Troubles in the Heights

The journey continued without problems. Liz recovered quickly after spending her mana on the earlier spell, and I was able to continue trying to meditate. Although I had already found the mana within me, I wanted to try my luck again, searching for the voice I had heard before, but there were no results. Even so, the mere fact that I could now use mana was a great achievement in itself.

Everything was going well, although I couldn’t help feeling anxious about something.

Scritch, scritch, scritch…

The sound of Liz’s pencil on the page of her notebook sparked a lot of curiosity in me. She had said before that it was a log of the mission she was on—the one about the plants—but now we weren’t on a mission. What could it be now?

“What are you writing?” I asked.

“W-what!?” she exclaimed, flustered. “It-it’s nothing, just the log!”

“But we’re not on a mission.”

Hearing me, Liz’s face went pale. She seemed to have nothing more to say, and instead, she just tried to slowly put the notebook away, probably trying to make sure I didn’t notice.

“Well… you see…”

Seeing her so visibly nervous piqued my curiosity greatly. What was she hiding so much? In the end, my impatience got the better of me, and I snatched the notebook with a swift movement of my hands.

“Hey, no! Give that back!” she shouted desperately.

I was only holding the notebook high above, stretching my arm as far as I could so she couldn’t reach it.

“Just a peek! I want to see how much you write!” I exclaimed.

The scene we were creating was so noisy that I could even hear the driver sighing in irritation.

We both struggled for a while, but no matter how hard Liz tried, she couldn’t reach the notebook. Slowly, being careful not to lose my balance, I lowered the notebook while opening it to a random page. I was about to read it when something interrupted our scuffle.

“Monsters!” the driver shouted.

Liz and I immediately stopped. I handed her the notebook and moved to the front of the cart to get a better view.

“There!” I shouted.

In the distance, three flying monsters could be seen circling the area in formation.

They were quite large. Brown plumage covered them completely, their wings were big, their beaks resembled a pterodactyl more than a bird, they had no arms, and their legs ended in sharp claws. As for their size… I’d say each one was slightly taller than me, and with their wingspan added, they looked even bigger.

However, something was wrong. In the area they were circling, there was a cart with a broken wheel, and on it was a man in a light-colored robe, firing a rifle at the monsters. With him was also a girl in a similar robe, but with a hood.

They were in danger!

“I know him!” Liz said. “He’s Doctor Digory, he’s treated Lui before!”

“They’re under attack!” I exclaimed. “Stop the cart, I’ll go help them!”

“I’ll follow you!”

“No, you stay here! I’ll handle this!”

“What!? Eh! Wait!”

Liz looked bewildered by my refusal, but I didn’t care. I ran as fast as I could toward the doctor’s cart while analyzing the situation. The monsters weren’t getting closer—they were just flying in the sky, as if playing with their prey. Also, the doctor’s aim wasn’t very good.

“Die!” he shouted while firing.

His bullets ran out, so he started reloading, but it seemed the monsters were waiting for that moment.

As soon as the doctor looked away, one of the monsters started descending rapidly, almost in a dive, toward him and the girl.

“Doctor, watch out!” she warned.

Moments after both exited the cart, the monster destroyed it completely just by flying through it, immediately returning to the sky afterward. They barely escaped, but the destruction of the cart knocked them down.

Those monsters were incredibly strong—strong enough to destroy a wooden cart as if it were nothing.

“Are you okay!?” I shouted at them.

“Eh!? Who are you!?” the doctor asked.

“My name is Naoya, I came to help!”

Perhaps seeing that the doctor no longer had his weapon and a new apparently unarmed prey had arrived, another monster tried the same trick of diving at us to devour us immediately. But I’m not so weak as to fall for that.

Predicting the monster’s trajectory, I moved slightly to the side to dodge and grab it. As it fell, it folded its wings to gain speed, which worked to my advantage.

Now holding that thing, and taking advantage of the speed and force it had, I twisted my body to guide it and threw it into the sky, directly at another monster still circling above us. The impact was strong, almost making both fall, but they recovered just in time to return to formation. These things were going to be annoying.

¡SKREEE!

Feeling threatened, the monsters let out an extremely sharp shriek, returning to their circular formation in the air while seemingly increasing their speed.

Soon after, they attacked again, diving, but this time all three at once. Their speed was even higher, and the unexpectedness of all attacking at the same time disoriented me, so I could only dodge by leaping to the side and rolling.

The monsters returned to the sky, but quickly tried to attack us in the same manner again. I tried to replicate what I had done before, but the speed they now had made it much more difficult, not to mention the fact that I was almost hit by the monsters behind me.

This was getting very complicated.

“Take this!” the doctor roared, having reloaded his weapon and starting to fire again.

As expected, his aim wasn’t the best, and he missed all his shots. Furthermore, to his misfortune, it seemed he had drawn the monsters’ attention, as they let out their deafening shriek again at his shots.

¡SKREEE!

If I don’t do something, they’ll kill him!

That’s when I noticed something that gave me an idea.

Before the monsters descended to attack the doctor, I ran to the destroyed cart. Now I had to draw their attention.

Whew-whew

“This way!” I shouted after whistling, trying to get the monsters to focus on me, which seemed to work.

Moments later, they descended at high speed again, but this time I was ready. As they approached, I tightened my grip, and when they finally got close enough, I grabbed the weapon I was holding. It was a thick piece of wood from the cart.

While it’s true these creatures had destroyed the cart effortlessly, if I applied counterforce to their charge, I would definitely hurt them.

When the first monster in line reached me, I struck it with the wood as hard as I could. Its beak cracked on impact, and although the wood broke quickly, it was enough to send that thing flying, leaving it unconscious and out of combat.

The other two monsters quickly returned to the sky and were bewildered by their companion’s fall, remaining fixed in the air. The doctor took advantage of this situation to fire again, hitting one of them in the head this time, killing it instantly.

Only one was left, which shrieked again and dove at me, but a single one was no longer a problem. Not to mention that I had already gotten used to their speed.

Repeating the first move I had made, I held it and twisted my body so the monster wouldn’t lose speed, but instead of throwing it into the air like before, this time I slammed it directly into the ground, killing it instantly thanks to my great strength and the speed I already had.

¡BANG!

After that, I heard a shot, but it was just the doctor finishing off the monster whose beak I had destroyed earlier.

“Incredible…” said the girl, looking at me.

With the monsters dead, the situation was resolved, and everyone was safe.