“Stay out of the way!”
Kai angled his sword toward the deer as he stepped forward, his eyes following the movement of its head.
[Watch out for the antlers.]
“Obviously!”
Instead of taking its charge directly, Kai waved his sword to keep its attention on him, then dashed to the side. The deer’s eyes locked onto him, and it pivoted to follow him without missing a step.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kai noticed Brewan scurrying off into the brush by the side of the temple.
Good, I don’t need to worry about this thing turning on him.
Kai stopped running and side-stepped as the deer charged into range, hoping to slash its side just as he’d done with the boar. Before his sword could cut into its pelt, the deer twisted its neck toward Kai.
Shit!
An unnaturally sharp antler scraped past just a hair’s breadth from Kai’s neck, and the ruby sword flailed uselessly through the air as Kai scrambled to get away from the deer’s followup strike.
The beast didn’t give Kai even a second to regain his footing, charging at him with its antlers ready to spear holes in his chest.
Kai rolled forward to meet its attack, sliding beneath its antlers and sweeping his sword toward the deer’s spindly front legs. Something snagged at the hood of his robes, and the deer jumped before the sword could cleave its forelegs off.
This bastard is fast, but not fast enough!
The ruby sword glittered in the sun as it twisted, catching the deer’s rear hip before it could back away from Kai. A small line of blood slowly started leaking down its rear leg, and it didn’t immediately charge back in.
[Defensively, it’s a lot weaker than the boar. Even if you hit bone, you can probably kill it with a good swing.]
Kai raised his sword again, then started advancing back toward his enemy. A small patch of cloth was hanging from the corner of its bloodied maw.
Again. Why are all these damned beasts focusing on ripping my robes?!
Kai stabbed his sword toward the deer’s head, but it backed away nimbly. The beast's eyes warily watched Kai’s figure, ready to react to even the smallest movement.
[The temple is only a few meters to your right, you might be able to use it to your advantage.]
Kai nodded, but he didn’t shift his vision to look at it. He knew that the moment he took his attention off of the deer, it might charge him. It seemed a lot angrier now that he’d landed the light cut on its hip.
With his eyes still locked in a staring contest with the deer, Kai slowly shuffled toward the temple. Just as he was within a meter of it, the deer jumped into action. Kai moved at the same time, charging into the temple.
There was a large patch where the floor was missing bricks, making it considerably lower than the rest of the space. There were a few statues further in, but everything directly in front of Kai looked like it had been swept aside or destroyed years in the past.
If the floor is lowered… hmph, this beast will regret tearing my robes.
Kai’s eyes lit up, and his fingers clenched around the hilt of his sword.
[There’s a rock on the left, and two missing bricks another step in!]
Halia called out potential obstacles as Kai dodged into the temple and ran to the higher portion of the temple. He didn’t waste any more time examining his surroundings, instead whirling around to face the deer that was already charging into the temple.
“Come after me, you bloodthirsty slab of venison!”
Kai waved his sword, and the deer accepted his taunt, angling its head down as it charged.
Perfect.
Kai dodged around another pillar, slipping past the deer.
[Haha, we have the high groun- OI! Why are you running to the lower section?!]
Kai ran down to the section of the temple with no flooring, nimbly avoiding the broken chunks of rubble scattered across the ground. He and the deer turned to face each other simultaneously, then both went back in to attack.
On the low ground of the temple, when Kai crouched down, he was able to easily slip under the deer’s sharp antlers.
His sword slashed across the beast’s throat as he rolled out of its path, a small grin rising on his face as he finally felt the blade cutting through something.
[Wait, you actually got it! I thought you were going to mess up and die. Here, have a level.]
[You reached Level 2!]
[Mana +5!]
[Mana -3, Strength +3.]
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Kai suppressed a grin as he turned back to face his enemy once again, but he could instantly see that it wasn’t much of a threat anymore. The ruby sword lived up to Halia’s bragging- Kai had hardly felt any resistance when he slashed at the deer’s neck, and he’d damn near cleaved the beast’s entire head off.
The deer now lay in a heap on the floor, the life vanishing from its body in a matter of seconds.
[So much blood…]
Kai could hear a tone of uneasiness in Halia’s voice.
How is a cultivator feeling uneasy around blood? Even if she did spend almost all of her time in the sect researching stuff, she did go out sometimes. Hmph.
Kai strode over to the deer’s corpse, giving it a couple pokes to make sure it was completely dead. When it didn’t respond, Kai moved to start field dressing the beast. One of the primary reasons he and Brewan had ventured out of the safety of the classrooms was to find food, and it wouldn’t do to let it all spoil.
Halia averted her attention and started examining the rest of the room. Instead of pumping all of the mana into Kai’s body to strengthen him, she’d kept a chunk of it free again. Making blue text boxes in Kai’s vision was an invaluable part of his survival, after all.
It also let her slightly buff her senses, letting her examine more of the temple- specifically the parts that Kai wasn’t currently splattering with deer blood.
[Hmm? That statue looks familiar.]
To the left of the wooden warehouse entrance- the place Kai had originally come out of- were a collection of old stone portrait statues. Most of them had sustained severe weathering and damage, but something about one of the more complete ones was sparking something in Halia’s mind.
[It’s still hard to tell… Ah! I’ve got it! That statue looks just like Edwin!]
“What?”
[What do you mean, what? Edwin! The second disciple!]
Kai pulled his arm out from where he’d been scooping the deer’s organs out. He’d pulled back the arm of his robes, but the once-white cloth already looked too stained to be saved.
Halia said before that she thought the others were transported to other places, but if there’s a statue of Edwin… did he somehow end up in an earlier time period than us?
When Kai walked over to the statue to examine it closer, though, he realized that it probably wasn’t the case.
The cracked visage of the statue looked similar to his fellow disciple, but it was distinctively different.
[It’s definitely not him, but the resemblance is odd. How can there be someone who looks so similar, when we just arrived here? This temple looks just like the one back home, too…]
It looks like what I'd imagine his grandpa to look like. A relative, maybe? How could Edwin have relatives here, though? I’m pretty sure we’re in a whole different world than before.
Kai rubbed at his chin.
There was plenty of unusual stuff back home at the sect, different from the rest of the realm-
BOOM!
A sudden explosion from somewhere outside the temple rocked Kai out of his thoughts, and a bright flare of orange light exploded in the courtyard.
What the hell is Brewan doing?!
Kai hefted his sword and ran out of the temple, just as there was another explosion.
[Flesh-eating Deer- Level 3]
[Furred Shriek- Level 4] [Dead]
The scorched body of a cat-looking beast lay in a heap in the center of the courtyard, and another deer similar to the one Kai had just slain was bucking wildly, its pelt ablaze with angry flames.
A few meters away from them, Brewan raised his hand for a third time, a faint light flickering in front of his grimoire before another fireball lept forth from his hand and rocketed toward the deer.
The effect was vastly better than when he’d fired it at the boar. The deer’s pelt was a lot less resistant to the damage, and the force of the explosion had definitely increased as well. After eating the second fireball head-on, the deer collapsed into a lifeless corpse.
[Magic, hell yea! It’s so much cooler than swords! This guy isn’t as bad as I thought right away!]
Brewan quickly tucked his book of magic back into his robes, then ran over to Kai.
“They must’ve heard you fighting, they were both heading straight for the temple! We need to get out of here before anything bigger comes.”
[He’s right, I can sense a few other beasts approaching quickly. You don’t have time to grab that deer you killed, just take the one out here.]
Kai clenched his teeth at the thought of all of the wasted meat, but he still followed her instructions.
“Brewan, do you still have mana for that dispersion spell? We don’t need these things following us and trying to break into the classrooms.”
The mage nodded, then ran over to help Kai lift up the deer’s fresh corpse. Before he could do anything, though, Kai already had the body gripped tightly in his arms. He felt considerably stronger than he had before he killed the other deer.
Brewan cast the spell, and the duo booked it to the classrooms before any of the other beasts could arrive. According to Halia’s mana sense, the dispersion spell seemed to work, as none of the beasts bothered to check where they’d run off to.
“That went… well.”
After helping Kai sling the deer corpse through the window and into the classroom, Brewan slumped down against one of the walls.
“We got water and food… I burned a good chunk of my mana, though. And we know that there are a lot of beasts still in the area.”
[I sensed at least eight of them heading toward the temple, and I think the strongest one was probably in the late single digits in terms of level.]
Kai nodded, then looked over at Brewan.
“I didn’t know you could kill two beasts that fast.”
The mage rubbed the back of his head at the praise.
“I’ve gotten a bit of experience recently… I was already almost out of mana when I ran into that boar before, and I couldn’t lose it long enough to use a dispersion spell. Fireball also sucks against tanky beasts like that.”
Brewan looked down at his hands, his voice getting a bit quieter.
“Honestly though, it’s a miracle a blew-average tier-one mage like me even made it this far out into the wilderness without dying.”
Kai tilted his head.
“Didn’t you say your sec- academy sent you out here to search for Sydney?”
Brewan nodded, but didn’t say anything more.
[Hey, this is a perfect opportunity! If this guy’s sect wants to send him off to his death, let’s take him in as a member of our own. Even if he isn’t good at magic yet, there’s an easy solution!]
[Pass the necklace over to him, I’ll make up a spell he can learn right away!]
Pass the necklace…
“Will I still be able to hear you?”
[No… Hmm? Would handing it over to someone else make you jealous?~]
“Obviously not! Hmph, why would you ever think that?!”
Kai quickly pulled off the ruby necklace and pushed it toward Brewan, who looked to be at a total loss for what was going on. From his perspective, Kai randomly started shouting at the wall in front of him.
“What are you doing?”
“Put this on!”
Kai thrust the necklace over Brewan’s neck, only adding to the young man’s confusion.
[Sup, bro.]
“AAAAHHHHH!!!!”