The trees started to shake as the monster charged straight to Mahon. He didn’t see it yet, but he could sense it with the Flow. The monster’s feelings were radiating strongly through its rhythm. It felt challenged and angry at the petty human who dared to attack him. He was hungry too, and he had realized Mahon made a bigger meal than the frail girl he had spotted first.

As the monster drew closer, Mahon finally saw it with his own two eyes, and he almost took a step back in front of the abomination charging at him. It was the size of a cart, maybe even bigger, in shades of gray and green. The animal was cat-like, with a long, thorny tail and a head too large for its body.

The creature looked like it was smiling, from how wide its mouth was, and his teeth were the size of Mahon’s forearm.

By the Fada, this thing could eat me whole in just one bite.

Only his long years of fighting in ever challenging circumstances prevented him from running as the beast charging him at full speed. Instead, Mahon focused on the situation. He didn’t know what to expect from such a beast. The agile monster twirled his body around the trees with extreme ease while his head stayed almost stationary as he rushed to Mahon, its eyes never leaving its target.

It’s fast!

Mahon moved to the side so as to have a big tree between him and the incoming monster. He prepared his spear and immersed himself deeper into the Flow, ready to fight for his life.

In two seconds, the monster cleared the distance between them and without a care for the tree before Mahon, he charged, mouth fully opened.

Mahon immediately rolled to the side as the monster crashed into the tree with a deafening bang. He thrusted his weapon at the animal’s flank, but the creature snapped his head and managed to deflect the blow with his teeth.

The next instant, it jumped forward and attempted to rip him with its front paws. Claws as long as daggers passed just above Mahon as he ducked to dodge. Mahon stabbed at the creature’s joint from his crouched position, but the monster retreated out of reach in a flash.

“I won’t let you go that easily.”

In an explosive motion, Mahon extended itself as far as he could, and his spear grazed at the retreating monster’s flank, drawing some blood. The creature roared angrily, but it retreated even further away from Mahon before stopping a good distance away.

It then looked at Mahon with its vertical eyes and growled, now realizing the tiny human it was facing wasn’t the easy target it had imagined. It turned its head to the side, in the direction he came from, where the group of terrified children was still trying to run back to camp.

“Not happening.”

Mahon guessed the monster’s intention, and he moved in the way. He pointed his spear at the monster in a threatening manner while adopting a vigilant posture, ready to fight.

“I’m your opponent today.”

Without any warning, the monster pounced on him at incredible speed, but Mahon was faster. He aimed his spear at the monster's throat, and the creature instantly lowered his head to protect it.

Mahon faked to target the creature’s throat again, and as it lowered his head even more, Mahon jumped forward and pierced its left eye, his spear moving so fast it left an afterimage in its trail.

The monster roared in pain and shook his head, trying to throw off the spear, but Mahon had long been ready for such a reaction, and he weighed heavily on the spear to resist. In the end, the monster threw his head back in a powerful motion and Mahon was sent in the air, still holding onto his spear.

At the apex of his flight, the monster tried to whip at him with his thorny tail, but Mahon twisted his body with elegance and dodged it. In the next instant, he dropped his spear and landed on the animal’s back. The creature immediately ripped the spear out of his eye while trying to shake off Mahon from his back.

In the meantime, Mahon had already unsheathed his sword, and in an explosive motion he slashed at the creature’s back and pierced all the way to the sword’s hilt. With a painful roar, the monster shook its body with all its might, but the sword stuck so close to its spine greatly impeded his effort, and he collapsed to the side, panting.

With the help of the Flow, Mahon kept enough of his balance to jump before the monster could flatten him under his mass, and he swiftly rolled on the ground toward his spear that lay still a few meters away. The monster roared in frustration, but it was unable to move properly with its severe injuries, and could only roll and convulse helplessly.

Mahon grabbed his spear and walked back to the disabled monster.

“So you only amount to this, in the end.”

He didn’t comment further before piercing straight to where he thought the monster’s heart was, and a second later the monster finally laid still. He waited another couple of seconds to be sure the monster was truly dead, before he exhaled deeply and released the tension built up during the fight.

The monster had been fast, strong, and smart, and if not for Mahon’s ability to react instantly and his vast fighting experience, it would have been a much harder fight. Because he didn't know what the monster was capable of, he had kept his concentration at its maximum through the battle, even though the monster hadn’t been that strong.

Mahon went to pull off his sword from the monster’s back after making sure the group of children was safe and sound with its Flow. He also sensed some of the Frontaliers and guards rushing to his position, and he waited for them while cleaning his weapons on the monster’s fur.

The group of soldiers arrived at a frantic pace, but they stopped instantly at the sight of Mahon calmly sheathing his weapons back beside the imposing monster laying dead in a pool of blood.

“You should have warned me about such monsters.” Mahon casually addressed Edwin. “I thought you were referring to much smaller threats when you spoke about it before.”

“A reaper-cat! It’s a fucking reaper-cat!” Elas yelled as he carefully approached the dead monster.

Edwin glanced at the monster before turning his head back to Mahon with a flabbergasted look. “You killed a reaper-cat?”

“If this thing is called a reaper-cat, then yes.” Mahon shrugged.

The monster took a relatively long time to beat because he had no idea what it was capable of, and thus Mahon had fought prudently. Now that he knew, however, he gauged its fighting abilities just below an Amentiae general’s bodyguard, and if another came right now, he would be able to deal a mortal blow in a couple of seconds.

“How… How did you even do it?”

“I tricked it and managed to pierce one of his eyes. From there, it was just a matter of increasing the lead I got. I jumped on his back, crippled it with a sword in the spine, and then finished it when it couldn’t move anymore.” Mahon explained.

“You what?!” Elas exclaimed on the side, throwing an unbelieving look at Mahon.

Edwin silenced his comrade with a simple gesture of his hand and then spoke to Mahon.

“A reaper-cat is one of the deadliest monsters around. I’ve encountered a few myself, but each time we needed at least ten men to just chase it away. His fur is too thick for arrows to do anything, and its speed and tail are the doom of even experienced warriors… I can’t believe you killed it by yourself. Was it injured before?”

“No.” Mahon simply stated, not feeling the need to explain himself further.

Edwin scrutinized Mahon’s face for a few seconds, as if would be able to understand part of him just by looking harder. Finally, he smiled and shook his head slowly.

“I don’t know if you were extremely lucky, but the fact can’t be denied that the reaper-cat is dead. I would be a fool not to believe what is right in front of me. Forgive me, Mahon. Whatever happened, even surviving a reaper-cat is a feat worth celebrating, not to mention killing one. Congratulations are in order! And thanks for saving the children.”

The head of the Frontaliers then extended his hand, and Mahon grabbed it without any hesitation and shook it. He wasn’t sure how amazing what he did was for these people, but for him, it hadn’t been harder than to deal with a patrol of Amentiae. Not something anyone can do, but not a miracle either. Jorik would have been able to do it as well without too much problem.

“Say, Edwin.” Neia, the Frontalier woman, interrupted. “Why is a reaper-cat so close to the forest? We should not have met one in this area. Its territory should be way further north.”

The smile on Edwin’s face disappeared at the words of his subordinates.

“You’re right… Elas, Neia, take a look at the corpse and see if you can get anything. Everybody else back to camp.” Edwin ordered.

The group quickly retreated to the open clearing and the safety of the circle of carts, and Edwin quickly doubled the security of the camp, asking every guard to be on the lookout and preventing any more people from going away. The Frontaliers had just been coming back from their hunt when they had heard Mahon’s yell, so they shouldn’t need to go out anymore before tomorrow, and so Edwin established his lockdown without any problem.

Half an hour later, Neia and Elas came back, and Edwin asked Mahon to join him under his tent.

“So?” Edwin asked.

“Not much.” Neia shook her head. “The beast looked fine, spare for the few hits he took in the fight.” She threw an approving look at Mahon. “It was starving, though, and there isn’t anything marking this area as its territory. It arrived not long ago, probably already starving.”

Edwin nodded and gestured for her to pursue.

“A reaper-cat doesn’t move from its territory unless it’s chased off by something stronger. But there aren’t many things stronger than a reaper-cat…”

“What’s your best guess?”

“Best-case scenario, a bigger reaper-cat took its place, and we shouldn’t have any more problems since we don’t plan to enter its territory.” She grimaced. “Worst case, the rumors about the goblin tribes heating up are much worse than we thought.”

Edwin nodded before letting out a long sigh. “This journey will not go as peacefully as we wanted, hmm?” He then turned his head to Mahon. “You’ve seen what such a monster was capable of, if there are even greater threats waiting for us I can’t let anything go to hazard. You truly killed this monster on your own, right?”

Mahon looked straight at the man. “I’m not in the habit of lying.”

“Yes, sorry for that. It’s just so hard to believe… Especially coming from someone as young as you. You fooled me well during our exchange, right? I don’t blame you for hiding your strength, but now I need to know. Only by understanding precisely our fighting capabilities, would I be able to lead this caravan to Lakefield in one piece. How much did you actually hide from our friendly boot? And what about your friend?”

Mahon shrugged. “I’m not sure how I can explain it to you. Does the title of Last Red mean anything to you?”

“Last Red? Never heard of this. You must come from far away. In Finem and most closest countries, we use the official guilds ranking. From one-star to twelve-star.”

From Edwin’s words, it was clear the Frontalier knew Mahon wasn’t from around here, but he didn’t seem to mind it too much. Now that he had a better sense of how big the world was thanks to Elas’ stories, Mahon could easily understand why. For them, he was an expert from a foreign kingdom, and there wasn’t anything wrong about not knowing their ranking system or their customs. After all, for people used to traveling, meeting strangers with very different views on the world wasn’t anything new.

“I'm a four-star, myself.” Edwin took out an insignia from his pocket with four stars inscribed on it.

“And you can’t single kill a reaper-cat?” Mahon asked, trying to gauge what the rank meant.

“No. You’d need a six-star at least to do that. Or ten four-stars, probably.”

“Hmm…” Mahon started to think and ran simulations in his head. “If we’re using this reaper-cat strength as a base, and imagining that we already know how to fight it then I would say Jorik is probably capable of beating at least… four like this before having some trouble I think.”

“What? Four reaper-cats alone?! Impossible!” Elas exclaimed.

“He is really strong, and he has some… abilities.” Mahon explained. “It’s hard to tell, though. The reaper-cat is a big monster, and four like them in a fight can quickly get messy... But if you can’t fight a reaper-cat, then Jorik would be able to toy with you,” he pointed at Edwin, “with a spoon, and there is nothing you could do about it.”

The Frontaliers gulped audibly at the thought, seeing how serious Mahon was while explaining how someone could deal with their leader that easily.

“What about you then?” Edwin still asked.

Mahon thought about his recent fight with the Amentiae general, and how much better he had become since his apex in Nightmare. Jorik was extremely talented, but he hadn’t yet had enough experience in real fights. He knew how to Flow, and just that was enough to place him a step ahead of most people, but he was still a novice with the Flow while Mahon was undoubtedly an expert.

Without using the Flow, the difference between the two wasn’t that great, and it was mostly Mahon’s brilliant control of tempo during fights that would give him an easy victory. But if the Flow was taken into account, then the gap between the two was increased even further. Jorik had been a First Black back in the Pine Hill Officer Institute, but his real level was probably more around Last Yellow. But what could a Last Yellow do against a Last Red, someone three levels ahead?

Mahon smiled innocently at the Frontaliers. “Me? I could toy with Jorik with a spoon.”