Chapter 51: Charge

“Since Leon is good at catching birds, maybe he could even catch a Sham.”

“Come to think of it, I’ve never actually seen Leon hunt.”

“I mainly hunt birds. As for beasts, I only hunt them if they attack me.”

“But you brought in an Orc and a Grey Fox to the guild, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I have my shelter, and if I use Bullet, I can take down a lot of things.”

“That, that! I’m curious what would happen if you fired that Bullet at an Armor Buffalo.”

“No, no. Even the Sham is huge and its feathers are hard. I hear they’re really hard to bring down.”

“That size?”

“It’s about 3.5 meters tall. A beautiful bird when standing still, but it’s fast, can jump pretty high, and if it kicks or stabs you with its beak, even a large beast goes down instantly, or so they say.”

What kind of monster bird is that…?
The image of an ostrich popped into my mind, but I don’t think an ostrich’s beak is that sharp.

They say Sham live near Armor Buffalo habitat, but they’re fast, have sharp eyesight, and can fly a little. Just getting close is extremely difficult.

“Apparently this kind of vague info is because birds aren’t Fang’s specialty.”

With thunder magic as my main attack, and using bows and short spears… birds aren’t easy.

＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊

Once we left the rocky area, a meadow spread out between the mountains—Armor Buffalo territory. Lots of other beasts here too.

I asked if Armor Buffalo only lived this deep, and they said they exist in the kingdom too, but in small herds. By the time you arrive after hearing a report, they’ve usually moved.

They rarely appear near highways, but can be found in big plains or sparse forests. But from the capital, this is the closest reliable place—and still it takes ten days to reach it.

Now, time to start the hunt… except there’s nothing in front of us. Of course. First comes searching.

Just the round trip is more than ten days. Add hunting time, and we’d need a ton of food just for the stay.

After three days of searching—feeling tricked by the word “habitat”—we finally found a herd. More than ten. Scary.

Even from afar, they’re huge—about as tall as a warhorse, with a massive bovine body, impressive horns, and hide like armor plating.

That thing could probably shatter a wagon in a single charge. That’s no tall tale.

While the others discussed strategy, I looked around and picked out a huge boulder as a potential safety zone.

“Hey, Jager. Can I ask something?”

“Hm? What is it?”

“Can we move over to that big rock?”

“Why?”

“I want to test whether my dome can withstand an Armor Buffalo’s charge. And if it can’t, that rock will be our fallback point.”

“Leon, don’t say ‘if it can’t’ now.”

“If it fails, you’re going to die.”

“That means we might too.”

“Or do you plan to run away alone?”

“If it’s just me, I can definitely escape. So we’ll be fine.”

“What about everyone else?”

“That rock looks big enough. If we can climb it, we’ll be safe.”

“I believe Leon’s dome can withstand the charge.”

“He sounds pretty confident he can run if things go bad, so why not.”

“We get to see Leon’s real skills. And from how he’s talking… he has some other trick up his sleeve.”

“Then it’s fine.”

They’re definitely curious because until now I only showed the shelter and dome.

They climbed the rock using cracks and ledges, waving at me from the top. I walked toward the Armor Buffalo.

“He’s really going to walk up to them.”

“He said he wants to test if his dome can take a charge, but how’s he going to make an invisible dome get attacked?”

“He’s the kind of guy who casually mentions fighting with the Warrens Company—who knows what he’ll do.”

＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊

While traveling, I was bored, so I practiced wind magic—firing gusts diagonally upward into the air.

At a distance where the wind makes a faint whooo, but where the flow is still visible to me, I could secretly practice easily.

If this technique works, I’ll barely need the spinning ring technique anymore.

I also prepared an upgraded version of the escape trick I used when launching myself from the pit. That one’s guaranteed to work.

The Armor Buffalo seemed confused as I approached alone.

Don’t worry—I’ll make you nice and angry soon.

First, I tested my aim by blowing wind straight at its nose.

With my arm extended, I aimed for the nostrils and cast {Gust!} horizontally.

Whooo—

The Armor Buffalo sneezed and turned its head.

I pulled a softball-sized rock from my magic pouch and tried {Gust!} again… but it fell before the wind could carry it.

Yeah, I already knew that from practicing with Bullet. So I made a tube-shaped wind current and then cast {Gust!}.

The rock shot past the Armor Buffalo’s head and flew behind it. My horizontal aim was off, but I could fix that.

The buffalo snorted angrily. Good.

Another shot. This time it hit its ear—and it clearly got irritated.

It snorted loudly—BU-SHAAA—and charged… well, walked toward me.

I hurriedly prepared a second shot. This time the rock hit its horn. Now it was mad.

I quickly created a large {Dome!}, and inside it another shallow bowl-shaped {Dome!}.

If the outer dome breaks, the inner dome will take a weakened hit and deflect it thanks to the slope.

THUD.
Something heavy hit the dome. The Armor Buffalo seemed confused—unable to understand why it was stopped.

It butted the dome several more times, testing it, before slowly backing away.

This time, it looked serious.

I was about to give it another teasing shot—but didn’t have time.

With explosive speed—

DOOOON!

The booming impact hurt my ears. Thank goodness I hadn’t left a hole for shooting stones.

It backed up again—much farther this time. It scraped the ground twice, three times—

And charged with full power.

In an instant, it slammed into the dome.

DOOOON!!

Mixed with the boom was a psheeew—the sound of air pressure releasing.
Then suddenly, I saw its enraged face fly over me.

It had been launched upward by the dome’s slope.

That was terrifying.
I may have… leaked a little.
Better refresh myself with a clean spell.

“Hey, hey—did you see that?”

“Yeah. The first charge was half-hearted, but the second one was the real deal.”

“But something was strange about it.”

“And it passed over Leon.”

“Leon seems unharmed, but how can he watch a charge like that without flinching?”

“He’s got some nerves on him, that’s for sure.”

When I looked at the Armor Buffalo that had passed by, it was turning to face me again, so I hurried to recreate a {Dome!}.

I reinforced the dome with extra magic power and fired a provoking Bullet again.

This time it hit perfectly—right in the face—and now the Armor Buffalo was completely enraged.

A roaring DOOOOM slammed into the dome I had made—trying to make it harder and more flexible—but the dome held.

Good, good. It’s noisy, but it’s holding against an Armor Buffalo’s charge.

Next time, if I make only the upper two-fifths of the sphere into a shallow dome shape, I should be able to deflect the impact even better, making it sturdier.

It seemed I had hurt the Armor Buffalo’s pride, and it began backing up again—so I decided it was time to escape.

I drained the magic from the dome and wrapped myself with a hole-covered {Balloon!}, then surrounded that with a tall {Ring!}.

As the Armor Buffalo started its charge, I waved at it, pulled wind into the ring from below, and launched the balloon upward.

I gave it a bit too much acceleration and wobbled, but the Armor Buffalo slammed into the ring with a thunderous crash.

As soon as I drained the magic from the now-useless ring, the balloon reached the peak of its ascent, so I inflated it massively to slow my fall with air resistance.

Below me, since my figure had vanished, the Armor Buffalo was looking around in confusion.

Unfortunately, the wind drifted the balloon, and I landed behind the Armor Buffalo, so I made a new hole-covered {Balloon!}.

“Hey there,” I called, and the Armor Buffalo turned.

This time, once it began preparing to charge, I strengthened the ring, filled it with kicked-up dust, made it half-transparent, and angled the tube toward the big rock.

The moment the Armor Buffalo charged, I launched myself into the air again.

＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊ ＊

“He’s provoking the Armor Buffalo again.”

“He said he could escape alone, but he’s reckless.”

“…No way.”

“Could that guy actually fly?”

“Hmm… rather than flying, he jumped and then fell… something about it is odd.”

“He shouldn’t be falling that slowly.”

“Ah—bad place to land!”

“That—what’s that?”

“It’s colored…?”

“I knew he was skilled at magic, but…”

“Oh, he’s jumped again.”

“This time he’s coming toward us!”

“So he wasn’t flying—he was jumping.”

“And now he’s falling again, but slowly.”

“Hey, hey—he passed right over us and landed behind us.”

“A wind mage who can withstand an Armor Buffalo’s charge… what a monster of a magician.”

“But with this, we can finally hunt Armor Buffalo safely.”

I safely landed in the shadow of the large rock, climbed up to where everyone was waiting, and they welcomed me with exasperated looks.

“Sorry for the wait.”

“Leon, can you fly?”

“Can wind magic actually let you fly?”

“What was that falling speed? That wasn’t normal.”

“How did you manage to move back and forth like that?”

“Are you really only blessed with wind magic?”

“But the dome’s durability is more than enough.”

They were so excited after seeing a human fly that the questions were about to turn into a storm, so I quickly put a stop to it.