Lily was flung back, but the assailant was driven off course. The fangs aiming for my head snapped shut just 50 centimeters to my side.
The assailant corrected its posture for landing. Using that opening, I just barely managed to hold my large shield at the ready. By the time I realized that the thing that flew out at me was in fact a wolf with grey fur, it leaped at me once more. I held my shield out toward it and braced for impact.
“U-Urgh?!”
In an instant, I lost my balance from the crash and collapsed on the ground face up. This was bad. But just as I began panicking, I heard the sound of the air roaring. The force pushing down on my body was suddenly gone, and I rose to my feet in a hurry.
The wolf landed a short distance away. Rose was now standing off against it. When she saw I was under attack, she had come rushing over.
“You really saved me there, Rose.”
The axe that should’ve been in her hand was no longer there. She had thrown it on the spur of the moment after seeing me in a crisis. That really saved me, but now Rose was only armed with a shield.
“Grrr...”
The growling grey wolf was over two meters tall. If I remembered right, this was what they called a firefang back in the Colony. Its specialty was its namesake...
“Be careful Rose! It’s going to shoot fire!”
Just as I shouted, the wolf’s jaws snapped open.
“Graaawr!”
Flames shot from its mouth in a blaze. Rose charged forth without hesitation and caught the flames with her shield. She managed to obstruct them for a second, but the amorphous stream of fire went around her defenses and began spreading out before my eyes.
“Uh oh... Aaah?!”
The moment the flames were about to swallow me whole, something threw my body.
“Master! Are you alright?!”
“Lily?!”
Lily looked down at me with a strained expression. She had managed to save me from the blaze. After saving me from the surprise attack earlier, she immediately regained her footing and dashed in to save me from the fire.
Following that, she carried both me and Katou, who was further to the back, and ran into the forest. This was a pretty ridiculous scene considering the size of everyone involved, but, as a monster, this was entirely possible for her to accomplish.
“Rose! Keep it at bay just a little longer!” Lily sharply yelled.
Rose planted herself where she was and took on the firefang’s flames. She was blocking the route between it and us. The shield that Rose used was made of wood, but it wasn’t burning due to its magical properties.
After confirming we were no longer in range, she switched from blocking to evading. The firefang’s flames chased her, but she skillfully took her distance. Magical puppets possessed far more defensive power than their wooden exterior suggested. No small amount of fire was pouring over her, but, as far as I could tell, she didn’t appear to be taking much damage. This was a tremendous relief for me.
Lily put us down on the ground. “Master! It’s okay to defeat that thing, right?!” A glyph appeared in her palm.
“Yeah, I don’t mind. I can’t tame that one. Don’t hold anything back and defeat it!”
“Roger that!”
The glyph in Lily’s palm shined with a vivid blue light. As far as I knew, glyphs were essential in the use of magic. The color indicated its attribute, the size indicated its power, and the shape determined its nature.
There were quite a few people who had been obsessed with figuring out all of these details back at the Colony. So, in just one month of living in this world, they had finished cataloging pretty much all combat-use magic. For example, a glyph of about 30 centimeters in diameter fired grade 1 magic. It had about the same power as a small caliber handgun. That was pretty much how they had categorized everything.
The magic Lily used, which took her several seconds to conjure, was grade 2 water magic, similar in power to a large caliber handgun used for hunting. Swords made of water appeared in the air and took flight like soaring falcons.
“Graaaah!”
The swords flew faster than I could follow. The firefang stopped shooting flames and dodged them by twisting its body and jumping in the air. But even so, everything was well within Lily’s predictions.
“Grah?!”
Rose threw her shield and it slammed right into the firefang’s nose. The beast’s posture broke midair. Rose came charging in. She had lost all of her weapons, but she grappled the airborne firefang while it was still unable to brace itself or put its tremendous speed to use.
She grabbed the wolf by the neck and forced it to the ground. The beast howled and screamed. Back in the Colony, firefangs were considered more dangerous than magical puppets, so watching Rose charge in barehanded gave me a momentary cold sweat. However, it seemed it was going to be alright.
The most terrifying thing about firefangs was their tendency to form packs. Fortunately, only one wolf attacked us here. That fact may have been what brought Rose victory in this battle.
Once the wolf was down, Lily finished things off by cutting its throat with wind magic, killing the beast for good.
“...Is it over?”
As I watched it pass away, I finally let out the breath I had been holding this entire time. My heart was pounding with a terrible feeling. Even I could tell my expression was quite stiff.
“That had my blood running cold. Are you okay, Katou?”
“...Yes.” Katou bobbed her head.
She was somewhat pale. I probably wasn’t looking any better.
“I’m sorry for being a hindrance...”
“Don’t be. The same applies to me.”
I made a bitter expression. Back then, we managed to take the initiative in our fight against the magical puppet, but naturally, there was also a possibility we would lose the initiative. I knew the two of us were dead weight, but I didn’t think it would be this bad. It was fortunate that we managed to get through it; that was in every way thanks to Lily and Rose’s devotion.
The fact that we managed to kill a firefang was also a boon for us. With this, it was perhaps possible for Lily to obtain a wolf’s sense of smell through her mimicry. I had high hopes this could improve our ability to detect enemies.
After that, we continued our investigation of the students’ corpses. We were unfortunately unable to learn anything useful. I didn’t expect much to begin with anyway, so that didn’t really matter. It was likely they were all killed by the firefang we just fought against.
Keeping a little more on guard than before, we continued through the forest, but we didn’t encounter any other monsters that day and decided to return to the cave.