> [I am so sorry Nathan. It is the only way.]
>
> (Why?)
It turns out that the land shark is too powerful. Our mana ran out before we could even finish it.
She told me that it is necessary to cut our connection. At this point. She said it is the only way to survive.
> (If we cooperate then we could still find a chance. There will be hope!)
>
> [Sorry Nathan, but it is a false hope. There is no chance, I know this world better than you, so I know that it is impossible. I don’t want you to get hurt. I mean, this is originally my problem.]
>
> (Eula! Please.)
*sob* *sob*
> [Don’t cry Nathan. I like your smile that I saw in your memory. Can you show it for me?]
I tried my best to smile for her sake.
> [Don’t remove that smile. That is the most wonderful smile I have ever seen. I hope that you will never forget me. Please always remember that I love you.]
>
> (Eula, I love you too so don’t do this! Don’t give up!)
>
> (Eula!)
>
> (Eula!!!)
She is gone.
I tried to keep smiling. I know I tried, but doing that is the hardest thing I could ever do this time. I can’t even think of doing it. I know that there is a storm right now, storm formed using all of these flowing tears.
I am crying. I can’t help it. The life I wanted for so long is gone. Besides, even though it is a short time. I know I wanted to protect her.
Why did this happen? I am the protagonist. This is not a tragedy. This is a comedy. Surely our connection will be restored because of our feelings. Just like those on fairy tales.
It is been a minute, an hour, a day. I am still waiting for her voice in my head. I miss the sensation of living in that world. The world that I believe to only exists in fiction. A fantasy world.
Although I felt it for only a moment, I still remember the sensation of magic of her handling the mana. It is refreshing. It is very delicate. I miss her.
This time I have a goal. I will study anything related to space and travel to her world even if it takes very long. Perhaps this is my actual story, the story of how I never give up for my huge goal that maybe even a generation will never come across as a reality.
After 20 years, I succeeded in making an extremely expensive spaceship that travels very fast. But the problem is I don’t know where she is.
After another 30 years, I succeeded in making mana through hard work. Even after all this time, I never forgot my bond with Eula. Using the magic I found the place she is in. But it will take years to reach it.
After another 10 years, I succeeded and I found Eula. Then we live happily ever after.
*The End.* (Author: No it's not.)
----------------------------------------
/ After the viewers read the story that Nathan made up while fighting two sharks in order to troll everyone /
----------------------------------------
So, I finished telling the story ‘What Do I Think Will Happen if the Plan Didn’t Work’ to Eula.
> (You know. Something like that will happen if this story has a tragedy tag on it.)
>
> [Do you think that I am the type of person who gives up? What’s with those lines? You will never make me say that even if I love you.]
>
> (Yeah, you are bad at that. So, are you finished preparing yet?)
>
> [I should have if someone is not distracting me with his bad stories.]
>
> (Hey, it is not bad.)
After Eula told me her plan, she conjured a stick which I am using to stall for time. This will give her time to prepare her magic. She told me that since she does not have to worry about moving her own body, she could focus on manipulating her own mana.
She explained to me that ‘bar’ is the base form of attack magic. She taught me several things:
The ‘blast’ is a magic that delivers powerful force and explodes on impact.
The ‘pierce’ is a magic which delivers less force than ‘blast’ but it penetrates.
Those two magic are its normal form meaning it has no variants. Variants are types of modification that changes how the magic is supposed to behave. Example is the ‘touch’ variant.
The ‘touch’ variant requires physical contact to activate the magic. It makes the magic more powerful. It can also be applied to a magic that already requires physical contact, but it is harder to utilize and it requires more mana. She said it has to do some rules, but she said it is not important for now and I agreed.
Last thing is combining two magic. In this case, we will use the combination of ‘blast’ and ‘pierce’ which is ‘piercing blast’.
The ‘piercing blast’ is a magic which delivers force like ‘blast’ and penetrates like ‘pierce’. But once it explodes, its residue can also pierce.
The plan is… you’ll see.
> [I am already finished.]
She charged a lot of ‘bar’ first. The reason is… you’ll see.
> (Nice! Let’s do it.)
Right now, the male shark is in front of me. The other one is hiding. I need to get in position first.
The male shark jumped again from the ground. They didn’t even learn that this attack will not work. I dodged this for like a hundred times already. But now that the preparations are finished already, I will do something different to get in position.
> (‘Blast’ left hand! ‘Blast’ right foot!)
She applied a ‘touch blast’ on my left hand and my right foot. Unfortunately, it is impossible to apply ‘touch blast’ to my ‘mana stick’.
I approached the male shark. I throwed the ‘mana stick’ and…
> (What happened?!)
The ‘mana stick’ disappeared.
> [I forgot to tell you that it can’t be thrown.]
I have to improvise...
She casted ‘pierce’ to where I am aiming. It is off to where I want her to aim it, but the shark dodged it the way I wanted it.
I am surprised. It actually worked!
The way I aimed, or she aimed her ‘pierce’ at least, is something which the male shark can obviously dodge, but it will be forced to dodge in a certain way that it is forced to show the ‘piercing blast’ wound that Eula caused earlier.
Its intelligence is low enough for it to fall for this.
I jumped at the male shark using ‘touch blast’ with my right foot while expecting the female shark to defend it. I will use the ‘touch blast’ from my left hand to move it out of the way.
…
I know that it is smart enough to cooperate with each other, but did it not expect that I can counter it?
> (Eula, Right hand!)
Eula applied ‘touch piercing blast’ on my right hand.
I have thrown an uppercut with my ‘touch piercing blast’ to the wound of the male shark. The female shark arrived and tries to hit me with its tail fin. I used ‘touch blast’ to block it.
While I was blocking the female shark, Eula consecutively launched 5 ‘pierce’ at the male shark.
Whenever Eula launched her magic, the place where the magic is launched can be any location of the body as long as there is no magic active on that place. This means she can’t launch from her hands because it will have ‘touch’ variant magic for me to use.
Before the female shark reached the ground, Eula fired ‘reinforced blast’ at the ground below the male shark which launches the shark upwards.
The ‘reinforced’ is not a variant but a combination magic of the same magic. It means ‘reinforced blast’ is just the combination of two ‘blast’.
We need to focus in defeating one of it first, but it will be easier if both shark are separated. That is why the plan for now is, Eula will keep the female shark at bay and keep providing me ‘touch piercing blast’ while I will continuously use uppercuts with ‘touch piercing blast’ to hit the male shark.
I know you’ve noticed already but I am commanding Eula to apply magic for me. This is to lessen the burden of her thinking what do magic do I need. So instead of her thinking what magic to apply where, I used the short call signs to inform what I think is needed quickly. Well you, as a viewer, don’t need to know that since I am narrating what magic is applied to what part of me. But she can only apply ‘touch’ variant and that may be important.
…
I hit it using uppercut for the seventeenth time. It is pretty huge and resilient that it can still fight back. I am impressed.
*RAAWWRR!!*
> (Is this it?)
>
> [Yes. Be careful.]
Here comes the hard part. According to Eula, once the male land shark has accumulated a lot of damage, it will go berserk. Not only it will become stronger, it might use another ability.
*GGRRAAWWRRR!!!*
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
> (Eula, have you messed up?)
>
> [No, the last time I hit the female shark was like 10 seconds ago. This never occurred before.]
Eula never expected that the female shark will also go berserk. I actually asked her ‘Won’t the female will go berserk?’ She said that it is unheard of but it might be possible due to something weird that happened recently. She didn’t specify what the weird is though.
> (Let’s just continue with the plan.)
I previously proposed to kill it before it goes berserk or while it goes berserk. Eula said that it is too risky. A lot of new adventurers tried this and nearly all of them died. This is due to two reasons.
First, the initial state of berserk which lasts 20 to 30 seconds are the most dangerous fight of the whole battle. The monster is incredibly strong at this state that it is incomparable to the normal state of berserk. Eula said that the initial berserk of an F rank monster is nearly as dangerous as a BB rank monster. That is a very huge gap.
> (Here it goes! ‘blast’ feet! ‘pierce’ hands!)
The reason I only used uppercut to hit it is for the shark to be in air when it goes berserk.
If the land shark is on the ground, then all we could do is to dodge since the land shark is too powerful at this moment. Rather than escaping, we disabled its movement by trapping it mid-air.
Eula will consecutively launch ‘reinforced blast’ to the male shark to keep it in the air, while I will handle the female shark this time.
I braced for its attack. The female shark faced me and roars. It is very loud.
*GGRROOOAAAAWWRRR~~!!!!!*
> “I have a bad feeling about this.”
There! I said it for the first time! It means that something bad is really going to happen. It is an unwritten rule for the protagonist to let the viewer know that the protagonist feels something bad.
It suddenly lunges at me. The extremely loud roar is not stopping.
It is very strong so defending against it is not an option. I have to avoid it.
I used a ‘touch blast’ with my right foot to hop sideways to the right. At this point, it will twist its body to try and hit me with its tail fin. The problem is there are three ways that it can do it. I need to force it to move the way I want it. Otherwise, by the time I react to the shark’s movement, it will be too late.
> (‘Blast’ Right foot!)
I used a ‘touch pierce’ with both of my hands to cut the side of the tree nearest to the female shark. It is enough that the tree is starting to fall but it isn’t enough for my attack.
I used a ‘touch blast’ with my left foot to send the tree falling faster. Although the female shark is very powerful right now. The tree is very huge and heavy that its only way to stop it is crunching it, avoiding it or ramming it. It can’t possibly stop the tree from falling by ramming it. If it did, then it can use it to attack me, but then I have enough time to dodge.
It buried itself underground. I am still waiting for the ‘touch blast’ to be applied. Eula is also busy keeping the male shark mid-air since it will be nearly impossible to win if they attacked at the same time at that state. So I climbed on top of the trunk of the tree I just cut off.
*RUMBLE*
The ‘touch blast’ has been applied. I use it to jump in the direction of the male shark.
> (‘Blast’ All!)
The female shark appeared from the ground below the trunk of the tree. As expected, it tried to eat me from below. It jumped upwards rather than stopping momentarily to change its direction.
*GGRROOOAAWWRRR~!!!!!*
What is that? The female shark has a lot of dirt in its mouth. Usually, it only opens its mouth once it surfaced to the ground. This time, its mouth is already open when it surfaced.
> (‘Mana stick’!)
I braced myself for its attack. If my reason for the shark’s weird behaviour is correct, then its attack can’t be blocked using ‘touch blast’ and I can only use ‘mana stick’ to defend its attack. I hope that the ‘mana stick’ gets conjured as soon as possible.
The shark jumped very high at the sky. It is very high that even if you stacked 3 of the same female shark upright, the jump of the shark is higher than it. Once it reached the peak of its jump, it faces the ground, or possibly me. It closed its mouth like it is getting ready for something.
> “COME!!”
If a fire breath is producing a stream of fire using the mouth, then what will you call if it produces dirt instead of fire? A dirt breath? In any case, that attack will be used against me by the shark.
Due to the nature of the attack being continuous, I can’t use ‘touch blast’ which can only block a single impact. While ‘pierce’ can be an option, we are totally done for if Eula is distracted defending this attack by launching several ‘pierce’. The ‘touch pierce’ is also not an option since it is not wide enough to disrupt its attack; its reach is too near that I will still get hurt even if ‘touch pierce’ is wide enough.
In simple terms, of all my possible choices of magic that I know to survive this attack. Using ‘mana stick’ will yield the best possible result. The last choice I have to make is what action to take.
Should I do a front spin above me to block it using my ‘mana stick’ of me like I saw in the movies? This move is always portrayed as a move that always blocks or dissipates the projectiles of the enemy which is also used to defend against the fire breath of the dragon. I don’t know if it works in real life though. I learned to do this since I found it cool, but I never used… I nearly said the plot twist that is supposed to be secret for now.
Should I slash the breath using my ‘mana stick’ repeatedly to minimize its damage to me? This is also something that they did in the movies. When the dragon breathes fire, the protagonist will slash the fire creating a cool effects where the fire suddenly spreads out which then the protagonist survives and continues to battle the dragon.
*GGRRROOOOOAAAAAAAWWW~~~~!!!!!!!*
It really… breathe dirt? Should I really call this dirt breath?
In any case, its force is powerful enough that the shark even experience recoil which makes it flew even higher into the sky.
This is the second reason why monsters going berserk makes them a lot dangerous, they will use new another ability. The amount of new abilities depends on the monsters, but it is pretty rare to even encounter monster with two new abilities emerging.
The spin… will not work realistically. I will feel the force of the breath at the axis or the center of my spin. It is the same as getting hit by doing nothing.
The slash is my only choice. There is no situation like this before especially when… I nearly said the plot twist again. Anyway, I need to continuously slash since the breath is continuous.
> “HAAAAAAAAA!!!”
I jumped using ‘touch blast’ with both of my feet and done an overhead slash upwards slicing the breath but I think I am a moment late in executing the slash, because my hand felt the force of the breath moving downwards.
I shouted there because according to what I’ve seen from some stories, shouting makes the character stronger. I actually looked it up on the internet and it is actually true, but it is not as exaggerated as what I’ve seen on the stories.
Since the breath is much faster than me doing a slash, I need to slash it as high as possible to have more room to execute another slash. This is the reason I jumped.
As I was falling, I am leaning my body, so when I reach the ground, I will be lying face up. I am able to execute another slash. There is no point in executing the slash at the right timing this time, because even if I try my fastest movement to execute a slash, it will still be late no matter what.
Except my first slash, I am able to execute 4 slash on mid-air. When I reached the ground, I executed another slash. This time, I have no time to execute another slash. I steel myself for its breath attack.
…
She casted a ‘pierce’ towards the breath. I nearly forgot about her. I noticed that the ‘reinforced blast’ that she is continuously launching to the male shark has weakened sharply. The male shark’s position was very high so it didn’t reached the ground, but it is falling slightly fast.
Her ‘pierce’ allowed me to execute another two slash. The time I reach the apex of my jump and the time I hit the ground are the moments that I executed those slashes.
I am lying on the ground again. I steel myself again.
> “Haa… Haa… HAAAAA!!!”
I am exhausted. Well, the fight has gone so long. This is like the first day of my first part-time job… Part-time… If I am correct, my work is only minutes away. Something like 59 minutes or around 15 minutes.
The breath hit me.
> “AAAAGGGHHH!!!”
It hurts. It hurts very much like… ehm. All you need to know is that I suffer for a moment there. Hey Author, feel free remove how I described the pain, if you want to censor gore and stuff. (Author: I did.)
Near the end of the breath, its force suddenly weakens. This means that the female shark entered the normal state of berserk.
Oh no!
It takes too long for me to notice that the shark is falling towards me. This is really bad. I only have ‘touch blast’ on both of my hands.
I succeeded trying to get out of the way by using ‘touch blast’ at the ground with my left hand. I am lying face up so I can easily do that. I tried to get-up.
…
It turned its body mid-air. It tries to squash me with its tail fin.
I leaped forward and reached the ground to use another ‘touch blast’, this time with my right hand.
*BOOOMMM!!!*
I did not get hit by its tail but the shockwave that hit me thrown me very far and I crashed into the tree. Because of this, a lot of liquid are pouring out from me. What is the liquid, you ask? It is only sweat, right? Right? RIGHT?! It is up to your imagination what comes pouring or not, but this time I didn’t say any gore stuff.
My injuries is very bad. I hope that her appearance is not affected. Otherwise, I will feel guilty.
> [Sorry Nathan. I should be the one feeling the injuries.]
>
> (Don’t say that. My mind is strong enough to do this. Although, the one injured is still technically your body. I don’t want you to feel this pain. Besides, this just shows how powerless I currently am in this world.)
>
> [But, still…]
>
> (Let’s finish this first.)
…
> [Right.]
I approached the weakened male shark. I nearly fell once as I approached due to my injuries.
Once I am near enough, she casted a magic called ‘bind’. It, uh, binds things, I guess. She didn’t give enough information about it besides it being long to cast.
I pity the male shark for not being able to do a thing mid-air except endure barrage of ‘reinforced blast’. It looks like it has given up already.
*ROAR!*
The male shark will resist…
*Roar~!*
No, it looks like both sharks are talking?
> [I am so sorry Nathan. This is the only way.]
>
> (Why?)
These two lines we said. Why do I feel like I know this? Hmm… Hey viewers, have you seen this two lines that we just send to each other before? Maybe you can see it here or in the previous chapters or episodes? Either way, I feel déjà vu.
> [What do you mean ‘Why’?]
>
> (Why are you saying sorry?)
>
> [Well, you want to be more powerful. Perhaps you want to acquire the land shark’s ‘catalyst’, but I stopped you by saying that I wanted to not kill them.]
>
> (Yeah, I sure am. But our original goal is to extend the duration of the connection of the ‘Lover’s Bond’. I don’t even know methods to make myself powerful. Even if killing is the fastest way to be powerful, being powerful is not my primary goal and I don’t like to waste life, especially if that life is colorful. What even is the ‘catalyst’?)
>
> [Ahh…]
…
> (Did you forget that I am not from your world?)
>
> [Uhh…]
>
> (Never mind that. What happened here?)
>
> [Oh right. I communicated with the land sharks.]
>
> (Are you serious? What is with the ‘bind’ then?)
>
> [I am serious, I used the same magic we use that translate thoughts. I used the ‘bind’ to force them to listen to me.]
>
> (How did you threaten it?)
>
> [It is not important. The important thing right now is the thing I have learned from them.]
>
> (What is it?)
>
> [It regards to why it is here. It turns out that they are also suffer from hunger due to the recent phenomenon.]
>
> (What did you reply?)
>
> [We will help them.]
>
> (So, how will we do that?)
>
> [We will hunt monsters.]
>
> (I thought you don’t like to kill?)
>
> [Yes, I don’t like it.]
>
> (Why do you want to kill then?)
>
> [You don’t disagree though, you told me ‘I don’t like wasting life’]
>
> (Yeah, but I have my own definition of life. Which means if they don’t have it, I have no worries killing it. It is like the creatures I killed in the games I play.)
>
> [We have nearly the same reason then.]
…
> (What will we hunt?)
>
> [The 2EE rank bears that the hunters fought earlier.]
>
> (How many of them?)
>
> [Perhaps, around 200 of them.]
>
> (How about transportation?)
>
> [The land sharks will do the transport.]
I can’t think of another question.
> (Well then, good luck on hunting.)
>
> [Do you not want to hunt this time?]
>
> (I have to do my part-time job there.)
>
> [Oh…]
We exchanged bodies and I am back in my own world while Eula gets to battle easy monsters. I am sure that it will not start right away since she has to recover from the injuries.