Kai looked at the monsters while clenching his swords. Ayaka was also in her position.

There were around a hundred magical beasts in front of him, ranging from small to big. And more would come.

But because of their size, Kai only targeted the small ones and let the big ones stampede the hill. That way, they would provide help for him by blocking the smaller magical beasts.

After confirming his targets, he started moving toward the magical beasts a little bit to face them head-on.

Three swift tigers charged toward him. A big bear followed right behind them along with the rest of the magical beasts.

The tigers jumped toward him, trying to bite him. When Kai saw this, he moved to the right as he waved his swords.

Suddenly, Kai's swords moved at breakneck speed, and before they knew it, the tiger on the right was split into three by his swords.

Ayaka was shocked to see how fast Kai's swords were.

She had seen how fast his usual swing was. It was nothing compared to what he did just now, and she believed that if she were to face it, she would only be able to barely block it.

However, she felt something wrong with his swing. Even though his speed was truly magnificent, she felt that it wasn't his speed.

She didn't know why, but she recalled their first practice class, where Kai could throw such a giant ape toward her. She didn't think about it again after that, but this situation reminded her of that.

She realized that it wasn't that he was fast, it was that he was strong. He forcefully used his strength to boost his speed for that swing.

And the answer immediately came to her.

After the other tigers missed their target, they immediately jumped toward Kai again. Kai's objective was to kill one of them, and he had achieved it. The moment they came again, Kai didn't avoid them. Instead, he used his sword and cut the tiger from its head to its tail with his strength.

After that, he immediately kicked the last tiger toward the horde. He aimed it at a two-meter tall gorilla.

When the gorilla collided with the tiger, it immediately rolled back along with the tiger, before being stomped to death by a huge Rhinoceros.

The rhinoceros was twenty meters in height alone, and with its giant body, this rhinoceros felt unstoppable. Luckily, it moved slowly. If not, Kai and Ayaka would be in trouble.

They had seen this rhinoceros when they flew toward this place. And it was because of this rhinoceros that Kai made his decision to kill them here. Because this place was the farthest from the rhinoceros, and when the rhinoceros came to this place, it would be in the farthest back.

After taking care of the tigers, Kai immediately retreated a bit and entered the hill.

His next opponents were three horses. Although their size was no different than an ordinary horse's, there were two big and sharp horns on their heads.

Kai needed to be careful not to be impaled by those horns. He kept retreating, trying to bait the horses into the hill.

He baited them inside because he saw Ayaka use her skill. He kept retreating bit by bit before he heard, "Firebirds!"

At that moment, he finally stopped on his tracks and used his sword to repel the horses. It wasn',t like he blew them away, he just made them stop so they wouldn't be able to avoid Ayaka's skill.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

When Ayaka's magic came, the firebirds immediately bombarded them like crazy. When the smoke from the explosion was cleared, they could see the horses charred black.

Of course, Kai didn't have the time to enjoy the view.

After Ayaka killed the horses, the big black bear arrived in front of Kai and sent a paw toward him.

"!!!" Ayaka couldn't use her skill to shield Kai from this bear.

Kai avoided it.

The bear tried to attack him again with his other paw, but before the bear could fully swing, Kai leaped toward the bear and sent a kick with his full strength. Because of the uneven ground, the bear lost its balance and rolled back to the bottom. The bear even dragged the magical beasts on its way back toward the bottom.

They tried to get up, but the rhinoceros arrived and stomped them to death.

Kai looked at Ayaka, "Send those big guys to that rhinoceros. I'll take care of all the smaller beasts."

Ayaka nodded. Kai wanted to send all the big magical beasts toward the biggest magical beast, the rhinoceros, and let the rhinoceros stomp them to death.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of explosions continued resounding throughout the hill as Ayaka tried to knock the beasts one by one. Meanwhile, Kai was like a killing god as he continued mowing the smaller beasts down.

Ayaka was dumbstruck by his strength, especially with his fighting prowess just now. He was like a fierce beast, killing the other beasts around and showing them who the king was. Sadly, she didn't have time for that. She decided to talk about it after they finished the ordeal.

She continued to send as many beasts to the rhinoceros as she could before the rhinoceros arrived at the top. Even Kai would have them retreated.

There was another reason why Kai chose this place. Because it was outside the magical beasts' encirclement, they only needed to worry about one direction as the magical beasts would charge at them head-on.

Kai and Ayaka had switched roles as Ayaka usually became the vanguard as well as the attacker. In contrast, Kai became the scout and support. But this time, Kai became the vanguard and main attacker as he kept killing the magical beasts one by one. Meanwhile, Ayaka became the support as she kept blowing the magical beasts away from him toward the rhinoceros so that it would stomp them to the death for easy kills.

There were around thirty magical beasts left. However, those magical beasts had arrived at the top, forcing Ayaka and Kai to fight on the top of the hill.

Even the rhinoceros was rushing toward the top.

"Ayaka, judging from the distance, you should take care of the rhinoceros as it has served its purpose. Although the rhinoceros is big, it has no speed, so it'll be an easy kill for you. I'll take care of these other magical beasts," Kai said.

Ayaka nodded.

"Fire Wings." As the battle would end soon, she immediately activated her Fire Wings and flew toward the rhinoceros.

Kai also started killing the other magical beasts.

…

A few minutes later.

Ayaka and Kai sat on the top of the hill, leaning on each other's backs. Both of them were tired, and their magic power was almost fully depleted.

Ayaka laughed, "Haha, to think we managed to defeat all of them. By the way, what kind of monstrous strength is it that you have?"

"…" Kai didn't reply to her question.

"Is it something I shouldn't know?" Noticing the awkward silence from Kai, she asked to confirm.

"Uhm… sorry," Kai only apologized.

"That's fine… We only met three weeks ago, so I shouldn't pry on your secrets. Well, we'll be… partners for a year, so… if the opportunity arrives, please tell me, all right?"

"I'll try." Kai was unsure of whether he could say it to her within a year. There was a much bigger secret to that strength.

"Are there any monsters around? If not, I should recover first," She asked. She decided not to talk about that topic again as Kai seemed to want to avoid that topic.

"Hmm… There's no mo— holy sh*t." Before he could finish his word, Kai let out a curse. He suddenly picked up lots of sounds around them just he did before. But this time, the number was even more ridiculous. There seemed to be around five hundred of them.

However, Ayaka and Kai didn't have that much magic power left.

"What happened?" Ayaka was confused to hear him cursing.

"Five hundred magical beasts…"

"Five hundred what?!" Ayaka asked as her jaw dropped because of the shock. She didn't have that much magic power left, and the situation turned for the worse. But there was another matter that concerned her. She said, "Kai…"

"Mmm?"

"You promised me that you won't use that technique again, right?"

"…" Kai paused a bit before he answered, "Yes."

"Don't break that promise, okay?" After getting into this situation, she suddenly recalled the matter of Kai sacrificing himself, so she immediately reminded him again.

Kai also understood her worry. It moved his heart a little bit. It was only a small matter since he wouldn't die in the real world if he were to use that skill here. And if he really used that skill, they would be able to get a huge amount of points and might even surpass their previous score.

However, Ayaka chose to abandon that and prioritized him first. She was thinking about him first before anything else.

If she was the Ayaka a few weeks ago, she might have even been the one to suggest using it first.

Kai noticed her growth these past few weeks and was pleased with it. He smiled, "I know. I'm sorry if I made you worry. Don't worry, I won't use it again since I promised you not to."

"Since you won't use it, it's good then. I'd rather have a low score than have you do that again," she told.

"Well, thank you. Remember the first time we met?"

"Yes."

"The you at that time might even send me to my death in this situation. After all, dying here doesn't mean actual death."

"No way. There's no way I would— Uhm, sorry."

"I'm just messing with you. Look, they're here," Kai said with a chuckle as he and Ayaka could see that the monsters had surrounded the hill.

"Roar! Roar! Roar!"

"Can you stand up?"

"Yes."

Both of them rose from the ground as they were still leaning their backs to each other.

"In our condition, we should kill as many as we can. I'll go this way, and you go the opposite way. There is no need for a strategy this time," Ayaka said.

"I was thinking the exact same thing," Kai nodded.

Ayaka smiled as she said, "Let's go."

"Yeah."

Both of them then jumped toward their respective directions.