We were in a forest to the east of the royal capital, where Blue Bears were said to reside. "There it is, the Blue Bear," Cystie whispered. A short and stout blue bear sat beyond the thicket where we were hiding in. It seemed to be in the middle of a meal, munching on some kind of fruit. He didn’t appear to have noticed us yet. We could say we had the element of surprise on our side. “All right, I’m going to use Lightning first, and then you can charge in for the kill, Duke, okay?” I see. In other words, we’re just giving up on our surprise attack chance and I have to go straight for a one-on-one fight. “Sure, sure, do your best. I know you can do it, Cystie.” “Can’t you say that without sounding like you’re reading from a script? I know you don’t expect me to win!” Cystie lunged at me angrily in response to my words of encouragement. She had a point, though. I really didn't think she could do it. It would be a miracle if she actually hit the bear. It was like buying a lottery ticket—you knew you weren’t going to win, but you tried anyway. This was more like a little side show than anything else. “Don’t worry. I’m used to fighting bears one-on-one, so leave it to me!” “So you’re expecting my Lightning spell to miss from the start?!” “Hey! You're too loud!” Cystie’s commotion and loud voice had apparently caught the bear’s attention, because it stopped eating and started bobbing its head around. Cystie, you're such an idiot. Always making such a fuss. Atleast she noticed her mistake, covered her mouth with her hands and sat down in the embryo position trying to be as quiet as possible. She should've just done that in the first place. After a while, the bear relaxed its guard and resumed eating. That's when we decided to make our move. Right in the middle the bear let out a howl and I thought we had already been discovered. Cystie sprang to her feet and began to chant in a low voice. In the meantime, I knelt down and readied myself so that I could charge in at a moment’s notice. Of course, I had to wait for Cystie to finish her spell. I mean, if I moved forward or went around the thicket, her Lightning spell might hit me. Still, Cystie finished her spell without the bear noticing. She raised her eyebrows, pointed her staff in the bear’s direction, and shouted, “Lightning!” A streak of blue light shot out from the tip of the staff. At the same time, I leaped out of the thicket. The bolt of lightning Cystie had conjured bent at a ninety-degree angle right in front of the bear’s face and flew off to the left. “...Ah” It looked like there was a lightning rod in that direction, and the lightning was being drawn to it. With a sigh of resignation in my heart at the predictable outcome, I mentally prepared for the one-on-one fight with the bear. “Gaaauu?!”

Suddenly, a beastly cry rang out from the left. “What?!” I stopped in my tracks and looked over. There was another bear lying on the ground, black and charred. Was the howl I’d heard earlier been a call for help? I didn’t know if the bear in front of us was a lookout, but apparently, there had been one more around. “Just as planned! Duke! Now’s your chance!” Cystie shouted, as if she’d been aiming for the bear all along. I guess my partner was at least good at getting lucky. Either way, I’d been saved by Cystie’s good fortune. I didn’t like it one bit, though. After this, I was sure Cystie would be going on and on about how she’d “shot the blue bear that was hiding with Lightning!” The bear that I’d found first had moved to the fallen bear’s side and was growling and glaring at us. It seemed to have been a lookout after all, and it was ready for a fight. “All right, Cystie! If things are going as planned, try casting Lightning one more time.” “Huh? Why?” Cystie’s mood immediately soured. “You were aiming for that one, weren’t you? If that’s the case, you should be able to hit this one, too. You’ve got the accuracy to hit a bear hiding in the bushes, so you should be able to hit one right in front of you, right?” I wasn't going to let her get away with this without teaching her a lesson. I wanted to teach her that she had only been lucky. “...Huh? Wh-What? Of course I was aiming for that one! I can easily shoot down a blue bear that’s right in front of me with magic, no problem!” “If you miss, then next time, you’ll be the one running away from the Aegyl Buffalo while wearing something red.” That quest was fairly profitable. That much was obvious, judging from the spectacle earlier today. The plain was close to the capital, and there were a lot of them, so we could get a lot of rewards at once. I wanted to do it at least two more times, just to be safe. “Hey!” “You can’t do it?” “Y-yes, I can!” I spoke with as much mockery as I could muster, and Cystie’s face turned bright red as she began to chant. While she was chanting, I held a dagger up to the bear’s face to intimidate it. The bear swung its thick arm at me while on guard, but I easily dodged it with a backstep. “Here it comes!” When I saw that Cystie had finished chanting, I backed away from the bear. The tip of Cystie’s staff crackled with electricity, and she pointed it at the bear. Then she let out a piercing scream. “Lightning!” ◆ Several days later... “Aaaaah! Duke! Duke! I can’t do this anymore!”

Cystie was running as fast as she could on the plain near the capital, wearing a red cloak instead of her cape. She was running as if her life depended on it. “C’mon, c’mon, put your back into it! We’ve only caught five so far! Shake your cloak faster to get the bulls even more riled up! That’s right, shake it like that ponytail you got on your head!” “Even if you tell me that... I, I can’t run any faster than this!” “I don't care! Other adventurers said that the bulls will not kill themselves unless there are at least ten of them! You need to work harder to make it easier for us to defeat them!” While we’d been hunting the bears, the other adventurers had gone on adventures in the literal sense of the word, and they’d brought back all sorts of information. In order to get the bulls riled up enough to basically self-destruct, like we’d done our first time, the cloaks hand to be waved around very fast. And you had to have atleast a group of ten chasing you at the time when you threw the cloaks down on the ground. Many adventurers had to run to the temple to get treated for injuries. The bulls had caught up to them, either because they were to slow to attract enough of them or because they didn't have enough stamina. Thanks to the adventurers who had put their bodies on the line to gather this valuable information, we were now able to safely and efficiently hunt the bulls. “Huff... huff... I can- I can't do this anymore! I’m at my limit!” “I won't help you if you bring back less than ten bulls.” I told Cystie, who was running out of breath, as she circled around me. Humans don’t have the energy to scream when they’ve reached their limit. “I-I’m sorry! I’m sorry for using Lightning on you! P-Please, switch places!” See, she still had energy to scream. “No, no. You don’t need to apologize. It’s just a punishment game.” “You can't be serious! I can't do this! I'm coming this way!” As soon as I brushed aside Cystie’s apology, she suddenly sped up and ran toward me. “Hey, you idiot! Wait, stop! Don’t come this way! Go that way! If you go that way, I’ll forgive you!” “It doesn't matter, it's just a punishment game! Right?” You bastard! I was to slow to start running, so Cystie, who had been running at full speed, caught up to me and jumped on my back. Th-this girl! “Hey, Duke, run! Hurry up! The bulls are coming!” “Damn it!” I started running as fast as I could, Cystie still clinging to my back. With the power of a Dullahan, it wasn't a big deal to run while carrying the light Cystie on my back. “Whoa! We’re going so fast! And there are more and more Aegyl Buffalo coming! This is amazing!” Weren't you out of breath just a moment ago!? “Hey, look! Duke’s fishing for Aegyl Buffalo!” “It’s true! He has already more than twenty of them on his tail!” “All right, everyone! Somehow, we’ve got to meet up with Duke! He’s got monster strength, so he’ll be fine! Just move them all over to him!” One by one, the adventurers around me started to push their bulls onto me. “Hey! You guys! Don’t do that!” That day, we defeated more than fifty Aegyl Buffalo.