I quickly decided that using spirit to slice through—well, rupture apart—the lesser sahagin wasn’t a good idea. As for why, well... That was because when its body burst, its hard scales had shot everywhere. Niedz, Lukas, and Gahedd were thankfully unharmed, since I’d deflected the ones that had flown in our direction, but in a crowded fight like this, doing that again might end up harming my allies more than it helped them.
Hmm. I was going to have to think about this one.
There were close to no lesser sahagin near Maalt, where I had been based for most of my adventuring career, so I had little experience fighting them. I took this as a reminder that I needed to keep up my studies.
Still, I had a general idea of the right way to go about it.
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
The lesser sahagin Niedz had been fighting wouldn’t be bothering anyone anymore, so I dashed over to help Lukas and Gahedd. Honestly, this next part should have been even easier, since I’d be approaching the fish monsters from behind. And since the Bronze-classer trio were roughly about as strong as the lesser sahagin, that meant the latter wouldn’t have the leeway to watch their backs.
The first one was so focused on the fight in front of it that it didn’t even notice when my mana-charged sword decapitated it, and the second met nearly the same fate. Two lesser sahagin heads went flying through the air—but that didn’t mean we could let our guards down yet.
Lukas, who seemed to think the fight was over when he saw the heads go flying, looked over at me. “Boss Rentt! You saved— Whoa!”
Thankfully, the reprimanding glare I’d shot him had gotten the message across, and he reacted in time. To what, you may ask? Well, to the harpoon that had been thrust in his direction by the decapitated body of the one of the lesser sahagin.
This might have been a bit ironic coming from me, but if you assumed that a monster would completely drop dead if you cut its head off, then you were asking for trouble. Lesser sahagin were no exception—they had enough vitality in them to cling on for a few more moments, at least. Of course, as they weren’t undead like me, they’d experience a severe drop in bodily function and would be truly dead fairly soon...but that was still far longer than it would take for a human to go down.
Lukas, who’d barely managed to dodge out of the way of the lesser sahagin’s thrust, stabbed his sword into its body.
A monster owed much of its durability to the mana it possessed and while the scales of a lesser sahagin maintained their hardness even after their mana supply was cut off, the way their scales fit tightly together was actually a physiological function maintained by the monster’s own mana reserves. In other words, since I’d cut its head off, Lukas’s sword had no trouble finding a gap to plunge into its body.
Of course, given what had just happened, Lukas wasn’t about to let his guard down again. He tore his blade out of the creature’s body and brought it back at the ready. “You want some more?!” he shouted. “C-Come and get it, then!”
Lesser sahagin weren’t built quite that durable, however. In spite of Lukas’s challenge, the fish monster’s body slowly collapsed to the floor. It was still twitching, but that’s just how monsters were. Unsettling to the end—and then a bit longer for good measure.
Lukas seemed to be aware of that as well, because he didn’t look particularly bothered. While the sight might have scared an ordinary person, it was an everyday occurrence for adventurers.
For a moment there, I’d thought he hadn’t noticed my gaze and that I would have to intervene, but it seemed that he was already showing signs of growth. That was probably because his opponents had been of a similar skill level. Hopefully, he’d be able to keep this up.
As for Gahedd, it seemed he’d never let his guard down in the first place, unlike his more nervous friend. He was definitely the best of the trio at maintaining his composure in a fight. I chalked it up to a difference in mental fortitude. I hadn’t given him a signal of any kind, but was still standing ready before the other headless sahagin. He safely avoided its final attempt at an attack, then thrust his spear straight in between its now loosened scales—right into its heart, no less. Even when its corpse crumpled to the floor, he made sure to watch it carefully for a while longer, poking it with his spear from a safe distance.
Yeah, he was definitely the most cautious of the trio.
“All’s well that ends well, I guess,” I muttered to myself. “Still, this is pretty tiring...”
While my undead body hardly knew the concept of fatigue, the fight had been draining in a different sense. Fighting alone without any allies around me to worry about? Sure. But fighting while constantly having to keep an eye on Niedz and the others at the same time? Much harder.
If they’d been far weaker—Iron-classers, for example—it would’ve been a lot simpler. I’d had plenty of experience drilling the basics into rookies, after all. But with Bronze-classers, there was a whole lot more to keep in mind. For one thing, I was constantly worried that they would die if I took my eyes off them for even a moment. It made me wonder if Capitan had ever felt the same kind of stress when teaching me, and that in turn summoned a profound sense of gratitude from the bottom of my heart.
Speaking of Capitan, though, I definitely wasn’t alone in my observations. I looked in his direction—hopefully he’d have some advice for my teaching methods—and saw him give me a firm nod.
I breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed our Bronze-class students had managed to barely scrape by with a passing mark.