The Lupens' Invasion.

Ayumu raced down the main street of the village.

His destination was the edge of the settlement. There, a pack of ferocious monsters ran rampant. They assaulted the villagers and crashed into buildings. They had wolf-like appearances, but they were faster and more agile than normal wolves. Whenever they leaped, their jumps would reach several meters in height. And whenever they attacked, their speed was like that of an arrow.

They were called lupen, terrific creatures that possessed wolf-like features, but intensity and swiftness of a raging storm.

Thankfully, the village guards and the baron's men were preventing the monsters from advancing into the village. They clashed with the beasts on the ground and launched spells at them whenever lupens tried to leap past their defenses.

An armored man with a spear stood as the last line of defense. He was the final barrier between the monsters and the innocent villagers. His name was Sir Kyle Caelius, a knight in service of the Berions.

Several lupens broke past the defenders' frontline. One of them leaped at the knight, the other two ignored him and tried to rush into the village. In response, Kyle cast a spell.

"Mure audeme ante me voco!"

His surroundings distorted as all the lupens leaped forward.

Suddenly the monsters' momentum stopped midair. Their bodies were flung backwards as if they clashed with an invisible wall.

The knight readied his spear and struck at the lupen in front of him. The monster was still suspended in the air from the clash and was helpless before the blow. The spear struck the beast, piercing its body and splashing blood everywhere. 

The strike was devastating, and the lupen howled in pain. But the momentum of the stab didn't stop there. It continued to move until it pierced through the monster and reached the ground.

Simultaneously with the thrust, Kyle readied his left hand and aimed at another lupen who was still off-balance.

"Ab manō, lence audeme imito!"

From his hand, a projectile appeared. It was a semi-transparent spear made of air itself. It flew towards the lupen on the knight's left. The beast tried to get up but didn't make it in time. A moment later it was impaled by the spell.

And just like that, two monsters were struck down in the span of a few seconds.

S-so cool! Ayumu exclaimed internally.

This was the first time he saw magic used in combat, and the sight impressed him to say the least. He felt like those fantasy tales and adventures he fantasized about came to life right in front of his eyes.

And so... he rushed past the knight and headed at the last of the three lupen.

"Huh?! Y-young Master!" Kyle exclaimed in shock when he saw his liege's son run at the foul beast. "Wait!"

In that moment, another lupen leaped at Kyle from the side. Distracted by Ayumu, the knight reacted late to the lupen's assault. The best he could do was shield his body with his left hand.

"Agh!" He screamed in pain.

Despite being surprised, he didn't lose his composure and struck at the monster with his spear. The lupen's body, however, flew backwards as if it was pushed away by an invisible force. As a result, the spear missed its mark.

That was lupen's magic at full display. Air magic is what allowed lupens to leap high into the air and dodge attacks even in situations where they would normally be immobile.

"You damn beast!" The knight shouted, still concerned for Ayumu. Despite his concern, he had no way of helping the boy out. Now that he had a wound and lacked surprise factor on his side, the lupen was going to be a problematic opponent.

Meanwhile, Ayumu continued his mad rush. The beast he was aiming for had already recovered its balance and stared at the boy, preparing to pounce at him at a moment's notice.

But Ayumu wasn't panicking. You see, he didn't just rush at the monster thoughtlessly. From his visions, Ayumu received a sizable boost to his magical knowledge (which, to be fair, was nil before that). Now, he was confident he could put Fabian's skills to use. And this fight was the perfect opportunity to test that.

Ayumu, knowing that he didn't have much time, readied his cast.

Okay, let's start with something simple.

He then pointed his hand forward and imagined his next spell.

A ball of fearsome, raging fire. It launches from my hand and reaches the lupen, greedily devouring it!

"Ab manō, Igne imito!"

His casting had much more confidence than previously. His visualization was much faster, and his pronunciation was also leagues better. He was sure the spell would succeed. And that it did. 

A ball of fire flew from Ayumu's hand, reaching towards the monster. The lupen prepared to leap in order to dodge the spell. But in that moment—

The ball of fire greedily devoured itself and evaporated even before reaching the beast.

"..." Audible silence resounded.

Ayumu stared at the spot where the spell was only moments ago. At first, he didn't understand what just happened. But once he did, he exploded in anger.

"What the hell is this shit!"

After a full second of pure silence, the lupen looked at Ayumu with pity. That pity lasted longer than the actual spell, which spoke about the boy's magical proficiency. Or, I should say, the lack of it.

As the monster sympathized with Ayumu's plight (lol), the boy began losing confidence he had just recently attained.

Wait! Does this mean I suck at magic after all?! I thought I'm gonna become a genius and all that!

His thoughts were totally occupied by complete and utter nonsense. Normally, that would be alright, but there was a slight, life-threatening issue in front of his very eyes...

Finally, the beast remembered that it was, in fact, there to feast on human flesh. It recovered its fighting spirit and prepared to attack. Gusts of wind gathered at its paws as it growled aggressively.

"Oh no," Ayumu said, only now realizing his plight.

The monster's silhouette was surrounded by air currents. The beast curled its hind legs as the winds intensified. Finally, it leaped at Ayumu with an incredible speed. It whizzed through the air, rapidly closing in on the youngster.

As the lupen approached, Ayumu began panicking.  The jaws of the beast opened widely in front of his eyes. Moments before the clash, he started chanting again, fully knowing he wouldn't make it in time.

"Ex meō, ful—"

"—Axelitar fortior" 

And then the world spun. Ayumu could no longer see the monster's muzzle. Instead, the sight of blue skies covered his vision. Just as Ayumu realized that his feet were off the ground, he saw the monster's muzzle whizz past him.

"Woah!"

The lupen bit on thin air. The beast's fangs just barely missed Ayumu's face. Then, a powerful kick struck the monster and sent it flying.

When Ayumu came to his senses, he found himself in a princess carry. He looked at his savior's face and saw a familiar expressionless girl.

"Lucy?!" Ayumu shouted in surprise. "Where did you even come from?!"

"Yes, Young Master, it is me, your faithful and extremely loyal maid," she replied, her voice as always completely lacking emotion, "and I've been trailing you this entire time."

Shocked at her answer, Ayumu screamed.

"You what!? Are you a stalker or something?"

"No, I'm just your attendant?" confused at her master's words, she responded with something between a question and an affirmation.

"And also, don't faithful and loyal mean the same thing?" Ayumu added.

 "That doesn't particularly matter," Lucy replied naturally, "more is always better than less, right?"

For some reason, Ayumu had a feeling that he had recently heard that sort of stupid logic somewhere. Despite that, he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Which was a shame, because if he did, it would make him wonder if his stupidity was actually contagious.

"Don't worry, Young Master," Lucy then added, "I was following you, but I wasn't close enough to—"

"—Grrr!"

While Ayumu and Lucy were busy bantering, the lupen got up. It growled and stared at them. Specifically, it stared at Lucy. The beast clearly perceived her as a threat.

Ayumu shouted, terrified.

"Lucy! Put me down and run! If you don't, we're both going to get eaten!"

Realizing that he was a liability, Ayumu ordered her to save herself first. Lucy, however, showed confusion at his request.

"Why would I put you down? I can run fine even with you in my hands, Young Master."

Hearing her words, Ayumu wanted to retort once again, but before he even managed to open his mouth, the lupen moved.

The beast lunged at them. As it did, winds propelled its body forward, and it reached a velocity that surpassed ordinary wolves several times over.

Seeing that, Lucy jumped to the side, dodging the lunge. When they left the ground, a feeling of weightlessness assaulted Ayumu. 

The scenery around them changed so quickly that he lost his sense of direction. The one thing he did understand was the muzzle of the lupen that passed right by his face... That was starting to become a familiar sight. Ayumu hoped this would be the last time he had to see it from up close today.

They jumped several meters away from the lupen. Seeing that it missed, the monster once again ran at them, but this time, chased after them with a consistent but more controllable pace.

In response, Lucy began sprinting away. She headed deeper into the village, onto the main road where Ayumu came from. The beast followed them in pursuit.

"What are you doing! There's no way you can outrun a wind monster!" Ayumu shouted, but Lucy stayed quiet and kept running.

Ayumu's fragmented knowledge about lupens began recovering after seeing them in flesh. The information that Fabian knew gradually supplemented his understanding. That's why he knew that lupens were among the fastest monsters you could commonly find in the Audera Kingdom. 

Normal wolves couldn't even begin to compare to them. Not only in terms of pure speed but also in stamina. There was absolutely no chance a human could outrun a lupen, even if they had a magical boost on their side.

While Ayumu shouted, the distance between the monster and Lucy gradually but consistently shrunk. Mere seconds separated them from their pursuer.

"See! You can't shake it off! Leave me here and run!" Ayumu ordered her once again.

But Lucy remained quiet. Uncharacteristically, her face was tense.

As they ran forward, a sharp turn that led into an alley appeared in their sight. Lucy's eyes were focused on that approaching turn as she chanted.

"Roboritar."

After her chant, she threw Ayumu on her shoulder, and used her free hand to grab the protrusion of the window of a nearby building.

Using her hand as a hinge, she drifted into the sharp turn, partially stopping her momentum by digging her heels into the ground. After her successful pivot, she continued running.

The lupen, meanwhile, was surprised by the change of direction and couldn't completely stop itself before the turn. It took a couple seconds for it to come to a complete halt and follow after the duo.

The meager distance between them finally widened. For the time being, they were safe.

Unfortunately, Ayumu's peace of mind was short-lived. Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, he turned to look ahead of them. 

Oh shit.

What he saw there was a complete dead end.

Behind them was lupen, ahead of them was a wall. And as fate would have it, the wall belonged to a three-story building, an unusually high structure for the village. In other words, scaling it wasn't an option. By the time they did, the monster would have already caught up to them.

Is this it? Ayumu thought with desperation.

While her master became resigned to his fate, Lucy ran at full speed towards the dead end.

As she raced forward, she began speaking.

"Just one thing, Young Master—" Her voice had surprising calmness as she readjusted Ayumu in her hands.

As she spoke, the distance between her and the lupen was already shrinking. The gap that widened for a short time was now almost as small as before. They also only had a couple of seconds before they reached the dead end.

"—I wasn't trying to shake it off in the first place," Lucy finished her sentence.

Suddenly, the maid's hands swung in a vertical upward motion. It took Ayumu a second to realize that he was no longer being carried. Instead, he felt the a sense of weightlessness, similar to the one he had experienced before but much longer.

It was only when he was passing above the lupen that he realized he was flying through the air. He was heading in the opposite direction from Lucy and the beast.

She threw me!?

Even the lupen seemed surprised by the sudden turn of events. It tried to jump towards Ayumu but didn't make it; Lucy threw the boy much higher than anyone would expect from her fragile build, and the beast missed by a sizable margin.

As Ayumu flew, his body rotated. For a short moment, the lupen was gone from his view. Then, when his body flipped enough for him to see the beast again, Ayumu witnessed something shocking happening beyond the monster.

Lucy was running up the wall of the building. Once she reached about three meters high, she jumped off the wall. 

As she did, her body started rotating from the momentum. While Lucy spun, her right hand passed by her thigh, and Ayumu saw something flicker on the sunlight. She reached the peak of her trajectory right above the lupen. The beast, meanwhile, was still stuck in an awkward pose from its attempt to bite Ayumu.

By this point, Lucy's body rotated nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, and she was close enough to reach the monster's muzzle. As she passed by the Lupen, she swung her right hand and stabbed the beast's skull.

"Rawgh!" The monster roared in pain.

Simultaneously, Ayumu landed with a grunt. 

A second later, Lucy gracefully landed on her feet, and the beast's body dropped to the ground with a thud. When Ayumu looked at the lupen, he found a short dagger stuck in its muzzle.

"W-wow."

Frankly, he was speechless. What Lucy pulled off seemed like something from a fictional story or a martial arts movie, but here, Ayumu witnessed it with his own eyes. Beyond anything else, a normal seventeen-year-old girl defeating a magical beast, while armed with nothing but a small dagger, was the most fantastical thing he had seen so far. It really drove it home that his common sense didn't apply in this world.

"Still... couldn't you have done this in a gentler way?" Ayumu asked as he tried to get off the ground. He found that the fall hurt more than he expected, and his entire body screamed in pain.

"I was merely following your orders," Lucy replied, "Young Master said he wanted me to put him down. So I did."

Her answer made Ayumu feel conflicted.

"Is this your idea of a joke...?" he asked, more as an expression of his exasperation than a genuine question.

"Yes, it is. Did you like it?"

"So it was a joke after all!? I didn't even know you could joke! But where's the punchline?"

"...?" Lucy tilted her head. "The dagger in lupen's face?"

"That's not a punch! That's a stab!"

Seeing that Lucy was still confused, he gave up on explaining it any further.

"...No, nevermind. I should have probably expected that," Ayumu said and sighed. 

That sigh came equally from his exasperation and his exhaustion.

Ayumu was about to head back to the place of the battle when a voice resounded throughout the streets of Delsea.

"Huh...? Is that... a spell?" Ayumu asked absentmindedly. He was surprised because the incantation for the spell was incredibly long. If normal spells were phrases or sentences, then this one was an entire verse.

"...Yes, it seems Lady Maria has joined the fight," Lucy responded and headed in the direction where the voice was coming from.

As he followed her, Ayumu realized something. At some point, his wounds stopped hurting.