The Exam (4)
"We'll go with the plan we talked about yesterday."
He gathered the party — all of them up since before first light — and laid out the hunt for the demonic beast.
The heart of the operation was luring the Screamer into a trap. He'd volunteered to play bait. Someone had to do it, and of everyone in the group he was the lightest on his feet, so he'd put himself forward as the obvious choice.
Maybe I shouldn't have opened my mouth...
He looked back on the version of himself who'd so readily claimed the most dangerous job. Having slipped into the unofficial role of leader, he'd gotten a little too high on the feeling of people leaning on him, depending on him. Never having been the center of anyone's attention in either this life or the last, he realized he'd been swept up in some misplaced hero complex.
Still. I already said I would. Nothing to do about it now.
Self-reflection could wait. Right now, he needed to focus on being the best damn bait he could be.
"Karib, I'm counting on you."
"Understood."
I pulled off the shirt I was wearing and handed it to my reliable goblin friend. Karib took it and walked over to an overturned basket.
Peep! Piiip!
Inside were several birds they'd caught over the past few days with simple traps. Scott had been drooling over them every time he looked, but they'd been saving the birds for today.
Karib draped my shirt over them. And then—
Thud! Thud! Thud!
He lifted a fist-sized rock and brought it down without a flicker of hesitation. Sharp avian screams tore through the air as my shirt bloomed red.
"Ugh..."
Scott and Nadia grimaced and turned their faces away from the gruesome sight. I just watched.
The birds' cries faded into silence. Karib set the rock down, stepped out of sight for a moment to shake off the clinging carcasses, and came back with the shirt soaked through with blood.
"Here you go, Dorn."
"...Thanks."
This was Karib's idea — the most effective way to lure a Screamer, a creature that went insane for the smell of blood. I swallowed my revulsion and pulled the shirt on. The damp, metallic reek stabbed at my nostrils.
Disgusting.
If that was what it took to make the hunt succeed, so be it. I turned to the others.
"I'll draw it this way. Should take about ten minutes — make sure everything's ready by then."
"Got it."
"Be careful, Dorn."
I nodded at Nadia, whose eyes were full of worry, and set off toward the demonic beast's den.
Better get this over with fast.
The blood-stink rolling off the shirt was worse than I'd expected. My stomach turned. I picked up the pace, then slowed as I drew near the beast's lair. Creeping closer, I spotted the Screamer in the distance — four legs folded, lying on its side, fast asleep.
Must be nice.
No natural predators around, apparently. It was sleeping like it owned the whole mountain. Just as expected, it looked a lot like a water deer.
Except—
Why is it so huge?
It was at least twice the size of a normal water deer. Had this thing been hitting the steroids? At a glance, it could have passed for a small horse.
Should we have dug the pit deeper?
The thought had barely crossed my mind when the Screamer's nose twitched. Its eyes snapped open.
A split-second of eye contact passed between me, standing a ways off, and those pitch-black pupils.
"...You order delivery?"
It lurched onto all fours with a hideous scream and charged — apparently deciding that the delicious-smelling, blood-soaked meal in front of it would do nicely for breakfast. I spun on my heel and ran for my life.
Why the hell did I volunteer for this...!!
Cursing my past self, I poured Body Strengthening into my legs. Power flooded every stride. My body shot forward like the wind. I ran like a madman, but the hoofbeats behind me were getting closer. Just as the panic started to crush my chest—
There it is...!
In the distance, the trap pit — camouflaged under a layer of dirt — came into view. I clenched my teeth, poured on the speed, and ran straight across it. And the Screamer, charging after me without a shred of suspicion, planted its hooves on the same ground—
The earth gave way.
At the scream from behind, I skidded to a stop and turned. The ground had collapsed like a sudden sinkhole, and the demonic beast's body dropped. The collapse had been timed perfectly — the instant the creature was fully over the center of the pit. Even a demonic beast that agile had no chance of dodging.
Yes!
The trap used mana to harden an object. Bandages infused with mana until they were hard as metal had been laid over the pit like a lid, then covered with dirt. The instant the Screamer crossed, the mana was cut — the bandages went limp as ordinary cloth, and the whole thing collapsed.
Nadia really is something.
It looked simple. It wasn't. You needed far more mana than most people had, plus the talent to control it with that kind of precision. A genuine art.
The Screamer screamed. The pit had been packed with thin mud to restrict movement, and the beast was thrashing in it. I shouted while it was still in a panic.
"Now!"
The others burst from cover all at once.
"UAAAAAAAH!!"
Scott came first, a massive log clutched in both arms, charging like a battering ram. The log, packed with monstrous strength, slammed into the Screamer's face like a siege ram just as it tried to haul itself out of the pit. Scott kept a little distance, bringing the log down like a hammer every time the beast tried to climb out.
Leave it to a troll to fight like a water buffalo.
He was trembling with fear, but he kept glancing at Nadia and giving it everything he had.
"Catch, Dorn."
Karib came up beside me and handed over a wooden spear he'd made himself.
"Thanks."
The tip had been honed to a point with a rock and coated in a paralytic poison formulated specifically for demonic beasts. Over the past few days, Karib and I had put ourselves through a tearful, humiliating ordeal just to pull off alchemy in these extreme conditions. The ingredients for the paralytic were all things you could find on the mountain — but processing them without proper tools had been hell.
We only managed a small amount. That we succeeded at all is a miracle.
"This'll just pinch for a moment, sir!"
Before prescribing paralytic poison to my deranged bloodsucking-deer patient, I stirred the mana in my heart. When it came to technique, I wasn't about to lose to Nadia. I poured mana into the spear-tip, arranged it just so, and cranked the hardness—
"Just a little sting!"
The hardened spear punched into the mud-caked Screamer's shoulder.
"Ngh...!"
I'd steeled myself, but the sensation of the tip punching through living flesh made my face twist on its own. The Screamer thrashed, screaming in agony.
Patient's not taking the anesthesia well.
I put my weight into it, driving the spear deeper, and shouted to Karib.
"Karib! Another one!"
"Right here."
We'd prepped several spears. I wasn't about to hold back. Customer satisfaction, after all.
"Just one more little— sting!"
The second spear punched home. The more it felt its life slipping away, the more violently the demonic beast fought back. Even with spears in its shoulder and flank, it kept trying to launch itself out of the pit. A few times, it nearly made it.
"Nadia!"
I shouted, spotting the bandages tangled around the Screamer's body.
"Y-yes!!"
Sharp as ever, Nadia read my intent from nothing but the call and a glance. She immediately poured mana into the bandages, and the Screamer's movement locked down even further. The damage window was back.
"Wreck it!"
Scott swung the log. Nadia and Karib scooped up hefty rocks and hurled them. A demonic beast that had ruled this stretch of wilderness without a rival was getting dismantled, helpless, by a trap we'd built. The paralytic was starting to kick in — you could see the desperation setting in clearly now.
Then those venom-filled eyes locked onto me.
"...The hell are you glaring at, you bastard?"
A dying animal giving me that look pissed me off, so I drove the spear in again. This time, it reacted differently.
It clamped its jaws on the incoming spear-tip, then wrenched its head around and yanked me toward it.
"Ghk!"
It happened so fast I didn't even have time to let go. My own momentum plus the beast's pull sent my body lurching forward. I lost my balance, tipping toward the pit. In a world gone slow, I saw the demonic beast's face — a bone-chilling smile, jaws yawned wide. Not just fangs. A horrific mouth packed with razor teeth, waiting to take me along as company on the road to the afterlife.
I'm fucked...!!
The thought had barely formed when my body, a heartbeat from tumbling into the pit, jerked to a halt.
I looked down. A bandage was wrapped around my waist.
"Are you okay, Dorn?"
Nadia had come up beside me, her eyes full of worry.
"Thank you... you just saved my life."
I really thought I was dead. Cold sweat ran down my spine. Coming back from the brink, something felt off. This didn't quite match the book Karib had read, did it?
Two able-bodied demon men can take one down, it said. How built would you have to be to handle this thing with just two people?
"HRAAAH!"
Meanwhile Scott, painfully aware that Nadia's attention was on me, was swinging the log like a man possessed. The log smashed into the Screamer's skull.
Could've been doing that from the start.
I grumbled inwardly and jumped back in. With its last desperate play gone to waste, the Screamer went noticeably quieter. A few more spears in its body, and it slumped.
"...Did we get it?"
Just in case, I tried reciting a resurrection spell. No response. Only then did I let the tension drain from my body.
"It's over..."
We'd actually killed a demonic beast. Not some pathetic sludge-rat you'd use for alchemy experiments. A real one. The same unconcealable pride was written across everyone else's faces.
"Something's off."
Only Karib spoke, examining the Screamer's corpse with a serious expression.
"Off how?"
"It's different from what I read. This thing is too big. And the musculature is overdeveloped."
So he'd noticed the same thing I had.
"Who knows. Maybe it was just really into self-care?"
Scott chimed in with his usual lack of tact and earned himself a look of pure pity — but honestly, I wanted to keep it simple for now too.
Whatever it was, we won...
We'd worked our asses off. I was just about to peel off the blood-soaked shirt and flop down for a rest when—
"Good work."
"HWAAGH?!"
Every last one of us screamed at the presence that had appeared beside us without a whisper of warning.
"Don't be so jumpy."
"...Professor?"
"Yeah. It's me."
For the first time in five days, Professor Meibao revealed herself, her monkey tail swaying as she grinned.