章 7: The First Fight

The Academy issued rations consisted of dried meat and bread based bricks. They were engineered for nutrition and shelf life and specifically issued to the students for their field trip. As such the rations were mass produced as cheaply as possible and were quite lacking in taste.

The party cut up one portion of rations each and tossed them into a makeshift pot of water with some wild vegetables they found. None of them were very experienced chefs but they weren't working with premium ingredients anyway so they just boiled it all together and hoped for the best.

The most experienced cook was Iris on account of her constant need to eat so she was left in charge of 'cooking' while everyone else set up their tents. When they finished they all gathered back around the fire.

"So is the ... stew? Soup? Ready yet?" Clay asked as he took a seat.

Iris used one of her daggers to fish a bit of ration out and ate it be fore replying, "Well it's warm. A definite improvement but it still barely counts as food. Maybe? Feel free to eat at least."

Amber pulled out a ration box and scooped a portion of the goop soup up, the rest followed suit. Clay looked at his box of goop for a few seconds before he asked, "So how are we supposed to eat this?"

The party collectively looked over at him before blankly looking back down at their own boxes. No one answered for a few seconds before the sound of chewing drew their attention over to Iris. Iris was still using her dagger to spear bits of ration and plants. As Iris was about to eat another bit she noticed everyone looking at her and stopped.

"I don't have any spare knives this is my only clean one. The rest of you can just... drink it i guess."

Everyone was stunned for a moment before Clay broke into laughter, Amber chuckled a little and Jack smiled and sighed. Rust ... was looking around like she'd lost something. Jack noticed and directly asked her, "Rust? What's up something wrong?"

With such a question in the air the merry mood was immediately put on hold, they were after all in the Wild Region still and it wasn't safe. Rust continued looking around in silence before surprisingly speaking aloud for the first time.

"Where are the Wild animals?"

Everyone was stunned into silence by this simple question, ever since they reached the inhabited zone of the forest they'd been surrounded by Wild beasts and it'd been incredibly disconcerting. Over the length of the trip the constant noise of various animals had been constant but had eventually been relegated to the subconscious to be filtered out as 'background noise'. Now that it was suddenly silent they felt a sudden ominous shift in the air.

Clay was the first to react, dropping his ration box and drawing his sword while standing up. Iris was only slightly slower pulling out a second dagger while she dropped her box and swiveling to face outwards. Amber, Jack, and Rust reacted at about the same time setting their food on the ground and grabbing their various 'weapons'.

The whole party waited for what seemed to be minutes in a tense silence. When nothing happened they began to think maybe they were overreacting, they were almost back to the Remnant's clear zone maybe the Wild animals were to afraid to follow them, Clay began to voice an opinion along those lines.

"Well, they're gone yeah but I suppose maybe it's-"

He was rudely interrupted by a bear prowling into the clearing. It didn't seem to be much of a threat, looking much the same as the rest of the Wild beasts they'd traveled with. As the bear began moving over to the fire the party began to relax. The rest of the animals had run off but this one seemed to be braver than it's fellows.

The bear moved up to the fire and just as the party began to lower their weapons the bear ATE the fire. In a single breath it absorbed the fire directly through it's mouth and nose. As the clearing was plunged into relative darkness Clay shouted.

"Oh crap, Embear!"

Bad pun aside his point made it across clearly, this bear was a Magick Beast or close to it evolving down the path of flame elemental-ism. The bear would not only be immune to fire attacks but would in fact absorb flames to further it's evolution. This was a foe that the proctors of the exam were most concerned about, a creature that would still appear to be a Wild creature but had strength exceeding that. Almost all deaths in Field Trip were caused by creatures like this.

The party reacted instantly taking defensive postures, this was not a creature they could take lightly whatever magic Jack had that made Wild Beasts like him was no longer effective on this monster. Jack immediately summoned his cow and directed it to buy time while he began to search through his bag for scrolls. Clay's reaction was no slower as the only person with two runes he was the only one strong and fast enough to fight in close quarters.

The reinforcement's runes provided to the body were not limited to the effect of the rune, the more runes one engraved the more essence would flow freely through you, increasing the body's basic attributes. Magick beasts could only be fought by people at least Rank Two with three basic runes engraved, but perhaps Clay could fight a half evolved creature like this.

Amber immediately ignited the scroll attached to the back of the shield and created a light orb above where the campfire used to be.

Iris was crouched on the edge of the clearing and had a helpless expression on her face, she had no ranged attacks and was not strong enough to fight the bear.

Rust was still searching through her scroll satchel.

The Cow hit the bear right as the light orb peaked, viciously tearing into the bears left shoulder with its fangs. The bear roared in pain and fury and tried to stand and claw at it. The weight of the cow and it's surprising bite strength kept the bear from fully standing but not enough to save it from a blow. The bear's right paw crashed into the cows ribs with a massive *thwcrack*. A few of the cow's ribs were definitely broken.

The bear didn't remove it's paw, it held it to the cow's side and a few embers began to kindle on the back of the paw and the sound of sizzling could be heard. The cow released it's bite to let out a pained *Moooooooo*.

As the bear stood fully on it's hind legs, Clay reached it and lunged to pierce the bear's stomach. He was only marginally successful the bear's hide and muscle were incredibly dense. Clay wasn't the least bothered by his failure and grabbed the blade of his sword with his left hand. As the rune on the back on his hand kindled to a blue glow sparks arced down his blade and into the bear.

The bear felt that, it took two steps back and roared again even louder. It swiped forward at Clay but had it's arm firmly bitten by the cow who was dragged slightly forward before exhausting the momentum in the bear's swing.

At that moment Rust finally pulled out a scroll and whispered to Clay, "Back up a bit."

As Clay complied with her request Rust unrolled the scroll and put her thumbs on the edges of the rune. Luckily the bear had swung at Clay with it's right paw again (perhaps it was right handed? Er pawed? Or maybe the injury to it's left shoulder was more severe than it appeared) and the cow in blocking had moved out of the way, the bear wasn't at the best angle but it was a stationary target for a brief second. Rust burned the sigil.

An arrow shaped mass of acid gathered and launched directly into the bears chest. the bear not so much roared as screamed while the acid ate away it's fur and some splashed into it's stomach wound. The bear dropped back to all fours and backed up a few steps as it began to rethink it's life choices. Before it had the opportunity to run Jack pulled out a scroll and slapped it flat to the ground igniting it as he did so. The bear only had time to back up one more step before an earthen spear took it from below in it's greatly weakened hide. The bear tried to roar once more but only succeeded in producing some blood from it's mouth.

The party held their positions warily for a few breaths before they were sure it was over. They collectively heaved a sigh in relief and relaxed. Before they had the chance to relax all the fire essence the bear had collected and condensed in it's chest to form a Magick core exploded knocking the entire party onto their butts and making a real mess of the corpse.

"That blast should have alerted the Defense Force that something's wrong. They'll be headed over here." Jack had already been crouched on the ground so he didn't get knocked over to severely. Clay took a while longer to recover before asking,

"So what do ya wanna do party? Will we still pass if the Defense Force has to 'save' us?"

Rust stood up and brushed herself off, "We should still pass, not only are we nearly there but we also killed a Wild Beast that was halfway to becoming a Magick Beast. If we don't pass there is no justice in this world."

The party thought this over as they slowly recovered from the shock of a sudden Magick Beast. Jack recalled his cow summon to keep unnecessary misunderstanding from happening. As their hearts gradually slowed down they heard the sound of gentle sobbing.

As everyone looked over they were met wit the sound of Amber crying, the runes on her face automatically activated and glowing strongly.

"Amber... why are you crying?" Clay was brutally straight forward.

Amber wiped her face as she replied, "I'm not crying! ... My eyes are sweating that's all... It's a ... hereditary instinctive action to the sight of blood! I can't help it!"

The party went silent for a few seconds before they all burst into laughter, more from relief than any sort of humor.

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Author's Note:

//Hello, sorry for the absence. My existence= lack of motivation to do just about anything.

I like writing, but I love reading and it's so much easier. Even if I don't like the direction a story takes it's easier to find one that I do like than write my own... probably. I'll stick around and try to do a bit better though.

My goodness writing fight scenes is nice though. I see why everyone's all about tournament's (cuz all u gotta do is make the mc clobber some fools.) I've never liked instant victories though too little detail. Also tournament arcs were overused since before the internet existed so I'm tired of them since long ago.

Also quick question was the fight to gory? I could tone it down a bit if it's ... necessary.//