Chapter 108: Fighting Rorozi

If I were honest with myself, I was a little annoyed by the sheer number of beasts I had met since arriving at the Mountain of Forgotten Spring.

The reason was simple. Nothing exciting was happening.

It was not that I wanted danger every hour of the day. The problem was subtler than that. I was bored and afraid at the same time, which is a strange and exhausting combination.

Beasts had came at us constantly since we came here, one after another, and every one of them was a fight of life and death. Boredom has no business sitting next to that kind of fear, and yet there it was, yawning in the corner of my mind.

Still, I could not say I was surprised. Most of the land around the mountain was dominated by Beast level creatures, and the ones that wandered close to the palace were simply the strongest of the lot.

Though, I did think they did have backing of a greater level creature behind them.

’And this is not why I came.’

I reminded myself of my real goals, ticking them off like items on a merchant’s list. The eyes of a Devil level creature. Its blood. A few characteristics from Beast level creatures. And above all, the most important item, going home. For that, we needed to kill Culex or find some loophole in the rules of this place.

Everything else was only a stepping stone.

I let my shoulders sag, kept my face pale, and stayed exactly where Peter would stay, three paces behind the women with my hand clutching Theodore’s sleeve like a frightened child.

Ahead of us, the Rorozi bent its knees.

Its calf muscles knotted beneath the coarse golden fur, bulging until they looked like two coiled cables. The ground cracked under its hind feet. Then it launched itself.

It did not hop. It rose like a thrown spear, in a bounding, impossible arc that carried it high above the pale trees, higher than the grove, higher than the three gnarled trunks on our left.

Its body hung against the dull red sky for a heartbeat, and I saw the headless neck, the swinging arms, and the small face in its pouch grinning down at us.

Then it turned its feet toward the earth, and came down at us at terrifying speed.

The wind of its descent flattened the grass. Camila gasped. Hazel’s hand flew to her back.

... And... Charolette moved.

Starlight bloomed beneath her boots, faint and silver, a mist of tiny sparks that spilled across the stones like spilled salt. She did not wait for the beast to land. She bent her knees, and when she pushed off, the light flared and carried her upward in a clean, shining line.

She jumped an impossble Thirty-five feet!

Thirty-five feet in a single leap, her blonde hair streaming, her blade left sheathed, her body a slender white arrow rising to meet a monster twice her size.

’So that is her’ I thought.

She met the Rorozi in the air.

Her hands came together in front of her, and she curled her index finger against her thumb, forming a small, neat oval, like a child making a window to look through. For a moment nothing happened. Then a point of brilliance appeared in the hollow of the oval, no larger than a pea.

It condensed, drawing in the silver mist around her until it shone as brightly as a tiny star.

She released it.

Fsssh!

A sphere of stellar energy lanced out from between her fingers, trailing a thin white thread through the air. It struck the Rorozi squarely in the chest.

Boom!

The beast was hurled sideways by the impact, its body spinning, its long tail whipping. A crater of scorched fur opened over its sternum, smoking and glowing, and the monster let out a rattling cough from somewhere deep inside it.

Charolette dropped back toward the ground, light bleeding off her boots, and landed in a graceful crouch.

’One shot. And she made it look like sweeping dust.’

But she was not alone.

At the same moment, Hazel had already moved.

I had not even seen her draw. A crossbow shimmered into her hands, dark wood and brass, solid and heavy, and she planted her feet and raised it with a calm that did not belong to a shy girl with freckles. A slim bolt lay in the channel, its tip glowing a faint, angry orange.

Thwang!

The bolt streaked across the grove.

It struck the Rorozi’s elbow just as the beast was twisting to recover its balance, and the moment the tip touched the flesh, the heat erupted.

Fiery, searing flame burst from the shaft, splitting the joint apart and sending a spray of burning blood across the stones. The arm jerked, half severed, hanging by a few ragged strands of sinew.

"Got it!" Camila shouted, clenching both fists.

"Not yet," Charolette said sharply.

She had not relaxed. Her eyes were fixed on the creature, narrowed to slivers, and I understood why a heartbeat later.

The small head in the pouch had stopped grinning.

It was now rising out of the pocket on its long, wet stalk, tilting from side to side, as though listening to something very far away. The eyes were wide and unblinking. The mouth stretched slowly open, wider and wider, far beyond what any mouth should be able to do.

And then the head came out.

It slid from the pouch with a sound I can only describe as a wet tearing, like a sack of grain being pulled apart. The stalk of neck thickened. Fur sprouted along it in a ripple. A torso unfolded beneath, then shoulders, then arms, and a pair of thick, powerful legs unfurled and kicked at the air.

In the space of three breaths, a second Rorozi stood on the grass, shaking the slime from its fur.

It had the same body.The same golden coat. The same heavy tail. The same dreadful pouch hanging at its belly, and in that pouch, a tiny, new head, already blinking and grinning. There was no wound on its chest. There was no ruined elbow. It was flawless, whole, and entirely unharmed.

Beside me, Theodore’s breath hissed out through his teeth.

’A new body from the old one. Not a copy of its wounds, but a clean start.’

My mind raced, laying out the shape of the thing the way a locksmith studies a lock.

The original was still there, burned and wounded, struggling to rise. The new one stood beside it, healthy and fierce. Which meant that every wound we dealt was not a victory, but a cost. Every time we hurt one of them, it could simply hatch another.

’What to do now?’

The thought sparked, bright and hungry, and I nearly stepped forward before I remembered who I was supposed to be. Peter could not steal an ability. Peter was a trembling boy with sweaty palms who did not know the first thing about fighting.

’Patience.’

I swallowed, tightened my fingers on Theodore’s sleeve, and watched Rorozi turn its eyeless gaze toward us.

Ahead of me, Charolette straightened slowly, her hand drifting to the hilt of her sword.

"Ladies," she said, in a voice that was low and perfectly calm. "It seems we have a problem."