, we could bring the carcass back to the orphanage without risking spoiling it.
Ultimately, time wouldn’t be a huge factor. Ilya sprayed the interiors of the boar with a blue potion. Ice crystals formed over the surface, and a minute later, the whole carcass was frozen solid.
“I see Elincia opened up Mister Lowell’s recipe book,” Risha said.
“That’s a Mister Lowell’s potion?” I asked, touching the animal’s skin. I had to pull my hand back as the cold hurt my fingers.
“Mister Lowell was a high-level Alchemist. Of course he had a dozen Named Potions,” Ilya grunted as she tried to raise the carcass over her shoulder with little success. It didn’t help that the boar was twice as heavy as her.
“Let me carry it,” Risha said.
“No, I have to do this,” Ilya replied sharply.
After a minute of discussion, Ilya finally let Risha carry the body back to the camp. The whole ordeal had left us exhausted. The silver lining was the hunt was complete, Ilya had felled a Matriarch, and we had a hundred-kilo boar to feed the orphanage.
“So, Mister Lowell was a famous Alchemist?” I asked as we returned to the camp.
“He was unorthodox more than famous. While the Guild developed better healing salves and strengthening potions to help Combatants, Mister Lowell tried to improve the life of the common folk,” Risha explained.
“The Preservation Potion you saw doesn't work on living things, and Mister Lowell refused to invent a variation that would work on people despite the pleadings from the Guild,” Ilya added. “He invented a lot of other potions.”
I nodded in silence as the girl listed the different potions Mister Lowell had created. Potions against headaches and lower back pain. Nutritional supplements for toddlers. Relief for hangovers. Cures for respiratory infections and treatments for common ailments.
“As useful as the potions were, Elincia was too low-level to brew most recipes, so the orphanage quickly ran low on funds. There were a lot of mouths to feed back then, and our closest friends were poor farmers,” Risha said.
“If a certain someone hadn’t left the orphanage, things would’ve been different,” Ilya didn’t miss the opportunity to stab Risha where it hurt the most.
“I’m sorry,” Risha sighed.
Ilya ignored him and moved forward to survey the path ahead.
“I wonder why Elincia keeps Mister Lowell’s journal locked away,” I said. The last time we had talked about the matter of original recipes, Elincia had shut me down before I could ask questions.
Risha grinned.
“Half of the recipes were potions that improved the performance inside the bedroom. Didn’t she tell you? Mister Lowell knew where the money was, and it was not in selling anti-headache potions,” Risha laughed.
I was at a loss for words.
“Don’t take it personally. Elincia was always dead embarrassed when Mister Lowell gave us the talk about the birds and the bees,” Risha continued laughing.
“Mister Lowell was a genius,” I said.
“Damn right, he was. He single-handedly tripled Farcrest's population… probably.”
Half an hour later, we reached the camp. It was late afternoon, so we decided to rest the night and return early in the morning. The Preserving Potion would keep the carcass frozen for a week, so we didn’t need to rush back. Risha left the boar on a rock and returned to the fight's site to retrieve his camping gear from his camp. He promised to return before nightfall.
We lit a campfire and prepared Elincia’s tea blend.
“Satisfied with the hunt, Ilya?” I asked.
The girl gave me a mischievous smile before summoning her character sheet.
“It’s Giant Slayer Ilya,” she said.
Name: Ilya, Gnome
Class: Hunter Lv.2
Titles: Governess’s Little Helper, Giant Slayer.
Passive: Longsword Mastery Lv.1, Archery Lv.1, Tracking Lv.1
Skills: Mana Manipulation, Spirit Animal, Entangling Vines, Mark of the Hunt, Piercing Shot.