“Should we intervene?” asked Terry.

“Not yet,” said Haresh.

“You sure? It doesn’t seem like they’re doing well.”

Haresh nodded in a sagely, teacherly way, even as a muted cry of pain wafted their way.

“This is how adventures—” Haresh paused to give Terry a sidelong glance. “It’s how most adventurers learn.”

Terry shrugged and turned his attention back to the fight that was happening just down the road. It’s no skin off my ass. And he might have a point. Pain is instructive. Even so, Terry did feel a little sympathy for the siblings who were squaring off against some kind of boar monster. It had hooves and tusks that looked to be made from very blue and, based on the cuts Ekori and Jaban were sporting, very sharp ice. Every once in a while, its tongue would shoot out like a frog’s. The very tip of the tongue was equally blue and looked to have barbs that would rend flesh. Ekori was distracting the beast with hit-and-run slashes of her spear, while Jaban fired what looked like arrows made from fire. Those arrows did hurt the boar but didn’t seem to do any serious or lasting damage. As far as Terry could tell, all those arrows really accomplished was driving the beast into a greater and greater rage state.

“Shoot it in the eye!” shouted Terry.

Haresh gave him a disapproving look.

“That wasn’t real help,” said Terry. “Just a bit of casual guidance. After all, he still has to actually do it.”

Haresh snorted and said, “I suppose that’s true. I’m not sure he has the skill for that.”

“I’ll take your word for it. I don’t use bows. I just know that shooting its body isn’t getting him anywhere. He could do that all day, and it still wouldn’t die.”

“How would you kill it?” asked Haresh.

“Depends. If I could lame it, I’d probably start there. It’s always good if you can slow your enemy down. I might try to injure that tongue if the opportunity presented itself. In the end, I expect that I’d cut off its head. Or maybe stab it in the eye. You?”

“I’m stronger than they are. So, I’d probably try to inflict a few deep wounds and let it bleed for a while. Same end result as laming it. Slow it down until I could pierce its body or sever the head.”

“They don’t work very well together, do they?” asked Terry as he watched the boar charge at Jaban.

The young man managed to dodge the tusks, but the boar swung its massive head to one side. The young man stumbled to the side. Haresh sighed.

“No. No, they don’t.”

“Ekori should be dealing damage while Jaban provides distractions. At least, that’s how I’d have them handle this.”

“Agreed. It’s ego. Jaban wants to be the one to kill it, regardless of whether it’s the best course of action. Ekori wants her brother to succeed, so she holds back.”

“Well, that’s stupid. In a fight like that, where they’re outclassed, the only outcome that should matter is killing the damn thing. If they keep on like this, one of them is going to end up dead.”

Terry felt a bit of imposter syndrome settle over him, but he had killed a lot of monsters when he’d been fleeing through that forest. Enough that he’d worked out at least a few basic tactics. And it wasn’t like it took a strategic genius to figure out that something wasn’t working when the fight had dragged on for fifteen minutes. It would have been one thing if they’d been whittling it down, but the boar seemed just as energetic as it had at the beginning of the fight. The same couldn’t be said of Ekori and Jaban. They were tiring, slowing down, and making mistakes.

“I won’t let it go that far,” said Haresh. “Dead people don’t learn much.”

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Terry had to check a laugh at that. He was a dead person, and he was learning all kinds of things. Still, he wasn’t sure about his actual status. He wasn’t dead now, but he was certain he had died. Did that still qualify him as part of the ranks of dead people? Am I undead? I don’t think I’m a zombie. I don’t remember any zombie cultivators in all those books and manga series. Not even in those really weird anime movies and shows where anything seemed to go. He didn’t think he was resurrected either since this body was different than the one he’d had before. Now, there’s a good question. Did I steal some poor bastard’s body when I came here?

That seemed like a question he ought to have a good answer for but didn’t. He certainly didn’t like the idea that he was some sort of thief. The very thought that he was wearing someone else’s body like some rich snob from a hundred years ago wearing a fur coat was enough to send shivers down his spine. Dammit. They’re always so vague about how that part works. Terry chewed on that for a while before he decided that there wasn’t much he could do about it. If he had displaced someone to get this body, their soul was long gone by now. Even if that soul was still hanging around like a Christmas fruit cake that nobody wants, it wasn’t like he knew how to give the body back.

He wasn’t even sure that he’d want to give it back. He felt bad if that’s what had happened, but he was over his initial death wish. Giving the old college try at staying alive in Chinese Period Drama Hell seemed like a better bet than rolling the dice on the cosmos giving him another chance to live. With the way his luck had been going recently, his next death would be a real death that sent him straight to real hell. A place that he was quite certain would be run by priests who came straight from this world’s church. There’s probably a memo about me there right at the entrance complete with a picture. I bet the picture even has my hat in it, just so they can show it to me to rub salt in the wound. Something that he would consider both cruel and yet completely on-brand for hell.

A much more serious cry of pain derailed that train of thought. Terry focused on what was in front of him. It seemed Ekori had tried to intervene to protect Jaban and paid a price for it. She tried to fend off the boar using her spear with one hand as she staggered away, her other hand pressed against her stomach. Terry could see the blood welling up around that hand. Jaban was firing arrows almost faster than the eye could track in an attempt to draw the beast’s attention, but it had fixated on Ekori. Terry looked at Haresh.

“Now, we intervene,” said the older man.

“Do you want to take it or should I?”

“I’ll do it. Just back me up if things get out of hand.”

“Fair enough.”

Haresh dashed forward while swinging that massive sword of his free from his back. Terry moved along several paces behind. He didn’t want to get in the way one of Haresh’s swings came back around. He was not interested in finding out if he was durable enough to take a hit from something like that, mostly because he thought he wasn’t. It didn’t feel like something that warranted a field test to him. Plus, he didn’t plan to act unless something went very, very wrong. As they closed in, the boar lunged at Ekori who lurched backward and fell. Haresh let out a battle cry that seemed to stun the beast for a moment. Then, the older adventurer swung his sword in a vicious arc that missed Ekori’s head by mere inches.

The great blade slammed into the boar’s tusks and brought the beast to a shuddering halt, even as Haresh slid back almost six inches. There was a pregnant beat as Haresh and the boar glared at each other, and then one of the tusks shattered like an icicle falling on concrete. The boar let out an agonized squeal while Terry rushed over, seized the back of Ekori’s shirt, and dragged her clear of immediate danger. She let out a noise that sounded almost as agonized as the boar’s squeal, but Terry worried that trying to pick her up would have been even worse.

Terry gave the young woman a concerned look. Blood was still flowing pretty freely between her fingers, and she was clearly clenching her teeth against the pain. Even so, she didn’t look like she was going to die immediately. Until the threat was gone, she was going to have to manage. Terry closed with Haresh and the bore. The older adventurer was driving the beast back with careful thrusts and the occasional sweeping slash. Slashes that looked a lot faster than Terry thought a sword that size should move. I guess everyone has their tricks. He moved off to the side and drew his jian. He didn’t plan to do much of anything. He just wanted to force the boar to divide its attention, and it worked. The great beast looked toward him for a second to long and a spray of blood flew from where the sword left a gaping wound.

The boar let out another awful noise of pain, but Terry made like he meant to rush in by taking a few steps. The boar turned to stop him. That was the last mistake it ever made. Haresh let out another roar and drove his sword through the beast. It bucked a few times, but the fight was over. It just hadn’t realized that it was dead quite yet. Haresh yanked the blade free. The boar took a few stumbling steps while bloody froth dripped from its mouth. Finally, it collapsed. Terry walked over to look at the beast before he cast a disgruntled look at Haresh.

“Did you have to stab it? Now we can’t eat it. Always go for the head.”

Haresh gave him a disbelieving look and said, “Is it really that important?”

“You’ve clearly never had bacon, or you wouldn’t have asked me that.”