Seeing that it was already past noon, Lucia asked the party, "Why don't we take a lunch break? We've already hunted down a couple dozen packs of monsters already."

From morning until now, the party had hunted without breaks, hunting down one pack of monsters one after the other. The packs of monsters ranged from a mere 5 to as high as 20 or more. They had hunted plenty and it was high time they took a break. Milly immediately agreed with Lucia when she felt hunger kicking in.

"Yeah, let's eat first then go back to hunting."

"A-are we g-going to eat h-here? O-or are we g-going back t-to the r-ranch?" Cathy stuttered.

"It's safer if we go back, but we're already so deep into the forest..." said Miles.

While everyone was debating about staying in the forest to eat or not, Tyr sat down and took out his lunch from his knapsack.

"Let's just eat already! I'm hungry!"

"H-hey! It's dangerous eating here in the forest!" Miles exasperated.

Tyr was already digging into his lunch and ignored Miles' warning. Seeing that one of them was already eating, Cecil immediately suggested, "Let's take turns eating then. Tyr and you girls eat first. Miles, Silver and I will watch the area."

"""Okay"""

"...*sigh* alright."

Hearing the suggestion, the girls immediately plopped down and started eating their lunch with Tyr. Miles could only relent after seeing everyone taking their lunch out. So he kept watch of the surroundings with Cecil and Silver.

"... shouldn't you be eating Tyr?" Cecil asked in surprise when he saw Tyr was also keeping a look out with them.

"What!? I'm done already! HAHA!"

'What?'

"..."

Tyr only just sat down a couple of seconds ago. Cecil started wondering if he just shoved his whole lunch pack into his mouth in one go or something. He ate just way too fast! Seeing Tyr going back to patrolling the area a bit, Cecil immediately activated his mana sight and quickly scanned the area. Upon noticing that there weren't any monsters close to them, he relaxed a bit. The girls were quick with their lunches and it was time for the guys' turn to eat. Minus Tyr of course.

Lucia handed Cecil his lunch and he immediately dug in. While he was eating, he saw Tyr eating beside him...

"W-what the heck Tyr?!"

"Hrmm? *munch* what's up, dude?"

"I thought you said you finished lunch?!"

"HAHA! This is my second serving!"

"..."

Miles was on the side quietly eating his lunch. It seemed this was a normal occurrence for him. From time to time he would glance around the area and at Milly. Even while eating, Miles put the safety of the party and his sister first.

'As expected of an older brother' Cecil thought.

Cecil remembered how protective he and his brothers were towards their sisters, especially towards their youngest, Angelia. He and his brothers practically pampered her to death and wouldn't tolerate her being bullied. Heck, even if she so much as cried, they'd all start acting up and search for the culprit. The brothers once started a ruckus at her grade school when Angelia came home crying with their mom.

Cecil chuckled at the thought and resumed eating. He missed his carefree days with his family. Feeling someone staring at him, Cecil looked up and saw Lucia staring at him. After briefly making eye contact with her, the latter turned away and returned to keeping a vigilant watch of the area.

Cecil smiled and thought, 'It's like having another younger sister. I wonder if my older bros would pamper Lucia the same way we do to Angel.'

He thought it was funny since they most certainly would. If it was a girl then they would protect, if it was a boy... well... let's not go there. Cecil remembered the last time Fatima introduced the male vice-CEO of her company.

'Grandpa, Dad, Gabe, Matt and Luca weren't pleased at all.'

He wasn't one to talk since the one with the biggest reaction of disapproval was actually himself. His mother had to placate him and kept on repeatedly telling him not to hack the man with his training sword. Cecil quickly finished up his lunch. He unbundled a huge steak from his bag and fed the steak to Silver. The large wolf finished the steak in one bite and went back to patrol the area. That was all he needed for a meal.

"Okay, let's rest up for 30 minutes and continue our hunt! We gotta get first place everyone!" Milly exclaimed.

The girls started chattering amongst themselves while the boys were polishing their weapons and glancing around the area from time to time. Cecil was sitting down with his eyes closed in meditation. He was quietly condensing mana into his eyes, trying to solidify the mana in his eyes. He only had partial mana sight so he wanted to use every moment he had to train and quickly gain perfect mana sight.

As for his mana stage, he wasn't too worried about that. He already had as much mana as the mana core stage, so all he needed to do was focus more on his mana sight training. The faster he gained mana sight, the faster he can resume his mana training. Not even 10 minutes into their break, Cecil sensed a disturbance in the surrounding mana. Not long after Silver came back and started barking at them.

"Rah!"

"I feel it too... everyone I think a battle is happening somewhere to our west!"

Cecil said as he immediately notified his party and waits for everyone's decision on whether to check it out or to stay away.

"Hmmm... maybe it's only another party battling monsters, we shou–"

Before Milly could finish her sentence, an SOS signal was fired into the air. It was coming from the area west to them!

"Scratch that! Everyone hurry!" Milly yelled.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

She was already rushing towards the area where the SOS signal was fired from. Miles and Tyr quickly caught up to her and rushed ahead. Cathy and Lucia were running behind Milly while Cecil and Silver were bringing up the rear. It didn't take them long to reach the source of the SOS.

They arrived at a clearing... no it wasn't actually a clearing. The reason why the dense forest had such a huge clearing was because the trees in the area were all hacked down. Tyr and Miles who were up front, quickly halted their steps and scanned the area. The area was devastated. Numerous gouges and pits littered the field. It was evident that a hard battle had taken place here just now.

When the rest of the group arrived behind the two, they also scanned the area. What they couldn't find though was the party that had sent the SOS and whatever it was they were fighting. Right when Cecil was about to activate his mana sight again, a loud, intimidating roar sounded out at their 2 o'clock direction. Without delay, the party quickly dashed towards the direction of the roar.

'Oh SHIT!' Cecil thought.

"BLADE URSA!" exclaimed Tyr.

"Damn, it's a whole tribe of them!" Miles said.

"I see the party! They're being surrounded, let's hurry up and help 'em!"

Miles, Tyr and Silver were already charging towards the tribe of ursas right after Milly gave the directive. Milly started prepping her spell while Lucia started enchanting Miles and Tyr's weapons. She quickly turned around and saw Cecil glancing around the area. After confirming that it was only the tribe around, he nodded at Lucia before charging forward at the monsters. Seeing as Cecil was already charging ahead, Lucia started chanting and quickly fired her spells at the ursa tribe.

"WE'RE HERE TO HELP!" Tyr quickly announced his and the party's presence to the ursa tribe as well as the party who requested for back up.

"T-thanks! Thank god!"

The ursas were surrounding the party so Cecil and the rest could only here a 'thanks' from behind the wall of monsters. The Blade Ursa was a monster in the shape of a bear with sharp claws, a blade like horn and had two sickles growing out of its elbows. It was 5 meters in height and was a very familiar monster to Cecil.

'Damn... I didn't expect to see an old enemy here'

Cecil smiled at the thought. He quickly unsheathed his sword and dashed towards the closest blade ursa. These were the monsters that he faced right when he was first teleported into Alterna and from memory, the blade ursa he fought had given him a severely hard time. Plus, he only triumphed over the monster through sheer luck.

'This time... I'll kill you myself!'

Cecil activated mana burst and kicked off the ground, propelling himself towards the nearest Blade Ursa with incredible speed. The thought of taking down the monster with his own hands excited him a bit. His movements were so fast that it looked like he teleported behind an ursa from where he was standing. Cathy and Milly were naturally surprised seeing him move so fast. Due to their surprise the two involuntarily exclaimed together, "Shukuchi?!"

Only Lucia seemed calm after seeing Cecil move so fast for the first time. Earlier, Cecil had already secretly explained to her why he was suddenly able to use Ground Breaker, so Lucia was fully aware of all the details behind his Mana Burst. She only took a glance at Cecil and seeing him attack so eagerly, she continued channeling her spell and sent them straight towards the ursa Miles and Tyr were attacking.

Milly quickly snapped out of her surprise after seeing Lucia's spell being launched at the monsters. She quickly followed suit and began firing at the ursas with flame lances.

'So he can also use wind magic spells.' Milly thought.

She took another glance at the small fox boy that was darting around at blinding speeds whilst slashing at multiple ursas with his sword.

*sigh* 'He was holding back while already holding back.' She lamented in her mind. Milly had already thought that Cecil was finally showing his 100% after ambush this morning, but it seemed that Cecil had only used a fraction of what he was capable of.

On the side, Cathy mumbled to her, "C-Cecil's like a b-box of s-surprises..."

"Haha, there's probably more to him than this," Milly said as she turned a surreptitious glance to Lucia who was not far from her.

'Even Lucia's the same. Just where did these two pop out from?'

While she was thinking so, Lucia turned to her and said, "Milly! Tell everyone to get back! I'll make an opening!"

"E-eh? Okay!"

Lucia put a stop to her barrage and started chanting loudly,

"Surge in multo igni–"

"W-what?!"

Milly recognized the chant right away. It was the chant to the intermediate fire magic spell Scorching Array. It was a spell only spell casters who had reached the Mana Sea stage could cast, but from what she knew, Lucia was still only at the Mana Vapor Stage!

'I-isn't she only at the Mana Vapor stage!'

Seeing Lucia already halfway through her chant, Milly quickly shouted to the wolf and boys who were at the front, "EVERYONE! GET BACK! LUCIA'S USING SCORCHING ARRAY!"

Tyr and Miles were surprised hearing that an intermediate spell was being used, they quickly backed off. The ursas that were attacking them tried to chase after, but Silver started stalling them by firing off Wind Sickles from afar.

Cecil was still in the heat of battle, but he already felt Lucia gathering a huge amount of mana from the surroundings ever since she started chanting. He upped his tempo and started indiscriminately slashing at any ursa around him. He was trying to bait some of the ursas so Lucia's spell wouldn't accidently hit the party they were trying to save. Of course, Lucia wasn't that stupid enough to use the wide area spell and accidently affect her allies.

But even so, Cecil thought that it was better safe than sorry. He continued slashing at as many ursas as he could, when he saw that he had successfully garnered their attention, he started to back off. The ursas were only monsters and didn't think any further except to rend the bastard who sliced at their flesh. They saw the bloodied sword that Cecil was wielding and realized that the small fox boy was the source of their pain.

Seeing as the fox boy was backing off, the ursas immediately chased after him. Cecil didn't activate his Mana Burst as he was backing off. He needed to lure the ursas away so he at least needed to be visible to them. While he was retreating, Cecil was thinking about his earlier bout.

'I still can't slice them in half or chop off their arms even with the sword...I channeled enough mana into the blade so why can't I?'

Cecil was thinking, but then he suddenly felt that the mana in the air coalescing around him very quickly.

'Seems like Lucia's finished.'

He quickly activated his mana sight and looked around. He saw the mana in the air quickly forming into a spell crest and knew that the spell was about to active. He quickly used Mana Burst and blinked away from the area. He arrived next to his party and saw that the ursas were dumbfounded when the prey they were chasing suddenly disappeared. Next to him, Lucia quickly finished her chant and pointed at the ursas.

"...–. Scorching Array!"

With his mana sight still active, Cecil saw that the fire element mana in the air quickly gathering. The mana then changed into fire and a pillar of fire rose up from the ground where the ursas he lured out were standing.

CRACKLE SHIIIIIIIIIIIIII

A high pitched screech accompanied the spontaneous combustion of flames that rose from the ground. The crackling was the sound of the ursas being cooked alive by Lucia's fire spell.

'Heh, magic can really create something out of nothing!' Cecil thought. 'Well, creating something out of nothing was a little bit of a stretch here. The flames were still created from mana turning into fire so it wasn't exactly 'nothing'. Anyway, since at least half of the pack is being roasted over there. Let's deal with the other half.'

Cecil leaned forward while activating Mana Burst again.

"Hup!"

With a shout he quickly disappeared from where he was standing. Silver also quickly dashed forwards to attack the remaining ursas. Seeing the two's actions, everyone else besides Lucia, who was still channeling her spell, quickly remembered what they were supposed to be doing.

Milly immediately exclaimed, "Lucia's dealt with half the pack now! Let's finish the rest and rescue that party!"

"OU!"

With a spirited shout, Tyr dashed towards the remaining ursas with Miles following right beside him. Since half the tribe of ursas were out of the way, they could now see the party that they were supposed to rescue. There were still at least 3 people fending off the ursas while 2 others were being dragged away from the fight by 1 of the party members.

"CATHY!"

"Y-yes..."

Cathy ran forward while chanting a healing spell. Although they were far, as long as Miles and the rest attracted the ursa tribe's attention, she should be able to get to a close but safe distance to be able to use a remote healing spell on the two people who were injured. Sure enough, with Cecil, Tyr and the rest attracting their attention, Cathy and Milly were able to get close enough to heal the injured members of the party that had sent out the SOS.

"Healing Wave!"

Cathy finished her chant and pointed her rod at the two who were injured. As long as she was close enough and had visibility of her target, she would be able to successfully heal anyone with this spell. It worked like a charm and the bleeding immediately stopped on the two injured people as some of their lighter wounds closed up.

"T-thanks!"

Surprised at the sudden healing spell, the boy who was dragging his two party members quickly looked up and shouted his thanks at them. The ursas who sensed the healing spell from Cathy immediately roared ferociously and turned towards her. This wasn't the first time this had happened and she quickly retreated along with Milly who was now firing magic spells at the monsters to cover their retreat.

"CECIL!"

Before Milly even shouted, Cecil had already blinked in front of the ursa who was just about to charge at the duo. He jumped up and kicked at the bear's face. With its head suddenly snapped back, the ursa was disorientated and started falling backwards. Cecil wasn't one to show mercy so he quickly started channeling mana into his sword. This time though, he channeled more than he usually did.

'If my last strikes didn't work, then let's add more mana and this time, I'll try 'sharpening' it!'

This was a reckless act on Cecil's part. He's never done this before and it was pretty stupid of him to try it out amidst a battle. He didn't even know what would happen if he did such a thing. For all he knew, it might overload his weapon and blow it up, but he was in the heat of the moment and didn't think too deeply about the consequences. He channeled so much mana into his sword that it made the blade light up. Seeing this, he thought that it was working, so he concentrated even further and tried 'sharpening' the mana that was wrapped around the blade of his sword. This caused his weapon to start trembling and it was to the point where he found it a bit hard to even hold it properly in his hand.

"URRAAAHH!"

With a shout, Cecil slashed his sword at the neck of the ursa while he was falling from his jump. He wanted to cleave off the monster's head, but when he drove his blade across the monster's neck, he felt as if he wasn't even slashing through anything.

'W-what?! Did I miss?!'

BOOOOMMMMMMMM

As Cecil was surprised at the sensation he didn't feel from his hand, an explosion followed suit right, which further surprised him.