Chapter 28: Another Troublesome Situation
"Let's start the third round, shall we?" Kai looked at the big centipede in front of him.
"Scree!"
The centipede immediately charged at him. Kai took a deep breath as he saw the incoming centipede.
Since there were no obstacles, Kai avoided the centipede charge by dodging to the side. The centipede was going back into the ground again. But he wasn't in the same situation as before, as he needed to save Ayaka.
Kai could hear where the centipede would appear again.
Before the centipede came out of the ground, Kai turned around. He used the hole to track the centipede. Although Kai said it was hard to pinpoint the creature inside the ground, he could track them using the hole that led to the surface.
He could vaguely sense its position with his ears. It was hard to sense, especially in a difficult battle like before. But this time, he wasn't pressured by the situation.
The instant he turned his body around, the centipede also crawled out of the ground. The centipede immediately charged at him again, but Kai avoided it.
It was pretty easy when he had gotten used to it.
The centipede was using the same technique over and over again, and Kai avoided its charge every single time.
"Scree!" The centipede was infuriated by his action.
This time, the centipede didn't try to pummel him with its head. Instead, the centipede was trying to use its giant mouth to bite him.
Kai had been waiting for this.
The moment he saw the centipede charge toward him with its mouth open, he immediately made a magic circle.
"Oscillation Shield!"
The centipede bit his Oscillation Shield again. It couldn't destroy Kai's shield that easily, so the centipede changed its strategy.
The centipede then pushed him back with its large body. Even though it couldn't destroy Kai's shield, it could push him back to the big tree behind him.
"Kh!" Kai was trying to fight back. Unfortunately, his power was nowhere enough to push the centipede away. With its giant body, it generated even more power than the ape back then.
"Boom!"
"Ack!" Kai was pinned down to the tree. He started sweating as blood came out of his mouth. There was even a little crack on his shield.
His shield couldn't stand the powerful bite of the centipede for more than a few seconds. But it was enough for him as his objective had been achieved.
"Ayaka!" He shouted.
Ayaka, who was flying in the air, immediately dove down with her Fire Wings. But that wasn't all. There was a magic circle behind her spear.
It suddenly exploded, raising her speed even further. With that kind of speed, even her piercing power also increased.
"Boost!"
Ayaka aimed at the centipede's head. "Die!"
"Boom!"
With that high speed, the sound of her crashing on the centipede echoed throughout the forest.
"Scree!"
With her ambush, she managed to pierce the centipede's head completely.
The centipede tried to struggle with its last breath. Unfortunately, it still failed to break Kai's shield.
They finally killed the centipede. However, after killing that centipede, they didn't let their guard down. Especially Ayaka, as she didn't want to repeat her mistake over and over again.
She knew that with such a loud sound, the magical beasts nearby would hear it.
"Roar! Roar! Roar!" And just right after, the roars from countless magical beasts nearby filled the forest.
Ayaka immediately pulled out her spear and looked at Kai.
Kai nodded. "Follow me. We'll start clearing them one by one. There's no need to fly."
Because the majority of magical beasts gathered at the place where Ayaka used her explosion to locate the centipede, the magical beasts around this place didn't amount to too much. Kai wanted to take advantage of that and started killing the magical beasts to rack up some points.
Ayaka nodded her head.
"We'll engage them in close combat, but make sure you can use your magic at any moment," Kai said.
"Understood."
They started moving around and killed the magical beasts one by one. With both of their strength, not one magical beast could stand in their way, especially not with their power as F to D-rank magical beasts.
They racked up a lot of points from them before moving toward the place where the magical beasts gathered.
Kai could hear quite a large number of magical beasts near the hole they created to make the explosion, so he decided to go around and kill as many as possible to lessen their number.
Ayaka would be the main attacker, and Kai would use his Sound Insulation Room to make it more complete. After another two hours, they managed to kill another hundred magical beasts.
Kai was leading her around to kill as many magical beasts as possible, but as expected, their current score didn't come anywhere close to their previous one.
Kai and Ayaka were puzzled, trying to come up with a plan to get some more points. Unfortunately, they didn't manage to come up with a way to get more points other than trying hard.
Because they didn't experience the 'survival' time after six hours inside the simulation world, they didn't know that that was how other people were able to get so many points.
Kai and Ayaka kept trying until, at one point, they reached the time limit. They thought that they were going to be sent back after this survival hour ended.
"Haiz, we only got barely five hundred points. It's a shame that we can't even come close to our previous score even though we stayed in this place for six hours. Anyway, we've tried our best, so whatever the result may be, we can only accept it," Ayaka finally relented.
Kai nodded at her as he leaned on a tree. They were chatting while waiting for the time to end in a plain.
But when they thought the time had ended, Kai suddenly said in a surprised look, "What the heck is going on…"
"Kai?"
Kai suddenly picked up so many sounds at once. He could sense that all of them were magical beasts.
They suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and when he calculated their number, he just couldn't believe it.
There were around two hundred magical beasts suddenly appearing around them. And he didn't know why, but the magical beasts were charging toward their position.
"We have an emergency. We need to fly, now!" Kai shouted.
"Roar! Roar!"
"Aoo—!"
Finally, numerous roars and howls immediately filled the entire forest. Even Ayaka could hear the roars and howls coming from nearby. The beasts were moving toward their position.
"Fire Wings!" Ayaka immediately used her skill.
"Roar!" The first monster that arrived was a huge boar. It was a two-meter tall boar.
Kai immediately grabbed Ayaka's hand as she immediately activated her Fire Wings and flew to the sky.
They could see a tremendous number of magical beasts moving toward their position. And after they flew to the sky, the magical beasts looked at them.
Ayaka tried to flee a little bit, but the magical beasts turned back and chased them.
"Use your 'Boost' to go to that small hill. Although the hill isn't that tall and steep, we can take advantage of it to kill these magical beasts by using the height advantage," Kai pointed to a nearby hill.
Just as he said, the hill's height was only around fifty meters, and it was not that steep to restrict the magical beasts' movement. But at the very least, they would gain a slight advantage in fighting the magical beasts.
Kai made this decision after he confirmed that the magical beasts were somehow able to know where they were and would continue to chase them. Because of that, he decided to confront the magical beasts.
"It's killing time. We'll be able to get quite some points from this. Drop me at the bottom of the hill and cover me from the top with your skill," Kai instructed.
"But you'll be swarmed by the magical beasts."
"I'll keep retreating as I kill the magical beasts, and by using the terrain advantage, they won't be able to swarm me that easily. Your Scarlet Explosion will be our main firepower here.
"Although we can just keep flying around while killing these magical beasts, I doubt your magic power will be able to hold on. After all, we've been flying for quite a while."
"I can kill all of them from the sky…" Ayaka paused a little, "Probably."
She had used around half of her magic power, and Kai should also be in a similar state. If she kept flying like this while bombarding them with her magic, she would be exhausted before she knew it.
Ayaka knew about that, so she didn't have any reason to reject Kai's suggestion.
"All right, but… are you sure you can hold them off—" Before she could finish her words, she suddenly felt something dark from Kai. She thought, 'That… is that killing intent?'
She was worried about him. She remembered the last time they got swarmed like this. Kai was forced to use that double-edged skill. She didn't want him to use that again. Although he had promised her not to use that skill, in this situation, she couldn't help but picture it happening.
Kai was still focused on the magical beasts, but he knew from the change of her heartbeat that she was worried about him, and the reason for her worries was obvious.
"Don't worry. I promised you, and I'm not someone who will break my promise that easily. But since we're fighting so many magical beasts, it seems that I'll need to get serious a little bit," Kai said as he let out a new kind of fierceness.
Ayaka was startled when she saw this. She felt like she was looking at a ferocious beast instead of Kai.
She ultimately agreed to let Kai fight alone. She would support him as much as she could.
She dropped Kai on the bottom of the hill and immediately flew to the top. Because she used her 'Boost' for them to escape, there was still a bit of distance from the magical beasts.
Kai clenched his swords tightly as his eyes became sharp.
Chapter 29: Last Fight
Kai looked at the monsters while clenching his swords. Ayaka was also in her position.
There were around a hundred magical beasts in front of him, ranging from small to big. And more would come.
But because of their size, Kai only targeted the small ones and let the big ones stampede the hill. That way, they would provide help for him by blocking the smaller magical beasts.
After confirming his targets, he started moving toward the magical beasts a little bit to face them head-on.
Three swift tigers charged toward him. A big bear followed right behind them along with the rest of the magical beasts.
The tigers jumped toward him, trying to bite him. When Kai saw this, he moved to the right as he waved his swords.
Suddenly, Kai's swords moved at breakneck speed, and before they knew it, the tiger on the right was split into three by his swords.
Ayaka was shocked to see how fast Kai's swords were.
She had seen how fast his usual swing was. It was nothing compared to what he did just now, and she believed that if she were to face it, she would only be able to barely block it.
However, she felt something wrong with his swing. Even though his speed was truly magnificent, she felt that it wasn't his speed.
She didn't know why, but she recalled their first practice class, where Kai could throw such a giant ape toward her. She didn't think about it again after that, but this situation reminded her of that.
She realized that it wasn't that he was fast, it was that he was strong. He forcefully used his strength to boost his speed for that swing.
And the answer immediately came to her.
After the other tigers missed their target, they immediately jumped toward Kai again. Kai's objective was to kill one of them, and he had achieved it. The moment they came again, Kai didn't avoid them. Instead, he used his sword and cut the tiger from its head to its tail with his strength.
After that, he immediately kicked the last tiger toward the horde. He aimed it at a two-meter tall gorilla.
When the gorilla collided with the tiger, it immediately rolled back along with the tiger, before being stomped to death by a huge Rhinoceros.
The rhinoceros was twenty meters in height alone, and with its giant body, this rhinoceros felt unstoppable. Luckily, it moved slowly. If not, Kai and Ayaka would be in trouble.
They had seen this rhinoceros when they flew toward this place. And it was because of this rhinoceros that Kai made his decision to kill them here. Because this place was the farthest from the rhinoceros, and when the rhinoceros came to this place, it would be in the farthest back.
After taking care of the tigers, Kai immediately retreated a bit and entered the hill.
His next opponents were three horses. Although their size was no different than an ordinary horse's, there were two big and sharp horns on their heads.
Kai needed to be careful not to be impaled by those horns. He kept retreating, trying to bait the horses into the hill.
He baited them inside because he saw Ayaka use her skill. He kept retreating bit by bit before he heard, "Firebirds!"
At that moment, he finally stopped on his tracks and used his sword to repel the horses. It wasn',t like he blew them away, he just made them stop so they wouldn't be able to avoid Ayaka's skill.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
When Ayaka's magic came, the firebirds immediately bombarded them like crazy. When the smoke from the explosion was cleared, they could see the horses charred black.
Of course, Kai didn't have the time to enjoy the view.
After Ayaka killed the horses, the big black bear arrived in front of Kai and sent a paw toward him.
"!!!" Ayaka couldn't use her skill to shield Kai from this bear.
Kai avoided it.
The bear tried to attack him again with his other paw, but before the bear could fully swing, Kai leaped toward the bear and sent a kick with his full strength. Because of the uneven ground, the bear lost its balance and rolled back to the bottom. The bear even dragged the magical beasts on its way back toward the bottom.
They tried to get up, but the rhinoceros arrived and stomped them to death.
Kai looked at Ayaka, "Send those big guys to that rhinoceros. I'll take care of all the smaller beasts."
Ayaka nodded. Kai wanted to send all the big magical beasts toward the biggest magical beast, the rhinoceros, and let the rhinoceros stomp them to death.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A series of explosions continued resounding throughout the hill as Ayaka tried to knock the beasts one by one. Meanwhile, Kai was like a killing god as he continued mowing the smaller beasts down.
Ayaka was dumbstruck by his strength, especially with his fighting prowess just now. He was like a fierce beast, killing the other beasts around and showing them who the king was. Sadly, she didn't have time for that. She decided to talk about it after they finished the ordeal.
She continued to send as many beasts to the rhinoceros as she could before the rhinoceros arrived at the top. Even Kai would have them retreated.
There was another reason why Kai chose this place. Because it was outside the magical beasts' encirclement, they only needed to worry about one direction as the magical beasts would charge at them head-on.
Kai and Ayaka had switched roles as Ayaka usually became the vanguard as well as the attacker. In contrast, Kai became the scout and support. But this time, Kai became the vanguard and main attacker as he kept killing the magical beasts one by one. Meanwhile, Ayaka became the support as she kept blowing the magical beasts away from him toward the rhinoceros so that it would stomp them to the death for easy kills.
There were around thirty magical beasts left. However, those magical beasts had arrived at the top, forcing Ayaka and Kai to fight on the top of the hill.
Even the rhinoceros was rushing toward the top.
"Ayaka, judging from the distance, you should take care of the rhinoceros as it has served its purpose. Although the rhinoceros is big, it has no speed, so it'll be an easy kill for you. I'll take care of these other magical beasts," Kai said.
Ayaka nodded.
"Fire Wings." As the battle would end soon, she immediately activated her Fire Wings and flew toward the rhinoceros.
Kai also started killing the other magical beasts.
…
A few minutes later.
Ayaka and Kai sat on the top of the hill, leaning on each other's backs. Both of them were tired, and their magic power was almost fully depleted.
Ayaka laughed, "Haha, to think we managed to defeat all of them. By the way, what kind of monstrous strength is it that you have?"
"…" Kai didn't reply to her question.
"Is it something I shouldn't know?" Noticing the awkward silence from Kai, she asked to confirm.
"Uhm… sorry," Kai only apologized.
"That's fine… We only met three weeks ago, so I shouldn't pry on your secrets. Well, we'll be… partners for a year, so… if the opportunity arrives, please tell me, all right?"
"I'll try." Kai was unsure of whether he could say it to her within a year. There was a much bigger secret to that strength.
"Are there any monsters around? If not, I should recover first," She asked. She decided not to talk about that topic again as Kai seemed to want to avoid that topic.
"Hmm… There's no mo— holy sh*t." Before he could finish his word, Kai let out a curse. He suddenly picked up lots of sounds around them just he did before. But this time, the number was even more ridiculous. There seemed to be around five hundred of them.
However, Ayaka and Kai didn't have that much magic power left.
"What happened?" Ayaka was confused to hear him cursing.
"Five hundred magical beasts…"
"Five hundred what?!" Ayaka asked as her jaw dropped because of the shock. She didn't have that much magic power left, and the situation turned for the worse. But there was another matter that concerned her. She said, "Kai…"
"Mmm?"
"You promised me that you won't use that technique again, right?"
"…" Kai paused a bit before he answered, "Yes."
"Don't break that promise, okay?" After getting into this situation, she suddenly recalled the matter of Kai sacrificing himself, so she immediately reminded him again.
Kai also understood her worry. It moved his heart a little bit. It was only a small matter since he wouldn't die in the real world if he were to use that skill here. And if he really used that skill, they would be able to get a huge amount of points and might even surpass their previous score.
However, Ayaka chose to abandon that and prioritized him first. She was thinking about him first before anything else.
If she was the Ayaka a few weeks ago, she might have even been the one to suggest using it first.
Kai noticed her growth these past few weeks and was pleased with it. He smiled, "I know. I'm sorry if I made you worry. Don't worry, I won't use it again since I promised you not to."
"Since you won't use it, it's good then. I'd rather have a low score than have you do that again," she told.
"Well, thank you. Remember the first time we met?"
"Yes."
"The you at that time might even send me to my death in this situation. After all, dying here doesn't mean actual death."
"No way. There's no way I would— Uhm, sorry."
"I'm just messing with you. Look, they're here," Kai said with a chuckle as he and Ayaka could see that the monsters had surrounded the hill.
"Roar! Roar! Roar!"
"Can you stand up?"
"Yes."
Both of them rose from the ground as they were still leaning their backs to each other.
"In our condition, we should kill as many as we can. I'll go this way, and you go the opposite way. There is no need for a strategy this time," Ayaka said.
"I was thinking the exact same thing," Kai nodded.
Ayaka smiled as she said, "Let's go."
"Yeah."
Both of them then jumped toward their respective directions.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
0 Power
stone 
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