The Forest Monster
The bear that had appeared as if out of a mirage looked like nothing more than an ordinary brown bear you might spot anywhere.
Its size? Just a bit bigger than Ivan.
But the black mana coursing visibly across its entire body made it abundantly clear that this was no ordinary bear.
"Ivan! Get back for now!"
"Yes, sir! Hnnngh—aaah?!"
"Just let go of the axe!"
The bear's strength was truly overwhelming.
Despite a comparable build, it toyed with Ivan—a slab of solid muscle—like a rag doll. Ivan, still clinging to his precious axe, swayed like a reed the moment the bear shook its body, and went tumbling off into the grass.
And Ivan's beloved axe snapped clean in two.
Ta-ang! Ta-ang—!
With nothing snagging their firing lines, Sophia and a few of the others opened fire again. But the rounds couldn't even bite into the hide—they simply crumpled and rolled across the ground.
Still, it worked to turn the beast's attention.
I closed the distance behind it in a flash and drove my aura-wreathed blade into its flank!
Thud...
Grrruk!
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!"
WHOOM—!
The bear's spinning back elbow!
I ducked low, just barely evading the claws that came screaming at me with terrifying force. The power behind its movement was such that the vortex of air it kicked up felt like it would lift my whole body off the ground.
"Jun! Are you alright?"
"Nothing's hurt. But that thing—Aura Blade isn't cutting properly."
Suppressing my confusion, I quickly put distance between myself and the bear.
From the underground lab all the way to this snowfield, I had never once faced a situation like this. I had clearly stabbed it square in the flank, yet the sensation that stayed in my hand was far too shallow.
The bear, which I'd expected to come charging at us in a blind fury, instead calmly pawed at the wound and eyed us warily.
"Could the hide just be tough?"
"No... it felt like something interfered before the blade even touched skin. That mana is probably the culprit."
I stared at the rippling black mana.
It flickered faintly, as if it might vanish at any moment, but the power it contained was anything but ordinary. Something about it reminded me, oddly enough, of the Goblin Chief.
"...This is really bad. One hit from that thing and I'm dead—and if my attacks won't land, what am I supposed to—"
KROHUNG!!!!
The bear, which had been sizing us up, apparently decided it had the advantage. It let out a roar that shook the very branches overhead and charged straight at me!
"I'll block its attack!"
"...Noah! Damn it—Sophia! Get the kids out of the forest!"
"Y-yes!"
Before Sophia could even act on my order, a thunderous crash rang out as Noah and the bear collided.
Far superior to me in durability and raw strength, Noah held her ground against the bear without being pushed back an inch.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Noah and the monster bear traded blows in a furious melee, fighting to a standstill. Both of them seemed to lack killing power relative to their defense—neither could break through the other's guard.
Not ideal, but with Noah tanking, my job was to wait for an opening.
I circled around the two of them, striking again and again whenever the beast showed the slightest gap.
And then...
Kr-jiiit!
"Got it!"
The Aura Blade wasn't completely useless after all. After landing the aura edge on the same spot again and again, the beast's mana finally scattered and the thick hide split open.
So tough that it felt less like cutting and more like tearing.
Now I've got it—
KRAAAAAAARGH!!!
FWOOSH—!
With its belly skin torn in a long gash, the bear roared. And the black mana wreathing its body shot outward in every direction, sharpening into the shape of spikes.
The spikes of mana contracted into points in an instant and came hurtling right at me. There were dozens of them—no way to dodge them all—and several punched clean through my body.
'Guh... my wrist...'
CLANG!
Of course it had to hit the wrist holding my sword. The tendon must have been damaged—strength drained from my fingers.
The sword tumbled to the ground, then was caught by one of the late-arriving spikes and sent flying into the brush.
"Jun!"
Noah, who had been standing extremely close to the bear, escaped injury thanks to her monstrous durability—but the sheer impact of the spikes sent her flying far, far away.
The bear, determined not to waste its chance, came charging at me with drool streaming from its jaws. With my ankle injured too, running wasn't much of an option.
Just as I was calmly trying to relocate my sword, a massive figure burst from the bushes where it had vanished—and slammed straight into the bear!
"I'm heeeere!"
"...Ivan!"
Ivan, who'd gone and retrieved my flung sword, wedged himself between me and the bear.
His spirit was commendable, but in less than a second his waist began to buckle. At this rate, he'd be turned into a bloody pulp.
I'm grateful you saved me, but if YOU'RE holding my weapon, what am I supposed to fight with?!
'I need a weapon! Where's...'
"UAAAAAH!"
The bear's fangs were inches from Ivan's throat. No time to hesitate! With my bare fist, then—wait, what's this?
My groping hand closed around something hard at my chest.
Without a moment's further thought, I pulled the thing from my breast pocket and jammed it straight up under the bear's jaw.
FWOOSH—!
Keh... kehak!
Astonishingly, my utterly desperate attack was a resounding success! The bear staggered backward with a strained, almost human groan.
What on earth did I just shove into it?
No—no time to think!
"Ivan! The sword!"
"Here!"
I caught the sword Ivan tossed me from where he lay half-sprawled. My target: the hole I'd just punched under its jaw. I dove in at the still-dazed bear and slashed upward with everything I had.
KEHAK!
As if all its toughness up to now had been a lie, the aura-wreathed blade sank into the bear's body with almost tender smoothness. The deep-set tip met something soft, and the feel of it traveled up through my hand.
The bear let out a final death cry—and toppled backward where it stood.
KUUUUNG!
"Hooah... nearly bought the farm there. What in the world just happened."
"Jun! You're bleeding a lot. Let me heal you right away—"
SHAAAA...
The moment Noah, rushing over, unleashed her power, the coin-sized holes riddling my body sealed up in an instant.
Without her, I'd have been laid up for a good few months. Ivan, groaning at my side wondering what had gone wrong with him, sprang right back up once he got his treatment too.
"Ivan, that was excellent work. You saved my life back there."
"Heheh... think nothing of it! But man, you and Noah-noona really are strong! How'd you manage to take down a monster like that?"
"Oppa~! Unnie~!"
As I lay collapsed next to the bear's carcass in sheer exhaustion, I spotted Sophia sprinting toward us from far off. I'd told her to evacuate, but she'd already turned around. Good kids, through and through.
...
The bear had bled an enormous amount, fitting for its size. The whole area reeked of blood.
In the forest, a stench like this risked luring other monsters—but Sophia saw it differently.
"A monster this strong would've ruled over its own territory. One whiff of this and everything else will bolt."
"You think?"
"Besides, it'd be a waste not to harvest the byproducts—we should butcher it here. The hide alone would fetch a few gold coins, you know?"
Guess the expert(?) knows best. On Sophia's advice, we decided to butcher the bear on the spot.
"Heave-ho!"
THUD!
Ivan, whose one true talent was brute strength, grunted and managed at last to roll the bear onto its side. At that weight, hanging it up somewhere to drain the blood was completely out of the question, naturally. So as a fallback we propped the head up high, and the blood kept flowing steadily from the wound under its jaw.
"Wow... look at this. The hide is insanely tough."
"No wonder the bullets didn't work. But how are we supposed to cut this? Even the sword couldn't get through."
And then a problem arose. The tools the village youths had brought simply couldn't cut through the bear's hide.
In the end, I had to step in myself and bring out the Aura Blade before the bear would finally reveal its flesh.
Rustle— rustle—
Following the cut lines Sophia marked out, I worked my unpracticed hands busily along them, and before long the bear was reduced to a sorry-looking carcass of little more than meat.
Now it gets easy.
Everyone dove in at once—the foul-smelling innards were tossed far away, and we gathered up the meat, the bones, and the hide. From near the heart came, of course, a purple magic stone. The very same color as the one I'd taken from the Goblin Chief.
"Well, that's how it turned out, so we should head back to the village for today."
"Sounds right to me. If we ran into another one of these things, we might actually die. Has the forest always been this dangerous?"
"Not at all. This is the first time I've ever seen a monster this strong. By the time the Suppression Device is nearly active, things like this shouldn't even show their faces... It really is strange."
Once the butchering was more or less finished, Sophia tidied up around us and murmured with a worried edge to her voice.
Barely a month ago we'd been surrounded by Snow Boars—this was already her second brush with death. Meeting monsters at this pace couldn't be normal.
"I'll have to tell the Village Chief. A hunter went missing two months ago... he may have fallen prey to a monster."
...
"I've never had bear meat before. I wonder what it tastes like?"
"The stronger the monster, the tastier, they say? *Slurp*... Can't wait. It's gonna be good."
"This is all thanks to Hyung-nim! Everyone, thank Hyung-nim! He gave us the meat without a second thought!"
"...Why are YOU making such a fuss?"
"Aha! Well, I did contribute a little!"
On the road back to the village, laden down with meat, bones, and hides, the youths—unlike the grave-faced Sophia—chattered away cheerfully, savoring the heavy weight on their backs.
Ivan in particular was making a spectacle of himself, holding forth on how incredible my strength was, to the point I was embarrassed just listening.
But my attention soon drifted elsewhere—namely, to the object that had, without exaggeration, saved my life today.
"Obsidian, was it?"
"That's right. I just grabbed whatever my hand found first, but... I never expected it to work this well."
The moment Ivan's life hung in the balance, what my hand had found in my breast pocket was the black dagger—Obsidian.
A weapon from the treasure box in the underground lab. I'd clanged it against my old sword and knew it was exceptional in hardness and cutting power, but I hadn't imagined it was on this level.
Swipe, swipe—
I diligently wiped the gleaming Obsidian with a cloth. Perhaps because it had recently been caked in blood and brains, it still seemed to carry a faint coppery smell.
"To think it pierced through what even your Aura Blade couldn't... that's a downright abnormal level of penetration."
"It seems Obsidian has a property that breaks through mana."
I recalled the moment it had sliced clean through the bear's troublesome mana. The only resistance I'd felt in my hand was the hide's natural defense—and even that had clearly been pierced in a single stroke by Obsidian's exceptionally sharp edge.
"If that's true, it's a genuinely priceless item. We'd better watch our mouths about it, wherever we go."
"Exactly. Depending on the situation, this could serve as an assassin's tool. But still... there's something on my mind."
"?"
"The Aura Blade... ah, too much of a hassle to say. Let's just call it sword aura. And I'm starting to think my sword aura might be weaker than I assumed."
It was a shock that my sword aura, in which I'd taken some pride, couldn't even break through the bear's mana—especially after how well it had served me all this time.
"But it cleaved the Goblin Chief in a single stroke. The fact that they drop magic stones of the same color suggests they're the same rank, doesn't it?"
"Even at the same rank, there'd be differences. This one's attacks weren't all that frightening, were they? Enormous strength, sure, but..."
At the very least, my sword's edge had come through unscathed, so I could conclude its offensive power was inferior to the Goblin Chief's. Simply a difference in the orientation of their mana, probably.
"When we get back to the village, I need to go see Alta. I should increase my training—and get his advice about the sword aura too."
"That would be wise. I may have healing abilities, but I can't bring the dead back to life."
"...Could you not deliver perfectly reasonable statements in such a terrifying way?"