Zerak dear~" moaned up Esra.

"Hah?" groaned Zerak while nearly falling over.

"I can't walk, bring me on your back."

The amazon poked at Zerak first, then she hugged him from behind with both arms around his neck. Her legs gave in, and the hug changed into dangling pretty fast, nearly pulling the man down with her.

„As if, get off me. You could easily use your magic and solve your hangover, you lazy woman."

„That’s actually true..." I thought to myself.

„I know, but... hehe, you see, there’s something satisfactory about hangovers. Like you achieved something grand and you’re recovering, you know~"

As someone who doesn’t usually drink and even when she does, she does it in moderation, I couldn’t understand anything that Esra was talking about, and while a big smile was on her face, it actually grossed me out a bit after hearing what she had to say.

"Gahahaha! You guys are weak! We didn't even start, and you were out cold!"

Lomnur was in his usual energetic mood, not even feeling the amount of alcohol in his body that he drank last night. A dwarf’s natural resistance to toxins came in handy at times like this, when a normal human would have been knocked out by alcohol poisoning.

"Shut up, my head wants to split apart..." Zerak groaned again, now holding his head with both hands.

"What did I say yesterday...?"

I wasn’t actually mad, I was just disappointed. I knew something like this would happen, I've known them long enough for that. Obviously, the two of them were already drinking, so I couldn't stop them, but I clearly told Esra to don't try to challenge Lomnur for real, as she would just black out, like usual. Even then, I can understand these two with how competitive they are, but...

"Zerak, why do you have a hangover as well? You were quite collected when I left."

"Oh, me? After you left a cutiepie came in. I ordered some drinks and talked with her to ease her up, I even gave her a taste of that Lunarshine, but for some reason she didn't get drunk. And in the end these two made me join their drinking game as well. After that, I don't remember anything. I woke up in some farmer's barn beside a horse. I was bathing myself all day to get the horse smell out."

"You know, I can understand the second half, but the first half of what you said just makes you look like some disgusting creep."

"You just don’t see the charm, little lady. A man has to do what he has to do. I like women, and they also love me back. Look, one is literally hanging off of me despite me being adamant on that she should leave me alone."

After I left the bar yesterday, I had a good rest before going back to the castle. I made preparations, asked around if they had any new information about the bear and its position, and waited before the gate for everyone, who while arriving on time, didn't look battle ready at all.

Doing our best to just go along with it, we hopped on horses to reach the forest where a small encampment already waited for us. These were the scouts sent out after the A Rank adventurer party couldn't do much against the bear. They tried to monitor it from a safe distance and briefed us on its situation. We left the horses in their care, then made our way towards the deep forest.

"But why don't you want to~"

"Because you are heavy with that huge ass sword. I have to drag you because the end of it is sticking in the dirt, you moron."

"Shh."

Esra and Zerak argued until I noticed movement before us and put up my left hand to tell them to stop for a bit. We tried to cloak our presence in the deep darkness of the night as much as we could.

„It does resemble a Solar Bear when you haven’t met one before, but it’s obviously a unique species. A Lunar Bear perhaps? I see some red on it." Zerak whispered behind my back.

"I prepare a spell, don't be surprised. Also, please stay where you are, for your own sake."

In the distance, not too far from us, a bear walked across a shallow river. It had light gray fur, while in some places, more so around its neck, as the light of Luna shone on it, the fur had a faded blood red tint to it. Its eyes flashed red as well. It clumsily stomped through the river and stopped after noticing a tree that had a sizable beehive hanging on it.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

As it started to approach it, bees in huge numbers started to get out of the hive and make swarms before the bear, trying to protect their home. Its red neck started to faintly glow, it bared its teeth, and not long after, it breathed in and made an ear splitting roar. The bees got stunned and dropped to the ground one after the other. The bear slowly walked up to the tree, ripped off the hive, and started plundering it for its sweet honey.

"This might actually be problematic." said Lomnur in his usual voice, not even hearing what I said before about staying quiet. Unlike his words, his tone was quite happy and eager.

"Well, the bear is one thing, but the actual problem is the terrain. That thing can move pretty swiftly in here, while we will have a hard time not obliterating half of the forest. I heard one of the trials will take place here, so I don't really want to make a mess." said Zerak, then looked at us with narrowed eyes. "Obviously, I said nothing about any trials. Neither you heard anything."

"You actually deserve it for not picking me up in my time of need. Suffer the consequences." giggled Esra.

After this small chit-chat, the forest fell silent and only the bear could be heard in the background, as it hungrily licked at the hive for honey. They all looked in my direction, anticipating what I’m cooking up in my own silence.

They knew what I was capable of, they also knew my spells very well and how fast I could build up even complex magic. Yet, I was silent and concentrating, which made them stop talking and turn towards me. In the next moment, they got their answer to why I was silent.

In a split second, the view before us warped and morphed into obscurity, leaving nothing of the lush forest. After they realized something was even happening, we were already out of the forest, not far away on a nearby empty plain. Our positions remained the same, which can be said about the bear as well.

"Did you enjoy the ride?"

I turned towards the group with a smile and only saw Lomnur there with his usual straight dwarven expression, which made me quite worried.

"Uhhh..."

"I'm gonna puke..."

My worry disappeared quickly. Behind me, Esra was already puking behind a big rock, while Zerak tried to hold himself back, but gave in after hearing Esra. I was relieved and disappointed at the same time, since I anticipated this might happen. That's why I warned them about drinking in the first place.

Surprisingly, Lomnur had no problems, but I guess that's because he is Lomnur. They say dwarfs have yellow blood, so I guess they are in a constant state of drunkenness. Answers why all of them are so jolly.

What I did was a kind of offspring of Spatial Magic that I made myself. Spatial Magic works at short range, and most mage who know about it use it for slight teleportations, but only in emergency situations, due to its very high energy costs when you teleport a chunk out of the air. This, however is a cultivation of my experiments with this magic over many years, and only I know about it.

Instead of short range teleportation, you use an immense amount of energy to teleport things across a wider location. I expanded my vision and limited it to terrain detection, which, in this case, contained most of the forest and the area around it, so I chose a preferred field, a location where the fight can't damage anything besides some minor terrain changes. This in itself would be impossible, as Spatial Magic targets space itself, so you would teleport a big chunk out of something if you tried, hence where my offshoot spell comes into play.

To save energy as much as possible, I limited the teleportation down to area and tried to make that space as small as humanly possible, which makes the teleportation itself less demanding and, in exchange, asks for immense focus and brain power from the user to specify what to teleport, what location it is in, where to teleport and many more.

I never actually used it in a combat situation or with multiple targets, so I was kind of scared of what might have happened with the two of them, so I was happy it worked out well.

"You know, this woke me up a bit..." groaned Zerak.

"Yeah, I feel kind of refreshed now."

The two joined back and looked at the bear in front of us. Since it just started eating honey, the bear sit there, confused where the forest just disappeared and also where it is now, which gave us a little time to organize ourselves.

"Gahaha! That beast looks as dumb as a rock! This will be a piece of cake with the four of us!"

Pomf.

Just as Lomnur said those lines, a soft thump could be heard as I planted my face into the actually not so soft grass.

"Um..." Esra was kind of confused.

"You mean the three of us." Zerak corrected Lomnur.

I tried to look sideways at the ground, my forehead taking on a red hue.

"This is why I needed you guys. This spell isn't so easy, so I need a timeout to restore myself. Think you can handle it until then?"

"Hmpf. Who do you think I am. I don't need these two puny ones with me, I'm alone is enough."

The dwarf, Lomnur brandished its heavy golden battle axe, with a smile across his face.

"Don't think too highly of yourself, you low life. I might not be able to drink more than you, but I would make myself a laughingstock if I just left this up to you. Know your place, I will slice this one into pieces before you can even take a step."

The amazon, Esra slapped a part of the brace on her back, which made the oversized sword leave the place it was locked into and it crashed into the ground. It dug deep into it, then the girl gripped the long handle with two arms and with a slash that ripped through the grassy fields, preparing for combat as the sword smashed onto her shoulder.

"Yeah, you go there. Show the bear what you are made of. I cheer you on. From back here. Have fun."

All this time, Zerak the archer just slowly walked to the side, out of the combat area and grabbed his bow with two arrows in hand as he jumped up and sit down on a flat rock.

Groooooo!!

The bear realized what’s happening and was turning towards us, a big shout of the beast was the gong that signaled the start of the battle.