73 Karma

An Iron Trunk Honey mammoth was seen chasing a human through the Steelfied expanse.

The beast was 3 meters in height and around 4 meters in length. It had a flexible trunk that was coated with iron-like scales. It also had two large tusks that were about 1 and a half meters in length.

The beast also had an exoskeleton around his eyes. It had given the beast horn-like growth above its crown.

This beast had an unusually long tongue and tail. The tongue was used for drinking the honey from the huge honeycombs made by Iron Andreana bees, which were part of the ecosystem in the Steelfield prairie.

This beast and the ranker had fought multiple times by now. While continuing their act, they would fight intermittently. It looked like the beast would have a higher chance of winning the battle in his favor because it had higher mana reserves than the ranker. However, only the ranker that was being chased knew this was not the case.

‘He is getting tired.’

Eren smiled to himself after checking up on the beast behind him. He was completely fine despite there being a few injuries. He had been using his healing spell to reduce his injuries while simultaneously causing the beast to accumulate injuries.

‘Time to finish…. Hm?’

Eren was about to launch another serious strike at the beast when he sensed a familiar mana signature ahead of him. As he adjusted his eyes, he saw a bear strolling somewhere.

The bear-type mana beast was half the size of the mammoth. But it didn’t mean that it was any weaker. What he lacked in size, he made up with it using his cunning and ferocity.

This bear had just gotten rid of his pursuer with his wits. He had also tasted the honey cultivated under the protection of the Iron trunk honey Mammoth. Plus he had access to an inherent storage spell of his own, enabling him to steal the honeycombs of the mammoths.

The bear seemed happy and was walking on all fours, his ass shaking to some unknown beastly tune only he knew what. He didn’t know at the time that karma was going to bite him soon.

Eren was suddenly reminded of Uno Reverse from his absorbed memories when he saw the Ironskin bear. He flashed a cunning smile and ran towards him instead of handling the beast himself. Although he knew he could take care of the mammoth in due course, why work hard when you could work smart?

Kree!

The bear stopped in his tracks and turned around when he sensed two distinct mana pulses approaching him. He snorted his nose and turned around with what could only be described as grim expressions. He saw a human rushing at him at full speed with the Mammoth on his tail.

Roar!

The bear stood up on his hind legs and roared, trying to warn Eren against approaching him. Alas, the latter wasn’t afraid of the bear. He approached the bear a bit further before using his movement spell to jump about 6 meters into the air.

Once he saw the wretched bear, Mammoth remembered why he started the chase. He changed the target of his anger from Eren to the Ironskin bastard that had robbed his herd of all the honeycombs they had been safeguarding for so long.

Eren watched below him as he was passed over the bear’s head. He saw the mammoth’s mana sense that had been on him for so long change its target to the bear and knew that his borrowed strategy had succeeded.

He quickly recast his movement spell and approached a stone platform made of a few large stones getting stacked upon each other. He climbed the platform and watched with keen interest the battle that unfolded in front of him.

The bear and mammoth fought with their inherent spells and injured each other heavily in the process. Eren found out that the bear was only about two inches shorter than the mammoth’s stature. This was when he stood up on both hind legs.

The Ironskin bear had grown an iron-like exoskeleton on his body using his inherent spell when he was fighting the mammoth. He had also enhanced his long nails by coating them in his iron-element mana, using them along with his AoE spell to launch a multi-front attack on the mammoth.

The bear had an iron spike spell at his disposal which he had used to attack his enemy from multiple fronts all at once. The spell was simple and easy to use. It would manifest a bunch of iron spikes under and around the mammoth’s huge body, attacking him with multiple angels all at once.

Only now did Eren realize that he had been fighting with the mammoth beast wrongly the entire time.

The mammoth could have been overwhelmed by opening multiple fronts of attack at the same time. His gravitational force field wouldn’t be able to keep up with every attack and some of the attacks would be able to breach through his defenses.

The battle between the two beasts taught Eren a lot of things that weren’t obvious to him even when he was street smart. It taught him that there was not only one way to solve a problem.

It was likely a deviant kind of Iron Trunk Honey mammoth. However, the hunt was still one-star rated for a reason. The beast didn’t have many natural offensive spells at his disposal. Reece and Eren could have easily dealt with him under Mia’s guidance had he been locked inside the isolation array with them.

Kree!

The Iron Skin Honey Mammoth gave out a drying shrill as it crashed on the ground with a loud thud. The bear also roared in victory and started panting heavily near the mammoth’s body. The fight had been going on for more than 20 minutes at this point. The two beasts had created a battleground in the middle of the prairie with their respective spells and movements.

​ The bear growled and looked in the distance where Eren was. He could see him standing on a raised stone platform, as though watching a show that he had subscribed to at the bear’s expense.

“Roar!”

The bear roared at Eren, indicating not to approach him. Unfortunately, Eren knew that it was all a facade. The bear was heavily injured in his fight against the mammoth.

The beast was just asking to get hunted with his current condition as far as Eren was concerned.