Dimensional Descent

"You aren't going to do any work?" Aina sent a glance back toward Leonel, standing over a beast corpse. 

As opposed to Earth which was mostly water, the world Valiant Heart Mountain resided on was mostly land. This not only made water an extremely valuable resource, but it also made controlling ownership of land just as difficult. 

One would think that the reason Valiant Heart Mountain was set up at its current location was because of the seven Peaks acting as a great protective barrier. But, the truth was that this was only a secondary condition. The main reason that location was chosen was due to the floating islands. Namely, the waterfall phenomenon on said floating islands. 

With the Valiant Heart World being over 90% land, and with the remaining 10% of water being mostly salt, it was no surprise that such freshwater sources were incredibly valuable. 

This was all to say that many of the missions Valiant Heart handed out in exchange for merit points were population control missions. Of course, not population control for people, but rather, beasts. 

One would think that with such a low supply of water, the population of beasts would also suffer, and this line of thinking wouldn't be wrong. However, before one could reach that saturation level, Valiant Heart Mountain would likely be overrun. 

As one might expect, then, all of the missions Leonel chose were targeted toward these matters. And, since they were freshmen missions, all the beasts were also quite weak and easy to deal with. In fact, Leonel felt that the beasts that had stored the regular tags from the Freshmen Exam were actually more powerful than their current targets, let alone the golden tag beasts. 

The result was Leonel watching Aina do all the work while he supposedly laid back. It was no wonder she was complaining. 

Leonel grinned from atop a tree. 

"I can't enjoy watching my girlfriend fight? Your battle tactics are too mesmerizing."

Aina blushed beneath her mask, but unfortunately for Leonel, he couldn't see it. Instead, all he received was a scathing reply. 

"You have that sort of fetish?" Aina blinked innocently, but there was very clearly a judgey light in her eyes. 

Leonel looked from Aina, toward the massive ax in her hand, and then back. Thinking about how she manhandled the beast previously, he coughed. 

How had he gotten himself painted into such a corner? 

James once told him about a sex position called reverse missionary where the female did all the pumping. Leonel remembered thinking that it was absolutely ridiculous, what kind of man allowed such a thing. But now he was being painted out to be that man. 

He really couldn't afford to get into a war of words with this girlfriend of his. How was he always on the losing end?

Leonel coughed. "A fetish for petite beauties? Of course!"

Aina burst into a fit of laughter. Hiding her own kinks while teasing Leonel for his? Would she be a good girlfriend if she didn't do at least that? 

"Truthfully, I'm trying to model your fighting style." Leonel hopped down from the tree. 

With swift movements, he cut the right paw of the massive bear off and placed it into his spatial ring. As for the rest of it, he gazed at Aina. 

"Do you think it would make good meat?"

Aina took a quick look before shaking her head no. With that, the two quickly left the area, needing seven more right paws to finish their quota. 

"What do you mean by modeling?" 

Aina followed after Leonel. With his senses, it was basically like a compass that always led them to the next target quickly and safely. She had no reason not to trust him. 

"I'm working on a new ability. If it works out, it will allow me to quickly complete a prediction model for an opponent after a few exchanges in battle. But, coming up with the perfect parameters is a bit difficult."

Not many would understand what Leonel was saying, but considering Aina had been in Class A alongside Leonel, she of course understood. 

"Sounds like the weather problem." Aina commented offhandedly. 

Predicting the weather had been the bane of all meteorologists on Earth for centuries. One would think that after the turn of the 25th century, it would be easier. But, ironically, no… In fact, the Ascension Empire had an easier time forcing certain weather patterns through their terraforming technology as opposed to guessing it with 100% accuracy. 

The so-called 'weather problem' Aina mentioned was actually one the pair learned about in one of their many philosophy classes. Ironically, it had very little to do with the field of meteorology. In the schooling system of the Ascension Empire, that you thought was far less important than how you thought. 

The weather problem essentially emphasized the important of taking hold of the future in your own hands and not being passive. Who cared if you couldn't predict the weather if you could cause the weather?

The instant Aina said those words, Leonel's feet came to a grinding halt. His actions were so abrupt that Aina, who had been running diagonally to him, crashed into the side of his shoulder and spun like a top. 

But, before she could fall, Leonel caught her waist and rose her into the air as though she was a baby rather than a full grown woman. 

"You're a genius!" 

Leonel happily laughed, bringing Aina down into a strong hug. 

"…Mmm… I can't breathe."

"Sorry, sorry." Leonel grinned wildly. He would have planted a kiss on this girl had she not been wearing her mask. 

That was right. Creating a perfect predictive model was a tall task, it would probably require as perfect an understanding as he had for the spear for every weapon in existence, not to mention a myriad of other factors. Even if Leonel slowly built a model mid battle, how many exchanges would it take? Would it even be worth it? Would he be defeated before the model even finished? Or would he defeat his opponent long before, thus making his efforts useless? 

'But this… This could work…'

Just as Leonel was about to answer to Aina's questioning gaze, his head snapped in a certain direction.. A powerful howl reached their ears followed by the screams of humans.