Teamwork was important. Extremely important.
That thing about communicating with eyes during battle? That's not a complete lie.
Once you work together with someone enough, you can somewhat guess what next action that person will perform. More often than not, the eyes help with that guess.
It is by predicting your teammates' moves that you work together better. Otherwise, you would just be ruining each other's plans.
That's why it is hard to fit into a new team. If you move, you are ruining someone else's plans, if you don't, you aren't contributing anything.
That is especially true in a team that was as closely tied as this one.
There were childhood friends, so they knew each other pretty much since birth. Because of that, they had excelent teamwork. Impecable, even.
It was hard for me to get on their level.
Hard doesn't mean impossible though.
***
"I honestly didn't expect you to work so well with us. It's almost scary how well you reacted to our movements."
Souma says that while skinning the Honey Goader. It was basically a huge honey badger from my old world.
I shrug my shoulders.
"Well, what can I say? I'm a person who worries about a lot of things."
Just like I said, predicting was how you work better together.
But I am not so good that I can accurately predict what Souma, Mitsuki or Leila will do. But if I come up with everything they can do, and come up with what I should do for every single one of those actions, then I can fake good teamwork.
It is not easy. No, more accurately, it is impossible. In the heat of battle, coming up with every single possible action is too much. Nobody can do something like that.
But coming up with dozens is possible. And I know the three of them well enough to know what they definitely won't do.
So, I build a mental image of the three of them, I understand what they can do considering their personalities and the situation, and think what my best response would be to that action.
This is the only way I can work with them somewhat well.
'Even then, it is not good enough.'
I messed up a couple of times in the battle against the Honey Goader. It was for a simple reason.
Not only do they have independent thoughts, but they also converse with each other with their eyes.
This means that while they thought about doing something, looking at another person would make their mind change. I am not so good as to calculate that kind of dynamic.
'I have to spend more time with them.'
'I have to understand them at least as well as I understand that rude girl.'
While butchering the Honey Goader with Jagon's OP dagger, those were my thoughts.
***
"Welcome, Faun."
Those words stabbed deep into my heart everytime I heard them.
"I definitely hope I'm welcome."
I make a light joke as I enter the house. My feet stop as soon I as I see that Ryuni was cooking something up.
I recognized the smell immediately.
'Ah, dammit. Yeah, it was definitely a mistake to put it there.'
It was borsch. I couldn't help but chuckle.
"You decided to cook that out of all the recipes I gave you? I don't know whether that's lucky or unlucky."
"Why is it unlucky?"
"Memories."
I gave a defacto answer.
Ryuni and Kilta have been taste testers for me.
I would feed them food from my old world and see what they thought of it.
Of course, since they didn't know good food in the first place, they answered tasty every single time.
But their opinions were still useful.
'So that I don't waste time on making that food, I gave Ryuni the recipes for many of my world's dishes. For her to pick borsch...'
I didn't even know what to think, so I decided to not think.
I would just eat, as I normally do.
After some waiting, the food was ready.
I calmly put the borsch into my mouth and started chew―
'This isn't so bad.'
I froze.
It was not because the borsch was extra good, or because some memories resurfaced in my mind.
No, it was simply because of that singular thought.
It was a thought I never expected to have.
***
"You think we could take this on?"
"You think you're ready to lose an arm?"
"No."
"No."
Souma nodded. In my opinion, he trusted me a bit too much. More accurately, Mitsuki trusted me too much, and Souma trusted Mitsuki a lot.
Still, it was true that we couldn't beat so many Flamebugs without sacrifice. Ten was just too much.
Leila points at a board.
"I think we could take that on with your strategies."
"No, Leila. Please don't overestimate me that much."
Mitsuki takes one board off the mission wall.
"Perhaps this, then?"
I Think about it.
"Yeah, we can do this one. Seriously, why is Mitsuki the only one who thinks for herself out of the three of you?"
Souma shrugges.
"Can you blame me for taking the lazy route?"
I click my tongue.
"No I can't, no I can't..."
Being lazy and not thinking for yourself was definitely a pleasant experience. I would do the same in his situation.
Leila curiously looked at the board Mitsuki was holding.
"A flower gathering quest... doesn't sound all that fun."
She pouted slightly.
"Those herbs are only found in the third part of the forest, so I can assure you'll be more scared than bored."
The third part of the forest was scary, to the point that we haven't fought a single monster in there.
Not because the monsters were strong there, but because they were smart. The type to jump in right at the end of a fight and get all the rewards (meat).
A flower gathering quest was a lot safer, since we could run away without completely failing the mission.
'That said, monsters aren't the only thing to be scared of there...'
Plantares, in other words, 'plant monsters' were also a thing.
Some mimic other normal plants, some don't try to hide that they want to kill you.
To be honest, for me, there was no difference between plantares and monsters.
They were both things I had to be worried about, so the difference between them was negligible.
***
"The grass tried to kill me! The fucking grass tried to kill me!"
"Be quiet Leila, you're making this more dangerous than it needs to be."
"Nonono! I don't think all of you get it! One moment, I was walking on normal grass, and the next, it tried to eat me! Are we just going to ignore that?!"
"We all warned you to stay on guard. If you ignored what we said, why should we listen to what you say?"
At that, Leila got even angrier, mostly because she couldn't come up with a retort.
Mitsuki turned away and let out a small chuckle.
"D-don't laugh!"
Souma smiled, not in a condescending way, but a reassuring one.
"He got you there, Leila. Let's just calm down and keep going."
At Souma's words, she took a deep breath and became serious.
'―――'
We continued walking, looking around for any of the flowers we needed.
Sometimes we picked correct ones, sometimes we got fooled by mimics. But since we did everything as safe as possible, there were no problems.
Souma climbed a tree to look around. After coming down, he informed us that he didn't see any monsters. Of course, this didn't mean that there were no monsters, but it at least meant that there weren't any dangerous ones.
"There are two Goldies we missed back there."
We walked back for those Goldies.
'Well, at least not everything new in this new world is dangerous.'
―I thought as I carefully picked the Goldies.
All the flowers we were meant to collect? All of them were harmless flowers that just looked pretty.
That's right, it wasn't for medicine or something like that, it was purely a mission for pretty flowers.
Goldies were the most striking flowers to me. They looked like they were made out of gold.
Gold wasn't considered that impressive in this world, so Goldies themselves weren't that sought after, but for me Goldies definitely looked the best.
Anyway, we continued walking around. Souma and Mitsuki were the ones who normally spotted the flowers, and Leila and I used mana sensing to find out whether anything was out of place.
Every now and then, Souma climbed up a tree to check up on any monsters close to us.
"A Manure Beetle to the south, we should avoid that."
"There's an ant nest in the front. Not sure which type of ant, but better to just avoid it."
"Flamebugs behind us, we should speed up to avoid them."
"Almost missed it! A Mud Bear to the west. Should be careful to avoid that one."
Avoid, avoid, avoid. That's the name of the game here.
Whether we liked it or not, we weren't strong enough to just walk around with our heads held high.
We had to be sneaky and careful.
But despite trying our best, some bad things still happened.
We had to run away from a bee nest, we got caught up in a couple grass-mimics.
The most dangerous one was when Souma accidentaly climbed an ent.
"To say that your Fire Magic is invaluable would be an understatement."
Leila raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"What's with the sudden praise? Weren't you reproaching me not long ago?"
"I just say the truth. Whether that truth is praise or reproach is out of my hands."
I shrug my shoulders. Leila huffs.
"Can't you be nicer?"
I chuckle while lightly shaking my head.
"I hate lying, both when others do it and when I do it, so I don't lie unless necessary. If I can get out of a situation without lying, I will."
I don't know exactly when I started hating telling lies, but it was yet another thing that made me, me.
And yet another thing that will be gone.
This was one of the things I didn't feel bad about losing.
"So you don't lie even if that's the good thing to do?"
"Yes."
There had to be a dang good reason for me to lie, or I had to be asked at a time I'm bewildered, before I can process my words.
"You're weird."
"I know."
"And it's even weirder that you admit you're weird."
"I know."
Souma chuckled at our interaction and started climbing another tree.
He looked around, but he didn't go down.
He was just looking in a direction without mov―
"SOUMA! Snap out of it!"
He jolted in surprise before looking down at us in horror.
"What monster is it!?"
His mouth slowly moved, trembling.
"It's a silver gorilla."
All of us froze in shock.
'What's a silver gorilla doing here?!'
That was a monster from the second part of the forest! And one that occupied a very specific region!
'Yeah, we are close to the second part at the current moment, but why is it here?!'
I started Thin―
I slapped myself.
"Souma, get down right this instant!"
I cracked my neck and started Thinking.
'The silver gorilla is a monster that has the same size as a normal gorilla, but has enourmous physical prowess. It is also praised for its amazing six senses. In other words, running away and hiding is very difficult. So difficult that defeating it might actually be easier. Souma has about half mana left, Mitsuki is almost full, along with me and Leila. Leila specializes in casting numerous weak spells, considering the tough hide of the gorilla, she can only be used for area control. Mitsuki and I are the only ones who can deal damage to the gorilla. That said, Mitsuki can only deal enough to cause minor bleeding, while I at most can take out a limb if I spend all my mana at once. Making the gorilla bleed and play the waiting game is not viable, nor can the three of them win against the gorilla even with a limb missing. I doubt applying poison to a wound would change much. This means that defeating, running away and hiding is impossible. Let's do substrategies then. Defeating with outlasting or a defeating with a trump card are impossible. There are no substrategies to hiding. Running away can be done in multiple ways. The most promising ones are: "Giving a better incentive to not attack" and "Trapping". If we can divert its attention or trap it in a way that gives us time to run away, we'll be golden. Trapping it sounds problematic, especially with so little time to prepare. Diverting it is.'
I nodded.
'Diverting all depends on what the target wants to do. Is the gorilla coming here for food? No way. Has it just gone mad? Unlikely. Is it running away from something? Maybe. I should also consider its intelligence. If it has emotions like anger, then its motives can become severly more complicated.'
"Hey, how intelligent are silver gorillas? Do they have emotions?"
I shake Mitsuki to get an answer out of her and to make her get out of her stupor.
She blinks in shock, before regaining reason.
"Y-yes, they do. Do you have a plan?"
"I'm Thinking."
'So it has emotions. Then there are thousands possibilities...'
"Hey, Souma. What was the gorilla doing?"
Souma, who had just gotten down from the tree, turned to me.
"It's just destroying everything in its way. The moment I saw it, it saw me, and I just..."
His eyes widened and pupils narrowed. I flicked his forehead.
"No time for that. Go get Leila out of her stupor."
'A note: I should account for the gorilla's aura. I can't feel it, but the three of them can, and it might opress them. Not only that, since the gorilla saw Souma, it will probably go in our direction directly.'
I sighed.
'If it's destroying everything in its way, then that's definitely because of anger. Since it is angry, it does not care what it goes for. If we find another monster for it to fight, it'll gladly do just that. That said, everything meant things like trees too. Unlike monsters, most plantares are static, so that makes them much easier to use in our current situation.'
I think back to every plantare we encountered.
'Grass-mimics are extremely good at pretending to be normal grass, so fooling the gorilla might not be impossible with them. But, the grass-mimics will likely not target the gorilla as it is too strong, and so the gorilla will just run straight pass them. Grass-mimics are useless for diversion. We coould try to find an ent by throwing Leila's Fire Magic at every single tree, but that might not be worth it. The Dionamus looks intimidating as it is basically a huge venus flytrap, but the silver gorilla would rip it in shreds right after a second. All of these are wrong, I need something that will last a while... wait.'
I think back to a plant we encountered.
'Right... the gorilla is destroying everything. Plantares might be more dangerous, but that doesn't mean they have more vitality than normal plants. If I need something that will last a while... that super-stupid aloe, Xantosae, might do the trick. Maybe I'll even throw in some Solanoum in there, which are basically huge poisonous potatoes. Potatoes are known for surviving no matter the conditions, right?'
That potato one was a joke, but the Xantosae was a genuine consideration. It was a type of aloe that regenerated at speeds that were, quite frankly, ridiculous.
I remembered where I last saw it.
When I started seeing with my eyes, I noticed that everyone was now in their right mind. They were scared, but they looked like they could act fine.
"Everyone, follow me!"
I started running, they followed not far behind.
Slowly but surely, we started hearing the distant sound of falling trees.
We ran by the Xantosae, and the sound started getting further away.
It got further away, and further away, and further away...
Until it didn't.
"Erdia, Goddess of Earth, you are beautiful beyond belief."
I erased our footprints, used some wind spells to hide our scent and shifted the grass to muffle our footsteps.
I made a 'shh' expression, and they all nodded.
I took out a poison out of my backpack and sprayed it everywhere.
After running a bit more, I opened the ground beneath us, we went under it and hid.
'So, running away didn't work. Then we just hide until the gorilla goes away. The biggest problem will be the smell. I did hide our scent, but that might not be enough, so I sprayed some poison which has a really strong smell. Hopefully, that will be enough. I also made some fake footprints, but it might not be fooled by those.'
I looked around, which was a useless endeavour since it was pitch dark.
'What can I do to make our situation better?'
I thought and Thought about it, but came up blank.
Coming up with ideas as a group was also impossible, since talking would be too loud.
'Well, I could cast a light spell and try to communicate through writing, but...'
Casting a spell out of nowhere would probably make Leila freak out, but touching her to warn her would also make her freak out.
That's not even talking about how bad I was at communicating through writing.
I suck at drawing, and my handwriting's really bad, so...
'Better to just come up with stuff by myself.'
This time around, I would just think though.
While thinking, I payed attention to the sounds above us.
We could hear the rampage of the gorilla focus on an area not too far away. It was probably confused about losing our tracks.
And so it rampaged... and rampaged... and―
'Why's it not stopping?!'
If the gorilla was angry and just wanted to destroy, it would've moved on long ago! But it was still in our general area!
'Is its anger... targetted?'
There was a chance that the gorilla wasn't just angry... but angry at humans specifically. That was the only reason why it would go so far out of its way to track us down.
'Shit! It makes sense now!'
In the second part of the forest, there's nothing that can compete with a silver gorilla.
But if some humans were to stupidly drive it out of its territory―
'Who did it?!'
I wanted to cave in some skulls really bad, but I had to calm down and consider our options.
'Okay, so, the gorilla most definitely won't give up. It will eventually find us. If some humans truly drove it out of its territory, then there might be some help coming. If we stall until that, we should be fine.'
Might and should wasn't good enough for me though.
If help wasn't coming, could I still do something to save the three of them?
...
'Well, it's not like they're necessary. They're just a party to me. I could easily run away by myself if I just manipulate their emotions and trust in me.'
It would be easy, even. Laughably so.
...But―
'I most likely won't get a party as good as this one, so there's also a reason to save them. Let's try to Think of ways to save them, and if I can't come up with any, I'll just abandon them.'
As long as things aren't bad, I can manage with saving them.
Suddenly, I started hearing heavy breathing.
By using mana sense, I could clearly tell it was Leila.
Her breathing got heavier and heavier until―
"Shh..."
Souma hugged her to get her to calm down.
Mitsuki watched on silently from the side.
I pushed her into the hug, which made her flustered. She wasn't good with physical contact.
'I need the three of you to be at your best, so just hug for now.'
I crossed my arms and looked up.
***
The gorilla was right above us now. Its rampage was definitely going to make our little hideout cave in.
Perhaps we could reinforce the hideout and outwait it, but at that point oxygen could become a problem.
'So we have no choice but to move.'
I looked at the trio. They had determined looks on their faces, in other words, they were ready to fight.
'Well, they are adventurers, after all.'
I tapped Souma on the shoulder.
He turned to me after a small jolt.
I whispered very quietly.
"Warn Leila."
He nodded.
He calmly approached Leila and whispered to her.
After he was done, I cast a beginner light spell.
The sudden change from dark to light made us all recoil, but our eyes slowly adjusted.
'Alright, now that our eyes have adjusted to bright light...'
With my dagger, I started drawing the very basics of my idea.
I tilted my head at them, 'asking' whether they liked the plan or not.
After some contemplation, Mitsuki added a bit.
And after a lot of contemplation, Leila also added something.
'This girl... she knows Fire Meteor?!'
That flips my entire plan upside down!
'Considering she's so unsure and didn't tell us before this, means she still has a lot of trouble with the spell. So it is somewhat of a gamble, but...'
It was still honestly the best shot I had at saving these three.
As long as me surviving isn't a gamble, I'm fine with it.
I Thought about it, then I redrew everything.
Souma drew a bit without a shred of hesitation.
I raised my eyebrow at him, he nodded in response. I shrugged.
Mitsuki tried to erase what he drew, but he caught her hand. They looked into each other's eyes.
Souma gave a reassuring smile, to which Mitsuki bit her lip. After a long staredown, Mitsuki hanged her head.
'Yeah, the three of them really care for each other.'
***
I cracked my fingers and opened the earth above us.
We jumped out, and almost immediately, the silver gorilla saw us.
Everyone except me stiffened. They bit their tongues to numb their fear.
Leila closed her eyes and started focusing. A massive Shape slowly started being made in the air.
Of course, it didn't need to be massive, it was just easier this way.
Souma and Mitsuki ran forward. I followed a certain distance from them.
While we were running, we took in the devastated area around us. Everything was destroyed and toppled to the ground. Just moving around was somewhat of a challenge.
We focused on the enemy once it growled.
The ground beneath the silver gorilla basically exploded, and it was now flying at us with a speed only Mitsuki could react to.
She barely managed to dodge it. I calculated the spot where the gorilla would land, and casted Ice Floor there.
It slid on the ice a bit, but quickly found its footing. That bit bought Mitsuki some time to rebalance.
'Okay, this is still within expectations.'
The important thing was getting poison into the gorilla's system, so that it would slow down enough for me and Souma to not be useless. The easiest way to do that would be Mitsuki's poison-coated spear, mostly because she could react to it, and most of my spells are too weak to penetrate its flesh.
The problem? Well, there are multitude problems actually, but the most prominent one was attention.
The gorilla could feel who was the strongest, and as such, it would be wary of them more. In our case, that was Mitsuki.
So, we had to grab the gorilla's attention away from Mitsuki somehow.
The easiest way to do that?
An exception to this world.
'I will kill this gorilla.'
―As previously stated, I do not emit killing intent unless I want to. But what happens when I truly do want to kill something? Well, I'm not sure for what reason, but my killing intent is impossible to ignore.
"It is not overwhelming, it is not potent, nor is it sharp. But, it does feel like it surrounds on all sides and doesn't let go. Inevitable would be a good description, I guess." That was what Jagon remarked.
As that thought ran through my mind, the gorilla turned to me.
It stomped, breaking the ice ― which quickly disappeared due to running out of mana ― and blasted at me.
Using its stomp as my time to react, I started leaning in one direction, before quickly jumping in the other.
The gorilla went past me, and right at Mitsuki who had to do nothing but raise her spear and prepare for collision.
F = ma. This was a factual statement in this world too. Despite there being magic and mana, the only way to increase the power of a strike was to make it faster or heavier.
So, with a full gorilla barelling at a speed that made it look like a blur, the force was massive.
With that, despite Mitsuki barely using any mana, there was now a decent sized wound in the gorilla's body.
Obviously, Mitsuki didn't take the gorilla head on, that would kill her, she only targetted the side.
Now, we were in a configuration.
The gorilla was in a triangle between me, Souma and Mitsuki. Of course, the triangle wasn't perfect, but it was good enough.
Perhaps because targetting us didn't do it any good, the gorilla went for Souma next.
This time, it didn't jump, but quickly ran.
This gave Souma time to react, which he used to jump on a lonely tree amidst the devastation.
"Erdia, Goddess of Earth, you are stunning."
The gorilla came up and destroyed the tree in a second. Before the tree could topple, Souma jumped off into the air.
The gorilla came to the spot where he would land, but was surprised to see a tall thin pillar rise from the ground. Souma landed on that pillar on one foot, because that was all he could fit on that pillar.
He managed to keep his balance, and jump off into the air once again, due to the gorilla destroying the pillar.
This went on for two more times before the gorilla turned around to look at me... high up on another pillar.
It looked at Mitsuki, who too was on a pillar.
'Our main goal is wasting your time. What will you do now?'
It grabbed a huge boulder and threw it at me, but I just jumped away onto a new pillar I made.
It was then, that it turned its attention to its last possible target.
I clicked my tongue.
'Well, it was bound to realize eventually, just a shame that it happened so soon.'
I created an Ice Spike in the direction it was looking, at the same time as we all jumped down.
It probably wasn't my imagination that the gorilla smirked.
It booked for Leila.
It ran around the Ice Spike and was met with Mitsuki. She would have to stall until I and Souma could reach her.
The Gorilla was fast, but slower. As such, Mitsuki could actually put up a decent fight.
...For 30 seconds, that is. The amount of mana she had to spend to keep up was astranomical, so she was draining her mana supply at ridiculous speeds.
I tried my best to help with spells from a distance, and it did help a little, but not much.
I was now closing in, Mitsuki just had to la―
'Yes!'
The gorilla couldn't properly control its balance after a punch, and Mitsuki landed a small blow.
The numbing poison was starting to spread to the rest of its body, which was why the gorilla messed up there.
'The first poison to slow and the second poison to shut down... not a bad combination.'
Of course, it wasn't a cure-all to our problems. A numbing poiton did only that, numbing.
The gorilla will have some problems controlling its body, but not much. It might even get used to it. Even if that will be the case, it is still good for us.
Just like that, Mitsuki started getting some hits in, which resulted in more poison, which resulted in the gorilla growing slower, which resulted in even more hits. It was an almost infinite cycle.
When I finally arrived, I took most of the burden on myself. Mitsuki was now low on mana, and she had to have some left by the end for our strategy to work.
Eventually, Souma also caught up, and he was the one who took the brunt at that point.
With the three of us, it was much easier to stop the gorilla from going past us. It tried a couple of strategies, like running around us, jumping over us or running away and attacking from a different angle, but none of them worked.
After a long time of stalling―
'It started to rotate!'
Leila was done with constructing the Shape, and she was now in the final step.
It was slow though, which made sense. The Shape was complicated, to the point that I wasn't sure I would be able to do it.
It was so slow, that we had started to run out of mana. We now had to take certain hits that wouldn't go through our armor to save some.
'Shame, feels like we won't make it.'
Unless there was another thing we could use, the Shape wouldn't finish its rotation before we started to take some real damage.
I thought about it for a bit.
'Well, there is one option...'
It was dangerous, but it was something I was planning on trying sooner or later.
'I do have good enough control of my mind that I won't get carried away now, so it isn't actually all that dangerous. It is going to be necessary though.'
It will be my first and last real Power Up in this world, I suspected. A kind of thing that would make my strength rise severalfold in one go.
'Eh, whatever. Since I'm not in any danger, I might as well ball.'
"Hey, I'll take the front for a while, and then I'll be idle for a bit."
I then dashed at the gorilla and started fighting it.
I got hit sometimes, but I didn't really feel any pain.
'I really am slowly becoming a monster, aren't I?'
I couldn't help but chuckle at that funny thought.
After a lot of time, at the point my mana was almost empty, I retreated.
I closed my eyes and focused on my mana sensing.
I paused, solely because of bad memories, but I quickly shoved those away.
I took my mana out of my body, then, I let it mix with the mana in the atmosphere.
With the utmost carefulness, I once again tried to grasp mana that was not quite mine.