At dusk.
The battle between Ryu’s group and the ogres ended in a draw, leaning more towards a draw.
Tauro, thrown into the fray without preparation, lacked teamwork, but compensated with individual abilities during the fight.
Ryu and Leanne displayed an impressive combination, but the ogres they faced were seasoned warriors, making it a tough match that ended in a draw.
As the battle dragged on without a decisive blow, Kamiza took the opportunity to silently approach and easily decapitate one of the ogres from behind, ending the fight.
It was a time-out intervention.
The other ogre, realizing its disadvantage, turned its back. Leanne’s arrows and Tauro’s wind magic injured it, immobilizing it, and Ryu followed up by delivering the final blow.
“That ogre was tough this time…”
Ryu breathed out his thoughts.
Leanne nodded in agreement.
“Indeed, this ogre was formidable. Let’s take its magic stone.”
Ryu agreed, extracting the magic stone from the ogre’s chest and collecting its horn as well, as they could be sold as materials.
“Come on, it’s getting dark, let’s head back quickly.”
Kamiza urged the group.
Sima, exhausted and sitting down, was given a potion by Ryu to recover before they all set off on the journey home.
From then on, throughout the summer vacation, Tauro, Jiro, and Sima, under the guise of special training with Ryu’s group, repeated daily monster hunts.
Though it was a short period, the exchange of life with monsters brought about a change in their mentality, sharpening their sword skills to be more practical and efficient in combat.
They learned a lot from their defeats, even facing moments where they had to face death, which stripped away any arrogance they might have had, being top students in their school.
“Oh, before you guys return to school, you better wipe those serious faces off.”
Ryu pointed out the out-of-place serious expressions of the three.
“Yeah, with those faces, you’ll definitely stand out at school.”
Leanne added, and even Kamiza joined in laughing.
After summer vacation ended, Tauro’s group returned to school.
It was a short period, but they should have grown considerably.
Ryu and Leanne bid them farewell and returned to their daily lives.
Their daily lives still involved hunting monsters in the Demon Forest from noon onwards.
Today, they entered the forest again, intending to have Leanne locate their grandfather Kamiza, who had entered ahead of them, when a part of the forest exploded.
“There he is.”
The two quickly headed towards the spot, knowing it was Kamiza’s doing.
As expected, multiple ogre corpses lay charred on the ground.
“Huh? He was dealing with ogres… But why does Grandpa always use magic to deal with them?”
Ryu asked, suddenly curious.
“Well, they have physical resistance, which makes them troublesome. On the other hand, they have no magical resistance, so it’s the quickest way to defeat them. If they didn’t have a weakness to magic, they’d probably be in the B-rank range of monsters.”
Kamiza answered with a look as if to say, “Didn’t you know?”
“Eh!? So, what were we doing desperately fighting with physical attacks all this time?”
“Yeah, Uncle Kamiza, what was the point of our efforts?”
Leanne chimed in, also feeling indignant.
“Is that so? I thought you were insisting on defeating them with swords?”
Kamiza responded with a bemused expression, surprised at being scolded.
Learning from Kamiza’s advice about the ogres’ weakness, the two tried challenging the ogres again.
While it had been quite difficult to inflict damage with swords before, attacking with magic in combination proved effective.
Though it wasn’t a one-hit kill like Kamiza’s magic, accumulating damage gradually made their previous struggles seem like a lie.
The ogre, bombarded with magic attacks from a distance, fell with a scream.
“…Was it really this easy?”
Ryu was astonished.
Of course, it was their combination with Leanne that allowed them to defeat the enemy without receiving any meaningful counterattacks, but even so, Ryu reflected on how much difference the presence or absence of resistance made.
From now on, they needed to actively find weaknesses and exploit them. Ryu thought it wasn’t cowardly to do so.
