The Kitten's Rescue
After Serpina vanished while chasing the culprit who had kidnapped Heemang, Ayoung found herself facing off against the cat magic beasts.
“…….”
Ayoung licked her dry lips, tense with nerves. If the cat magic beasts had been in perfect condition, she wouldn’t have stood a chance. Even an ordinary-sized cat that had only recently become a magic beast was no opponent a Rank 5 mage could simply ignore. And these creatures were larger than medium-sized dogs.
Fortunately, the magic beasts were far from normal right now. They had been pierced by Serpina’s ice arrows and suffered serious wounds. Those hit in vital areas had died instantly, and even the one that had taken the least damage was limping on one of its four legs. On top of that, they had all been hit with Dragon Fear.
Physically and mentally, they were nowhere near their usual state. At this level… it was a fight she could manage.
And the cat magic beasts seemed to know it too.
- Myaong.
One of them let out a small cry and slowly began to back away. Once it had put some distance between them, it turned tail and vanished into the darkness. Then, several others followed suit, abandoning the fight and slipping away. True to their feline nature, they had only been toying with their prey out of boredom and whimsy. They had never intended to risk their lives.
Most of the magic beasts departed like that. The only ones left were those too weak to even stand on their own as they lay dying, and three strangely red-eyed beasts that continued to show open hostility.
Those three weren’t leaving. They weren’t giving up the fight. Ayoung could sense it instinctively.
“Donghyun, Goeun. Can you still fight?”
“…It’s going to be tough.”
Goeun lifted her weapon—an umbrella. The fabric was horribly torn, and the ribs were badly bent. Even the mana stone embedded in the handle to amplify its magic had shattered. In this state, it could barely function as a weapon. Donghyun wasn’t much better off. His model gun had snapped in half midway through the fight, now little more than a plastic stick. From the way he couldn’t move his arm properly, it looked like he’d broken a bone too. The moon was only a crescent, so their mana reserves were already low. With their weapons destroyed on top of that, the two of them couldn’t be counted as combat assets anymore.
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle this somehow!”
Ayoung steeled her resolve and raised her selfie stick high. Calm down. Stay calm. She repeated the words like a mantra as she swung at the first magic beast that lunged at her.
- Thwack!
At the sound of that impact, the other two beasts charged in as well. Ayoung couldn’t even think about chasing the one she’d struck in the head; she had to focus entirely on fending off the pair attacking her.
“Ugh…!”
A heavy cat punch slammed into her selfie stick. The impact from those soft-looking paw pads felt like being clubbed with a rock. Just blocking one strike left her shoulder throbbing. Ayoung twisted her body as much as she could to dissipate the force and took half a step back. Then she stepped forward again with equal force and thrust her selfie stick straight ahead.
It struck perfectly in the throat of one of the beasts that had leaped at her. The satisfying sensation of a clean hit traveled up the stick and into her hand. The magic beast couldn’t even let out a proper cry before it was sent flying.
But the beasts, forcibly driven into a frenzied state, paid no heed to the pain and kept coming.
- Weeeeeeong!!
A sharp feline cry echoed beneath the bridge.
“Damn it…!”
Ayoung fought with everything she had. She blocked their attacks, redirected them. She pictured in her mind the skillful dodging Serpina had shown yesterday during the fight with the werewolf, moving her feet without pause. But her body refused to obey. In her imagination, she gracefully evaded every strike and countered into the openings. In reality, her body moved as stiffly as a wooden puppet.
The only reason she could dodge at all with such clumsy movements was because the magic beasts were in no condition to move properly either. The ice arrows still lodged in their bodies tore at their wounds with every motion, inflicting constant agony. If it had been ordinary pointed ice magic, the arrows would have melted and fallen out long ago. She had no idea what kind of spell Serpina had actually used.
‘…Wait. Ice arrows?’
Ayoung’s narrowed field of vision suddenly opened wide. Things she hadn’t noticed while focusing on the beasts’ attacks came into view. Countless ice arrows stuck in the ground. Her selfie stick, cracked from accumulated impacts. And one of the beasts that had stealthily circled around to target Donghyun and Goeun.
“Not a chance!!”
Ayoung spun and hurled her selfie stick at the beast trying to flank them. It took the unexpected blow to the head and tumbled across the ground. At the same moment, the beast in front of her pounced. It was a dangerous opening created by losing her weapon.
But she had anticipated the attack from the moment she threw the stick. Ayoung dropped to the ground as if collapsing. Sharp claws whistled past, slicing off a few strands of her hair. Every hair on her body stood on end, but she had no time to freeze up. Dodging the front paw wasn’t the end of it. If she got pinned under that massive body, her throat would be torn out next.
Before that could happen, she moved her hand quickly. She grabbed something beside her seated hip. A chilling sensation filled her grip. It was one of the ice arrows embedded in the ground. She had spotted it earlier, before throwing her selfie stick. She yanked it free with all her strength.
Even though it had been driven through concrete, the ice arrow remained perfectly sharp without a single chip. She drove it straight into the beast that had leaped at her.
- Squelch!
- Weeeeck….
The magic beast let out a final death cry and collapsed. With a heavy thud, its lifeless weight landed on top of Ayoung. The creepy sensation unique to a chunk of meat that had lost its life made her hurriedly shove the corpse off her body.
“Haa… haa…”
Her breathing was ragged. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking. The magic beast’s eyes still lingered in her vision. That look it had given when it realized the ice arrow was flying toward its throat—the moment it understood its own death. Even though those red eyes had shown not a single trace of intelligence, in that instant they had been no different from the other beasts that had fled in fear of death.
The unpleasant sensation of piercing hide and tearing flesh remained vivid in her hand.
“…Huuup.”
But she forced herself to steady her breathing. The fight wasn’t over yet. She didn’t want to end up with that same look in her own eyes.
- Clatter.
“Huh?”
As Ayoung placed her hand on the ground to stand, something bumped against it. The feeling was incredibly familiar. It was the wooden practice rod she used during training. It had been lying hidden among the grass. Ayoung gripped the wooden rod and rose to her feet. The familiar weight, the familiar grip. Holding the rod she had trained with every day somehow eased the tension that had gripped her heart.
She channeled mana into the wooden rod, activating the magic Serpina had cast on it. It was something she had done hundreds of times during training, but this time felt like her best activation yet.
Two cat magic beasts remained. Ayoung met their glaring red eyes and leveled the wooden rod at them. She didn’t feel like she was going to lose.
……
The last magic beast finally fell. It had bled out. No matter how strong a magic beast was, if it kept rampaging in a frenzied state with holes in its body, it wouldn’t last long. Ayoung’s own condition wasn’t much better. Her skin was covered in scrapes and dirt from rolling across the ground, and her arms, which had absorbed countless impacts, no longer even registered pain.
She looked far too ragged to call herself the victor. But regardless of appearances, the one still standing in the end was Ayoung.
“Uhehe…”
Ayoung let out a pathetic sound. In her heart she wanted to thrust her arms high and roar in triumph, but she no longer had the strength to lift them. With her last bit of energy, she glanced over to check if Donghyun and Goeun were safe. She had worried when they tried to help and got knocked flying by a single cat punch, but fortunately both of them were unharmed.
The tension drained from her body. She staggered. Her vision shook violently once, and her body pitched forward. The dirt ground rushed up to meet her. At least it wasn’t asphalt—she supposed she should be grateful for that. Ayoung squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for the impact that was about to come.
- Aeong!
From somewhere, she thought she heard a cat’s cry. A sound she had grown utterly sick of. But this particular cry somehow didn’t bother her.
Then, instead of the hard impact she expected, a soft sensation pressed against her face.
‘Huh? Soft?’
It wasn’t the pain she had braced for. Ayoung cracked her eyes open slightly and looked ahead. Soft, glossy black fur filled her entire field of vision. When she turned her head to the side, she saw a familiar little head. A fist-sized face with perky ears. It was Heemang.
The kitten wore an expression that seemed to say, ‘Ugh. Just this once.’
‘Heemang? If Heemang is here, then…’
Step. A shoe appeared beside Heemang. It looked like something picked up from the trash—old and worn. There was only one person Ayoung knew who wore shoes like that.
“Senior?”
“Yeah. I’m back.”
Just as she thought. A reassuring voice that eased her heart the moment she heard it drifted down from above. She wanted to lift her head and see the face that went with it, but she didn’t have the strength.
“I’ve pretty much wrapped everything up. I’ll leave the cleanup to them, so you can rest now.”
‘Of course Senior isn’t volunteering to do it herself.’
Even as she thought that, a smile somehow found its way to her lips. That was just like her. The fierce aura she had shown when rushing out from under the bridge was gone. This was the usual, lazy Serpina.
Now that Serpina was here, even if the magic beasts that had run away came back, there wouldn’t be any problem. Ayoung decided to rest easy. First, though, she grabbed the kitten who was acting as her pillow and blew a raspberry on his belly.
- Purrrrrrrrrr!
- Weeeeeeeeong!!!!