Hydra Hunt
If you were to sum up the cadets' battle against the Hydra, it would go something like this.
They encountered the Hydra. The cadets took the first strike. Exactly one minute later, every last one of them was down.
Was this a joke? They were Hero Candidates — how could a one-minute wipe even be possible?
Fuck. I wish this were a joke too.
Having the candidates take the Hydra down completely was never going to happen. Inflicting a decent amount of damage, though — that shouldn't have been difficult. They weren't stubborn little scrappers, but their skill was the real thing. They had more than enough to handle a Demonic Beast, so he'd figured they would do well. He'd figured that after a while, the moment would come naturally for him to step in.
Never thought they'd all drop the second it started.
The Hydra was stronger than the others, that much was true. Even the smell of its poison was different. Still, he'd expected them to last ten minutes. Ten minutes? It was over in one. He realized it all over again. Their only hope was Enril — Enril alone.
A thunderous crash split the air as the creature's enormous tail swept once, turning the surrounding ground into a wasteland. A direct hit could make the power of his true body erupt without him meaning it to — and then the Hydra would bolt, and Enril would learn who he really was.
Right now, Rion wasn't worrying about getting hit and dying the way everyone else was. He was worrying about getting hit and having his identity exposed.
A shriek tore through the clearing.
"Instructor! Don't worry about the heads! That one—"
He already knew. Nine heads, but only one of them did the thinking. The nine weren't acting independently, so attacks from the heads were slower than you'd expect. Get distracted by those, take a tail to the face, and you'd be pulp. Dead.
Rion slipped the Hydra's strike, and Enril stepped up beside him.
"Even if you cut the heads off, they'll all regenerate. Except for the one that matters. To find it, you have to cut every other neck and then, on the stumps..."
"Apply heat. If you can, burning the whole thing works too."
Enril looked at him, and Rion immediately added,
"I read it in a book. They said studying Demonic Beasts was mandatory the moment you become an instructor."
The truth was, as the Tower Master, he knew everything there was to know about Demonic Beasts.
"In this situation, starting an actual fire is out of the question..."
"Then we have to raise our mana even stronger. Like the hottest flame in the world!"
A roar of flame burst forth. A translucent red fire bloomed from Enril's sword. She had drawn her mana to its peak — the stage where it finally became Aura. You needed at least that much to fight Demonic Beasts in the Tower.
He needed to raise his own mana and call forth that Aura. He could do it. He was just worried his true body's power would barge in without an invitation. But what choice did he have? Backing down here would look extremely strange.
Please. Please just don't let the true body's power come out.
He prayed it a few times inwardly as he slowly raised his mana. His true body was the Tower Master, but thanks to the restrictions, he had this other vessel. Inside it, the mana he had stacked up through his cultivation art stretched and woke.
Then a massive flame rose from the sword in Rion's hand. Far denser and more brilliant than Enril's — not red, but blue.
"Ah...!"
Even in the middle of combat, Enril let out a gasp she couldn't hold back. Which made Rion think, What? Did something go wrong again?
Fortunately, the Hydra didn't flee, and Enril didn't suddenly point her sword at him. The true body's power he'd been so worried about clearly hadn't interfered. Relieved, Rion offered Enril a brief smile.
She swung her sword. One of the Hydra's lunging heads was severed. She immediately tried to use mana to stop the regeneration, but another head rendered it futile. She had to sear the stump before it regenerated — and in that instant of thinking it, blue mana streaked in like lightning and seared the cut surface in a flash.
"Next one."
Without a single word exchanged, the man filled his role perfectly. When she needed an attack, he attacked. When she needed a follow-up, he followed up. Sometimes he even made himself bait to create an opening.
Alone, the fight would have taken well over an hour. Now, they had the upper hand in less than ten minutes. Three heads left. One of those three was the real one. It wouldn't be long.
Something she had never felt except during her days as a cadet: the faith, the trust, the relief of knowing someone had her back — her side. A thought crossed her mind. What if she had climbed the Tower with this man? Wouldn't they have brought down that insufferably arrogant, terrifyingly powerful Tower Master?
She had never once thought that before. Why was that feeling rising so suddenly, right now?
Then the Hydra's movements turned strange. Cornered, it thrashed and swept its tail in a wide arc. The blow forced both Rion and Enril back from it — and a rumbling growl rolled out of the remaining heads.
"Ah! Instructor! Watch out! Breath attack!"
Poison gushed from the remaining heads' maws all at once. Even with mana detoxification running, a direct hit would be fatal. Enril spun desperately — and instinctively felt something was wrong.
The direction was off. It had used a poison breath, but it wasn't aimed at her or Rion. What the Hydra was targeting right now was none other than...
The cadets!
Enril realized too late and threw herself in front of them, mana drawn to the limit. A massive cloud of poison, violet mixed with green, surged toward them.
The cadets' mana is too thin compared to the poison! If it hits them, they'll all die!
Enril bit her lip and split her mana in two — one half for detoxification, the other as a barrier around the cadets. She would hold. Then the poison cloud began to engulf her and the cadets —
"Cough!"
The instant she faced that poison, dark crimson blood surged up from Enril's lips. The venom the creature had exhaled was several times more vicious than she'd expected. And she was already short even at maximum mana — and she'd split it on top of that. Of course her mana couldn't hold. Some of the poison forced its way into her body.
She hurriedly cycled her mana to drive out what had entered, but it wouldn't work. The poison's potency had exceeded her expectations. Enril recognized her mistake, but it was already too late. She couldn't withdraw her mana. Even if she could, she had no intention of doing so. That would be killing ten people with her own hands.
"Nngh...!"
Just as Enril poured everything she had into forcibly burning the poison away, the pouring venom transformed into blue flame and burned with a brilliant light. A fire so beautiful it stole even Enril's gaze for an instant. Through it, Rion appeared and immediately seized her by the shoulder.
"Hwah!?"
For a brief moment, a hot, sharp sensation raced through her entire body. Rion's mana had transferred into her, cycling through her system and burning every last trace of the poison away. The mana was so fast, so brilliant, that Enril was about to marvel at it when a cold voice slipped from Rion's lips.
"Are you out of your mind."
"You almost died just now. You know that?"
"Ah... b-but the cadets..."
"That's not the point...! ...Huuu—"
Rion let out a sigh and turned his head as if to say that was enough. At that reaction, Enril flinched and shrank back without meaning to.
"I've detoxified you for now, but if you move carelessly you'll take internal damage. I'll handle it from here, so stay put. Move around for no reason and you could end up with permanent mana damage."
With that, Rion finished speaking and swept his sword in a wide arc. Massive blue mana flared once more and swept every last trace of the poison away. Through the gap that opened in that instant, Rion shot toward the Hydra like a flash of light.
Once again, her life had been saved by someone else. Just as it had been by the master of the black throne in the Tower — by someone stronger than her. With her own powerlessness driven home all too clearly.
But... why...
Why didn't she feel the humiliation or shame she had felt then? Why were the feelings lingering now anticipation and joy?
The Hydra subjugation ended in "success."
Taking down a Demonic Beast of that caliber without a single casualty was remarkable. Even seasoned hunters often lost their lives against something like a Hydra. So calling it a success was accurate — but the party's mood was anything but good.
For one, the cadets were ashamed they hadn't played any real role. Ashamed they'd passed out and left it to others. On top of that, they carried self-reproach and resentment toward themselves as Hero Candidates, which only made it worse.
Ordinarily, Enril would have lifted them out of that state. You're still Hero Candidates. There's so much left to learn, so much left to experience. You can't let something like this get you down. You should use it to resolve to get stronger, she would have said. But right now, even Enril said nothing, focusing only on the return.
The reason for that, unexpectedly, was Rion.
Instructor... he doesn't look well at all...
He'd even diverted some of his mana to her and the cadets, and then he'd taken down the Hydra besides. More than half its heads had been gone from their combined assault, but it had still been a powerful Demonic Beast. Judging by the poison alone, it was nothing to take lightly. She herself had been poisoned in an instant the moment the breath hit her. And Rion had finished that thing off. Alone.
"We're leaving the forest. The cadets seem to have more or less come around. Mana recovery is hard in here anyway."
He was trying to act like nothing was wrong, but Enril could see it. A man exhausted and worn down from standing at the very front for her and the cadets. A man she was grateful to — who had charged in without hesitation and saved their lives.
Look at that. His expression is terrible. He definitely overspent his mana.
Mana depletion. She'd experienced it herself more than a few times. It was incomparably harder than mere hunger — like the life was draining out of your entire body. Rion had given everything he had to reach that state. And that was how he had saved her and the cadets.
Not for his own pleasure. A genuine act for someone else's sake.
She wanted to at least thank him for saving her life. But Rion's complexion looked so bad she gave up. Later. Later, once he was a little better, she'd convey her gratitude then. Quietly following behind Rion, Enril made up her mind.
Meanwhile, Rion—
It leaked. It fucking leaked.
The moment he'd finished the Hydra, the true body's power he'd been suppressing had burst out. And now he was in a cold sweat over whether Enril had noticed.