Young Writers Society

“As cute a scene as this it,” Lore interrupts Ellie and me during out bonding moment. Rude. “What’s the next step?”

“Next step?” Ellie asked, tilting her head. Since I was still clinging to her, she had to steer my unsteady body so that she could look at Lore.

“Well, you made sure Mist won’t become a crazed murderer; Which is great, but what about getting used to the process of killing in the first place. Which was our whole worry.” Actually that is a good point. That whole event did nothing but make me even more scared of killing.

“...Werewolves have to fight the urge to slaughter anything we see when hungry, we have no system for encouraging killing. But that is okay, I believe in milady’s strong heart.” You just argued you had to do that before because I was too kind! What are you playing at?

Why did I thank you?

Other then to have an excuse to hug you, Ellie. Curse, why did you make me realize how comfortable it feels to hug things?

“Ellie, are you trying to scare Mist away from fighting?” Lore said after a few seconds of silence.

“...”

Ellie, come on deny it, make my thank you have an excuse.

“Ellie?”

“I would never do that to milady.” Ellie quickly replied. Ah, see I can believe in that.

Totally not suspicious at all.

Turns out I am not the insta-kill spell caster my first kill made me out to be. Of course if I thought about how a point blank shot failed to go all the way through, that would have been obvious. After I could steady myself, Lore says what she originally planned, they would fight, hold various monsters from attacking me or running away, and just have me pot shot them until they die. Again it turns out, I am not the insta-kill spell caster I thought I was.

Conk!

“Milady, it’s not dead.”

“I know!” I shout.

Conk!

Conk!

The first monster we run into a monster Lore calls a Bloody lance, a monster that resembles a bull sized toad mixed with a sword fish. While Ellie easily held the monster still, I repeated used Air Hammer on it. The first left a small hole, the second destroyed its eye, with the third finally killing it as it broke through the monsters rib cage. Okay, air hammer is not as powerful as I thought it was.

Horrified as I was, I completely ignore Ellies lesson, and distract myself. As we hunt for the next monster I start thinking. I thought of air hammer as me throwing heavy air. A simple wall of pressure slamming into the enemy with a small burst of weight slamming it forward from behind.

Efficient mana wise, but clearly useless unless all my enemies stand still as I slowly beat them to death. A gruesome and probably disrespectful way of fighting. Let’s see, I can define shape, clearly, otherwise I couldn’t mimic a hammer of heavy air. As the shape seemed to have been decided by how I imagine a hammer, I’ll go with that. A better shape for a projectile, would of course be something slender and sharp, like a sword, or a bullet.

“Target found milady.” Ellie growled, shifting forms before turning into a blur, tackling what looked like a miniature rhino made out of grass. Like everything else here so far, she easily subdued the monster, and then kept letting it go. I realize this is a place for beginners, but I feel like I am way too far behind.

“Mist, it’s a Green Horn, it’s fatal points are its stomach, and heart, it has no brain.” Lore said, making no move to help Ellie.

“Got it.” Okay. Should I stick with the same name since it’s just a shape change, or do I go with another name? “Air Bullet!” since the shape is defined by my imagination, let’s pick something that gives that image.

A screech filled the air as the bullet I created rocked straight into the Green Horn.

And a one hit kill. Perfect.

“Yes!” I can’t help but shout as the best falls to the ground.

“An efficient kill milady.”

“Mist, did you just make a new spell?”

“Yes?” Is there something wrong with that?

“Mh, on to the next fight.” Is there something wrong with that? Tell me! Before I can voice my thoughts though, a low growl sounds.

“I smell a lot of mad cats.” Ellie said, moving herself closer to me.

“That loud spell likely alerted quite a few monsters, but none of them would come towards the sound. This is weird.”

The valley, while mostly uncovered was made almost entirely of waves, layers and layers of hills that made me feel like we were out at sea when mixed with the tall grass that waved around us. Which is why Ellies werewolf nose was so useful, even a valley can be hard to see through in this sort of setting. To the point that I can hardly call this a valley at all. As we looked around, from over one hill, not only did ‘a lot’ of med cats appear. But a massive wave of them came, the charging mass of beast barrelling down the hill.

“Run.” Lore simply muttered, rather than waste time, she quickly picks me up, bolting in the opposite direction.

Ellie and Lore rush through the valley with the many mad cats in hot pursuit.

“Turn me around!” I shout. “I can slow them down with spells.”

“Won’t you just attract more?”

“I’ll stick to my first spell then, but it’s better than nothing.” I argue.

“Fine.” Rather than turning me around she throws me at Ellie, who easily catches me.

I’m not that light, these two are just too strong.

She casually drops me on her back as she runs, holding me up until I have a proper hold on her, somehow never losing to Lore’s pace while distracted with me.

Okay, first spell.

“Air Hammer.” I will more magic into it before I left go.

Clonk!

The mad cat I was aiming at is hit in one of its legs, flipping out before it’s quickly trampled by its brethren. These things are too crazed, even for something called mad.

“Air Hammer.” I shout again, and again, each shot, while not killing directly at least resulted in something stumbling. Which distracted the mad cats, and got the tripped one crushed. I continued on, somehow ignoring the bile in my throat from all this death enough to help us distance ourselves from the giant cats. But rather than stopping, they kept running. Only stopping when night fell and we were deep in a forest.

From there, Ellie jumped into the trees, forcing Lore to follow.

“Are they still following us?” Lore asked, landing next to the still wolfed Ellie.

“Yes.”

“Can’t cats climb trees?” I can’t help but say.

“Even though they look like cats, they are not smart enough to do anything to us this high up.” Lore muttered looking at the forest floor. So those doom kittens from when I first got here were unique? Because they seemed to know what they were doing.

“Are you okay Mist? You used a lot of magic.”

“I’m okay, I just need to rest a bit.” I lie through my teeth. I used over fifty spells throughout the day, most of them within that run, yet I am not even slightly tired. I don’t know the rules of this world, but I think I broke a few records and made rookie of the year. But I can’t distract everyone with how much of a cheat I am thanks to how I min/maxed my base states right now.

The first of the mad cats rushed into the forest, and like they did when I first came to this world, they slammed their heads into the tree we were on, like they already knew exactly where we were.

“What?!” Lore freaked as she watched the bloody headed monster back up for another headbutt.

“Lore, let’s move to another tree.”

It slammed its head into the tree again, hitting hard enough to kill itself.

“What’s wrong with these beast?” Lore looked over at Ellie who simply shrugged.

They’re acting like the ones where I first showed up in this world, but these ones are clearly far weaker than the ones who attacked me. But that does not matter much since a army of these creatures is coming.

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Authors Note: It's a cat-tastrophy!

Funded by: @KaiRyu