The fact that Emil survived at all could only be attributed to luck and his quick decision making.

No way was he a match of three Magical Beasts at the same time.

He wasn't planning to face more than one beast even when hunting the Light-Foot Deer. He knew it was out of league.

But as luck would have it, he plopped straight into the Kurmushes' trap just barely after his mission started.

He knew the forest was dangerous, and that he was, more likely than not, going to run into some trouble during his mission.

But this was too much, this was outright unlucky.

Whether if it was luck or his own lack of experience though, none of it mattered.

What mattered was getting out of this situation alive.

Taking out food form his storage ring, Emil started chewing on it to restore his energy as he recalled Miss Grimald's class.

"Deadly claws and invulnerable underground, but with low accuracy. Not to mention the tremor wherever they're about to appear..."

He recalled how the Kurmushes missed their attacks not once but multiple times, testament of their low accuracy.

Not to mention, everytime they were about to attack, he could feel a tremor underground, alerting him of their presence.

Last but not the least, they were the most vulnerable when they were seperated form the ground, which was the exact reason why Emil could kill one of them.

"Separating them from the ground again will be impossible. I was just lucky earlier, not to mention i got wounded.

However..."

A plan was formulating in Emil's mind.

He'd lost his sword, but maybe that was for the better.

He had better mobility without his sword and frankly speaking, it wasn't the best weapon to use against Kurmushes who could dig deep underground.

Emil's best course of action would be...

He started climbing down from the tree as his eyes searched the ground.

A fireball in one of his hands, he jumped down and started sprinting.

*Shake*Shake*

A tremor appeared beneath his feet, alerting him of the enemy's presence.

immediately, he stopped in his tracks and implanted his fiery fist deep into the ground.

*Muffle*

A muffled explosion of equal magnitude to the tremors took place below Emil's feet.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

*Squeal!*

A pained squeak sounded out.

'i hit him!'

But he missed, otherwise the enemy would've died.

Not lingering around for too long, he started running again while casting another fireball.

With a swift jump, he dodged yet another one of the Kurmushes' attacks.

He would've dealt with it the same way as earlier had his fireball was done casting, but it wasn't.

"Attash!"

While still midair, a small flame flickered to life in his hand.

Without any hesitation, he implanted his fist into the ground again while landing, certain that the Kurmush would be waiting for him.

However, his fireball hit nothing this time.

The Kurmush had tricked him!

Emil who was caught off guard was too late to react to the claw reaching at him from behind.

The claw successfully penetrated his leg.

Panic begun to surge in Emil's heart.

The Kurmush hooked on to him, he was more or less done for at this point.

At that split second, he had two options.

Wait for the Kurmush to rip him into shreds, or...

ignoring the pain of his wound, he planted his fingers into the mud and raised his leg up with all his might, rooting the Kurmush out of the ground in the process.

The Kurmush, upon realizing it was no longer in its territory, released Emil's leg and started falling to the ground.

Emil wanted to grab it right there and then, but suppressed himself from doing so when he saw how it was flailing its claws around midair.

*Pop*

The Kurmush started digging as soon as it felt the presence of dirt again. Its efforts were short lived though, as a hand grabbed it from behind and tossed it towards a tree like a ball.

The Kurmush's back impacted the tree and sent it writhing around in pain.

Emil took this opportunity to catch up to it and grab it again, before proceeding to kill it in the same manner he killed its friend.

Like a savage, he pounded the creature's body against the tree bark again, and again, and again, until it stopped moving, when there was nothing but a bloody mush left of its body.

"Huff. Huff."

Emil panted, his eyes wary and his senses tense, still on the lookout for the remaining beast.

He injured it with his fireball so it ran away more likely than not, but it still didn't hurt to be careful.

After sensing nothing, he stored the Kurmush's body in his ring, grabbed his sword and half ran half limped towards the academy.

His first hunt, was a total failure.

He thought he was prepared, but he wasn't.

Emil had two approaches towards fighting the Kurmushes.

The first approach was using one of his potions to boost his strength, which would have been enough to finish the enemies.

His second option was to face them head on.

He had the fire element, the deadliest element against earth.

He planned to use his knowledge of being able to predict the Kurmushes' locations, and his elemental advantage to confront them directly and take them down.

His strategy worked against the first enemy. albeit, his execution was lacking, which was why he couldn't finish it off.

But the second enemy caught him off guard by figuring out his strategy and dodging his fireball.

He'd underestimated Magical Beasts.

They may have lacked intelligence, but their instincts more than made up for it when it came to fighting.

They were natural killing machines, they were predators. It was foolish to underestimate that aspect of them.

Emil might have failed today's hunt, but he came back with precious experience that would help him survive in the future.

You could never be too careful when dealing with a Magical Beast. that was today's listen, and he got to experience it firsthand.

Not much later, Emil made it to the infirmary and had his wound treated.

His wrist wound was surface level, but the wound on his leg was deep.

It would take him a few days to heal with his cultivation, probably faster if he used pills but well, He didn't have the real estate for that right now.

He could only hunt again when his leg was healed, and that meant he couldn't complete his current mission so he had no choice but to hand it back.

If you can't complete a mission within its time limit, it'll be the same as failing it and you'll have to hand the mission back so other students can take it.

Failing a mission didn't have a penalty but not returning it after doing so did.

Hence, Emil dragged his tired and injured body to the Merit Hall right after exiting the infirmary.

As he was re-registering his mission, a certain text caught his eye.

"Hunt two First Grade Scarlet Rank Kurmushes.

B Rank. Type: Solo. Timespan: Two Days.

Reward: 120 Merit Points."

A wry smile formed on Emil's lips.

'maybe I'm not so unlucky after all.'