A Problem

Grinding levels was more time-consuming than Souma had anticipated.

He was half crouched in the middle of the field they'd staked as their hunting ground. His staff held tightly, he watched nervously as Selina moved through the tall grass. She slowly made a wide circle behind the small pack of wolves they'd been closing in on. When she was close enough, she waved her spear slightly above her head to let him know she was ready.

Souma took a deep breath, and jumped up out of the grass.

"Hey! Doggies!" He yelled.

All three mud wolves stopped yapping at each other and stared at him in shock for a few seconds, their tongues lolling out of their jaws. Reiny hadn't been exaggerating when she said they were dumb.

"Here! Over here!"

One of the wolves made to move, but stopped and looked back at its companions, as though it wasn't quite sure if it was getting things right.

"Stupid wolf! I'm a free meal!" Souma waved his staff over his head.

Finally they seemed to get it, and the wolves all ran at once.

"Restrain!"

Two of the wolves fell to the ground, and one of them staggered, though it managed to keep its footing and keep running toward him.

"Restrain!" Souma called again. This time the third wolf fell as well.

"Selina! Now!" Souma yelled, focusing on keeping the wolves from moving.

With an enthusiasm that Souma found a little disturbing, the Demon Lord flew out of the tall grass, and methodically stabbed each of the wolves. Three times each, just like Reiny had told them. Instant kill.

Souma kept his mental grip on them for a few more seconds just to make sure, then relaxed and let his unique skill dissolve. This was the pattern they'd finally settled on. Getting aggro wasn't totally necessary, but it made things much easier if he messed up Restrain. Which he did quite often.

"All clear?" He called out to Selina.

She quickly checked the wolves to make sure they were actually dead. At this point it hardly seemed necessary, but Reiny had told them to make it a habit. "Clear!"

Souma closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. Somewhat reluctantly, he walked through the grass towards Selina, trying not to look at the dead wolves. Or the blood.

It was not lost on him that he had originally imagined himself as the one on the front lines. He hated to admit it, but Reiny might have been right to put him in a support role.

Selina frowned at him, though not unkindly. "Does it really bother you that much, human?"

"It does, yes," he sighed. Souma forced himself to look at the dead animals.

"Do they not hunt in your world?"

"Not where I come from."

For a second, he expected to say something grandiose and misguided, but she just nodded her head.

"I see."

They used the rope Reiny had bought to secure the carcasses, and dragged them back to the makeshift camp they'd set up not too far from the road.

They’d been doing this since the morning, following the general strategy that Reiny had laid out for them. Souna would pull the attention of the wolves while Selina sneaked up on them. He froze them in place while she finished the kill. Reiny's part in all this was to rest with her back against a tree and watch them from afar. Sometimes dozing off.

It mostly worked. A few times early on Selina had accidentally pulled the wolves too early, and had to run screaming while Reiny rolled about on the ground laughing and Souma struggled to catch them with Restrain. And more times than that Souma hadn't been able to catch the wolves as quickly as he needed to, so they'd chased him while he desperately tried to cast Restrain over his shoulder.

But they were getting better.

As they dragged the wolves to the small pile of carcasses they were collecting, Reiny looked through her pendant at them.

“That makes eight," she said, not bothering to get up from where she was sitting. "Two more and we’ll have hit the limit for the quest.”

"We have to do this again?" Selina moaned. "We'd be finished in an instant if I used my unique skill!"

"Maybe, but you wouldn't really learn anything," Reiny shook her head. "You need get used to working as a team. And how to get by without using trump cards."

"That's not fair! The human uses his unique skill all the time!" Selina pointed at Souma, and bared her pointed teeth at him.

"That's different," Reiny explained patiently. "Souma's skill can be used a little at a time, so these short skirmishes will help him control it. Yourskill is all or nothing. And after you use it once, you're basically useless for the rest of the day. You need to get physically stronger first."

Selina made a face, and flopped backwards onto the soft grass.

Souma finished untying the wolves, and sat down next to her. Just like he’d done every time they'd come back to camp, he looked at his guild tag until the increasingly familiar lilac screen appeared in front of him.

Name: Arita Souma
Profession: Support
Guild: Altoria
Skills: Language I, Restrain I
Level: 1
Registered Exp.: 4/100

Eight wolves, and all he had to show for it was a measly four points of experience. At this pace it would take another month before he was even close level two.

Come to think of it, what does it even mean to go up a level in this world? Do I all of a sudden get stronger?

Mentally filing that together with the hundred other questions he wanted to ask when they had time, Souma leaned back into his elbows and looked at their steadily increasing collection of dead wolves. "Miss Reiny, what are we even going to do with all these? Do you have a... Maybe like a dimensional bag or something we can store them in?"

"Gah ha ha ha! If I had one, I would throw dead mud wolves in it. We can carry this much back to town ourselves."

"You mean we have to carry them back to town too?" He looked up at the sky. He was already exhausted. It wasn't just the running around chasing wolves. Using his unique skill like this was wearing him out.

"Oh come on, this much is nothing," Reiny laughed. "When you're finished, I'll show you how to skin them. Mud wolves aren't great eating, but they taste alright if you barbecue them."

"We get to eat them!" Selina sat bolt upright.

"Not until you cull two more."

"Human! Let's go!"

"How can you get be so excited at the thought of eating those things?" Souma muttered, but still got up and followed her back down into the fields.

"I think I saw some running towards the river!" Reiny called after them.

Souma held one hand up in acknowledgment, and they started trudging in that direction. As the walked, Selina once more fell into an introspective silence.

"You're not what I expected," she said finally, as they came up to the bank of the river.

"How's that?" Souma started scanning the land, searching for signs of mud wolves. The river wasn't too deep here, only about up to their ankles, and not too wide. It was hedged by a wide bank either side, made up of bleached white pebbles. On the other side was the start of a forest, probably the same one they'd escaped through to reach Altoria in the first place.

Souma couldn't see any wolves, though that didn't mean they weren't about here somewhere. After the very first pack they'd dealt with, it had gotten progressively harder to find more of them. Unlike a game, where enemies would reliably spawn every couple of minutes, real life hunting required a lot more wandering about and waiting.

"I just mean..." Selina pouted. She leaned into her spear. "You're not like... Like... I don't know. I guess I expected humans to be different. More like the stories my grandfather use to tell me, I mean."

"You were expecting us to breathe fire? Something like that?"

"Idiot! Nothing like that! I mean..." Her voice became quieter. "I mean, you don't like killing. You can only barely look at blood. When we were in the tower, you held my... My hand... Running away from the..." Her face went red, and she scowled at him. "I-I just mean The stories make it out like the humans are all just the absolute worst! But you're... You know... Not evil."

Souma laughed.

"W-what's so funny!"

"Ah, you know. Just I was thinking, I have actually been called-"

There was a crack.

"Shh." Selina held up her hand and they both fell silent. What had they just heard? Souma stood still, staring out at the river, the forest. Looking. Listening. The sound of the river, the breeze.

Something rustling through the woods.

Souma silently tapped Selina's shoulder and motioned out to the forest. The two of them readied their weapons.

More wolves?

Something was moving about in there. In the dark beneath the trees. Souma watched as it slowly creeped forward toward them, regarding them cautiously with its large, milky white eyes. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

That's not a wolf.

The thing slowly pushed its way past the lowest branches of the tree it had been hiding behind. Its hands were long boned, thin, black like burnt wood. Its body was small. Underfed. Its ribs showing, skin dull grey, flecked with scales. It turned its head toward them, far too large for a body that size.

"It's a fallen..." Selina breathed.

And then with unnatural speed it was sprinting towards them. It cleared the forest and bounded over the river bank, screaming shrilly, its jaw falling open to show them a hundred tiny teeth, sharp as needles. Souma saw more of them begin to clamber out from the forest.

Two? Five?

He didn't have time to count before the first reached him.

Wait a minute, what the hell is this? What the hell is this thing? Do something! Do something!

"Restraaaaaaiiiigh!"

The monster sunk its teeth into his shoulder, and Souma's mind went blank. He lost his grip on his unique skill, and fell over backwards, hitting the bleached white stones, now speckled red. The monster clawed at his body, his face, and clamped down even harder with its jaw.

"Human!" He heard Selina's shrill voice. Her spear drove through the creature's skull. Its grip loosened.

Souma grunted and threw the monster off. When he looked back, he saw Selina standing between him and the other creatures across the river, her back turned to him, spear high. For an instant, he thought she might rush out to take them on, but she stood her ground. Even ,ore of them crawled out from the tree line. How many were there now?

Get up! Get up! Get up!

Souma used his staff to push back up to his feet. His shoulder hurt as though it were on fire, and he couldn't move his left arm anymore, but he didn't dare look down to check the damage. What did she call them? Fallen?

There were too many on the other side of the river to count. More than they could take on. He knew Selina had activated her unique skill. He could practically feel it, like a sharp tingling on the back of his tongue. Those creatures facing them definitely felt it too. The tiny sparks of electricity that arced off her fingertips. The imposing sense of dread that rose from around her like a dark cloud. It was keeping them at bay. For now.

"We have to run," he hissed, not taking his eyes off the fallen. There was a constant stream of chittering from them. Like insects. It was not a language he could quite understand, but he could tell they were talking. Strategizing. "There's too many."

"Foolish human. The Demon Lord does not turn her back on prey. These fallen should kneel before me and accept an honorable death at my hands."

This was not going to go well.

Could he use Restrain? Drag her away? Probably, but the fallen were fast, and he was already injured. Alright, how about using Restrain on the fallen? Possible, but he'd been using his unique skill on and off all morning, so he didn't have that much power left. Not to mention he'd never yet managed to capture more than two wolves at the same time. There were maybe thirty of those things out there now. Stopping two wouldn't make much difference. So, fight them? Maybe. Selina in Demon Lord mode was powerful, but it still seemed like suicide.

The decision was made for them anyway. Four of the creatures started moving at once, leaping towards them with their dark black talons extended and razor filled mouths wide open.

"Restrain!"

Three of them locked up in midair. They tumbled and fell into the river, leaving the fourth bounding through the water at them. As it propelled itself forward on its thin, sinewy legs, Selina growled, and threw her spear. The blade caught the monster in the shoulder with enough force to stop it midair, and before it had fallen into the stream, she was pulling her weapon back out by its handle. She stabbed downwards three times before it collapsed. Instant kill.

It wasn't nearly enough.

The other monsters had been thrown off by the sudden show of resistance, but not for long. They were obviously not going to take chances against a foe like Selina, but that didn't mean they were going to give up. Before she could use her spear to attack the creatures Souma was holding in place, two more had already run out from the larger group and had flanked them in one direction. Even more were circling in the other direction.

Another group of fallen threw themselves at Selina. Souma grit his teeth and held his hand out toward them.

"Restrai-ugh!"

He coughed up small dots of bright red. No good. Selina held up one hand and blasted one of them off with a flash of lightning, but another grabbed Selina and pushed her down into the water face first. A third jumped on her back as she struggled.

"Restrain!"

Souma felt something splintering in the very farthest corner of his mind, stretched further than it should have been. a door that had been sealed shut cracking apart, giving him a little more strength. He raised his staff and swung it like a bat into the head of the creature on top of Selina. As it went limp, he shoulder-barged the other, pushing it off her. Desperately he dropped the staff and grabbed Selina with his good arm, helping her back up. She fell backwards int him, spluttering water, and they tried to scramble backwards.

There were just too many of them. How could there possibly be so many of these things? Where had they come from?

He held Selina just a little more tightly. He felt her squeeze his arm.

"First mantra. I am a being of love."

The world froze. All the sounds faded away. The river stopped moving. Everything was immobile. He was both here, and not here.

She slowly descended in front of them, the tip of one foot arched downward, the other lifted just slightly above her ankle. As her extended toe touched the surface of the water, it sent out a gentle ripple, but did not dip below the surface. Reiny gracefully drew one of her swords. It was long, slightly curved. The blade was quite thick closer to the handle, and tapered into a thin point. The guard was wrapped in a lavish red cloth, wound all the to the pommel.

She pointed the sword downward and let it fall. It did not break the surface of the now-still river, but stood motionless on its tip.

"Second mantra. My enemies are worthy of my love.

Souma watched as a thin white line was drawn through the air, and the world was cut in half by an infinitely thin blade pulled by a radiant energy. A sheet of white death.

Reiny put the sword back in its sheath.

Then the sounds of the river were back, the wind, the smell of blood. Reiny was was pulling them out of the water by their collars. The monsters fell apart. The trees behind them fell apart. Small towers crumbling into pieces.

Souma was not fully able to process what he had just seen.

Reiny dropped them on the bleached white pebbles, and looked out at the forest, where her wave of destruction had cleared away a path to what looked like a stone portal, a door leading straight into the ground.

"Change of plans," she said, voice grave. "We're going back to town. Right now."