Chapter 107: Unreliable teammates

Evin and Arza munched on some jerky as they took places scouting around, and the other three children were also eating one thing or another from their storage devices. Sometimes talking in Northern. Evin would read through some info from the two Northern mage books that Losha gave him during his free time.

A few minutes passed and a few Mana Beasts approached the carcass and started fighting over it, none of them noticing the group of children waiting on the trees. The final winner was some sort of bear-type beast.

Half an hour later, when the group was debating on whether they should switch places in a hush, Arza pointed towards a humongous ox that was nearing the area. 

An absolute unit of a bull was imposingly strolling through the forest, and its red-veined eyes locked on the bear-type Beast that was feasting on the carcasses of other animals. It snorted hot air and its front feet scratched the ground, declaring its lethal intents. 

The bear glanced back and also prepared to fight… but everyone watching the fight knew that the ox would win without question.

There was a thick layer of mana oozed from the bull in a one-step radius, which kind of worked as a kind of deterrent for when mages tried to cast spells on it. 

Since the bull was a peak tier-3 mana beast, it could be said that there was a solid 90 or so kgs of mana inside its body, and certain part of that oozed out of the beast's body, creating a special barrier around it. The barrier would be able to dampen the effects of World created spells around it, which meant that it kind of worked like a spell disrupting force, preventing Evin from simply suffocating the creature to death. 

But it didn't mean that the Beast was invulnerable to magic. One either had to overpower it, or they had to create a phenomenon, and lodge it at the beast after making sure that the phenomenon was free of mana. 

World of Earth mages excelled at such things. A World of Water mage could also conjure some hard-hitting icicles.

Getting back to topic, the fact that the bear did not emit mana from its body meant that it was simply a lower tier creature than the ox. 

The brief battle started, and the bear tried to swipe at the ox with his giant hands, but the raw power contained in the ox's body was simply too much for the bear to handle. After a few clashes, the bear's guts were sprawled on the ground by the bull's deadly horns. 

The group watched from above the trees and everyone silently prepared their attacks after subtly nodding at each other. The two girls pulled out similar looking knives, ones that seemed to be designed for throwing this time, while Bardom started casting a spell. It was an Earth spell that created a bunch of deadly stone drills. Arza was absorbing Life energy like crazy, while holding his sorbothium short sword tightly in his hands.

Evin didn't really have anything to do for the time being, as he was sure that his air bullets wouldn't really be able to do anything to the bull. He also couldn't suffocate the bull, because of the mana barrier. And he felt that using the Dark World was a bit overkill.

"I'll fly in to save you if any of you look to be in danger, and look out for other Beasts in the area," Evin said.

Bardom and the girls shrugged and sent their attacks towards the Mana Beast. Evin could see some mockery and disapproval from behind their expressions, but he really couldn't care.

The Mana Beast, who was eating its prey, was suddenly struck with countless drill shaped rocks out of nowhere and to make matters worse, there were even some metallic objects that would burn its skin when it came into contact. Although it was strong enough that these attacks wouldn't be able to hurt it seriously , its pride was hurt for allowing these puny attacks to land on its body.

It furiously eyed towards the direction of an attack and found a group of little two-legged creatures sitting on top of a tree branch, throwing rocks and metallic objects with some unknown method. The bull dashed towards the tree, and head-butted it with its horns with all its might.

A loud cracking sound came off from the tree and it cracked at the base with this furious attack from the bull. Splinters of wood scratched at Evin's cheeks and the tall tree fell down shortly after.

'That's some strength,' Evin whistled as he floated and looked around the battlefield.

Arza was already on the ground, deftly trading blows with the beast. Arza was trying to hit the ox's body, but it apparently knew that the metal object was dangerous, and was stubbornly facing towards the red-haired boy, blocking every attack with its horns or its thick skull.

Bardom, deciding that his rock pellets were useless against this opponent, had pulled out an estoc from somewhere and was jabbing at the beast from its side. Evin guessed that the boy had stronger magic methods, but he preferred to use his body for the time being.

'They should've just aimed for the bull's eyes, I don't know why they would aim at its hide'

The two girls were keeping their distance, with Rantz uncontrollably shaking with evident fear and chaos in her eyes, supporting herself on some tree trunk. Koya seemed fine, though, as the black-clothed girl was holding his twin sister close while also keeping an eye on the bull.

'Did the strike against the tree scare her that much?' Evin thought. He was debating whether he should wake Karan up from his slumber, but he decided to wait and see what he can do without the skinshifter.

"Do you have a spell with some oomph in it?" Evin asked Koya. 

"I have a big World of Water spell, but I'll need a minute," the girl answered.

"Okay, we'll keep the thing busy for you," Evin said and joined the two other boys in harassing the bull, with a slim sorbothium spear in his hands.

Since Evin could fly and freely change his weight in the air, he could deal some heavy damage to the bull's back. 

Obviously, the poor animal couldn't retaliate against a flying opponent, and could only take a beating passively. But Evin noticed that the bull's wounds were healing up pretty quickly and efficiently. A little too quickly.

Mana Beasts naturally had a stronger physique compared to other animals, and only needed a few dozen minutes and an ample source of mana to heal some injuries and cuts, but the bull's healing was greatly surpassing the norm.

'Is it smarter than it appears and knows how to use the mana towards healing itself?' Evin thought as he watched.

But if the bull was smart enough to do that, surely it wouldn't have such a deep red color to its eyes... 

'Or did it absorb a World of Life Sprite somewhere?' Evin thought before scratching that idea. If it absorbed one World Sprite, it should have at least a dozen more as well, giving it a much stronger pink shade. 

It was impossible for World Sprites to exist individually, and the ones that were somehow separated from the group would disappear without a trace, becoming something that was made only out of energy. Mages experimented a lot with the little creatures, and they obviously knew a lot about them.

Scratching all the above, only one thing was possible.

Evin glanced at Zakhlo. The man was trying to uphold an image of a calm and uninvolved bystander, but Evin could feel that there was something weird about how the man was acting. The man stood still on the ground, unnaturally focused on the fight with the bull. He wasn't even looking around for new mana beasts that might come because of the commotion.

'Is he helping the ox?' Evin realized.

'How is he bypassing the mana barrier around the Mana Beast, then?' Evin thought before realizing the solution.

"Arza, can you feel an increase of Life energy around here?" Evin asked

The red-haired boy was happily testing his might against the ox, but still replied to the sudden question.

"Yeah! It feels amazing!" 

"Hey, can you stop healing the damn bull?!" Evin shouted at Zakhlo. The man wasn't affecting the ox directly with healing magic, as that was a very inefficient task. He was simply filling the area with Life energy, and the ox who absorbed mana from the air naturally, was now absorbing the Life energy that was scattered around.

"I judged that it was a bit too easy for experienced hunters like yourselves. And besides, I feel bad for the poor thing, being bullied by five half-cores," the man said without shame.

'Fucking child,' Evin cursed in his head and started thinking of a way to kill the bull. He then noticed that Bardom had seemingly stopped attacking and was bringing up some unknown device from somewhere and was fiddling around with it.

…