Emilia leads the way as she starts her incantation, holding her palm out as if carrying something.
「Murky shadows dare not to stay and fade away, sunlight and moonglow be your bane. Candles my confidant and radiance my friend. Dancing light, accompany me.」
「『Illumination』!」
《New spell memorized.》
Emilia calls the spell's name with cheer in her voice, as a bright orb of light appears just above her hand. She smiles as she watches it float up gently slightly above her head level, and follow her while hovering near.
Straf is the first to notice, completely unsurprised. Emilia's joyful expression quickly turns into fear as she notices the dozens of pairs of eyes reflecting the spell's light from within the forest they were about to walk into. When Cycelia takes her eyes off the orb and glances at Emilia's face, she too realizes something is wrong.
「Beasts...」
Emilia quietly says to herself as she looks at the glowing eyes close in and walk into the radius of light. Cycelia quickly reacts by grabbing her sheath and grasping at her sword…
「Aa-! Aaaaa! Straf! My sword! I forgot about my sword!」
Color drains from her face as she realizes her sword hand is gripping thin air. Straf sighs.
「I know, I'm sorry…」
「W-What are they doing here?! They shouldn't be wandering this close to the walls!」
Emilia exclaims in disbelief, the quadruped wolf-like monsters with no hair or fur to speak of draw near. Many of them are growling already, breaking branches scattered along the forest floor with their mole-like, sharp-clawed paws. Straf simply stares with bored eyes, his mouth turned downward with dimples on each side.
「I- I didn't expect this… I'm almost out of mana…」
「Wait, really? How? Didn't you see this coming when she mentioned monsters-」
Suddenly, some of the beasts break into a sprint towards the group. Emilia takes a step back in panic, almost bumping into Straf. She manages to regain control of herself, lifts her shaking arm and points her palm at one of the charging beasts.
「Ff-frigid winter winds c-come and howl through- No wait- Frigid winter winds come at my beckon-」
Straf glances with bored eyes at panicking Emilia stumbling over her incantation. He sighs again.
《Okay. Fine. This was a pretty long day and I'm frankly getting kind of hungry, too…》
Straf takes a step forward. The air in front of him blurs like a mirage as he observes the situation unfold with his hands on his hips. Mere moment later, the blur disappears and the wolf-beasts all yelp within a fraction of a second of each other… At least those that weren't immediately killed.
As the many small orbs of air hit them, they are sent flying back, dismembered, or splattered like a tomato across the grass with an accompanying deafening roar of overpressure. Menacing paws and jaws full of sharp teeth hang loosely only by their leathery red skin on some of the mangled corpses.
Emilia stops her casting and looks at Straf with relief on her face.
「Straf…」
「Hm?」
Straf squints and furrows his brows as he notices something float in front of him.
A pair of glasses spin wildly and fly by Straf's face.
《What are these doing here? Wait a moment, didn't Emilia wear something like this-》
He glances at Emilia, and realizes his head is moving slower than normal.
《Ah. I see. That makes sense. I guess I should expect that cliche too.》
Straf thinks as he looks at Emilia beside him, and sees one of the beasts leaping at her from the side. While everyone was focused on the horde in front of them, some of the beasts flanked the group. The monster wolf's forelegs already reached Emilia, and are now shredding through her loose-hanging robe, its drool-filled maw tilted sideways in an attempt to get a good bite on her throat.
《Huh. She's actually pretty good looking without those disgusting glasses on. I'm not going to let you be a disposable character for sake of keeping the dying sensei cliche up.》
Straf almost takes a step aside, but stops himself.
《Hold on. Nothing is attacking me. Why did [Contextual Time Perception] activate-》
Straf looks closer, Emilia has been knocked out of balance by the monster's sudden impact, so much so her glasses were knocked off her face. Although very slowly, she's reeling towards Straf as he stands by her side.
《I see. If I move, it might go back to real time and then chomp. Hmm…》
Straf looks around one more time and analyzes the situation, taking in the positions of everyone.
《Well. This is going to fucking suck but it's the safest way to solve this. And her damn hat is getting in the way!》
Chomp.
Emilia falls over on the ground, some drool and blood splattering on her face, and her hat is knocked off her head. Confused, she looks up to see what happened.
「-grrghhh…」
One of the beasts has its jaws latched onto Straf's forearm, he stands in a wide-legged awkward pose with clenched teeth, blood flowing down and dripping from his arm. The beast is visibly surprised as its eyes widen, but it decides to continue its attack and tries to viciously shake its head to rip flesh out… But Straf keeps it hanging in the air by his arm.
He punches the monster-wolf with all his might in its torso with his free hand, its eyes widen again for just a split second, before it opens its jaw on a reflex and flies away in an arc higher than the city's walls, leaving a trail of black blood pouring from its throat like a rocket taking off.
《Fffffuck! And again it hurts like stupid! Am I dying this time?》
[|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||]
[Bleeding]
[Stacks: 25] [Damage Over Time] [Status effect]
Target is losing health due to bloodloss. Current loss rate: 50 HP/60s. Stack decrease rate: 1/60s
Higher stack loss rate: 52 HP/60s.
Lower stack loss rate: 48 HP/60s.
《Of course! A stupid dog bite wouldn't kill me even in real life! But I'm a broken protagonist here, why does a dog bite have to hurt?!》
「Straf!… Are you-」
Cycelia notices blood flowing down Straf's arm, but she doesn't manage to finish her sentence before he glares at the rest of the monsters with a murderous gleam in his eye. The air around him warps again, then the blurry shapes shoot off into the darkness noisily. Yelps and whines echo in the forest, along with the sound of collapsing trees.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
《How do you like that you stupid raisins with rabies?! This is the last time you ever bit me!》
《Level up. Attribute points gained.》
The monotone female voice announces multiple times over and over again as Straf is breathing heavily. Both Emilia and Cecylia stare in awe at the scale of destruction and death he inflicted with ease. He walks in front of them both, picking something up from the darkness and throwing it into his [Portable Storage] in silence.
《Ahhh! I'm too pissed off and my arm hurts too much to even check what loot dropped! At least there's a lot-》
He pauses as he picks something other than loot up.
《Ah. These fucking things.》
He looks over the dirt and blood stained glasses… A needle-thin ray extends from his finger towards them, and they shoot off into the dark sky like a bullet with a supersonic crack. The sound is sharp and surprising enough to break both of the girls out of the awe.
《I could put them on for her while she's sitting there for another overdone cliche, but I'll take it for the team and rid the world of this crime against humanity.》
「What was that noise?! Are there more of them?!」
「Oh, no. Don't worry about it…」
「…Have you seen my glasses?」
Squinting Emilia asks Cycelia meekly, but Straf immediately ripostes.
「Nope! I guess you'll never find them with all the grass around here!」
「Straf, you're bleeding!」
Emilia quickly picks herself up off the ground and runs up to Straf, squinting heavily as she looks at his arm dripping blood.
「I'm perfectly fine. It just hurts like hell-」
「Straf! This isn't the time to act tough!」
「That's right!」
Emilia shouts, with Cycelia backing her. Straf sighs.
「I mean it, this isn't really a big deal-」
Emilia kneels down and tears the bottom of her tattered robe off into a strip. She stands back up and starts wrapping it around Straf's bleeding arm as he looks on in silence.
《Woah! Leave one trope, take one trope huh?》
「Seriously, I don't need this-」
Emilia looks up from Straf's arm as she wraps it with the makeshift bandage and interrupts him.
「Silence.」
Ba-dump.
Straf looks away, having locked eyes with her for just a second. Her commanding glare coming from beneath her eyebrows demands he stops arguing…
《Wow… That's a nice expression. Getting rid of those glasses was a great idea.》
…Or so he thinks, but Emilia is squinting because Straf's face is a blurry mess even from this short distance, and him talking is just distracting… A moment passes, she tightens the bandage on Straf's arm with one last tug.
「There. That should help, at least a little.」
「Let's see…」
[Bleeding]
[Stacks: 22] [Damage Over Time] [Treated] [Status effect]
Target is losing health due to bloodloss. Current loss rate: 22 HP/60s. Stack decrease rate: 1/30s
This wound has been treated. Efficacy: 50%
Higher stack loss rate: 23 HP/60s.
Lower stack loss rate: 21 HP/60s.
「Yup, much better…」
《I'll just let her have this one…》
「I found your hat.」
Cycelia says as she hands Emilia her massive hat back, Emilia pats the dirt off and sets it back on her head.
「Ah. Thank you. We should head back now- Ahh…」
Darkness falls as the orb floating above Emilia disappears suddenly. She sighs, disappointed.
「It doesn't last that long. I'll just re-cast it.」
She repeats the incantation quickly, holding her palm out again.
「『Illumination』.」
The orb appears and hovers up again. Emilia takes a step forward towards the forest, but then loses balance and starts toppling to the side. Straf slides in and catches her before she can fall, she breathes heavily as if she just ran a marathon while Cycelia screams internally.
「Are you alright?」
《Aaaaaaaaaaa! This is just because he has a caring heart, right?!》
Straf asks, holding Emilia in his arms. She looks up at him with half-open eyes and slightly parted lips, then regains her balance and stands up straight, adjusting her hat.
「Yes… It's just light overcasting, don't worry.」
「Overcasting?」
「You don't know? Well, figures. Someone with as much power as you would seldom run out of mana.」
She continues walking as she talks. Long, moving shadows stretch from the gore-coated trees as the orb follows her with Straf and Cycelia closely behind, as close as her hat will allow them.
「In short, overcasting is what happens when you run out of mana, but keep pushing yourself to cast more. It's dangerous, but it's also how you grow as a mage.」
She and Cycelia swerve to avoid a blood splatter, Straf ignores it and remains perfectly clean.
「Initially, overcasting is harmless and will just fatigue you. Severe overcasting can even kill you. Novice mages may not know their limits and accidentally kill themselves.」
「So it's like drinking, but with magic.」
She opens her mouth to say something, but stops herself and sighs.
「That is… An unfortunately apt comparison. In other words Straf, be careful. You're powerful, but if you don't know what's your limit, you may hurt yourself.」
「I have a pretty good idea of my limits.」
《I don't have any after all. And my health, mana and stamina bars refuse to move.》
「Straf! If it's like drinking, then you die if you vomit!」
Cycelia chimes in with a wisdom. Emilia is about to say something again, but she once again stops and simply chuckles softly while scratching the side of her head with her finger.
「I kind of hate how accurate that is, he he he… But, that's right. You may think you know your limits well, and then you die. I'd hate to find out you died from overcasting.」
Emilia looks back at Cycelia, they lock their eyes in mutual understanding.
「I will keep that in mind… I guess.」
They continue through the dark forest, the floating orb their only source of light…