At the name Ruite, Chester instinctively frowned.
Even in her panicked state, Rona briefly explained the full situation. After hearing everything, it only became more absurd. If they had realized so quickly that the monster evolved, they should have thought about escaping first. Yet he had stayed behind to buy time.
Chester stared at the restless Rona standing before him. Ruite had probably planned to let her escape and inform the professors about this situation.
By the time her explanation ended, Rona had already long since left Chester behind. Desperately trying to report what had happened somehow, she sprinted toward the base of the mountain.
Chester fixed his gaze on the path to the right. So the magic he had sensed earlier belonged to the evolved monster?
No, then did that mean he was currently facing the evolved monster alone?
“Haa……”
Chester let out a deep sigh and changed direction. Just as he was about to step onto the path to the right, the ground suddenly began trembling, accompanied by a faint voice in the distance. On top of that, the approach of a familiar magic caught at his senses.
Narrowing his eyes, Chester stared ahead. Something was approaching through the mist, now thicker than before.
“Aah!”
The first thing he saw was Ruite.
His silver hair streamed wildly behind him as he sprinted this way like a madman. And chasing after him was a monster that looked tremendously powerful.
“What the hell is he doing……!”
At the completely unexpected sight, Chester clicked his tongue while tightening his grip on his sword.
As the distance steadily closed, Ruite also spotted Chester.
His eyes suddenly widened, and after running straight past him, he abruptly skidded to a stop.
“……A catalyst.”
Then Ruite strode directly toward Chester while muttering as though possessed.
“What?”
Just as Chester wondered what nonsense he was talking about, the monster charged toward the two of them at full speed.
“Chester, lightning.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Hurry and blast that bastard…… no, that thing with lightning.”
Clicking his tongue, Chester lightly bit his lip, clearly displeased at having to move according to Ruite’s instructions, but he immediately drew his sword.
Then he thrust the blade directly into the stomach of the charging monster and unleashed lightning.
Blue electricity instantly wrapped around the monster’s massive body.
But Chester instinctively knew.
An attack of this level would not be enough to suppress it.
Even so, he poured every bit of his remaining stamina and magic into the attack.
At that moment, Ruite moved roughly three steps behind Chester.
“You, what exactly are you trying to do right now?”
“Just keep doing that.”
Ruite began warming up by rolling his shoulders around and stretching his legs.
At the incomprehensible behavior, Chester frowned deeply while alternating his gaze between the monster and Ruite.
I should’ve just ignored him and left.
Seeing him urgently speak while his bangs scattered in the wind had made Chester move before he even realized it.
Then, apparently finished warming up, Ruite kicked off the ground.
Keeping his eyes fixed solely on Chester’s back, Ruite rapidly dashed forward, and the moment the distance between them narrowed, he put strength into his right foot and leaped high upward.
“Sorry in advance!”
“What?”
Ruite stepped onto Chester’s back, then his shoulder, using them in sequence to propel himself higher into the air.
And finally, using the top of Chester’s head as a foothold, he launched himself upward.
“Ah……!”
Stepped on without the slightest warning, Chester let out a low sound from his throat, while Ruite, now at eye level with the monster, swung his hand through the air.
A thin flame appeared before quickly taking the shape of a spear-like weapon. Ruite immediately plunged the tip of the spear—made purely from firepower—straight into the monster’s skull before detonating his magic.
A monster’s weak points were not much different from a human’s.
If one attacked the head where the brain was located, perhaps significant damage could be dealt. Moreover, the monster’s entire body was currently wrapped in Chester’s lightning. And if fire were added on top of that—
Boom—!
As expected, an explosive reaction erupted.
An enormous blast roared outward, wind sweeping violently in every direction while dirt and stone fragments scattered everywhere.
The firepower that had been insufficient when Ruite attacked alone met Chester’s lightning and created a massive elemental explosion.
“Ugh…….”
At the same time as the explosion, Ruite’s body lost its balance and was violently thrown sideways. He crashed toward the ground and was immediately swept up in the explosive gusts.
As his body tumbled through the air, Ruite grabbed onto whatever his hand could catch.
For a brief moment, chaos continued.
Then the wind gradually died down.
Smoke from the explosion still billowed upward into the sky, and Ruite slowly opened his eyes while feeling intense pain all over his body.
“Oh.”
And the thing that entered his vision was Chester’s face, deeply twisted into a frown.
Glancing downward slightly, Ruite realized Chester was on top of him while he himself lay sprawled on the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“That’s what I want to ask. You grabbed me and pulled me down.”
“Ahh.”
Now that he thought about it, while being blown away, he had instinctively flailed his hands around and grabbed onto something. Apparently, that something had been Chester.
When Ruite let out a low sound as though he had only just realized it, Chester released a long, exhausted sigh.
“What exactly happened?”
Covered in dirt from head to toe, Chester stood up while irritably brushing the dust off himself.
“I was trying to buy as much time as possible, but that thing was way stronger than I expected.”
Ruite stared toward the area still engulfed in thick smoke. Trees broken and scattered everywhere made the scale of the earlier explosion feel all the more real.
“So just when I was trying to run away, you happened to appear.”
The moment he remembered Chester’s primary attribute was lightning, he had thought Chester would make an excellent catalyst.
Ruite’s own firepower had not been enough to suppress the monster, but Chester possessed the ability to increase that firepower and trigger an explosion.
“You should’ve just run away with Rona from the beginning.”
“Well, the thing is, Rona’s slow at running.”
As though unable to understand what that even meant, Chester tilted his head.
“She’s slow at running, and with a monster like that crazily chasing from behind, of course she’d be scared.”
“What are you…….”
“Well, after considering various reasons together, I concluded that I should be the one buying time.”
Though he was not sure it had really worked out all that well.
Ruite muttered while dusting dirt from his hair.
Ruite’s plan itself had been fairly efficient. However, considering how dangerous one of the two roles had been, no matter how efficient the strategy was, it was not something one could attempt lightly.
Yet Ruite had just said he chose that role simply because his classmate would be frightened.
“Anyway, that attack was perfectly timed, Chester.”
When Ruite raised a thumbs-up toward him, Chester let out an incredulous scoff.
When Ruite first ran over shouting about lightning and all that, Chester had assumed he was asking for help to save him.
But that was not it at all.
Ruite had blatantly used him as a stepping stone to attack the monster.
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he became.
Chester turned his head and glared sharply at Ruite.
No, normally people did not step on the head of someone they liked, did they? He could not shake the feeling that he had been completely used.
But unaware of what Chester was thinking, Ruite merely scratched his cheek and looked away, apparently uncomfortable beneath Chester’s sharp gaze.
Then the ground shook.
The smoke from the explosion swirled before the battered monster slowly emerged from within it.
“Wow…… after all that, it’s still alive?”
Ruite let out a hollow laugh.
Chester immediately tightened his grip on his sword again.
Then he looked toward Ruite, who was still sitting on the ground.
And toward the droplets of blood scattered beside him.
Apparently Ruite had cut his forearm, because blood was dripping from it.
“Hey, you’re in the way, so get lost already. Go check the situation with the professors or something.”
“Huh? You’re going to fight it alone? Can you handle it?”
“Do you think I’m you? I could’ve handled this myself even without your abilities.”
“Even so, alone you probably…….”
Ruite was about to say wouldn’t it be too much? when Chester suddenly narrowed his eyes sharply at him.
But then the monster suddenly roared.
The moment Chester tensed his body, a faint magic circle formed in the air above the monster’s head, and a rain of ice arrows poured downward.
The monster let out a painful groan at the unexpected attack.
Then its body collapsed straight to the ground.
At the unforeseen situation, the two merely blinked slowly in confusion.
“Ruite! Chester!”
Urgent voices rang out from the distance.
It was Professors Harold and Neo.
The two approached them with pale faces.
“Are both of you alright?!”
Harold hurriedly checked over Ruite and Chester’s conditions.
Neo approached the fallen monster, and with a light snap of his fingers, the magic circle floating overhead quickly disappeared. He first checked whether the monster had truly stopped breathing.
“Professor, we’re okay.”
“When I heard from Rona, I was so…….”
Harold seemed so shocked that he could barely finish his sentence properly.
Once Neo announced that the monster was dead, Ruite finally relaxed.
“For now, both of you come down the mountain with me.”
Ruite planted a hand on the ground and slowly pushed himself upright.
But at that exact moment, his head spun.
It felt as though every ounce of strength and magic in his body had been sucked out like water absorbed by a sponge, and Ruite staggered.
“Ruite!”
His vision blurred.
The last thing he saw was Chester’s still-frowning face beside the visibly panicked Harold.
Then his vision went completely dark, and Ruite lost consciousness.
Just as Harold quickly reached out to support him, Chester stepped forward first.
“……Seriously, he’s something else.”
Clicking his tongue, Chester reached toward the collapsed Ruite without hesitation.
He directly hoisted Ruite’s limp body onto his back.
“Let’s hurry down, Professor.”
“Ah, right.”
Harold had been about to say he would support and carry Ruite himself since Chester also looked exhausted, but somehow the words did not come out.
Perhaps because Chester was carrying Ruite surprisingly steadily.