A Dragon's Curiosity

With the combined forces of a seasoned hunter elf and her contracted beast, the group of students did not need long to locate another enemy.

Herding beneath the low trees, the lone [Stone Wooled Sheep] had not noticed the lurking warriors yet and bleated from time to time as it moved to another tuft of grass to feast.

A single sheep made a great target for the trio, especially when it roamed about alone.

Lisa almost cheered, and only a fast reaction from her group prevented the girl from alarming their target.

The three of them stayed just out of the animal’s sight while Nisha’s contracted beast companion, Little Lia, ran through the forest to cut off any retreat paths for the sheep.

Since they were about to enter combat again, they needed to discuss strategy.

“Nisha, can you do that thing where you throw your spear again? It worked really well when that monster was about to stomp on me; I think it’s really powerful. You said you could do it if you had some time to prepare, right?”

The blonde girl gained some maturity from the recent events and carefully assessed their opponent. And certainly, their strongest tool at their disposal happened to be Nisha’s full-powered throw.

Unico pondered shortly and prepared to intervene, but contrary to his expectations, the elf agreed.

“Sure; let’s go with that. I can test to see if it is enough to deal with a [Stone Wooled Sheep] without injuries or exhaustion, too.

Can you spread out on either side, so we can still catch it if something goes wrong? I will prepare while you do so; you will see when I start.”

The girl happily agreed while the purple-skinned youth opened his mouth to mention something, yet still went to his assigned spot. Nisha noticed the subtle change and kept it in mind to discuss later.

Watching their backs, which blended into the nearby greenery, the dragon felt somewhat at a loss. She did say that her throw was a skill and needed a windup time, but now she stood there alone, doing nothing and pretending to gather her aura.

Somehow the monster caught wind of their planned assault as it picked up its guard, the instincts of a wild animal proving effective. It did not break out into a run or panic, yet it became wary and raised its vigilance.

She judged that enough time had passed for her teammates to reach their places and strengthened the grip on her spear.

Applying the coating from her skill, [Shadow Clad], the elf released the power hidden in her slender muscles. Her aim was a boulder next to a sturdy tree, which gave her a foothold to aim her ascent. Borrowing the force from rebounding between the rock and the trunk, her figure soared through the sky.

The [Stone Wooled Sheep] started upon hearing the sudden noise and darted around, unfortunately, with its eyes leveled to the ground.

Usually, a predator would come from that direction; it was a force of habit that allowed it to struggle for survival.

Nisha knew about the routines of several monsters as a beast, herself. The black weapon in her hand gained a small orange hue as the final vestige pervaded the spear, filled to the brim with mana and a tiny amount of fire energy to finish the coating.

She arched back and redirected all the jump’s momentum into her throw completely. Like black thunder, it rained down on the sheep.

Unico and Lisa waited at their assigned spots. Both of them had a modicum of confidence after the previous fight, still awed by the sudden outcome.

However, they also prepared for the failure of their current plan. The previous situation came about after the drawn-out fight, with weakened defenses and a final burst of power incited by a dangerous situation.

Although Nisha had time to prepare her throw now, it remained a rather dangerous gamble.

Since they knew about it beforehand, the two party members had the chance to observe the elf’s attempt calmly.

Neither of them, however, expected to see an acrobatics performance. Fights against monsters usually involved formations, sturdy defense, and a safe approach.

Soaring through the air and throwing your own weapon away did not count as any of those.

In spite of that, the most amazing thing was not her stunt, but the stunning presence concentrated in the weapon striking down from above.

Usually, a skill did not leak much aura. On the contrary, it was seen as a sign of weak completion; if a warrior did not practice much, their skill would not contain the energy. The remaining aura would scatter. Therefore, in the first three ranks, skills often did not have much presence or form aura constructs.

The trademark sign of a knight above the fourth rank represented itself as a manifested blade and shield based on their weapon; only then did a warrior have enough control to release their aura out of their body.

Be that as it may, darkness arced around the simple wood that made up the spear. Black as the night, fickle as a bolt of lightning, and heavy as sin, the dark aura housed a shard of fire as the tip, radiating power and oppression.

And strangely enough, aside from the slight noise made by her propulsion through the air due to the rock and the tree, the bolt made no sound at all.

As the dragon released her weapon, a feeling of emptiness and minimal exhaustion set in after the black bolt went for her target.

As the throw only relied on her muscles and a moderate amount of aura to maintain the [Shadow Clad] coating, Nisha had the ability to release it at any given time.

Truthfully, the elf already had quite a bit of luck, as she previously used her skill to fight at maximum capacity and do her best as a part of the team.

Now, it helped conceal that her muscle strength alone made up the bulk of the power behind the attack; the spear flew much faster than the [Stone Wooled Sheep] could react, and it barely looked up when it found no predators on the ground.

Guided by her [Spirit Sight] and her senses trained by archery under a state of blindness, Nisha’s aim had long ago surpassed the standards of a professional archer employed by the kingdom’s army.

The strike descended, furious and full of pent-up power. Before the monster had a chance to react, the spear first penetrated through its defense like fire through a paper screen, then severed its spine and erupted out of its shoulder, burying half of its total length into the soft ground of the forest, dissipating the remaining momentum.

Conquered by the unstoppable blow, the [Stone Wooled Sheep] only had enough life force left to call out once, sadly, before its eyes closed forever.

In the aftermath of the perfectly executed killing blow, the eerie silence of the forest, aside from the general background noise such as the wind rustling leaves and similar sound sources, appeared especially unreal.

With blood trickling out of a blackened wound, the light broke inside the monster’s eyes. There was no struggle, no thrashing around. The sheep died instantly.

Staring at the dead animal, both Lisa and Unico emerged from their hiding spots while Accalia approached with a mental command from her master.

They grouped around the unbelievable display and quietly regarded each other.

Nisha felt the need to say something, anything. Her initial estimation did not include such an outcome, although she had considered that it would make her stand out.

The dragon opened her mouth several times and closed it again.

Ultimately, she only pulled out the weapon stuck in the ground, which needed a considerable amount of muscle strength as well since it sunk down so much from the impact.

“This is … amazing! How did you do that, Nisha?”

Lisa broke the uncomfortable silence and cheered, immediately squatting down and using her sword to cut off the monster’s ear, the proof of subjugation.

The first time, when the purple-skinned youth did it, she was squeamish and unused to this sight. Now, however, she broadly grinned while doing the exact same thing.

“Well, I can only say the same thing as earlier. It’s a skill; no, that’s too much. Without time to charge, it cannot be used; so it’s not really a skill at this time.”

Nisha scratched her head. When she agreed to display her throw, she had been intrigued to test the full strength of the monsters they hunted as well as her prowess with a weapon.

When the elf hunted for food in the dungeon, she usually relied on the superior cutting power of a fifth-ranked weapon and superior physical attributes. She hardly had the chance to improve her swordsmanship, much less spearmanship, a discipline the dragon only discovered after starting to attend the [Royal Academy].

A simple throw ranked among the most basic techniques aside from the high requirements regarding accuracy.

To see her attack cause this much devastation also surprised the elf.

“Doesn’t this mean we have a really big opportunity? If Nisha can ambush a few more [Stone Wooled Sheep], we can turn them into a big pile of contribution points!”

Stuffing the subjugation proof into her pouch, the excited blonde girl looked at her friends before winding down a notch.

“Of course, only if it doesn’t strain you too much. Such a skill should consume a lot of aura, right?”

The sparkles in her eyes scared Nisha; to be the target of a gaze with so much admiration caused some cold shivers.

Requesting her to repeat this feat did not really trouble her overmuch; the elf had an abundance of aura and mana to spare, not to mention that the consumption barely reached the standard to be called such. For a brief moment, the idea of racking up a sizeable amount of contribution points did arouse her interest, yet it seemed like a bad idea after thinking it through.

Just when she troubled herself over how she should explain it to Lisa, the purple-skinned youth interrupted her.

“I do not think it is a smart thing to do.”

“Huh?”

Seeing the bad feedback from the young man, Lisa started. Usually, he appeared really friendly and had spent great amounts of time helping her out during the warrior class recently, always friendly and always polite.

Nisha experienced a mild surprise; from her perspective, the proposal had some hidden bad points, but to think that Unico had similar thoughts implied something else.

“It’s usually a good idea to amass contribution points. Most services in the academy are adjusted to accommodate the students in different turns. Having more of them is indeed a good thing.”

“Then …”

“Nevertheless, there are other things to consider as well. It seems our friend here also knows about it. Do you mind explaining it to her, Nisha? That way, we can compare if we both have the same idea.”

Somewhere along his lines, the boy returned the ball to the elf, his polite smile never wavering in the slightest.

She wondered why he wanted her to explain it instead of himself; his excuse of comparing notes on their thoughts did not convince her.

“It’s as he said. The points are good, but they are also tied to a certain difficulty and effort to obtain them. If we scout together for single [Stone Wooled Sheep], and I dispatch them every time, I do think we can gather a good bunch of them.

However, there’s also a bad side. This outing is supposed to give out rewards for monsters, and when you think about it, the amount of points they give out is quite ample.

There is an intent behind being this charitable. Without me, it would be quite difficult for only you and Unico to fight a single sheep, and that is already quite a feat.

Other groups will need more people to fight one monster, and then there are bigger monster bands. On the surface, this puts the points in correspondence for evert single member of these student groups as they need to share their spoils.

However, the competition only increases through the subtle reward.

Each member needs to improve, hone their skills and gain fighting experience. Each group member less means a greater payout.

Once they taste the sweet temptation, a rush of greed will take over.

It’s the same with the whole excursion.

Those who participate gain rewards and experience, which, in turn, allows them to raise their personal strength, giving even greater returns in the future.

Those who fall behind will have trouble finding a group then, which also means they will have a smaller payout.

The teachers know this; it’s probably a repeating phenomenon each turn.

It’s the same for us. If I ambush the enemy each time and none of us gain combat experience, it will be hard to keep up with the other warrior students. Will you be able to keep attending the excursions if you do not practice your skills? And if you lack the resources from hunting monsters for contribution points, you will fall even further behind without the services you can buy with them.

Of course, this is only my personal conclusion, but I think Unico has made a similar conclusion.”

The youth nodded.