"Always showing off!"
The voice belonged to Yaris, a magi-engineer from Mallory High who was practically vibrating with excitent.
She had white hair pulled back in a high ponytail and wore the uniform.
But what really set her apart were the two massive chanical constructs she held by a handle; they were enormous black gauntlets with segnted plating, and glowing yellow sensors.
Yaris grinned at Sallie with genuine admiration. "That was incredible!"
Sallie scratched the back of her head, looking deeply uncomfortable with the attention. "It’s, uh... it’s nothing special."
"Nothing special?" Yaris threw her hands up. "You vaporized that thing in one shot! Do you know how much mana that takes? I might need to charge my gear for a month to output that kind of damage!"
While Yaris continued her enthusiastic rambling, Bettie had already tuned everyone out. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small brass monocle.
She walked closer to where the Lupamancer had been completely obliterated, holding the monocle up to her eye with an intense look of concentration.
The scattered ashes shifted slightly in the breeze as Bettie crouched down and swept her gaze across the blast zone.
After a mont, she muttered to herself, "Hm. I guess the spell blew it all away too."
Everyone turned to stare at her.
Percival then asked. "What are you doing?"
"Looking," Bettie said, not elaborating further.
"For what?" one of the Mallory students asked.
Bettie straightened up and tucked the monocle back into her pocket without answering.
The silence stretched on for a few seconds until Sallie cleared her throat. "Should we... keep moving?"
"Yeah," one of them said, glancing around at the wasteland. "We’re not accomplishing anything standing here."
With that settled, the group began moving forward again.
Ethan at this point, had his Eyes of the Sage active. It was for extra caution.
He drifted closer to Bettie as they walked and lowered his voice. "What were you trying to look for earlier?"
Bettie glanced at him, then smiled a bit. "Oh, I was looking for a certain mana stone. The yellow sysilisia. I read sowhere it’s only found in the mouths of adult versions of these creatures."
"Oh?" Ethan muttered, genuinely curious now.
"Yes," Bettie continued, "it’s hard to believe such things co but from monsters this dangerous, but the yellow sysilisia has incredible healing properties. Especially for those afflicted by stroke disease."
Ethan looked genuinely surprised. "How do you know all of that?"
Bettie’s expression turned shy as she waved a hand dismissively. "I read a lot of stuff, you know. It’s good to build a broad knowledge base if you want to enroll as an academy tutor soday."
Ethan had always known that was her goal, but hearing her say it out loud reminded him of sothing Sallie had ntioned earlier about Miss Hana being both a part-ti academy tutor and an active guild mber.
He glanced at Bettie for a second, then turned his gaze forward and kept walking.
-
Not long after that, the ground began to rumble again.
But this ti it was far worse than before. The vibrations ca from multiple directions at once: ahead of them, to the left, and to the right.
Bettie’s eyes went wide. "There’s more of them!"
"Yeah, no shit," Percival said as his body began to change.
Fur spread across his arms and face as his fra expanded into a full werewolf form. His voice dropped into a guttural growl as he flexed his clawed fingers.
"This one’s mine."
Four massive Lupamancers burst into view from different angles and charged forward.
Percival didn’t wait for anyone else. He roared and launched himself forward on all fours toward the creature approaching from the front.
Ethan turned toward the one coming from the right side. He took one slow, deep breath in and whispered, "Levitas."
A glowing magic circle materialized beneath his feet and launched him into the air. Then he soared toward the incoming beast with his arms spread wide.
Ragnarok materialized in his right hand in a flash of white light while a purple magic circle ford over his left palm.
As he closed in on the creature, he stretched his left arm forward and called out, "Fireball!"
The amplified swirling sphere of flas shot forward and slamd into the Lupamancer’s face, detonating with a massive explosion that sent the creature staggering backward and screeching in pain as fire consud its head.
Due to amplification, Ethan’s Tier 4 Fireball was effectively raised to Tier 5 level, which hurt the beast imnsely but wasn’t enough to kill it just imdiately.
While still soaring forward, Ethan tilted his body left mid-flight and swung Ragnarok in a wide arc. The blade sliced clean through the monster’s side as he flew past it in one fluid motion.
He adjusted his trajectory upward and hovered for a mont as he watched the Lupamancer screech continuously in agony. The flas continued to consu it until it finally collapsed onto its side and stopped moving.
[You have slain a Lupamancer]
[Reward: 3,000 XP]
Ethan stared down at the burning corpse with no particular expression on his face. "Hm."
On the other side of the battlefield, Bettie had tead up with Yaris and two other casters from Mallory High to take down the third Lupamancer together.
Bettie fired off multiple Air Bullet spells in rapid succession. Each one struck the creature’s flesh violently, forcing it to slow its charge.
Yaris grinned as she extended both of her massive gauntlet constructs forward.
A compartnt opened up in each tal fist and released several explosive canisters that shot toward the monster like grenades.
The explosions rocked the creature backward just as the two Mallory casters stepped forward and unleashed their own spells.
One fired a condensed beam of green light while the other released an explosion spell that detonated right beneath the Lupamancer’s legs.
The combined assault finally brought the creature crumpling down.
anwhile, Sallie had already finished off her own target using Tempesta Hastas once more.
And then there was Percival.
The werewolf was having the ti of his life.
His target was already dead and its body mangled beyond recognition. But Percival kept going anyway.
"HAHAHAHAHA!" He laughed in that strange tone his beast form produced as he lunged forward and threw another punch.
A shockwave erupted from his fist and slamd into the corpse with enough force to puncture through its skin even further.
He threw another punch, which caused anothet shockwave.
And another.
And another.
Each strike of his Cannon Style technique sent ripples of force through the air that battered what was left of the Lupamancer into an unrecognizable pile of broken limbs and shattered bone.
Eventually, Percival stopped and stared down at his clawed hands with a frown on his lupine face.
"This is still weak," he muttered to himself. "Took three Cannons to knock it over and six more to finally kill it." He clenched his fists tighter. "I bet Hayley would’ve beaten it in one go."
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