Massacre! Sword Lele! & Trap Kill! Power Bear!

Now then, nearly 3 months had passed since the Night Trite's attack. It was the dead of winter.

In the mountains of Zahan, white flakes were likely dancing about by now.

But, conveniently for Emi, the Kaise Forest demon realm lay somewhat south of the mountains of Zahan, and with the warm Sarotrate Current flowing into Aseto Bay, it was a relatively warm land.

Warm enough that, “for Emi, at least,” she could survive sleeping and waking out in the open.

In that time, Emi hadn't moved around much.

Near where the night raid had happened, she had found a Kaise tree with a big hollow, and had been living there, using it as her base.

The hollow had been home to a monster that roosted there, a Neck Slasher Owl, but at the end of their struggle for survival, Emi had torn it apart and eaten it.

Devouring the Neck Slasher Owl's carcass, Emi had found herself remembering her home in this world, Naso Forest.

Come to think of it, in that forest too, she had made a tree hollow her den.

Back then, the previous tenant lurking in the hollow had also been an owl-type monster.

That one was delicious......

But that nostalgia also brought back memories of the unpleasant Trash Village, so Emi quickly shook off the reminiscence.

And the irritation that the memories of Trash Village had stirred up, she vented by massacring every monster that came near.

She unleashed violence as she pleased.

Punching them to death, kicking them to death, tearing them apart......

When she suddenly came back to her senses, monster carcasses lay piled up around her in a mountain.

According to the voice in Emi's mind, their name was Sword Lele.

They were turtle-like monsters with hard shells on their backs, but those defenses were no match for Emi's brute strength.

If anything, they seemed to be the kind of monster that, rather than fighting, disguised itself as a rock and let strong enemies pass it by.

Against the powers of observation Emi had as a human, though, that disguise didn't seem to work very well.

Emi felt ashamed of herself.

Maybe because she had been keeping her distance from human society lately, she felt like she was losing her self-control.

This way, wasn't it just the same as the time with the Prairie Wolves?

Had she sunk to becoming “something with a leering grin that fancied itself the strong one”?

A fierce sense of self-loathing welled up.

The only thing she could do to dispel it was to eat the Sword Leles she had killed, without leaving a single scrap.

Only through that act would her mere venting be elevated into something noble: hunting in order to live.

And as she found out in the process, these Sword Leles were incredibly delicious.

Even when devoured raw, their blood and meat were surprisingly fruity!

It made no sense, but delicious was a wonderful thing.

She had a hollow that could serve as a base.

All around lived very tasty monsters.

There were more than enough reasons for Emi to settle down in this place.

Though for the Sword Leles inhabiting the vicinity, it was a very unfortunate turn of events.

◇ ◇ ◇

“............”

Now, it was nighttime.

A cold night wind blew in a single gust, and the leaves of the Kaise tree where Emi lived whispered as they brushed against each other.

In the midst of this, Emi's eyes snapped open.

The sound of the night wind was not the cause.

It was because she had “sensed” a monster approaching her bed.

She got up slowly, poked her head out of the hollow and laid eyes on the monster.

The monster lit by the moonlight spilling through the leaves was, according to the voice in her mind, a Power Bear.

As the name suggested, he was a ferocious bear boasting monstrous strength.

In this other world of Ardyst, where plenty of creatures looked outlandish by Earth standards, this bear looked so much like a bear that there was no other word for him but bear.

But his strength was staggering: even a 【Magic Strike】 from Emi as she was now, with 【Body Strengthening】 on, would lose out if it met a single swing of a Power Bear's arm.

He was by no means an opponent to take on in close combat.

A few weeks earlier, while exploring the forest, Emi had run into a Power Bear and nearly been killed, so she knew the threat those bears posed firsthand.

The Power Bear, twitching his nose, probably sniffing out where Emi was, had the carelessness of the strong.

The Power Bear was without doubt the strongest monster around here, so his arrogance couldn't be helped.

But, still.

However.

The spot the Power Bear had now set foot in was already inside Emi's territory.

It was no place for him to rampage as his brute strength pleased.

The moment he entered, he was no different from bear meat on a chopping board.

See?

Botori.

The bear's right foreleg was suddenly cut off where there was nothing at all, and rolled across the ground.

Startled by the suddenness of it, the Power Bear lost his balance and toppled over.

Emi was not one to let such an opening slip.

She immediately leaped from the hollow and struck with a full-power 【Magic Strike】.

“GAAAAAAAAAA!!”

But that alone was not enough to finish off a Power Bear!

Crushing the pain under his rage, he somehow rose up on his 2 hind legs and flailed his remaining arm wildly!

The blast of wind he whipped up, charged with magic power, snapped the trees all around with ease and in no time turned the area into a bare clearing.

As expected, the Power Bear was strong.

Even after losing one arm, he possessed enough raw power to make Emi hesitate to engage in close combat.

But still, losing one arm meant he had been robbed of his familiar way of moving, on 4 legs.

Fatal, that lack of mobility.

Normally, against a puny little creature like the one that had attacked him, he would rush over, close the distance in an instant and toy with it until it died, but he couldn't.

And for that very reason, this contest was as good as decided in Emi's favor.

Emi backed away to where the Power Bear's attacks couldn't reach her, and from there she kept firing 【Stone Throw】, on and on.

【Infinite Pebbles】.

For the Power Bear, each one did little damage, but what would happen as they piled up and piled up?

The answer was simple. Death awaited.

With the heavy blood loss from his lost right foreleg on top of it, before 30 minutes had passed, the Power Bear was nothing but a silent corpse.

◇ ◇ ◇

Now then, about this fight.

To anyone but Emi, and the one who lived in her mind, it left behind nothing but mysteries.

Why had the Power Bear's leg been cut off where there was nothing at all?

And in the first place, why had Emi been able to sense the Power Bear approaching?

To give away the trick, the answer lay in “threads.”

How she used these “threads” was one part of a new magic power manipulation technique Emi had devised since entering the demon realm.

When Emi reflects on herself after running wild, it's never in an ethical sense, you know.