Dragon X Technically Not a War Crime

Iris leaped backward while I darted to the side, then immediately lunged back in as the bear's paw slammed into the ground where we had just been standing. I needed to buy her time to get to a safe distance, and get its attention focused on me; jabbing my sword into its leg accomplished both.

What it didn't accomplish was damaging the thing. It gave an angry snarl as my blade bounced off, deflected by a thick coating of those strange crystals. Then, undeterred, it simply lifted its paw and side-swiped me in the gut. I just barely managed to bring my sword up in time to block the blow, or else its claws probably would have split me in two – and even so, I went flying a good several feet, flipping head over heels and...

...Landing on my feet? I had expected to fall on my ass, but my tail counterbalanced me surprisingly well, without me even thinking about it. Was this the true secret power of Dragonkin? Or, well, if there was any race that would always land on its feet it was probably Feline Therians, but –

“Look out!” Iris' warning snapped me back to reality.

Right. Angry bear. Charging at me at a dead sprint. I could see now what Ayame had meant when she said there was no way to outrun them. I only barely managed to throw myself out of the way again as it plowed through a hedge and several of the trees behind it. Branches fell, birds hastily evacuated their nests, and I took a moment to breathe and examine the thing as it slowly lumbered back around to face me, no doubt preparing another charge.

<<Glass-Stained Great Bear>> was the name that came back, along with the titles [Tyrant of the Northern Woods] and [Glass-Stained]. Call me crazy, but I was beginning to think there was something out of the ordinary about those crystals covering its body, seeing as they saw fit to mention them twice. Which was good to know – probably. Not that I could do anything about them right now.

The thing that wasn't good to know was that while normal enemies had a single health bar displayed under their name, this bear had two – and on top of that, it was Level 35, on par with Dairoku and Gray. As it lunged at me again, I ducked forward, slipping underneath it and using [Stinger] to cut along its vulnerable underbelly as I slid between its hind legs. And, confirming my suspicions, even when I hit him with a full-on special attack from my new and improved Falchion... his first HP bar barely even dropped.

“Shit. Iris, this thing's a boss!”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Came the reply. “What do you want me to do about it? Hit it with my stick?” I tried to come up with a witty response, but was unfortunately interrupted by the bear getting tired of me dodging its claw strikes and instead opting to just hip check me clear across the clearing. I rolled across the ground, tumbling to my feet just in time to avoid being pinned by its subsequent lunge, only to find myself back beside Iris, both of us backed up against one of the walls of the ravine we'd walked through earlier.

“Ugh...” I groaned, checking my HP bar and trying to get my head to stop spinning. More than half of it had just disappeared, and the rest probably wouldn't outlast the Great Bear's. Seriously, why did I keep running into things and people which could two-shot me? Was this some kind of karmic punishment for speedrunning?

“Look, you're the one who aggro'd it,” I grumbled to Iris as the bear slowly closed in, lowering itself to lunge at us and finish us both off. “And you're the one with all the bear facts, too! You've gotta have something that can help.”

“Well, sorry I didn't think to invent bear spray.” She retorted, leveling her staff pointy-end forward to hopefully deter the beast from charging at us head on. But then, just as she finished speaking, her eyes widened, and she seemed to realize something. “Wait a minute,” She said, and then suddenly dismissed her staff and opened her inventory.

“We don't have a minute! A few seconds at best, so whatever you're planning on doing, do it –”

Iris payed my panic no heed as she frantically dragged items out of the menu – a phial, some herbs, a rather suspicious looking mushroom, a rock of some kind – and mashed them all together before my eyes. Seeing its opportunity while Iris was occupied and I was distracted wondering what the hell she was planning, the bear leaped towards us. On instinct, I dived for Iris, hoping to at least knock her out of the way of the bear's charge, or, failing that, live up to my role as bodyguard by shielding her to the bitter end. But before I could reach her, and before the bear reached us...

POOF.

There was a giant burst of virulent purple smoke, which quickly spread to cover not just the ravine, but the entire clearing beyond it. I heard a loud crash as, somewhere within the choking fog, the bear collided head first with the cliff face and gave a roar that was somewhere between pain, confusion, and – mind you, I'm not exactly fluent in bear, but I'm pretty sure this is what he said – “What the hell is this? It smells terrible!”

No, wait, that last one wasn't the bear. That was just me. The bear probably agreed though, as I heard its rumbling, crashing footfalls turning away from us and moving into the distance.

I covered my nose with one hand, grabbed Iris with the other, and together we hastily scrambled in the opposite direction, back down the ravine from whence we had come. Thankfully, the smoke cleared just as quickly as it had formed – or maybe we just found our way out. Either way, by the time my nose stopped running and my eyes stopped watering, we were back in the woods, the bear was gone, and we were both still alive.

“Iris,” I said, still gasping for air now that I could actually breathe again. “I have no idea what you just did, but please, never do that again.”

“You told me to do something. I did something. It worked, and we're still alive. You're welcome,” She managed breathlessly.

“Yeah, sure, thanks for saving my life – but I would have at least appreciated a warning before you violated the Geneva Convention.”

“Actually,” Iris answered matter-of-factly. “The Geneva Convention's protocols on gas-based warfare were superseded by the Biological Weapons Convention in 1972, and the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1993.”

“...Why do you even know that?”

“...No reason.”

“And what even was that, anyway? Another one of your weird potions?” I asked.

“Does it look like I drank anything?” Right. I forgot about her so-called “common sense” when it came to potions applying their effects. She held up the cracked and broken remains of the glass phial I had seen before, which despawned into pixel-dust before my eyes. “That was what happens when you mix the wrong ingredients together. Instead of making a potion, it just creates some really nasty smoke everywhere.”

“Wait, that happens every time you fail to make a potion?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, it's not usually that big. But I was in a hurry, so I just used the rarest ingredients I had on hand. The effects must have been more powerful because of that.”

My jaw dropped. “Weren't those super valuable, then?! I mean, those SPK guys tried to murder you just to get their hands on them!”

“I guess they might have been?” She answered, giving a noncommittal shrug. “But if we went and died, you wouldn't be able to help your friends explore that area once your PK penalty wears off. So there was no other choice.”

...So she did it for me. While I was already becoming rapidly aware that this girl lacked any sort of financial awareness to speak of, even so, I was still the type of person who would hoard every rare item I got my hands on, to the point that in all my playthroughs of Mystic Odyssey I'd have 99 Elixirs left even after beating the final boss.

So, basically, while I'm sure it was no big deal to her, it, uh... meant a lot to me. Not that I could just go and say that out loud, but...

“...Yeah. I guess you're right. Still, I owe you one. So, uh... thanks.” Iris raised an eyebrow, but seemed to sense the sincerity behind my somewhat awkward words, as she mercifully declined to snark at me any further.

At any rate, we were both still alive and kicking, and had an entire day ahead of us, so, in the absence of any more giant murder bears trying to kill us –

!

I spun around. The familiar warning chime of [Detection] had gone off, and along with it, something in the back of my mind told me I was being watched. Something – or someone – was standing at the top of the cliff overlooking the ravine...

...Yet by the time I turned to look, the signal had vanished, and there was nothing there – only the wind, blowing through the trees.

“Kei? Is something wrong?”

“...Maybe it's nothing, but... for a moment there, I thought I sensed someone watching us.”

“You 'sensed' it? What are you, a Newtype?” Iris teased, her lip curling slightly into the faintest of smirks.

“No, I mean with [Detection], you idiot!” I sighed and shook my head. “Ugh. Whatever. It was probably just some wandering Lizardman or something. Since it's not attacking us, let's just get going before the bear comes back.”