Batto smiled and turned to him. “After doing this for so long, you can tell. You can also recognize it through smell.”
“Oh, I’d rather not,” Rufian said, backing away disturbed from the off-putting odor. And then I heard a light snort, followed by a gritty grunt.
Creed pulled out his bow and arrow, his eyes growing wide as he searched for the location of the sound.
“No way,” Batto whispered, “It’s actually close by…”
The sounds grew louder, deeper… It drew close, until I noticed the trees sashaying vigorously from something brushing up against it.
Okay, now I was beginning to worry. Not only did the trees dance to this supposed boar, but I just saw a large shadow pass us by a few meters ahead.
“Uggh!” Creed cried. “That’s no regular boar!”
“That thing is huge!” Batto shouted.
“Well, that’s not something you see everyday…” Rufian commented under his voice, summoning an ice lance in his fist.
“What the heck is going on?!” Batto wailed, stricken with fear. A reasonable reaction for a boy his age, and his ignorance. Rufian and I had a clue what could have caused this non-cyber beast to be more than 20 times its common size, but Batto and his brother were clueless to the dungeon core’s deterioration, which was causing the disruption of the natural state of things.
“Hold on,” I said, taking a step forward. “It’s at level 100,000…”
“Say what?” Batto choked. “Max level is 200!”
“Right, but look at his HP, a mere 10,000,” Rufian added.
“Sure, but how do we know how strong this thing is? I mean one swing could kill all of us for something as strong as level 100,000,” I warned.
“There’s no telling how we will fair until we engage,” Rufian replied.
“We can’t expose these kids,” I said, and before I knew it, Batto and Creed were running head on into the fire. “H-hey! Wait a minute!” I cried, chasing after them.
“Haha! If we beat this thing, we’d jump up a few levels for sure!” Creed cheered as Batto chased him.
“Hey, wait up!” Batto shouted, both of them readying their weapons.
Shit, this was bad! I didn’t want them getting killed out there! In fact, I didn’t want to fight this thing at all. We had zero planning and zero strat, but Rufian didn’t seem to mind how oblivious we were to this behemoth of a beast the broken dungeon core created.
With my limitations as a fae, I was reduced to using my sword and fists. Fighting this thing would be a whole lot easier with gears, but these kids couldn’t know I was a human. Jeopardizing the mission wasn’t worth it.
Finally, the boar picked up on guests. His ear flickered, his snout pointed in the air with a strong whiff. Rufian ran behind me and summoned his phoenix familiar, while Creed summoned a rock golem several times his size to compete with the beast. Batto, who was faster than all of us with his lightning trait, zipped in front of his brother to assess the situation.
Batto ran courses around the boar’s legs, his after image threaded with streaks of bright yellow light. The boar didn’t like that. He kicked his massive feet, threatening to crush Batto with a single blow. But Batto was too fast for the boar, dodging the attack effortlessly. He jumped onto the boar's back using the spear in his hand, and began hacking at the beast with all his might. The boar roared in anger, trying to shake Batto off his back, but the boy held on tight to his bristly fur.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily!” I could hear Batto’s voice echo from up high, the boy a mere speck from the terrifying height he was in.
“Hold on, brother! We’re coming!”
“Creed, don’t get too close!” I called out, and then I finally caught onto him, reeling him back by his collar.
“Hey!” he retorted.
“You’re way too young to get in the ring with that thing,” I warned him. “If you want your share of exp, let your golem have at him.”
“No way! I want in on this action!” he said, pulling out his bow and arrow. “You can sit and watch if ya want, but this big guy is going down! Just think of all the food my village will have! We’d be covered for months!”
“Yeah, that’s great and all, but it’s not worth your life. If anything happens to you, it’s my responsibility.”
“No one asked you to babysit! We are warriors! We are hunters! And it’s our job to jump into battle no questions asked!”
“It’s also your job to strategize and plan accordingly. You analyze your foe, and with your squad, come up with the best course of action to face ‘em head on. If you want a shot in the military, you have to have that mindset. That’s how my dad taught me, and I’m telling you charging in there guns blazing isn’t going to help anyone, especially your brother.”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. If you’re out there trying not to get stomped on, Batto will do more worrying about you out there than actually fighting the beast, which would get him killed. So think smart about your approach. Let Batto handle it up close, and you can cover him at a distance. How does that sound?”
Creed dropped his shoulders with a disappointed frown on his face before he turned his eyes to the beast. The ground shook as he swung back and forth, trying to fling Batto off. I think what I’d said was sinking in, Creed being way over his head with this one. I get that he was a hunter in training, but he was no match for an abnormal boar the size of Optimus Prime.
He sighed with a pout. “Oh, all right. I will stand back.”
I smiled and patted his shoulder. “Good choice. Now how many of those golems can you whip out at the same time?”
“Depends on the cost of mana. The stronger and bigger I want them to be, the more mana it would cost me.”
“Play it by ear for now. Depending on how well they do out there against that.”
He nodded with a smile. “Got it!”
As I ran to the fight, Creed ordered his rock golem to charge toward the boar, slamming its rocky fists into the beast's side. The reaction from the beast was unexpected, the golem barely tickling it. Even so, the golem managed to get his attention, helping Batto out a lot.
