Sé dashed in, appearing as though from thin air behind the Chim-fang-zee on my chest and slit its throat. "You idiot! You almost died."
"But I didn't." My heart tried to make its way up my throat as it pounded in my chest.
He rolled his eyes, then ran to help Eimear. The two of them worked much better in tandem than they did in separate fights. She kept the attention of the three remaining monsters, and Sé was able to pick them off. Once they were down to one, Eimear swapped from shielding magic to her fire magic and launched firebolts from her sword into the monster.
"Phew," she said as she wiped the blood off her blade on the monkey's fur.
I dropped the Add Element spell, and cast Repair on her new shield and starter armor. They'd each taken a few scratches and wounds, I'd nearly taken much worse before Sé had saved me.
"Fuck yeah!" Eimear shouted, and both Sé and I shared a look at her profanity. I wondered if I would get over that. In this world, with these people, it seemed likely. But I didn't want to give up on that connection to my old life. Not yet. As jealousy-inducing as church functions were, there was still something nice about a strong system and set of rules that you knew to follow. Maybe I could bring that kind of structure here?
Before I could spiral deep enough for the System to steal a memory away, Sé tugged at my arm. "I'm glad you're safe."
"Y-you too." I lightly punched his shoulder. "Thanks for the assist."
"Assist?" He looked at me shocked. "Now listen here, I was the one that did all the work. You only cast your fancy illusions."
"Illusions that split them, and buffs that turned you from sneaky stabby to a (blender)." I frowned. "To a whirling dervish of death?"
"That's getting so annoying so fast," he said.
"What? Me calling it as it is?"
He gave me a flat look. "Naw. That's fine. This darn world suppressing what we can say. That there's some words that are censored, and some we can't even think of anymore. It's just evil."
"Yeah. It's a bunch of bullshit is what it is," Eimear chimed in. "Just keep that feeling in your heart. No matter what they say, don't let them suppress who you are."
"Freedom is worth fighting for." Sé nodded along.
Eimear opened her mouth, but decided against whatever she was about to say. She nodded instead.
"Come on." I tugged Sé's sleeve. "We should tell your girlfriend about this."
"She's not my..." He started on instinct to the teasing. "Yeah, I bet she'd love it."
Blánaid was ecstatic about the upper garden. Though I'd only gotten to hear her first few tirades about the plants she was finding and what she could do with them. Instead, I took advantage of the last dregs of light to clear out the few trees that butted up against the mesa to reduce any chance of monsters prowling up there.
I led Eimear around the outside edge to chop down the trees butting against the mesa. At each, we moved on before we processed the logs into lumber, leaving that task for daylight tomorrow. I ran my Mapping spell, and Sense Monsters. It felt nice to not have to drop a spell to cast Conjure Axe at each tree, and Eimear and I took turns burning through our stamina to chop them down. We got three of the trees down, but on our approach to the fourth and final one, my Sense Monsters picked up a ping picked up a solitary monster at the edge of my detection.
"Hold up." I grabbed her shoulder.
"What is it?"
"Monster."
"Can we fight it?" Her eyes gleamed with excitement.
"Let me check." I dropped the longer range Sense Monsters, and replaced it with the more advanced but shorter ranged Locate Monsters.
I froze. I didn't have to cast Identify to know that monster. The outline was too distinctive, too burned into my memory.
"The B-boar-hemoth," I said.
"Nope," she said, then the beast roared.
"Back to base!" I was already running as I said it, "Quickly."
She turned and quickly outpaced me. Branches crunched from behind. I didn't dare look, but my Locate spell told me that it was gaining on us. I dropped the Mapping spell and with the last of my mana I focused on an image of myself scrambling up the side of the cliff wall, and cast Static Image.
My thighs burned as we ran, trying to outpace the beast. It slowed for only a second to charge at my fake on the cliff wall. The loud bang of a collision of beast against rock echoed from behind us, followed by an angry roar.
"Hurry up!" Eimear shouted from ahead of me.
"I'm going. As fast. As I can," I huffed out between breaths.
She turned with her sword drawn to face the beast. "Go. I'll hold it off."
"No way." I was still catching up to her. "Go. We can't."
She looked to me, looked behind me, paled, then grit her teeth. "[Shielding Orbs]. [Flaming Orbs]."
"Don't be an idiot," I said as I grabbed her shoulder and stopped to try to drag her with me.
"I'll be fine," she said, shrugging me off.
"It's a tier five boss. We're what? Tier three at most?"
The beast gained momentum as it charged towards us.
I imagined the wall extruding out from the cliff. "[Static Image]." It created only a meter wide crevice, nowhere near large enough for us to hide behind. "Dangit."
Eimear took a step back as the boss dodged around the side of the illusion. It clipped the edge of a tree with its massive tusks causing an explosion of bark and wood.
That broke her out of her false bravado. She turned and ran. I went to cast another illusion, but my head swan red as the mana couldn't coalesce into a spell. I stumbled forward, Eimear caught me before I hit the ground, hauled me to my feet and pulled me along.
"GET BACK INSIDE!" Eimear shouted at someone I couldn't see. Motion blurred in front of me as we turned the final corner before the entrance.
Dirt and gravel flew against trees as the boss followed us around the bend as it sank into the soft ground, slowing it just enough for us to duck through the door before it crashed into it behind us. The door fractured down the middle.
"The shit is that?" "No. No. No." "Get upstairs now!" The rest of the team shouted in a cacophony as the beast outside roared.
"Up the ladder," I said, pulling Eimear with me as the boss slammed into the door again. The door fractured further, and we could see the red of its eyes glowering at us through broken wood.
She yanked her arm from me. "Let me fight. It can't get in."
I huffed at her, but couldn't protest. She took a stance away from the door and cast her flaming orbs. Sé and Blánaid were halfway up the ladder as Gormán looked longingly to his budding workshop, to the boss, then above. He sighed and followed them. I took up the rear as the boss shoved a hoof through the door. Destroying it as Eimear released her orbs.
I didn't see the rest of the fight as I hurried up the ladder. I lost my footing on a wet step as I went too fast, but managed to right myself before I plummeted to the floor.
Sé and Blánaid walked over to the edge of the cliff to watch the fight. But I couldn't help but worry about Eimear. The hole was too far back to see all the way to the door, but I could hear her casting spell after spell. The Boar-hemoth roared, and I heard stone crumbling and crashing, then an explosion from within followed by a massive cloud of dust.
"Eimear!" I shouted down.
No reply.
"Are you okay?" I prayed she was.
The inside grew quiet as dust obscured my vision.
"Eimear?" I bit my lower lip. A roar echoed from over the side of the cliff.
"No, thank you," Sé said as he took a step back, pulling Blánaid with him. The beast roared from outside, then crashed into the cliffside. It sounded like it was thrashing about outside of the cave.
The entrance had clearly collapsed, the only light shone down from behind me, the dust cloud within hiding everything below.
I slid over the edge of the grotto, and climbed into the dim cloud. I could barely see a few feet in front of me. I held my breath, not wanting to breathe the dust in. Tiny rays of light flickered in from the now collapsed front door, and I made my way over there.
I tripped and brought my arms up to protect my face as I collided with fallen rocks halfway down, hitting my head and rag dolling to the side. I saw stars for a brief moment as I fell on a motionless body.
Eimear didn't stir, her head limply laid on the ground as her chest was covered with rubble.