The boulder roared as it rolled, crushing every tree in its path.
Dull-witted though the giant bear was, even it sensed the lethal danger.
It spun around to bolt off to the side — but the moment it turned its head, a small figure was already blocking its way.
“ROAR!!!!” Facing the enraged giant bear, Lara didn’t give an inch.
With her magic disrupted and the gap in raw strength being so vast, she had to stop the giant bear from escaping the boulder’s crushing path — and just what she would use to do it was already perfectly clear.
Behold — the Blinding Art, from Sun Tzu’s Art of War and its Thirty-Six Stratagems!
A blinding flash of white light came and went in an instant, and the giant bear, suddenly robbed of its sight, slammed head-first into a tree beside it.
The tough trunk couldn’t hold back that massive body — there was only the slightest pause — but that was enough.
KA-BOOM!
The boulder rolled mercilessly over it, leaving a path of utter wreckage behind.
Though it had avoided a killing blow, the giant bear’s hindquarters were now twisted at a horrifying angle — death was only a matter of time.
And yet the savagery of a dying beast only made it more frenzied.
Heedless of the burden of its useless lower half, it furiously swung its front claws, dead-set on dragging this cunning human down to hell along with it.
The giant bear was already slower than Lara to begin with, and having lost the use of both hind legs, all its struggling was in vain.
But this wasn’t enough — Lara needed to go one step further.
In this world, once monsters fully died they would crumble into ash and disperse.
Which meant that if she wanted to directly draw out the giant bear’s power, she had to do it before it drew its last breath…
by eating it.
The giant bear was nearly immobilized.
All Lara had to do was circle around behind it, and she could reap the greatest gains with the smallest risk.
But just as she was circling around it, the bear seemed to sense something.
Paying no mind whatsoever to the wounds on its lower half, it forced itself through a wide turn, dragging its head around so it faced Lara head-on once more.
“ROAR!!” A pitiful, agonized roar — it carried something of the spirit of ‘a warrior may be killed, but never humiliated.’ “Tch — couldn’t you just sit there obediently and wait to die?” After several failed attempts, Lara couldn’t help clicking her tongue.
By her estimate, two more turns and this bear was going to finish itself off — she’d just have to wear it down head-on.
Dodging the giant bear’s attacks even as she pressed in close, Lara kept carving wound after wound into its front paws, and 0083 popped up to scan for its specific weak points.
“Master, deliver a strong slash to the spot nine decimeters down from its neck.
That’s a tendon — sever it, and it won’t be able to move.” The moment the information came through, Lara struck without hesitation.
The giant bear, robbed of all mobility, could only lie there on the ground whimpering.
Lara didn’t stand on ceremony either — she sat right down on top of it and started eating.
She hadn’t had a taste of meat in days, and with every ‘gulp’ of swallowing, power kept surging through her.
On a mountain peak beyond Lara’s range of observation, a mage clad in a white cloak couldn’t help clicking his tongue.
“This kid — not a single move she made was anything I’d have thought of.
She doesn’t act like a mage at all.” ‘Maybe genius and madness really are only a sheet of paper apart.’ But still, he really hadn’t expected Lara to do something like devouring the raw flesh of a monster.
And that little ball of light, too — the surprises really did pile up far higher than he had imagined.
Ah…
he had forgotten to teach this kid even the basics of magical common sense!
In his original mental picture, Lara should first have relied on her agility, using Magic Missile and flame to grind down the giant bear’s mana, then used flame to set its pelt alight and finish it off the physical way — burning it to death.
After all, Disrupt magic had two weaknesses: first, it burned through enormous amounts of mana; and second, it had no way to resist physical attacks.
So for a mage, hitting it with high-quality strikes was the most effective way to deal with it — much the same as dealing with defensive magic.
Still, since Lara had shown she could use her environment to create an advantage for herself, there was no longer any need to worry about her safety from here on out.
If even after all this she couldn’t make it safely to the Central, then it would mean her talent likely couldn’t live up to Master’s expectations anyway.
The mage stopped watching Lara, turned, and disappeared into the forest.
‘Existence replication — effects pronounced.’ Grip Strength +83 kg Mana +5 Spell Learned: Disrupt “Panel.” Name: Lara Age: 18 Race: Human Physical Condition: Healthy Grip Strength: 359 kg Mana: 49 Special Abilities: Metamorphosis, Holy Light Blessing By the little stream beside the giant bear’s lair, a bear pelt hung along the riverbank.
Lara had been in extraordinary luck — she had actually managed to preserve part of the monster’s materials.
Next to the pelt she was tidying up her dress: this one had been a gift from Nina, and the meal earlier had gotten it too dirty to wear for the moment.
She hung that outfit up on the tree as well, and Lara changed into another dress.
As for the athletic school uniform — let it stay as a memento for herself.
Wearing it in this world would still draw far too much attention.
After a good night’s rest, the next day Lara packed up her clothes and continued on toward Ludan Port.
After the giant bear, Lara never again encountered anything that could really be called a threat.
She made the rest of the journey eating berries and killing rabbits, and finally, after eight days, arrived at Ludan Port.
Outside the imposing city walls lay a massive moat.
Compared to Vit Harbor, far more effort had clearly been poured into the defensive works here.
Considering that Vit Harbor had a first-rank mage in residence, and that on top of that the Great Rift Valley was closer to Ludan Port, this wasn’t really all that strange.
Lara walked up to the city gate and waved at the soldier above, signaling for him to lower it — she wanted in.
“Opening the gate is twenty silver!
Put the money in the basket by the river first!” ?
Was this reasonable?
It cost this much to let in one person?
Patting the money in her pocket, Lara couldn’t stop second-guessing it in her head.
No wonder Eilan had given her so much money at the end — he’d seen this coming all along.
Swallowing the loss in silence, Lara wordlessly put the money into the basket.
The soldier up above gave the rope a hard tug to haul the basket up, checked that the amount was correct, and only then lowered the gate.
“Hurry up and get in — miss it and you’ll have to pay all over again.” That’s what he said, but the gate stayed down for more than enough time for a single person to walk through.
Once inside, she saw the soldier climbing down the staircase from the city wall beside her.
“Sorry about that — that’s just how the rules work around here.
Most people come over by boat.
You came across from the mountain side yourself, so you’d already know — it’s pretty unsafe out there, with monsters all over the place.
So the gate doesn’t get opened often, and every time it does, it wears down the structure.
That’s why we charge a fee — for the upkeep.” Lara was taken aback — she really hadn’t expected him to come all the way down just to explain.
Although in truth she hadn’t actually run into all that many monsters along the way.
“It’s all right.
I understand.” And with that, she left the city gate behind.
This port had a far wider variety of goods than Vit Harbor, and yet there weren’t all that many ordinary citizens around.
Looking this way and that, it was mostly merchants and mercenaries everywhere.
The level of safety really must have been affecting the city’s development; even as a port with direct shipping to the Central Continent, its population was still smaller than that of Vit.
After all, ordinary people weren’t exactly going to risk their necks just to come live somewhere even more dangerous than the Central.
Having spent nearly ten days running through the mountains, Lara needed a proper rest before she would be ready to board a ship for the Central Continent.
Walking through the streets, Lara’s eyes were dazzled by all the kinds of goods on display.
A great many were clearly merchandise brought in from the Central — items that down here in the south looked especially precious.
She walked past several inns along the street, only to be told, as soon as she asked, that every one of them was full.
As she wandered the streets, Lara suddenly noticed a blacksmith’s shop.
She drew her longsword and gave it a look — between the tree-chopping and the fighting of the past few days, the edge felt like it had started to curl.
For the journey still ahead of her, having her weapon maintained was only sensible.
With that thought in mind, Lara stepped into the blacksmith’s shop.
“What can I do for you?” Inside the shop the forge fire was blazing fiercely, lighting up the weathered face of a dwarven master craftsman.
Beside the anvil, piles of iron ore and already-forged weapons and armor were stacked together, giving off a faint metallic sheen.
The dwarven master gripped a massive iron hammer; every swing was accompanied by a dull, powerful clang, and the impact of hammer against anvil sent up bright streams of sparks.
Lara handed over her longsword.
“I’d like to have my weapon maintained.” ____ ________________________________________ 🌸 Help Love Bloom!
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