Chapter 568:
Seleiyu Fights
“OKAY, TIME TO SAVE KEITH. Kumakyu, let’s go!”
“Cwoon.”
After Yuna said this, she mounted her white bear Kumakyu and dashed off before I could say a word to stop her.
We were so high up.
“Yuna!” I shouted.
Somehow, Yuna and Kumakyu easily landed on the ground and dashed straight for Keith. She was charging straight into a horde of monsters.
“She’s charging straight toward death. What a stupid little girl. But I can’t let her continue. What a shame.”
After saying this, the mana gem under the man’s clothes glowed.
“What did you do?!”
“I only canceled my command. Now the monsters will attack the girl and your brother. I’m sure their deaths will be quite gruesome.”
I looked back at Yuna. All the monsters that had been surrounding Keith began attacking Yuna all at once. But Yuna was able to use her magic to defeat them as she plunged forward. Before long, she blasted through the monsters surrounding Keith and reached him. As she took Keith into her arms, she yelled:
“Keith is alive! Don’t worry about him!”
I was so relieved. Keith was alive.
“Oh, impressive. Guess she isn’t all talk. Well, she did brag about defeating the monsters that were going to attack the capital. Unfortunately for her, she’s surrounded by one thousand monsters and wyverns in the sky. No matter how powerful she is, she’ll have trouble fighting the monsters while protecting your little brother.”
That was true. No matter how strong someone was, trying to protect a defenseless person while fighting would prove difficult. Your movements were limited, and you would always be distracted. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t escape because she was surrounded. Yuna, Keith, and Kumakyu were all in great danger.
Well, that’s what I thought, but Yuna seemed to have a plan. A large object appeared before her.
“A bear?”
The object was gigantic and bear-shaped. It had a bear’s face and body, and it was actually quite adorable. It seemed entirely out of place in the middle of the swarming monsters. Yuna carried Keith into that adorable bear house. My mind went blank for a moment. It seemed the man was also shocked beyond words.
Soon, Yuna came back out of the house.
“Seleiyu! Keith should be safe in here, so don’t worry about him!”
“Ha ha...ha ha ha...”
It was all too much. I started to laugh uncontrollably.
Yuna was so entirely unpredictable that I couldn’t help it. First, she changed into a bear costume, then she revealed she had the very mana gem that the man had hidden in town to attract the monsters, summoned Kumayuru from nowhere, saved Keith, and conjured up a strangely shaped bear house from nothing. And now she was saying that Keith would be safe in there.
“I’m losing my patience with these jokes! Who is that little girl?! She dresses like a clown, and now this ridiculous building has shown up?!”
While I was trying to stifle my laughter, the man started to fume. He yelled and placed his hand on the mana gem at his chest. The gem glowed and the man looked like he was in pain.
“I’ll kill her. I’ll kill that ridiculously dressed whelp.”
When I looked over at Yuna, I saw more monsters had gathered around her and her bear. No matter how powerful Yuna was, this would be dangerous.
Now was my chance. I attacked the man using wind magic. The man matched me by using wind magic to block.
“I will defeat you,” I said.
“Cwoon.”
At my side, Kumayuru responded as well. What a smart bear.
I produced my sword from my item bag. I had worked so hard ever since my mother’s murder for this moment. Yuna had given me this opportunity. Thanks to her, the town was no longer in danger of a monster attack. Thanks to her, Keith was safe.
If I could defeat this man, the monsters attacking Yuna might stop.
“You’re all in my way! Why won’t any of you do as I say?!”
The man’s face had hardly showed any semblance of his true attitude until now. Before, he had been smiling, but now he was furious.
Ha ha. Seeing how upset he had become had made me very, very happy.
“Oh, that’s easy. You are utterly devoid of charisma.”
“If you’re so insistent about joining your mother, allow me to assist!”
Fire began to swell in his hand. I dashed to the side.
“Kumayuru, please protect yourself.”
“Cwoon.”
We both dodged the flames. Then I gathered my mana to create a fireball. I fired it at the man, but he blocked it all too easily.
“You think that’s enough to defeat me?!”
“I’m not done yet! I mastered both the sword and magic in order to defeat you!”
“A girl who hasn’t even experienced a real fight? Don’t make me laugh.”
Just as the man said, I did not have combat experience. But I had practiced until I shed blood, sweat, and tears. Yuna had given me this opportunity, and I refused to let it go to waste.
The man and I began our true fight. We were relatively evenly matched. He was slower than I had expected. He had ordered his monsters to kill Yuna, which must have consumed his mana. He looked short of breath.
“If I were at my full potential, I could swat you like an ant,” he said.
“Is that an excuse for when you lose?”
I couldn’t defeat him in close quarters combat, though. While we were at a distance, all we could do was exchange magical blows. I knew the man was avoiding close combat. Each time I attempted to approach him, he would attempt to thwart me with magic.
He was a mage. I doubted he could wield a sword. If we were closer, I would have the advantage. My plan was to turn the tides and close the distance. Besides, a magic battle would become a battle of attrition, and that would take time. The longer the battle persisted, the more Yuna would be in danger.
I blocked the man’s attacks as I searched for the right time to close the distance between us.
“Are you sure you should be using so much magic in quick succession?” I spoke to him, drawing his attention.
“Don’t worry. Not all of the monsters are under my command anymore. Monsters just attack anything within their vicinity on instinct. They don’t need my commands anymore. Once they kill the girl, I’ll capture you and can gather the monsters as many times as I need. I will admit though, it was a heavy blow to lose that mana gem the girl broke.”
The gem Yuna had carried was quite large. It couldn’t have been easy to obtain by any means, but that also meant that I needed to defeat the man here and now, or he could recover and try again.
“That said, I think I could call a few monsters over.”
As the man laughed, Kumayuru cried out. Several wolves appeared behind us. Swiftly, Kumayuru defeated them all.
“Thank you, Kumayuru.”
What an amazing bear. When he saw the wolves that he’d prepared in advance so easily defeated, irritation crept across the man’s brow once more.
“I am going to kill that girl in the bear getup, this bear, and every single bear in existence!”
“Whatever are you talking about? Bears are so adorable. If you can’t understand, we would be the most incompatible match in the world. I don’t want to be with a bear killer.”
“Cwoon,” Kumayuru happily crooned.
“Then you can watch as the wyverns kill that bear.”
I looked up in a panic. The wyverns were gone. But where?! My nerves were running high, but I couldn’t find them.
“Where are they?! Hurry and get over here!” the man yelled.
“Cwoon.”
Kumayuru crooned, then looked over to where Yuna was fighting. I turned to look too. There she was, surrounded by slain wyvern.
“It looks like Yuna took care of them already.”
I could only laugh. Yuna, just how strong are you?
“What is that little girl?!”
“I told you. She’s my friend.”
“I know all about you. If you were close to anyone, I could have kidnapped them. If she were your friend, I would know her.”
“Ah, that explains it. I only met her a few days ago.”
Thinking about it, Yuna and I had a difficult relationship to summarize. At first, I had only thought of Yuna as a student who had come with Noir as her guard. Then after our match, I had seen her as someone to look up to and envy. When she stayed at the manor, she was Noir’s friend.
She likely hadn’t truly been my friend at that juncture. That changed when Yuna had followed me out of concern. And though I was deeply jealous of her, when she had told the man we were friends, it had made me happy.
She had saved Keith for me and was fighting monsters on my behalf. If I couldn’t call her a friend after that, then who else could I call a friend? If Yuna ever ran into her own trouble, I would do all in my power to help her out.
“You’re saying a ‘friend’ you made only a few days ago would go to these lengths for you?!”
“Isn’t she the best friend one could ask for?”
I would defeat this man and return home with Yuna. I charged at him. He shot flames at me, but I dodged and continued to approach him. Kumayuru also rushed at the man as though to protect me.
“Get out of the way, bear!”
The man unleashed a fireball on Kumayuru.
“Watch out!”
“Cwoon.”
Kumayuru pawed at the air with their right foot and the flames seemed to disappear.
“How? You’re just a bear!”
The man tried to attack Kumayuru again. Oh no, Kumayuru!
I stepped forward and closed the distance between me and the man, thrusting my sword forward. This was probably the fastest I’d thrust my sword in my entire life. I stabbed him in the right shoulder, and he was sent flying back. I was able to interrupt his spell.
“Haah... Haah... I won.”
“No, now no one wins.”
He used his left hand to touch the mana gem in his chest.
“What are you doing?”
“I guess we’ll go to join your mother together.”
Though he was in pain, the man cackled.
As I was about to force him to explain, the earth trembled.