Kureous

  Chasing after the beast that almost killed me seemed irrational, but it was exactly what we had been doing for the past few days. To avoid getting lost, we followed the map everywhere we went and confirmed by air whether we were on the right track the next morning. And the fights with monsters were only getting fiercer. We almost lost a few men st time, even though we were the ambushers, I thought to myself as I rode my horse that night.

  "I've been meaning to ask this for a while," I spoke to Lucia, who was carefully lighting up the way with her fire magic.

  "Yes?" She asked, her eyes focused on the magical fme in her hands.

  "What's your level?" She had the highest K/D ratio in the party, so she must have leveled up quite a bit. There's also the disturbing fact that humans give far more EXP than your average monster, I thought to myself as I awaited her answer, but she seemed to go silent. Come on, what's the big deal?

  "80," She said in a barely audible voice. Huh?!

  "What did you just—"

  "I just got to level 80. Please don't tell anyone about it," She said, turning to me for the first time with a pleading look on her face. She was weirdly fixated on how low or high her level was. Is that the norm? I wondered, but that was Hertz dialed in, saying,

  "I've located our mark." Exactly what I wanted to hear! I thought with a wide smile. Why was I going after a monster that almost killed me? Because of the EXP! Repeating what we did st time was impossible, as no one here could use barrier magic, but Geiter and Arnaud would get to level 50, which was a massive win in my books.

  "Guys, Hertz found the Cerberus!" Immediately realizing my mistake, I called the party members over and quietly assigned the roles. Phildina, Batti, Kimmel, Sarde, and Matilda would be staying back to defend the Company while Kathryn, Lucia, Arnaud, Geiter, and I would be fighting the Cerberus.

  "Are you sure about this, Daphne?" Phildina asked me with a look of deep concern as Kimmel lit up a torch.

  "Yes, you're one of our strongest fighters. If another Cerberus or boss monster shows up, the Company will need your strength, Phildina." She bit her lip in frustration and turned to Lucia, saying,

  "Protect Daphne with your life, okay?"

  "I would do that even without you telling me," Lucia answered with a strange, almost unreadable look in her eye. As dense as I was, even I could tell the atmosphere was getting weird, so I got down from my horse, shocking them greatly.

  "Aren't you going to fight on your mount?" Phildina asked, and I shook my head, saying,

  "Nah, I should take advantage of my small size. It'd probably make dodging easier for me. Plus, I wouldn't want anything happening to him," I said as I rubbed his mane affectionately. We'd grown closer over the course of these nights, but... I'm going to have to think up a name for you soon, huh? Phildina calls her Pegasus Timothy, so maybe something starting with 'T' would be nice. After a few moments, I thought, That's it! I'd name my horse after the king of all monsters in Greek Mythology! "I'll see you soon, Typhon,"

  "Typhon? That came out of nowhere!" Phildina said while giggling happily.

  "Shut up, you're the one who named your Pegasus Timothy!" I countered, feeling that my magnificent naming sense was insulted. After a little bit of back and forth, we were about to go, and Phildina went full mother mode on me.

  "Did you bring your potions?" She would almost ask every five seconds. It was a cute, heartwarming sight to witness that made me want to jump back into her arms when this was all over. Eventually parting ways, the journey to the Cerberus' location was quiet, almost too quiet, as everybody was busy preparing themselves mentally. Geiter and Arnaud were trying their best to put on a brave front, but I could tell they were shivering. I mean, I kinda was too. It almost killed me the st time. I'll have to be especially careful, as it seems to be targeting me. Just then, Kathryn grabbed my hand and said,

  "Don't worry. You're helping Mama, so I'll protect you, too!" Helping Mama? What does she mean by that? But I didn't have the luxury of time to start thinking about it, as we were already where the Cerberus was. It had been devouring the corpse of what appeared to be a Giant Spider before slowly turning to face us with its fiery red eyes.

  The next thing I knew, I was once again face to face with the three-headed beast, as it had instantly closed the distance between us. What ridiculous speed! I thought to myself as I forced my body to react, moving out of the way in time for Lucia to attack with four bdes of wind. It dodged but Kathryn, who had been reading its movements, predicted where it would nd and wounded it with one quick stroke of her sword.

  It let out a pained roar and stared at her with a ferocity unlike anything I'd seen before. She has an amazing sense for battle, I thought to myself as I drew an arrow from my quiver, positioning it on my bow with one goal in mind. I didn't want to fell the trees and draw attention to ourselves, so I wouldn't use my full strength, opting to control its movements instead. If it wanted to dodge somewhere, I'd prevent it from doing that, and Lucia seemed to understand my intentions as she started mirroring my actions with her magical bdes of wind.

  With fewer and fewer safe pces to move to, it was slowly getting overwhelmed by Kathryn's onsught. Once weakened enough, Arnaud and Geiter would deal the finishing blow, but it howled at that moment, calling forth HellHounds to come to its rescue.

  "Tch," I clicked my tongue in frustration. If I or Lucia shifted our attention toward them, the pn could potentially fall apart. The Cerberus would probably escape like st time, leaving us with a bunch of HellHounds to deal with. If only we had another fighter... However, I seemed to have forgotten something. W-what's that? It was barely visible in the night sky, but a dagger whistled through the air, eventually piercing one of the HellHounds, causing it to colpse on the spot. Weird. The HellHound didn't even know what hit it, I thought to myself as relief washed over me.

  "That's a strange technique you've developed there, Hertz," I muttered as I watched the HellHounds fall one by one, seemingly blind to the poisoned daggers he was throwing at them. Several possibilities crossed my mind at the time, one of them being that he had used the [Conceal] skill on his daggers, but that had never been done before in Everst Dynasty. Is it a skill unique to him? Or did his skill evolve over time to include the concealment of other things? It was an interesting train of thought and a question I'd ask him ter, but we had to wrap things up, so I focused on the task at hand, continuing my support until it roared in pain for a second time.

  "Arnaud! Geiter! Now!" I excimed, and they responded quickly, coming out of hiding to deliver the final blow to the Cerberus. Arnaud perfectly synchronized his nce thrust with Geiter's sword stroke, allowing them to hit the beast at the same time, sharing ridiculous amounts of EXP between themselves.

  Seeing the Cerberus colpse, I fell to my butt and sighed, thinking, Finally, it's over. We had defeated our second boss monster without relying on barriers to get the job done. It was a testament to how far we had come, but it was also a lesson. I thought it was a good pn, but it still managed to call for backup at the st minute. I could tell it was willing to use its underlings as sacrifices for its escape, and if not for Hertz, the pn would've failed. I'll have to account for all possibilities moving forward, I thought to myself as we started making our way back.