10

“Let’s go, Silica!”

Evan and Silica drew their swords and dashed forward.

She opened the eye she had kept closed. The eye that had been open was still numbed by the torchlight, but the eye that had been closed quickly adjusted to the darkness.

“Dad, that magical beast—”

“Yeah. Its eye level is low. Probably a quadruped. Silica, take the right!”

A quadruped. As they closed in, they identified it as a silver wolf.

Before the silver wolf, Evan and Silica split left and right.

Perhaps by beastly instinct, it judged Silica easier to kill and chose to stay wary of Evan. Its red eyes tracked Evan.

Facing its gaze, Evan took on the role of shield, focusing entirely on deflecting the silver wolf’s attacks with his sword. While its attention was drawn away, Silica would finish it—that was the plan.

When the roles were reversed, Silica would draw its attention and Evan would strike the killing blow.

Magical beasts were fundamentally very strong, and there were many species that could overpower even large men. The silver wolf’s explosive leg strength made it a serious threat, and its powerful jaws and sharp fangs were specialized for killing prey in a single bite.

“Guh!”

The silver wolf’s movements were often linear. Because it aimed to kill in one strike, there was no need for feints or tempo changes. As a result, if one focused solely on deflecting its attacks, it was surprisingly manageable.

However, that only held true under the condition of sufficient visibility.

In the darkness, with limited sight and a silver wolf that blended into the shadows with swift movements, casually deflecting its attacks was far from easy.

Even Evan, a veteran who had stood on the front lines of countless hunts, was barely managing to block its blows.

Unable to fully redirect its strength, the weight of each strike placed heavy strain on both of Evan’s hands gripping the sword.

“…We need Silica to finish this quickly.”

Once numbness set in, it would be over—the sword would be knocked away, and the next moment would be a pool of blood.

For attacks that plunged straight into his guard, Evan braced the grip and blade firmly with both hands and took them head-on. The strain on his wrists was immense, but there was no alternative.

When blocked, the silver wolf immediately retreated, then leapt high over Evan, braced itself against a tree trunk behind him, and attacked from above and behind. This maneuver involved a brief pause—jumping over Evan and planting itself on the trunk—so Evan dodged sideways.

As Evan moved aside, the silver wolf lunged at him from the side. Evan dodged and, at the same time, swung his sword widely to the side. The wide swing created a large opening, but the silver wolf, having dived from above and landed on the ground, needed a brief moment to regain footing. That brief pause canceled out the opening created by the wide swing.

Struggling but drawing on his experience, Evan managed to keep the silver wolf in check.

Meanwhile, Silica watched the wolf intently, her body lowered.

This was a stance aimed at exploiting the brief stiffness between each of the silver wolf’s attacks—striking in that instant.

It resembled an iaijutsu posture, but unlike a katana that relied on sharpness, a sword that cut through weight and momentum required larger movements.

“I’ve got its movements. All that’s left is not misjudging that instant.”

The silver wolf attempted several times to slip into Evan’s guard, but each time was blocked, so it once again leapt over Evan to attack from behind.

“…Now!”

Silica kicked hard off the ground.

The silver wolf charged from the trees toward Evan on the ground.

Silica dashed forward, placing herself in front of Evan and facing the silver wolf head-on.

Her sword was already swinging down from above.

The silver wolf understood the sword’s trajectory, but its powerful legs were still airborne, unable to grip the ground—meaning it couldn’t escape.

She had been waiting for this thoughtless, straight-line movement.

As if throwing itself onto Silica’s blade, the silver wolf had its head split cleanly in two.

Carried by its momentum, the silver wolf rolled across the ground.

Silica and Evan were splashed with blood.

Even two against one required this much effort.

Both Evan and Silica were left gasping from just this single beast.

Silica was mentally exhausted from maintaining absolute focus, never missing that instant. Evan, meanwhile, was drained physically—and the pressure of a life-and-death struggle weighed heavily on his mind as well.

“…Silica, this is only the beginning. If we go deeper, they’ll come at us in packs or even hordes.”

Even after the fight ended, they kept their guard up in the darkness, never relaxing.

They had stepped straight into the hunting grounds of magical beasts.

“…Hm, hm, hmm.”

Humming to himself in time with the rattling wheels, Ains moved along.

As if avoiding his path, numerous magical beast corpses lay scattered around him.

“I’ve run into this many, and none of them can use magic. Does that mean magical beasts can’t use magic at all?”

Because he could use magic, Ains found it extremely easy to deal with magical beasts.

Rather than localized attacks like a sword, he could use wide-area attacks—and even for defense, he could deploy magic around himself.

Whether a pack gathered or a single beast attacked, it posed little problem for Ains. In fact, packs were more convenient in terms of gathering samples.

If Evan, Silica, or the search party had seen this scene, despair would have been written all over their faces.

“Hm? What’s that?”

As he advanced, weaving between trees, a hut came into view ahead.

In a forest where magical beasts roamed freely, it was an anomaly. There were no signs of attack, and light shone from the wooden hut—large enough for a single person to live in comfortably.

Ains reached the front of the hut.

He illuminated the surroundings with magic.

“No beast tracks. Either magical beasts don’t approach this hut at all… Considering the nighttime forest, that’s strange.”

There was something here.

Though self-taught, Ains—who sought to master magic in pursuit of the “sorcery” mentioned by one of the men who attacked Silve Village—instinctively sensed something different from magic, something akin to so-called “sorcery,” emanating from the hut.

“With my current knowledge, I can’t tell anything. But this is…”

For the first time since coming to Tas Village, something stirred his heart—his soul.

“I don’t want to give this to anyone.”

His first sense of possessiveness—like a child stubbornly wanting a toy.

Ains pushed open the door of the hut that held some sort of sorcerous element.

“W-Who’s there!?”

Inside were three boys, about the same age as Ains.

They were the children who had insulted him earlier when he and Silica passed them on the way to the great tree.

“Y-You…”

The three huddled close together, sitting nervously on the floor.

The one in the middle noticed Ains.

“Evan-san and the search party have come into the forest to look for you. Now that we’ve found each other, let’s head back.”