In the opponents' eyes, a wild gleam contrasted the monotonous expression plastered across his face. His muscles bulged, barely withheld within his skin, like a pregnant woman and her baby bump. The rarely seen definition in their sharp edges resembled a prowling tiger. He is most likely a Warrior class, the bane of an archer such as myself and a natural enemy towards mages like Irene. No doubt about it, the opponent Irene and I were about to face was a powerful individual. Judging from the massive sword in his hands and the way he's standing so idly in that gruelling posture, he's trained for extensive periods and is very comfortable with prolonged battles due to the immense amount of stamina required to do such a thing. Thus, the best way to fight such an opponent would be with a quick and intense bash of attacks to render as much damage as possible in the shortest amount of time.

With a glance at Irene, I confirm that she's come to the same conclusion. As soon as our preparations are over, we both enter our battle positions. Irene moves towards the left flank while I make my way to the opponent's right, my bow drawn to the max. In such a battle, we must keep as much distance as possible between the enemy and ourselves. After all, our opponent is a natural enemy to our classes. Haha, such is our luck. During the entire half a minute that the opponent witnessed us kill his three teammates, make a plan for how to attack him, and begin moving towards him, there hasn't been the slightest of movements from him. I can't read him. Even while his two other teammates were rolling around while covered in Irene's flames, his expression received no change. I would know. I was observing him with an arrow pointed at his heart the entire time.

That is why he unsettles me so much. A man capable of utterly ignoring the gut-wrenching screams from his teammates -even if they meant nothing to him- was a dangerous man that had experienced horrible things. And the more one had been exposed to such things, the more likely they were to become irrational, spontaneous and unpredictable. In battle, this posed a problem. Even the weakest of attacks could prove to be fatal if one were unable to predict it. Out of the blue, Irene shot a flurry of fireballs at the opponent. Thus, returning me to the matter at hand. Not to be outdone, I released the five arrows already loaded on my bow's shelf. Coupled with a slight boost from some wind mana runes engraved on the bow's grip, they flew at unimaginable speeds. The sound of air parting resounded across the room as they raced towards their target.

Finally arriving at their destination, the expected result of a sound like a punching bag getting pounded never came. Instead, they heard a noise that resembled the hardwood floor, having a heavy object penetrate it. The result was as it sounded. All five arrows had missed their mark. Well, not so much as missed their mark, per se. It was more that the opponent had moved for the first time since the start of the battle. SilverOx pivoted his heel two centimetres to the right and crouched low to the floor in a quick one-step motion as if he had predicted it. This bizarre posture resembled a cat getting ready to leap. Even though it looked odd, the result was more than impressive. All five arrows whizzed past his ears, and the barrage of fireballs flew over his head and onto the table positioned a few meters away. This result was unexpected, but Irene and Konza being the experts they were, reacted instantly.

Konza fired another set of arrows instantaneously, one after the other. Consequently, SilverOx closed his eyes and began dodging the onslaught of attacks with surprising agility. During this time, Irene prepared a new spell, one more powerful than the previous fireballs.

Huge fragmented pieces of compact earth began forming in front of her hands. Afterwards, she created flames from her mana and placed them atop the compressed minerals. Irene proceeded to cover this fire with another set of compact minerals once more. She replicated this seemingly pointless process two more times until a giant ball of solid earth with an unbearably hot temperature was in front of her hands. In essence, this is a tier-two spell called molten earth and requires the caster to have an affinity to both the earth and fire elements. However, it possesses the power of ordinary tier-one magic. But because it's a combination spell, the mage community has placed it as a tier-two spell. However, this spell possesses a hidden potential. At the moment of impact, the giant ball will explode, and the fragmented pieces of earth that are already flaming hot will go in all directions, sort of like a bomb or grenade. Against agile opponents, such a spell can prove to be quite effective.

Irene released the enormous ball of flaming earth that resembled a beachball. That is, of course, if that beachball was the same size as an adult. In all its glory, it dove towards SilverOx. At almost identical speeds as Konza's wind-enhanced arrows. Instead of dodging like any sane person, SilverOx instead lifted his large greatsword and leaped in the direction of the molten earth spell. Swinging with all his might, SilverOx managed to break the ball of flaming hot goodness with a single vertical slash. This motion was very swift and carried enough force to chop a tree in half. The multitude of compacted minerals broke off and flew towards Irene. As expected, Irene immediately moved to dodge the flaming stones. However, as she was unprepared, a few of the molten pieces made contact. Bright flames erupted on her garments. Konza tried to distract SilverOx with another set of arrows so that Irene could have time to heal her injuries.

Konzas' actions proved to be futile as they did nothing to obstruct SilverOx. SilverOx clearly understood the importance of taking action while his opponent was weak, especially in a battle where he had no advantages in terms of numbers. Quickly approaching Irene, the greatsword in SilverOx's hands returned to his shoulders and launched back at Irene with immense force. Irene judged that this attack would be impossible for her to dodge in her current situation. Thus, she immediately turned her shoulder towards the direction of the attack. This action would serve to minimize the amount of damage she would receive. Her thoughts were verified when the attack meant to cut off her entire arm, only managed to engrave a deep cut into her shoulder. Of course, this was still bad, but it was much better than the expected result.

With the opponent so close, Irene could not miss such an opportunity. Despite the unbearable pain akin to having a million needles stabbed into your arms over and over, or the ungodly amount of blood leaving her body that caused her to have a light-headed feeling, Irene endured. With the arm that had a sword stuck in it, she lifted her hand and tightly grabbed onto SilverOx's sword. All the while, her other hand reached for SilverOx's face and fired a fireball at point-blank range. A gut-wrenching, heart-ripping, ear-piercing scream left SilverOx's parched lips. Despite that, he didn't move an inch. Instead of backing off, he removed his sword and swung it back next to his head.

As if he was charging up a mighty swing. Konza, realizing what was about to happen, desperately fired a barrage of arrows. SilverOx was too enraged to care. With a smile on his lips, he received all the arrows Konza fired and proceeded to release the mighty swing. It caught through the air as if it wasn't even there and headed to Irene as a hungry dog would to food. Irene had no time to dodge as the blade made its way through her skin, past her muscles, bones and back out the other way. At this point, immense amounts of blood were leaving her body. A traumatizing scream had been released by her, as well. Irene had officially lost an arm. Konza, in a fit of rage, equipped his dagger and rushed towards SilverOx. At a speed that matched his arrows, Konza made contact with SilverOx. His blade plunged itself into the deepest parts of SilverOx's stomach. SilverOx displayed no reaction.

At the adventurers guild, people had dubbed him as SilverOx because of this particular ability of his, never able to display pain and blessed with a tenacious body.

However, it was not enough. Konza removed the blade from his opponent's body and headed for an attack at SilverOx's neck. Nonetheless, his second attack never came to fruition. With blood dripping from his lips in small amounts, Konza looked down with utter shock on his face, only to find SilverOx's blade passing through his body up to the hilt of the sword. 'W-When, how? Is this how I die.' All sorts of questions passed through his mind, but eventually, he collapsed, never to rise again. Irene released an even louder scream this time. Irene released countless fireballs from her hands, one after the other. This barrage of attacks continued until she had expanded all her mana. Standing in front of Irene was the no longer recognizable body of SilverOx, a charred pile of skin and bones.

On the verge of collapse and eternal sleep, Irene saw the still innocent face of Itsuki take a drastic change from the corner of her eyes. It began with his eyebrows, then his eyes expanded. Towards the end, his entire face had contorted. He opened his mouth as if to scream, but nothing came out of his dry and parched lips. Afterwards, he began convulsing on the side of the stairs. Even though she was utterly exhausted, Irene managed to spare a few words.

"Itsuki, my dear child. Don't cry. Stand up and smile, for life is too short to be sad. I love you" In a dry and hoarse tone, Irene whispered her last words before ultimately being taken by bloodloss and the burns on her body. At her final words, Itsuki perked up and managed to utter a response. "I love you too" His voice was so small that he was afraid she'd been unable to hear it. But the smile on her face as her eyes were closed for the last time confirmed otherwise. This day was the first of many losses and the day that Irene Bridgefield and Konza Abara, parents of Itsuki Abara, departed from this world.