Rouna was desperately trying to stave off the imminent threat of the large hands made of rock. The attacks by the Rock Elemental became increasingly faster the more she hit it and her claws were becoming duller after each strike.

Riika was having a lot of trouble holding onto the rocks. Her hands became bloodied and her nails cracked. She was holding on with all her might so that she might not have to fall from a height that was about six stories high.

Rouna then used a skill known as [Partial Shapeshift] in which she kept her wings, teeth, and claws in dragon form, but the remainder became human. She reached over her shoulder and unslung the light machine gun she was hauling.

With steady hands and impeccable accuracy, she fired rapidly at the opponent. Each round she had in the gun at the moment was one that would explode on contact.

The bullets rained down upon the being towards its hands and chest while avoiding Riika. Small dents were made where the bullets landed after a small explosion of fire and ash.

The bullets were working, but to an extent. The way things were going was making her uneasy. Then, as she launched another volley, the Elemental raised its hand to smack her down to the mud below.

She fired at it, but the bullets never connected. Instead, the hand moved down to crush Riika who was closing her eyes as she was at her limits.

Then, as all hope seemed lost, the giant increased its speed downwards as Riika opened her eyes. She let go at the exact moment of impact and she fell down. On the way down, before hitting the ground, her left leg hit something and she yelped in pain.

The left leg was bent at an angle that would make those that couldn’t handle blood and violence vomit. Blood was leaving her leg and made a spiral in the air as she continued her descent where she hit the ground.

… Or she would have if not for Rena catching her at the last moment and stopping her fall. Her leg was still broken and the only one who even knew a slight bit of healing magic was Rune. Not very smart on his part.

She let out a scream like a dying cat that was being blended in a blender. Then she fainted after a moment of screaming in complete pain.

Rena was a bit scared of what just transpired and handed her off to Hika who just came out of the woods. The two of them had started sprinting the moment they touched the ground while avoiding monsters left and right.

Hika was lagging behind Rena ever so slightly and, when it seemed like she would catch up with her, Rena increased her speed once more which caused her to sigh as she was doing now. She looked at the leg of Riika and she gagged as it looked awful.

She started to think of ways to contact Rune, but could only think of using Rouna;s farsight to do so. They lost their radio and Riika was not conscious to manage them even if they had the tools.

In a way, it was like they were cut off from society and felt lonely and scared after using the technology for quite a long time. The only things she had left was her burst rifle, several clips of ammo, two grenades, and some pieces of beef jerky, not including the clothes on her.

She loosened the rifle strap and aimed at the being’s eyes as Riika was now out of the way. Three shots were unleashed from the muzzle of the gun and they found and met their target. They went right into the eyes, and managed to bounce off the target.

The eyes that were blue became red and the magical energy binding its limbs with one another turned the same color. It looked down at her in fury.

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Erin was having some trouble at the moment. He was currently staring a wolf in its eyes while grasping the remains of his sword in his right hand. In his left, he held a small shotgun.

He had his chain gun on his back, but he wasn’t able to use it against such a fast enemy. He noticed from the way it bounded towards him that it was agile and swift. He was now thankful for Rune’s lessons. Specifically the lesson where the title was “How and Where to kill a Wolf”.

Rune really didn’t have much to teach the kids about weapons as that would only last half a year. Instead, he started teaching combat procedures and how to kill. He decided that it would be easier for Freshmen to learn about weapons, then about fighting easy targets. Then he would teach the students of higher years about the same things, but more advanced forms and versions.

At one point, he was talking about how some weapons could be moved more quickly than others and he started to get off track. Then, during the next class, he discussed killing wolves as they were fast beasts and someone asked about it at some point in the class before.

The “How” part was the different ways someone can get close to and kill a wolf. The “Where” part was the different places one should stab or shoot a wolf, like the eye.

In the next instant, the wolf pounced on him and, by luck perhaps, he swung his broken blade at just the right time. In fact, since he was using his broken sword, he misjudged the target and managed to hit it in the throat.

Blood spewed like an upturned faucet. It was a mix of saliva and blood where the mix came to be a dark red with bubbles. The mixture sprayed all over the mud and, since Erin was shaking due to his wound on his leg, the blood sank into the mud’s rippling surface.

After a long amount of time of shooting wolves with his chain gun from afar as the wolves couldn’t see him nor dodge the bullets, he came across mounds of bodies.

There were wolves and some strange looking reptiles littering the ground. Periodically, the bodies disappeared, two at a time.

He was truly scared of what lay beyond as the ring of corpses was a near perfect circle. Each corpse had a single burn mark and smoke came from the inside of their mouths, like they were smoking without the cigarette.

Suddenly, he felt bloodlust. A large amount at that as he turned towards the source and tried to stand his ground just to be forced down by an unknown pressure.

The bushes moved and a hand could be seen reaching it towards him. It dropped acid that evaporated the mud underneath.

Then, perhaps by a miracle, the hand stopped and Rune pokes his head through the bushes.

“Next time, if you see this many bodies, know it will likely be me. Now, come on. Help me sort the bodies and let’s get that leg bandaged up.”

Erin stared, in shock, as he truly thought his life would end in that one moment. Then he nodded and entered the circle of flesh while carefully avoiding any and all vegetation.

Erin could see that there was a small platform atop a tree without leaves. A ladder connected it to the ground and he climbed up to find Elisa.

Rune cast a spell on him and his leg wound healed in a few moments. Since he wasn’t very well versed in healing magic, the most he could manage was to cure non lethal cuts and gouges.

“Rest up. We’ll wait until the rest of th group catches up. Rouna should be able to find us.”

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A very tired Rouna sat on a tree branch to try and catch her breath. She was exhausted from all the attacks she used on the Rock Elemental.

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She reverted to her human form as it took less magic to do that than to partially shapeshift. Even though becoming a dragon would not use up any mana, it would make her a larger target and she was already regaining enough mana as it was.

She sat while leaning on the tree trunk with her LMG in front of her. At the moment, she was too tired to even lift the gun.

Rena was busy distracting the Elemental as she swung around it with her chains. It was like a certain friendly neighborhood superhero, but with a far shorter range and had killing intent.

She swung her kamas with extreme precision whenever the Elemental swung. The fingers were easily cleaved through as magic crystals refined by Rune were much harder than Rouna’s claws. As soon as a finger was cleaved, through, the finger fell to the ground and sunk into the earth. Then a new finger formed from the inside of the hand as if the rocks were a fluid and then turned into a solid as soon as it popped out.

It seemed like a futile effort, but, after every slice and reformation, the Elemental grew slower. Unfortunately, at the same time, Rena also got more tired and her stamina was on the cusp of running out.

After several more attacks, she landed on the ground and headed for the cover of the trees. She waded through the mud that was waist deep and was trying not to sink. Her clothes were also getting wet and gunky in the process and it was getting increasingly more difficult to move, not to mention that her stamina was running out.

Rouna was about to leap out to save her when she suddenly found Riika in her arms. She looked around in confusion as she looked for Hika who was supposed to be in charge of taking care of her until they met up with Rune.

The unconscious girl in her arms was sleeping quietly, but the wound affecting her leg looked terrible. It seemed to be cauterized by Hika’s matches and stopped bleeding, but it made it that much worse to look at. It was like looking at a burn victim after they died in a fiery explosion, but just the area on her leg.

Hika was found running on the branch she was on and leapt from the edge. In gym class, her long jumps were the farthest out of everyone, without her skills. With her current skills, which she usually used for fast strikes, she launched herself and was able to land just about near Rena.

She put Rena’s arm over her shoulder and started to pull her to the side. She looked up at the Elemental and fired off several shots to keep its hand at bay.

Since the giant was made of hard rock, the bullet had very little effect at keeping it at bay and she threw something at it. It was cylindrical and filled to the brim with Ice magic crystals.

It was a cryo-bomb that could freeze enemies and caused the Elemental’s movement to stop as the shards of Ice magic crystals entered its body at its torso, right arm, and legs.

The rocks froze and the magic also seemed unable to move as ice connected and stuck together. The mud around it froze as well and Hika stopped. It did look quite vulnerable at the moment and she wasn’t sure if the grenades she had worked.

She still had four more to spare and threw up two more just in case. She turned back to everyone and they sighed.

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“Where do you think they are?”

“I don’t know, but, uh, is she getting worse?”

“Hmm? Elisa? Probably, but I can’t seem to teleport in these conditions. Maybe if we get out of this area…”

Rune was talked to Erin who was taking care of Elisa at the moment. He was reloading his current pistol and pulled the hammer down. He was in charge of taking care of enemies in the near vicinity and Erin was in charge of making sure Elisa didn’t die.

During their short conversation, Rune had shot a wolf in the face and Erin got the rare chance to see the new weapon of mass destruction up close without dying because of it.

The bullet traveled through the air and seemed to enter the being’s body, but there was no blood. Instead, the bullet entered the wolf’s body and never came out and produced an electric shock around the area it penetrated. The wolf opened up its mouth and flames appeared, but not because it was breathing it like a Red Dragon but because it was burning from the inside.

It gurgled blood and frothed at the mouth before it crumpled to the floor and smoked from the mouth. Erin, after watching the show, gulped in fear as he saw the devastating impact of the single bullet attack.

The ground shook at that moment and Erin tripped and fell off of the platform into the mud. He surfaced and gasped for air as he struggled through the mud. He looked around to see that the source of the quake was not nearby.

Rune stood and faced a certain direction, as if he was a dog who noticed the smell of meat. He leapt into the air and changed into his dragon form and flew upwards to look in the direction of the quake.

He saw a large being made of rock that seemed to be covered in ice. It had fallen over and was now broken in several large chunks, but it was still much taller than the trees around it.

He glided back down, turned into his Demon King form, and picked up Erin by the scruff of his neck and held Elisa like a satchel under his arm. Then he flew upwards and headed straight for the location.

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The Elemental had fallen over and the mud level had risen up to just about where Rouna was on the tree branch. Rena and Hika were both on a higher branch looking at the broken figure in front of them. It seemed that they being was killed by the ice and, mostly, by the fall.

Suddenly, they could hear wings beating after they each celebrated their small victories in their minds as to not cause too much attention around them. It sounded like a single pair of wings that was descending upon them.

Then a humanoid figure landed on the frozen Elemental and dropped two people. Carefully, Hika unslung her rifle and looked through the scope.

“Oh!! That’s Rune. We have to tell him that we are here!!”

Rena was the first one on it as she flung a flashbang in the air and Rune immediately saw it right before covering his eyes. Erin was the only one unfortunate enough to look at the flash of light and it made him unable to see for several minutes.

Of course, being deprived of his sense of sight, he almost slid off of the Elemental before Rune snatched him by the collar once more and dragged him back up. The he grabbed Elisa and Erin and carefully flew to the others.

The light was still in the air, but Rune couldn’t think of anything he could do to stop it as the Light magic crystals were now in affect and they had the enchantment to stay in the air for a certain amount of time.

“Elisa is sick. It seems like Riika is also devastated. I’ll take both of them back to the school’s nurse and come back as soon as I can. Ok? Good.”

With that, Rune dropped Erin who was still blind and picked up Riika. As the others watched him leave, he decided to get off of the isle as quickly as he could. Once he got off, he teleported to the school.

His plan was to go there, drop them off, and teleport to an area or monument near the isle. He couldn’t teleport from the isle, ergo he couldn’t teleport back to the isle. Thus he was going to fly as fast as he could back.

He didn’t want the group to rely on him too much and he gave them several crates full of food that wouldn’t go bad within a year at the very least. He also gave them a couple bins and pots to heat things up, like water.

The rest of the group was to scout out the surrounding area and try not to get hurt. However, the first thing they wanted to do was rest. They were too tired from defeating the Elemental.

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The fire crackled underneath the tree canopy. The rain was blocked out and smoke rose up through the leaves. The wood was slowly turning black as the fire burned more fiercely.

Rena and Hika set up as campfire as Erin and Rouna set up pots and bins about to collect the rainwater. The rain above was pouring now and the two were having a really easy time collecting the water.

Once they returned, they placed a pot of water over the fire. It took a while, but they managed to boil the water and everyone sat around it munching on some food. They were currently eating some delicious jerky, again, but none were in the mood for talking after they had witnessed two of their comrades getting or being injured.

Underneath them, they sat on some food crates and the mud underneath was frozen with the help of Hika whose odachi had the Ice attribute within it. The ice was connected to several trees as well as the actual ground so that they weren’t floating and were stagnant.

“So, what are we going to do now?”

A curious Rena spoke up as she finished up her bag of meat. Upon the completion of her sentence, she licked her fingers. She had a strange habit of using as little fingers as possible to touch the food as she ate.

Rouna had finished eating for quite some time and was lying with her back against the food crate. She turned her head to face Rena and spoke after some thought.

“We should probably move in a group and look at the surrounding area. Rune wouldn’t be happy if he came back to find us doing nothing.”

Then she turned her head back and stared intently at the leaves above. She was more concerned about the well-being of Elisa at the moment to really think of anything else.

Then Hika tried to lighten the mood, but to no avail.

“Yeah, we want to leaf this area in a group. What? No one?”

Her pun was one of the worst ones that the others had heard in their entire lives. They sighed and she followed suit as there was nothing else to do for the day.

It was already about nighttime since they each knew about when it was during the day and they had to rely on only that as the sky was shrouded in storms. Then, after deciding who would take watch, they slept.