The man’s sword reached my neck in less than a heartbeat…
I barely dodged; the sword went through my shoulder instead.
He kicked me, making his sword exit my body as I hit a wall with a heavy thud.
I coughed blood as Somani’s body slumped to the ground, refusing to respond to my orders.
The legionnaire walked towards me slowly, his sword dripping blood.
I put all my mind power into creating a single bone spear—4BP. It practically popped into existence.
The spear shot forward behind the man, splitting the air with all my strength behind it, but then…
The legionnaire just swatted it away with the flat side of his sword; he didn’t even turn to face it.
“Filthy Republican dogs using biomancers,” the legionnaire spat.
As he raised his sword, I knew it, death would come to Somani and maybe even me, but then…
A leg connected with the man’s flank in a kick.
He was sent flying. Hitting the stone wall, he broke through it before continuing onto the street.
The man who kicked him was none other than Hambara, although bloodied and with many cuts.
“They~huff~turned out to be~huff~tier one. Have you~huff~touched the stone?”
I controlled Somani’s body through biomancy to imitate a response—a simple expressionless nod.
Hambara wickedly smiled, his teeth red from blood.
“Can you~huff~run, kid?”
Another nod.
“Then heal yourself~huff~and get away from here. I’ll be dealing with~huff~the remaining legionnaire.”
Hambara then turned and headed into the hole in the wall, but before he left…
“Sprinkle~huff~this on you. It’s anti-divination. With this result… there’ll be an investigation. Stay safe; we’ll meet in—“
Hambara had to turn swiftly, blocking the opponent’s weapon with his sword.
As they took the fight outside, I looked at the leather sack Hambara had thrown my way.
Anti-divination… what’s that?
I ordered Somani’s body to move, but it was still out cold, so I took control of it through biomancy and, through intricate manipulation, made it move.
It was slow, sluggish, and looked inhumane, but it was better than staying around and waiting for death.
Just outside the back door, there was a narrow alley; I entered it.
They had to have an emergency exit route, or they wouldn’t have chosen to escape from the back door.
As I moved between the houses surrounding the alley, I saw how the humans inside were huddled together, scared. Women tended to the children, soothing them, while men held sharp weapons.
At the end of the road were wooden gates that led out. Next to the gates, two spears were left, probably from the guards who had decided to flee in haste.
A wooden plank was barring the double doors. Knowing my condition, I didn’t try to open it through brute force. Instead, I created a thin skin film that surrounded the plank from all sides, then raised the film and with it the plank.
Skin was stretchy and strong, so it didn’t break, and I managed to exit the city.
A cold wind blew, ruffling Somani’s hair. As I stood there, gazing into the distance, I smiled internally. I had succeeded.
Goosbumps spread across my skin—Somani had awakened.
‘…Grandpa?’
‘Somani, take control and get away from the village. I’ll be focusing on keeping us alive.’
Somani obeyed, and I started creating a Blood Bomb, a strong one, and two bone arrows, which took me 3.5BP.
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Somani circled the village from afar before reaching the area where we had left our bags—the camp. Taking them, we continued until we reached the side where we had come from.
We walked parallel to the dirt road, keeping our distance in case of a chase.
After walking for a while, Somani asked me if he could rest; I agreed, but not before he sprinkled the white dust inside the leather sack. For good measure, I made him take off his clothes and rub the dust on his bare skin—his skin now had a sparkle to it.
The kid drank the last bit of water before sleeping directly on the dirt.
***
Somani awoke the next day with the rise of the sun. I had healed his broken arm, but the rest of his body needed more time to be fully mended, plus I had run out of Mana. The kid was still in pain and weak as we continued on our march.
I ordered Somani to increase the distance between us and the dirt road, as during the day, we could be spotted.
As we walked through the farm lands, I continued healing Somani’s wounds, gaining a level in the skill.
[Heal] has reached Lv. 2
I was starting to understand the skill better. It worked in tandem with [Rudis Subtilis Biomancy], enabling better, more consistent tissue creation.
I tried turning [Rudis Subtilis Biomancy] off, and noticed how [Heal]’s capabilities dropped by more than two-thirds; it took longer to heal, got more mind-intensive, and needed more Mana.
So my biomancy is doing the heavy lifting.
Somani spent his time using the arcane cube at his disposal to regenerate his Mana. The crystal he was using was tier 1, so it should last him a dozen or so more core recharges.
Night quickly came, and the stone road was nowhere in sight, so we decided to rest for the night and continue tomorrow.
This time, Somani set a camp: a tent and a campfire, then ate jerky.
‘Grandpa… if I were to accept the System prompt. What class do you think I’d get?’
I stopped healing an injured tendon to think about Somnani’s question.
‘Hm… with you having [Forced Mana Regeneration], [Intermediary Mana Control], [Identify], and [Heal], I’d say a support-based class, maybe a healer. Still, I don’t have much knowledge on the subject. I could be wrong.’
‘A healer, huh? That doesn’t sound cool.’
‘Yeah, we should wait unt—To your left!’
Somani didn’t hesitate. He immediately jumped to his right, evading a bulbous white thing connected to a thick rope.
No… this is a head and a neck.
The head retracted, making the long neck sink into the body and forming a thick triple chin. The creature had a small torso, the size of Somani, but its tail looked no less long than its outstretched neck, and it was thick.
Brrrr…
Siziki, Lv. ??
The head shot out again, and this time Somani needed no warning to evade it.
The head missed Somani by a short distance, but then…
The creature shot its tail in the opposite direction of its head, making the already stretched head bend in the opposite direction and hit Somani like a hammer on his recently healed arm; it broke again.
Somani was swept off his feet and shoved face-first to the ground, taking the breath out of him and leaving him stunned.
The Siziki’s head retracted before the creature advanced on us; its sharp teeth showcased and ready to bite into succulent flesh.
I used 4BP to manifest a bone arrow instantaneously.
Swiish!
It impacted the monster’s tough hide, but didn’t break through.
The creature opened its mouth and spat a green blob in my direction. I evaded to the side using biomancy—Somani was still out of the game.
The green stuff hit the ground, making sizzling and popping sounds.
‘…Grandpa… what is this?’ Somani’s thoughts were still a bit slow.
‘It’s dangerous, so be careful.’
The siziki didn’t give us a breather, shooting rapid blobs. I created a blood shield while Somani ran in an arc. Most blobs impacted the floating blood, significantly slowing their momentum; still, a few drops hit Somani’s leg, tearing through his leather armour before reaching his skin and causing intense pain.
“AHhh!”
I cleaned the green stuff with some blood; it somewhat worked. Still, the skin was burned and would need healing.
‘Somani, create distance. I’ll be making a bomb.’
Somani nodded. Pushing through the pain, he started running away from the ugly beast.
Unfortunately, the Siziki followed us and was actually faster than Somani, quickly closing the distance as it bombarded us with green spit.
Another drop passed my defences, hitting Somani’s back, but didn’t manage to dig through his armour.
I should delay it, or the explosion will harm us.
‘Somani, to your right. Head towards that tree.’
The beast tried to bite Somani’s ass, but a spear to the snout made it regret its decision.
The tree was within my spherical vision, so I managed to create a tendon reinforced with bone sharpnels.
Tying the tendon around the tree, I connected its other end with a skin film that surrounded the beast’s torso.
I was using 4BP—my limit. Holding a huge blood sphere while harassing the beast with bone arrows to keep it away, and creating the tendon and skin film altogether… it wasn’t easy and wouldn’t have been possible without [Hive Mind].
We passed the tree. The tendon rope stretched and then… broke, but the beast was momentarily stopped, and that was when I released the Blood Bomb that had been flying atop its head.
‘Somani! Duck!’
Booov!
Due to our closeness to the explosion, we hadn’t fully escaped unharmed, but what was truly unfortunate was that the beast didn’t look that damaged.
It lost its left eye, and its head was bloodied and had a deep seeping wound, but from the look it was giving us with its remaining slitted eye, I knew it was still in the fight.
‘Somani!’
But I was too late, and the blob impacted in the middle of his back.
I created tons of blood to wash away the blob, but it was too sticky and had already dug through his leather armour and was starting to eat at his skin.
Although Somani was shocked by the loud explosion and now had his back being eaten by acid, he didn’t stop, as that meant death.
The kid pushed the ground with two trembling hands and started running again. He was much slower as he was tired; he was reaching his limits.
‘Excellent, Somani. I’ll get this bastard in the next attack.’
Somani didn’t acknowledge me with a response; his eyes were hazy and unfocused.
The beast shook its head before it started following us.
I continued to harass it with bone arrows as I focused on creating my next attack.
I made hollowed bone needles, then I created altered blood, blood that’d clog quickly. It was the same invention I had used on the hyena.
‘Jump!’
Somani jumped to his left just as the creature’s head shot past where he had been standing a moment ago.
The creature made its tail manoeuvre, but this time, it didn’t attack us; instead, its neck wrapped around Somani’s torso like a hook, and then it started dragging him towards its torso.
Somani’s hands were free, so he tried to strike the neck, but it was futile; its hide was too thick.
Somani created trenches in the dirt as he resisted being dragged, but the creature was way stronger, and soon we were in range of its claws, but then…
I shot the needles at its eye and injured it.
The beast roared at losing its remaining eye, then released its hold.
And that was when I dropped the blood bomb I had prepared inside its mouth.
Somani was on his knees and didn’t have time to create distance, so I used 4BP to create an instantaneous bone shield separating us from the beast.
Rudis Subtilis Biomancy has reached Lv. 8
Bffff!
The explosion was muted. The creature’s gut suddenly expanded, but even from the inside, the thick hide wasn’t broken.
I was a bit scared as the beast took a step towards us, but then…
It tilted to its side and started kicking air in pain.
We had won.
***
Keenda’s POV:
“I can’t believe that I, Keenda, Eternal Spell, am assigned to search for a pet. These Noblesse—“
The coward, Pomus, didn’t allow me to finish my sentence.
“Don’t blaspheme, Keenda. Eternal Spell or not, you’re still a Royal Guard and have to answer to your masters,” Pomus said.
I glared at the ugly, fat, and short bastard.
He looks more like a ball than a human and still has the gall to silence me. Stuck up, bastard.
Soaring through the air, we quickly reached the area marked by the divination mages on our map.
With an uninhabited area, we usually landed like a meteor, with no brakes, but due to the siziki’s life being more important than ours, we slowly descended.
A tierless creature’s life more important than a tier 5? Ridiculous.
“I-Its… dead!” Pomus’s ever-present smug smile was now nowhere to be seen; instead, his face had turned pale.
I couldn’t help but laugh, catching the man’s ire.
“You stupid woman! You know what this means, huh?! We could spend the next few years in prison!”
My laughter only got louder.
Psst. Prison? My life is already one.
“So what?” I asked after my laughter died down a bit.
Pomus pointed a shaking finger at me.
“You… It’s all your fault! Who the heck puts on makeup for a mission! Your stupidity delayed us!”
I staired at the ugly bastard as if he had grown a second head.
“You can see that this carcass is a few days old, right?”
He angrily shoved his hand down before he opened his Space Inventory.
“Wait. Don’t you think that if we caught the perpetrator, we might get a shortened sentence?”