Chapter XLVI - Blue Mantis (part 1)

This bastard is definitely a White ranked monster.

Now that I have got back my abilities to use magic, I should be able to defeat any enemies easily. I thought this guy should've been easy to beat as well.

However, those kinds of thoughts are quite a stupid one.

The newly evolved blue skinned mantis is very powerful. It's much faster, stronger, and it learns my sword skills the more we fight, which makes long battles like this much harder for me.

We are in a complete stalemate even after three minutes into the battle. No side had done any major injuries, though all my injuries immediately got healed.

The bastard kept copying my moves even though they were so hard to do. I am using dual blades to counter its long bladed arms, but that also means this guy can do exactly the movements that I did. And the longer our short range combat lasts, the worse it will be for me.

SREK!!!

SRESSHH!!!!

My blade does land on the mantis's body once in a while. However, the same thing does apply the other way around. And every time I get wounded, I just healed it very quickly without realizing.

Who would have thought that self healing magic was actually a lot easier for Knight tier healing magic. It is nearly automatic, and I didn't even have to know that I got wounded for it to heal.

I could have just continued this battle and won because all the injuries or wounds this guy had done to me were healed quickly. My damage on the mantis, however, doesn't exactly heal.

And this is me... not using my flame magic. I have not utilized anything else outside of my healing magic and magic enhancement.

This guy is tough, but I haven't even used all my abilities yet. And seeing that the mantis can learn my techniques made me curious if fighting it can help me relearn all of my rusty sword skills.

After about five minutes... I think I've relearned everything. You are a good sparring partner, mister blue mantis. 

Or are you a mistress? Since you laid those eggs... nevermind.

But, I will get serious from now on.

I jumped backwards to create some space so I can do things. However, the mantis did not let go and kept on chasing me. From a distance, I realized that the wounds on its body are starting to drop even more blood, especially the one at the neck. 

Though it's a slight wound, this guy's neck is barely ten centimetres thick. It's probably quite severe for him. 

His moves are getting faster. Somehow, his moves are a lot sharper than before. The attacks he did and the steps he took, he doesn't make any unnecessary movements, and he is adapting so well to my fighting style. I guess that is what happens when you copy my techniques.

"It's a pity. I began to like you, for real."

I said while putting more magic onto my arms, flowing them throughout my blades. And within that instance, I ignited the flames.

VWOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!

Darker red flames suddenly burst out from both my swords, and the mantis did not expect that to come out of me. It quickly stopped its rush towards me, but I already rushed forward.

I put my swords in an X form, like a scissor, to block the attack. The blade of the mantis dropped exactly in the middle of the X, just where I wanted it to be.

No matter how strong the blade is, in the end that blade is a part of its body. Which means, it is connected to a softer part of its body. That is what I am targeting.

I moved the scissor forward and flinched my head so that the blade wouldn't stab my brain. When the two bladed scissors arrived at the smooth part of its arm, I swung my swords opposite ways.

SRESSSSSHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

"SHRIIEEK!!!----"

The flaming swords very easily chopped off the smooth part of the mantis's arm.

The mantis jumped backwards as it shouted in pain. It looked at the right arm that is now cut off on the ground. Bug blood from the wound is being spilled to the ground, but the mantis did something I wasn't expecting.

CHOMPPP!!!!!!!

It bit the wound.

I simply watched in awe as that thing tried to close the wound by biting the hand, forcing the blood vessels to shut. It does work, and no more blood came out of the wound.

That has to be super painful. To do that, it must require great courage, and this bug managed to do it.

It let go of the bite and looked at the new hand. The wound is closed with huge bite marks on the sides.

And now, that thing is looking at me again. Anger and rage are written in its eyes, staring at me with all sorts of emotions.

I noticed that there was an abundant amount of black liquid coming out of its eyes, and I opened my eyes wide from seeing it. Immediately, I realized what that liquid was.

Those are... tears. The mantis is crying.

Why... is the mantis crying?

"SHRIEK!K!!! HRIIIEEEEKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!"

The mantis continued shouting endlessly at me, and I realized just how enraged it was. I started to ponder why it is so angry, and then I turned my gaze behind me to the cave.

The... dead mantises?

Was it... angry for the mantises that I've killed?

A certain fact seemed to have flown past my head. It's that this mantis is actually a mother. The younger mantises were her children, and I killed them before dealing with her.

That... was definitely very cruel of me.

While I was staring at the dead mantises behind me, the blue mantis very slowly started walking forward. It completely hid its presence from me, and it kept on walking to close the distance.

Once it was close enough, it rushed forward.

"SHRIIEEEKKK!!!!!!"

The mantis swung its only hand towards me, but I only turned my gaze back to it.

My eyes are blood red with black retinas, and the mantis can immediately felt death.

BOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A darker red fire blaze was released from my left hand, hidden from the mantis's eyes. The red fire blaze completely caught the mantis's entire body, burning it into coal. However, it wasn't enough to kill it.

"KRIIEEKK!!!--"

"Did you really think guilt tripping me will work...?" 

I said with a little bit of anger to the mantis as I stepped closer to it, and I swung my sword to slice its head in half.

JREKKK!!!!!!!!

My blazing orcish sword very easily sliced the mantis's whole body in half, killing it completely.

I only watched with satisfaction as the blue mantis's two piece body fell on the charred ground that is burning due to my fire blaze.

"I saw you ate your child back at the cave. You think I'm gonna be sad for killing your children?

Monsters will always be what they are. A bunch of monsters."

I sheathed both my swords after the flames dissipated, and I turned around to leave the mantis. Fighting the mantis does feel a bit tiring, but again, it's probably just a mental fatigue from earlier.

But, just to be certain, I summoned my magic counting tool to see how I'm doing.

7304/7692.

I let out a sigh of relief. So, it was a mental fatigue, after all.

That fight took only 5% of my energy. At least I can use magic more efficiently now. Constantly using healing magic only took very little magic energy, and I believe it will only get costly when I'm healing major wounds.

These new tiers... they just somehow happened. I tiered up on both of my magic types after two weeks without magic. How the hell did that happen...?

And here I thought I should give up and start getting a new line of job. Phew~.

I put the tool back into the ring and walked back to my friends. They were all watching me fight the mantis, and they all seemed quite satisfied with how the fight went.

And seeing their smiles, it made me feel so happy that my magic came back.

Looks like I won't have to quit being an adventurer after all.

"You always made me worried, Rize."

Valey said as she walked beside me. She is wearing her secondary adventuring attire, which looked less compact compared to her previous one.

We are now well on our way back to the village, and we're just chatting a little as we walked.

"People tend to worry about me. But, those worries ended up in vain."

"That's true! You beat an incurable sickness! People will want to hunt you, now!"

Cony... does have a point.

Now that I have healed from an incurable sickness, people will most likely hunt me for help. They probably want to be healed as well, or perhaps hire me to be like a scientist to try and cure other incurable diseases. 

I can't take that. I should do something about it. I had a few ideas, but one is a very stupid one. However, it's the only idea that actually made more sense than the other ideas.

Let's take care of this once we go back.

"If they are hunting me, they better hope they're gonna do better than that mantis."

"Haha!! For sure!!"

Cony laughs after imagining all those power hungry people who want me to get beaten down by my fist, and I just chuckled imagining that as well.

The path back to the village is the same as before, only took a little longer because everyone is a little tired. And the path is quite hilly, so we had to go up and down.

Arriving at the village, Barett and Cony head to the carriages center to request a carriage back to Mazino, while I explained to Valey about what happened when she was unconscious.

The story wasn't complete because Barett and Cony came back, telling us that the carriage was ready. So, I continued the story in the carriage, where everyone else was wide-eyed listening.

Apparently, they didn't believe the part where I said I just activated my magic outside, and I had to fight four of those mantises inside without any magic. And I even managed to kill one, that's how the bigger mantis turned into blue, and the other two turned into red. Because they ate the dead mantis.

After hearing that last part, they believed it a little more.

"I guess you weren't all magical, huh."

Cony muttered after listening to my story, and I only smiled hearing such a weird comment.

"What does that mean, Cony?"

"Well, you had the humongous magic points. I thought all your abilities came from magic."

She is technically right. Most of my strength does come from magic. But, why is she feeling wrong?

"It turns out that you had more than that, I guess."

Hearing that, I only chuckled from the confusion. Looks like this girl's perspective of me has changed, for the better I suppose.

"And what do I have?"

"I-I don't know? Courage? How can you be so insecure about it?"

"I already knew I had courage. I also have something else that you probably didn't know."

"And what is that?"

"Fear of death?"

I said to her as if it was obvious, but she only shook her head after hearing it. Everyone else seemed to be listening in to the pointless argument, but I'm just enjoying talking about myself.