Chapter 67: The Bear Mob Clears

Chapter 67:
The Bear Mob Clears

 

WE KEPT RUNNING in the direction of Crimonia, but I couldn’t find Cliff. Since I was using the detection skill, I didn’t think I would miss him—he wasn’t dead, right? I wasn’t picking up any corpses, though I did ping more monsters than I could count at the edge of my radar. I looked in the direction of the monster blips and saw a forest nearby.

I had a decision to make. Would I keep searching for Cliff, or would I slay the monsters?

I hadn’t had any issues with wolves, goblins, and orcs in my battles in the past. My concern was my mana. Did I have enough mana to be able to defeat ten thousand monsters? I didn’t know exactly how much mana I had. I never used magic to the point that I ran out since I came to this world. As a result, I didn’t know exactly how much magic I could cast, or how much mana I could let loose.

Also, I didn’t know how strong wyverns were. I fought them in the game, but not in this world.

I had no idea what I’d do with Cliff once I found him. If we were attacked by ten thousand monsters at that point, it would be difficult to fight and keep him safe.

I thought for a bit and made a decision. To protect Noa’s smile, I changed course for the forest. If I could defeat the ten thousand monsters first, everything would work out.

“Kumayuru, thanks for everything till now.”

I patted Kumayuru for the marathon I put them through, then swapped them out for Kumakyu.

“Kumakyu, we’re going to be running through some monsters, so I’m counting on you.”

When I gently brushed their neck, they snuggled up to me and let out a coo. I saddled up, and we rushed into the middle of the woods. As soon as we entered the forest, a bunch of goblins came at us. I invoked a wind cutter and loosed it at the goblins’ necks. They vanished from my radar.

The white bear charged through the middle of the forest. Goblin heads went flying on all sides as we passed. I lost track of the goblin corpses we left in the wake of Kumakyu’s white shadow. As we ran, I caught sight of another horde ahead. Suddenly we slipped past the tree line and into a well of bright light. We were in a clearing flush with goblins.

I had Kumakyu run toward the middle of the group. I remembered my time in the game, and all those hours top-ranking in the time attack events. How many trash mobs can you clear in five minutes? Two minutes? Thirty seconds?

I purged the goblins in the clearing with a couple of spells, and still had mana to spare. I pinged my surroundings and found only wolves and orcs remaining. I didn’t know how much longer my mana would hold out, so I decided to slay the orcs first, in the hopes that once I ran dry, I could fall back on weapons and the occasional thrown rock to handle the wolves.

I pulled chilled oren juice from bear storage and chugged it while I took a short rest, then had Kumakyu take me in the direction of the orcs.

“Sorry Kumakyu. Hang in there just a bit longer.”

I still wasn’t even halfway done.

 

A few minutes later, I encountered the orc horde. I put more mana into the wind blades fly than I had for the goblins, allowing for the additional resilience of orc necks. The blades sliced cleanly into the incoming orcs, so it looked like I’d judged the mana levels correctly.

I wanted to keep this fight long-distance; up close, they’d have more strength and staying power to work with than the goblins did. The orcs brandished their weapons and rushed at me with a speed that didn’t match their cumbersome size.

Arrows flew at us as Kumakyu ran. Orc archers! I remembered those from the game, too; both here and there, getting pelted from a distance was annoying. I wrapped Kumakyu up in a protective wind spell. A bolt of flame flew past my face.

“They’ve got mages?”

They had covered all their fantasy combat bases. Annoying. Oh well, I thought. Fight numbers with numbers. I invoked an earth spell and made ten bear golems about the same size as my summons.

In that moment, for the first time ever, I felt my mana drain away. It was almost unnerving.

I had the bear golems rush the orcs. I ran behind them on Kumakyu. They used their sharp claws to stab at the orcs’ throats. I loosed air cutters over the top, lopping heads where I could. The bear golems wouldn’t stop even when arrows pierced them. Magic splashed against them harmlessly. Even when they sustained damage, I poured mana into them to repair them. The golems matched the orcs’ movements, and I finished them off with my spells. Even if I was surrounded, the golems protected me.

Geeze, I thought, why are there so many orcs around? If this had been the game, you could just brush it off as an event, but this was just ridiculous. There had to be a reason they were so close to the capital and all in one place.

I cut the neck of the final orc. It was over. I looked behind me. We left a trail of orc corpses. Even though I’d fought that much, thanks to the bear clothes I wasn’t feeling it much physically. I let out a small sigh and checked my remaining mana.

“There’s still…some mana left…but I get the feeling there’s a whole lot less.”

If I could only convert it into a numerical value like in the game, I would know for sure.

The last monsters were the wolves and the wyverns. I pulled my hood down and checked my radar again. There were wyvern signals ahead; it looked like they came closer while I dealt with the orcs. Oddly, the wyverns weren’t moving. Even when I looked into the sky, I didn’t see them flying around. Were they taking a siesta or something? No way.

Since they weren’t moving, I disassembled my golems and changed into the white bear clothes to recover my mana a bit. No one was around, right? A warm feeling that must have been mana recovery flooded me as I started stowing the orc bodies, taking their swords, bows, and staves as my spoils. The only thing I didn’t take were the heads. I mean, they were heads. Even going near them squicked me out, and you couldn’t sell them.

Once I felt I recovered enough mana, I changed back into the black bear outfit. No one was watching, right?

Well then, I thought, guess it’s time to slay some wyverns.

 

I mounted Kumakyu and we made for the wyverns. They hadn’t moved at all so far, and I soon learned why.

“They’re sleeping?”

I didn’t know why they were zonked out, but I’d defeat them before they woke. I got down from Kumakyu and slowly approached the sleeping wyverns. Then, one by one, I severed their heads. It all ended so simply, it was almost disappointing. Even though I was slicing their neighbors’ heads off, the wyverns didn’t wake up. Once I was done, I put their bodies into my bear storage.

Coming by wyvern materials this easily felt like cheating, but I guess I’d accept this as compensation for all my hard work. The moment I finished putting the last wyvern into bear storage, the ground started to tremble.

“What?”

The ground swelled, and I jumped back.

I saw a monster that I’d seen make appearances in the game rise from the ground. It looked like a blown up earthworm—it was a wyrm. It opened its mouth wide and crawled out. I hadn’t noticed it while using my detection skill. It was possible that it didn’t reach deep underground, or that I hadn’t noticed it because it was underneath the wyverns. The wyrm turned toward me. Great gobbets of drool streamed from its mouth. I guess I smelled tasty.

“Gross.”

It lunged. I jumped back, clear of its mouth. Nothing that big should move so fast. I never fought wyrms in the game—they were just nasty. When you broke the skin it’d spray fluid all over and release a terrible smell, then heal over instantly. They were a huge pain to fight.

But now I had bear magic.

The moment I tried to invoke magic, the wyrm bent its body sharply. I dodged backward, but it sideswiped me with one of its massive coils. You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought. I was flicked away, but thanks to the bear equipment I wasn’t hurt. I fixed my stance and released some wind magic, but I wasn’t able to cut up the wyrm’s body. I threw a fireball in the same way, but it was all repelled.

I knew it was a rehash, but I decided to defeat it in the same way I did the black viper. I faced the wyrm from a spot a little ways away. While the wyrm’s mouth was open, it crawled and drew near. I made ten mini bears from conjured fire. Then I had them rush into the wyrm’s wide-open mouth.

“Go!”

The wyrm might have mistook the bears as food, since it tried to eat them on its own. It was brainless. The mini fire bears moved around inside the wyrm’s body. It writhed on the ground, spewing drool. In an attempt to escape from the pain, it tried to vomit out the foreign material, but the mini fire bears held fast within the wyrm. I got the feeling that this was the strongest magic I had for large creatures. No matter the monster, as long as they were a living creature, their insides were soft.

The wyrm banged itself against the ground many times, but gradually it stopped moving.

“Um, will I be able to sell this?”

With the black viper, I was able to sell the meat and skin and all kinds of stuff. I didn’t want to eat this thing, and I wasn’t sure about the skin. Even if it was edible, I didn’t want to make Fina and the others eat it. For the time being, I left thinking about how to deal with the wyrm for later and put it in bear storage.

 

With that, the only thing left was the wolves. I hadn’t used mana when I fought the wyverns and I just used the fire bears in the fight with the wyrm. I had plenty of mana left to defeat the wolves. It would be a quick errand, and then I could go home.

I called Kumakyu and headed toward the wolfpack. The fight was barely worth mentioning; the hard part was stowing the bodies. I could’ve left them as is, but when I thought about the orphanage struggling to eat, I didn’t want to waste them, so I made sure to collect them. They wouldn’t go bad so long as they stayed in bear storage.

I had Kumayuru and Kumakyu help me out with rounding them up, then mounted Kumakyu and left the forest that now reeked of blood.

The air felt great to breathe. I looked at the sky; the sun was setting. It was dusk. In that case, I guess it’d make more sense to spend a night out than to force myself to get back?

I took the traveling bear house out of my bear storage and decided to stay the night.

For some reason, even though I wasn’t physically fatigued, I was still awfully tired. I guess it was mental exhaustion? I had a simple dinner, and after I took a bath, I collapsed into bed and fell into the world of dreams.