Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix

Rain imagined that Asche would help Jori kill the monster and then dash for her sister, but she ignored Jori and the beast and dashed to her sister. She was quite fast as well.

"I guess it is understandable, but this guy's teamwork seriously sucks," Rain thought.

In any case, suffering casualties in his first group mission was out of the question, so Rain made an earth wall fall on the side of the final monster and made the beast stop moving. Jori should have an easier time dealing with it now.

"If more monsters didn't come, these are the only ones in the area that could have attacked us…" Rain thought and then dashed in the opposite direction.

Despite his late start, Rain caught up with Asche just before she reached the other group. Both of them confirmed that his guess was right, and they were being attacked by a group of armored turtles. Four of them had already fallen; two of them had been burned to death by Liss' magic, while the other two were bleeding after being killed by Reca's spear.

The monsters were running around the group because Liss was keeping them at bay with a wind barrier around the group, but that also prevented Reca from attacking… it was kind of a useless spell. It required help from outside, and a group that split like that wouldn't survive most battlefields. Rain realized that he was in such a group.

"Cover me," Asche declared while aiming her next arrow. "Liss' mana won't last forever."

Rain nodded and then hit the enemies from below with some earth spikes. That didn't cause much damage, but it slowed down the monsters and drew the aggro toward him. As soon as the beasts turned, Asche put an arrow into one of them, and the beast slowly stopped moving.

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The others were fast approaching, and Rain didn't want to waste time. He also wanted to get more experience, so he decided to go all out. Rain quickly compressed some of the earth around him and then fired that insanely heavy dirt ball toward the monsters.

The impact of the collision had been so great that Rain felt shivers when he heard the cracks of the carapaces being destroyed… the monsters stopped moving once and for all.

The Healer's Path received 50 experience points.

The Healer's Path received 50 experience points.

…

"Oh shit… this is way more dangerous than I had expected," Rain thought when he saw the monsters stop moving altogether.

Jori arrived just in time to see that, and just like the others, he looked surprised at Rain's firepower. Rain told them that he could use magic. Still, they only assumed it would be basic stuff… even among the organization, people able to control magic like that could be counted with the fingers of one hand.

"... It seems that you all are all right," Jori said while looking at the bodies of the monsters. "We are going to gain per head of the monster, and while Lord Branden told us to bring twenty heads of them, I think we can find a lot more like this."

Jori was also lacking in introspection skills. Splitting up had been a mistake… although it seemed that it was the only way to find the monsters for some reason. Rain wondered why that was the case and then tried to find traces of the spots the monsters came from.

It looked like they appeared out of nowhere, but that didn't make any sense… with their sizes and weights, they should have left some marks.

"I am a newcomer here, so I can't say much, but we shouldn't rush ahead like that again," Rain said. "We were caught off guard, after all. Things could have ended badly."

Jori stopped to look at Rain for a moment. He didn't like when someone stopped or slowed down his pace… but it was also rare for him to hear that kind of thing. Still, Jori would have listened if Rain weren't eight years old. When he considered listening to him, Jori realized that he would have looked stupid… while Rain had some firepower, he was still a kid who lived seven years less than him.

"We can't stop now, we are fifty kilometers away from Tristan and only one hundred from the capital… we can't let those things get any closer, Jori said.

"That is a valid point, but Asche used a bunch of arrows that can't be reused; Liss also used a lot of mana to stop the monsters," Rain said. "We won this time, but we were almost caught off guard while we were one hundred percent prepared. How will things play out if we aren't like that?"

"You are right, I guess… still, we can't hunt at night or camp here when the monsters can attack us again," Jori said, and then he sheathed his sword. "We will stop for lunch and then rest for two hours. Use that time to recover your arrows and mana. In the meantime, Asche, Rain, and I will try to understand how the monsters came out of nowhere."

Jori was harsh and quick to let the blood rush to his head, but he wasn't stupid. When someone offered valid arguments, he would listen to them. The girls of the group also looked surprised, thanks to it; they didn't think that dealing with Jori would be that easy. From what he could guess, Rain imagined that they never tried to talk with him or change his mind about anything.

"Have you found anything?" Jori asked while they were searching around the hills in the area, and the others were preparing lunch.

"Nothing," Rain replied.

"The grass here is tall enough for them to leave trails, but I only found the ones when they moved to attack us…" Asche said.

It was clear that the magic people didn't send ordinary monsters to cause havoc in the county… there was no doubt about it.