“I see it!” Aira yelled. “It’s near the peak of Tier 3! About twenty-five meters away and closing in fast!”

“Damn!” Emmalia swore. She looked desperately around the forest, searching for something which could be of help, before turning to Athilana. “Can you run any faster?”

“A bit.” She glanced back towards the creature thundering through the forest. “I’m not sure it’s fast enough to get away from that thing though. At least not for long.”

“We don’t have any other choice but to make it work anyway.” Emmalia said. “Run ahead, we’ll distract it then we can catch up with [Burst Step].”

“I… Got it.” Athilana said, and started pulling ahead. Emmalia turned her attention to Aira. “Get ready to fire your [Arcane Bolt] at the thing. It likely won’t do much, but it should hopefully pull the thing towards us instead of your friend.”

“Understood.” Aira said. Emmalia veered off to the left, running towards a nearby rock formation, while Athilana kept running in the direction leading back towards the outpost. Aira prepared two [Arcane Bolts], one in each hand. It was all she could cast with the mana she had left, and even without having to focus on actually running it was almost beyond her capabilities having two Skills readied at the same time without firing either one. She gritted her teeth and forced the mana to obey, and the Skills to remain under her control. Even two Skills would barely tickle a creature more than thrice her own level, but she hoped that double the effect would at least annoy it slightly more.

By the time Aira had finished preparing the Skills Emmalia had reached the rocks, and the raptor was almost at the point in the woods where they’d split.

“Now!” Emmalia called. Aira fired off both bolts at once, screaming loud at the pain in her mind. Somehow the shouting helped, and she managed to get both Skills firing in the right direction. The double Skill usage did affect her aim though, and one of the bolts hit the raptor in its side, which didn’t even make the creature react at all.

For the second bolt though Aira’s aim was true, and it struck the raptor square in the face. It reared its head back slightly, more out of reflex than actual pain Aira was sure, but still roared in anger and frustration. It turned to stare at Aira, a glare of viciousness that made her blood run cold, then it turned its body in her direction. Time seemed to slow, and all Aira could feel was terror born from the malice within the creature’s eyes. Before it had simply been hunting them for food and Experience. Now it was angry.

“Good work. It’s coming.” Emmalia said, pulling Aira from her mind.

Right, we wanted it to come after us. She thought. …Are we idiots?

She pushed down the fearful thoughts and turned her attention to Emmalia.

“Now what?” she said as the enormous dinosaur started to close in on their position. Each step making the earth tremble and sending out an arc of lightning blackening the surrounding greenery. Emmalia stood firm, her back towards the rock, and waited as the distance between them shortened. Fifteen meters. Ten.

“Emmalia!?” Aira yelled.

“Now!” Emmalia said, and once more started running to the side alongside the large rock. The creature roared behind, and a crackling of lightning arced over Aira’s head to strike a nearby tree, causing it to splinter into a thousand small shards of wood that rained down overtop of her and the Rogue with such force that they pierced skin. Aira clenched her teeth, and she felt Emmalia tense the muscles in her back, but the woman didn’t slow down. She rounded the rock and kept on going, running alongside the other side and keeping the boulder between them and the dinosaur. It crashed through the forest after them, screeching to a rapid halt and making a surprisingly agile turn for such a massive creature. Though it was not quite as smooth as Emmalia’s, so the turn had made them gain a little breathing room. Emmalia reached the other end of the formation, and rounded it as well, returning back towards their starting point and continuing past it.

“This is your plan!?” Aira yelled. “Run around the rock and hope it won’t catch us?”

“Best I could think of on short notice.” Emmalia called over her shoulder. “It’s working though.”

The [Thunderwood Raptor] screeched in frustration as it came around the corner a few seconds after them. This time though it seemed to have learned as it took the corner a bit slower, and therefore a bit smoother. One less step in the wrong direction, and half a second faster to start the chase again. It added up. Aira noticed it clear as day from her position of being reduced to nothing but an observer from atop Emmalia’s back. The raptor was gaining on them. What had been a two and a half second gap on the first lap, was down to a two second one by the second.

“It’s gaining on us!” She yelled. “The plan is not working at all!”

“It’s not catching us as fast as it would have if we were just running in a straight line.” Emmalia gasped. “It’s giving Athilana more time to get away, and the Scoutmaster more time to reach us. There’s no way they haven’t heard these roars by now.”

She rounded the rock again, and Aira turned and yelped as a bolt of lightning flashed past right where her head had been less than a second ago. She smelled burnt hair.

“One final lap.” She said. “Then it’ll catch us.”

“No way. I have a plan.” Emmalia said. Aira turned around to watch, but the raptor didn’t burst around the corner after them. In fact she realized she couldn’t hear the thud of loud footsteps or feel the tremors in the ground anymore.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Something was very wrong. She felt the hairs stand on the back of her neck, prompting her to look up. To see a giant raptor land atop the rock formation with a grace and precision unfitting its size. Emmalia also seemed to sense something was wrong as she came to an abrupt stop and turned her gaze upwards as well. The creature let out a furious roar and lept towards the two of them, lightning crackling between the teeth of its open jaws.

“Ah hells…” Emmalia said. Aira clenched her eyes shut.

“[Burst Step]!” Emmalia yelled in a panicked voice. An instant later Aira felt the world whirl past her as she was flung backwards by the speed as Emmalia moved. She held on for all she was worth, but [Burst Step] was not a Skill meant for cooperative use. It was a Skill damn near teleportation in terms of speed, and while the user would be given some protection from the System to cope with how fast they were going Aira wasn’t given much at all. She held on for half a second before she lost her grip, and in that time she had been moved over a dozen meters away from the stone formation. She fell to the ground hard, and felt as much as heard a crunch as her left hand bent backwards as she landed. Her vision grew blurry and she let out a scream of pain and felt her Health drop by over half. There was a deafening boom as the Raptor landed where they had just been, and the fear rushing through Aira’s veins overrode the pain long enough for her to push herself to her feet. They still felt like jelly as she moved, but she scurried away as quickly as she could. She didn’t know where Emmalia ended up. A [Burst Step] couldn’t go much further than where she’d landed, but she had bounced and rolled so much she wasn’t sure which direction to go in to reach the other woman. She just settled for directly away from the creature, and hoped that would work.

A shrill screech from the Raptor made her turn around to see a dagger sticking out of the creature’s left eye, and she felt a momentary surge of hope that was quickly dashed as the thing just shook its head causing the blade to fall down to the ground. It didn’t even look that hurt, just more angry. Though unless these Raptors had a regeneration Skill of some kind they would have some difficulty seeing out of that eye for a while, regardless of how much actual Health it lost. Probably not very long, as the degree of health loss determined how long it would take the body to adapt, and heal, using normal System regeneration. But they should still have a minute or two before it was back to full function. Though whether that would make a difference was another matter. Emmalia would for damn sure try though, Aira realized as another dagger came flying out from the forest.

Now that the [Thunderwood Raptor] wasn’t busy landing it was able to rear its head back and dodge the incoming projectile. It turned to glare towards its left and roared, then paused and turned back towards Aira. She hobbled away as swiftly as she could, though it wouldn’t at all be fast enough if the thing decided to go for her. She couldn’t look away. Her heart felt like it was about to burst from her chest as an agonizingly long second passed while the raptor seemed to consider its options. Then it took a step forward.

Towards Aira.

She turned to try and run even a miniscule amount faster, even though she knew in her heart it wouldn’t make a difference. She thought she could hear Emmalia yell a challenge in anger and frustration somewhere to her left, though she couldn’t see the other woman for the trees. Likely she wanted the beast to turn around and chase her instead. But it wouldn’t. It knew Aira was the easier prey. Though how she was so certain of that she had no clue.

Suddenly she felt surprisingly peaceful. As if at some point she had accepted that she was going to die, and was more relieved than anything that the stress of the situation was finally over. And at least her friends weren’t the ones who died because she couldn’t run properly. If someone had to die because of this, it was only right that it was her. She felt death’s approach, clasping its cold hands around her neck as the raptor loomed behind.

A scream of anger. A flashing dagger.

“Aira! RUN!” Emmalia yelled. Aira spun to find the other woman hanging from a dagger she had pierced into the beast's side. She screamed as the arcing lightning struck her over and over, yet she refused to let go even as the thing thrashed around. There was a crack in Aira’s mind as her earlier thoughts once more appeared inside her head, though this time she was horrified.

…What the hell was I thinking?!

Of course she wasn’t going to accept this fate. She was only eighteen years old, for brightness’ sake. She hadn’t even had her coming of age ceremony yet. And she wasn’t about to let Emmalia be the only one who never gave up. Especially when it was her own life that was on the line.

She raised both her hands, a scream of defiance escaping her lips as she used the meager amount of Mana she’d regenerated to perform one final [Arcane Bolt] which she hurled towards the thrashing creature. It hummed with arcane energy as it soared through the air, hurdling past the crackling lightning surrounding the scaled beast and striking it right between the eyes.

The [Thunderwood Raptor] didn’t even flinch as it reached its head towards Emmalia and thrashed its body at the same time, spawning more lightning from its scales. The Rogue cried out one final scream of defiant anger, but lost her grip of her dagger and fell down to the ground. The Raptor screeched in triumph and with the speed of a snake reached its head forward and bit the woman’s arm clean off in one swift strike.

Emmalia screamed in pain.

Aira screamed in powerless anger.

She took up a rock from the ground at her feet and hurled it at the creature. And was surprised to find the thing stumbling back from the impact, before she noticed the arrow sticking out of its chest.

“Yeah! Take that!” She cried out. Then a bolt of water streaked past from the forest to her right, followed by a shadow flying over her head and landing on the Raptor’s back. She looked in awe as a man clad in leather raised a blade high above his head, then brought it down and with one clean swing severed the creature’s head.

The lightning stopped arcing.

The creature collapsed in a heap, falling to the forest floor with a soft thud. Aira felt her newfound energy drain from her like water through a sieve. Though this time not from a surrender to overwhelming odds, but from relief at survival.

No, she couldn’t collapse yet. Emmalia still needed her help.

The man had hopped down from the corpse of the Raptor and was now bent down over the Rogue, and she had stopped screaming, but Aira could still see a bloodied stump where her left arm used to be. She didn’t know much about the specifics of healing magic, but regrowing limbs was difficult. And definitely not something done by a swordsman out in the field. She wouldn’t be able to help at all either, but she felt she needed to do something. She forced herself to take a step forward, only to find a strengthening arm supporting her as she walked. She turned to see Athilana looking at her with a concerned look on her face. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying.

“I’ll live.” Aira said. The elven girl studied her for a moment, then nodded, and the two started their hobble over towards Emmalia.

I’ll definitely live. Aira thought.