Chapter 25: Triumphant Return

Chapter 25:
Triumphant Return

 

IT WAS DANGEROUS to move at night, so we stayed at the hideout until morning. Even once the sun came up, we couldn’t bring the thieves with us. There were just too many of them. So we tied them up to pillars inside the hideout and escorted the hostages down the mountain.

The footing was bad, and there were monster attacks to deal with, but we safely got everyone to the road. We could finally relax.

“You guys all did great. We’re almost back to the village.”

“Mr. Noir, doesn’t something seem a little odd?” the chief’s granddaughter said, looking closely at the entrance to the village.

What did she see?

“There should always be someone near the entrance.”

“Oh boy, do you think it came back?” I asked my party.

I’d nearly forgotten about the magic eater. If it was back, we needed to protect the hostages.

“I’m going to ask you all to wait out here,” I told them. “We’ll go check it out.”

When we got to the village, we confirmed that the problem was, indeed, the magic eater. There weren’t any villagers around, so hopefully they were hiding. For now, Tigerson was holding his own against the monster, though I noticed something odd as the two faced each other.

“Huh, doesn’t the eater look a little beaten up?”

“Yeah…it totally does.”

Its skin was torn up and it was covered in dirt, almost as if it had tumbled down a few rocky slopes. Tigerson, on the other hand, didn’t have any visible wounds. Was he winning?

<Ooh, you came at an excellent time, Noir.>

“Sorry for making you wait so long, Tigerson.”

<No trouble at all. How were things on your end?>

“We managed to save everyone, thankfully.”

<I would expect no less of my good friend. Now, about this creature.>

“Grrrr…”

The large mouth on the magic eater’s stomach was drooling, not in hunger, but in pain.

<I have been diligently knocking it away ever since it reappeared. It may have strong resistance to physical attacks, but it is not immune to damage. I thought I might win in a battle of attrition.>

Holy crap. It must have taken tens, or even hundreds, of hits. I almost felt bad for it.

<I thought about this very hard all night. The creature grows stronger when it consumes magic. As such, I concluded that it would be best to use only attacks that it could not consume.>

“Well, it looks like you were right.”

Luckily, Tigerson had both the strength and stamina to make that strategy work.

<However, my attacks always seem to be just slightly lacking.>

“We can help with that.”

<In that case, I would like you to come at it from behind. For some reason, it seems to particularly dislike taking hits to the stomach, but it also seems to be able to move its vulnerable spot to its back.>

It had made mouths appear on its arms and legs when it consumed our spells, but the big mouth on its stomach seemed to be different. It couldn’t be retracted, but I guess it could be moved? Tigerson’s plan certainly seemed worth a try.

This time Tigerson and I made sure to attack together. It would be a pain if the eater ate Luna’s shot, and Emma’s range was just too short. It wasn’t hard for me to get around behind the monster either, since it moved so slowly.

The real challenge was yet to come. As the creature squared off against Tigerson, it looked over its shoulder at me. I made eye contact with Tigerson, and he made the first move. He charged the eater from the front while I charged in from behind. Tigerson tried to tear open the eater’s stomach with his mighty claws—and he was right! Just before his claws made contact, the mouth disappeared and reappeared on the creature’s back.

“Take this, big mouth!” I stabbed the tip of my blade right into the eater’s purple tongue.

“Hnnngh?!” It let out a small shriek that was hard to describe, then fell over and stopped moving.

How anticlimactic.

“Kind of crazy how it went down that easily once we found its weakness…”

I did earn a number of levels, though. It might have been a ravenous glutton, but in the end, it served as a delicious experience-point meal.

<I see my reasoning was accurate. Heh, I feel as if I could shout for joy.>

Tigerson had a lot of combat experience, so he had a keen mind for that sort of thing. However invincible that creature might have seemed, it was still a living being, so he knew it had to have a weak point. And here I couldn’t even come up with a way to circumvent its Consume Magic skill. At least now I knew better for next time.

A cheerful atmosphere took the village when we called the villagers out of hiding and brought all the hostages home.

“I don’t know how we could possibly thank you.”

“Grandpa…”

They must have missed each other desperately, because both the chief and his granddaughter started crying. They planned a festival to celebrate being freed from the thieves, and we were invited, but we couldn’t stay. We needed to get back to the guild posthaste and call for soldiers to arrest the remaining thieves.

“Well, please come back and visit again when you have time. We’ll be waiting.”

“I’m going to live my life on the right path from now on! I wish you all luck!”

The chief and Good Guy saw us off as we headed back.

“So, uh, was I…a good leader?” I asked timidly as we rode home on Tigerson’s back.

“You were perfect,” Emma said.

“I think you had sound judgement and took appropriate action. I believe this trip really highlighted your strongest qualities, Sir Noir.”

<Truthfully, I think you might be more suited to leadership than you realize.>

I was glad to hear it. I probably wouldn’t have gotten perfect marks, but it was definitely a passing grade at least.

 

***

 

We reported back to the guild on the morning of the fourth day of our long weekend. Lola jumped for joy at the sight of us and couldn’t stop smiling.

“If anyone could pull it off, I knew it would be you, Mr Noir!”

“We defeated a magic eater, too. We didn’t get any materials from it, though since it was, uh, pretty gross.”

“Wow! You’re already the ace of Odin, Mr. Noir. I’d have nothing to complain about if you married me now. Well…enough joking. I’ll go call for the soldiers to collect the thieves. After that, you should be promoted to Grade C.”

Lola and everyone else in the guild congratulated me and celebrated my success. I was truly happy. Now we would be able to enter Treasure Mountain to hunt dragons for our exam. Unfortunately, Emma was a total wet blanket.

“Hey! What about me?”

“You’re still in Grade D, Ms. Emma.”

“What? You shouldn’t be hostile to me just because we’re romantic rivals.”

“I’m doing nothing of the sort. Mr. Noir joined up before you and has completed more requests, that’s all.”

Now that she mentioned it, that did sound right. Emma didn’t always join me on missions, but the difference in our scores couldn’t be that big. She was likely only a couple requests behind.

“Then I’ll go out and hunt some monsters right now!”

We had just returned from a harrowing expedition, but Emma went right back out. She had so much energy.

I knew she would be fine on her own for a few solo requests, so we split up and I went home. I planned on getting some much needed sleep, but I got no such opportunity. It was still a holiday, so my family dragged me out into town for some fun.

Together, we nosed around to find new restaurants. I got to try fried scorpion and other exotic stuff like that. It was kind of creepy, but ultimately unbelievably tasty. The outing also ended up being something of a happy accident, since it earned me almost 1,000 LP.

That evening, I got even more good news: Emma made it to Grade C, and we had dinner together to celebrate.

“Uuuugh, I’m so stuffed I can’t move an inch. Let me sleep in Alice’s room tonight,” said Emma.

“Only if you promise not to attack my brother in his sleep,” said Alice.

“I wouldn’t do that. What do you think I am?”

“A bloodthirsty…no, more like a home-wrecker.”

“Hey, Noir, does Alice hate me or something?”

Emma looked like she was about to burst into tears, so I comforted her by saying it was just Alice’s sense of humor. My sister had a tendency to blurt out some pretty strange comments.

Before I fell asleep, I contemplated my next moves. I still had plenty of time before the end of Lola and Sarah’s battle, and the deadline for our exam was a ways off too. I didn’t want to rush into taking out that dragon without preparing. It was probably stronger than the enemies we’d faced on this last mission. But with careful preparation, I was sure we had a shot at victory.

To be totally honest, my greatest strength was cowardly tactics. I didn’t particularly enjoy courageous frontal attacks or daring gambits. Unfortunately, I was much better suited to more conservative or even underhanded approaches.

But despite all that, as a leader, the most important thing was ensuring my party’s safety. That at least I could be confident about.