Lionel rose from his spot very slowly, trying not to provoke the bear.
The black bear likewise abandoned the animal carcass it had been engrossed in and rose to its feet.
Its blood-soaked snout was chilling. Fully upright, the bear looked several times larger than when it had been crouching.
Just as Lionel stretched out his arm and held the stick before him, the bear moved its massive body.
With a heavy, thudding sound, the bear raced through the rain, closing the distance in an instant, and swatted down the stick Lionel had thrust out.
The thin stick failed to inflict any damage on the bear and snapped uselessly.
Lionel twisted his upper body to dodge the bear’s successive swipes of its forepaws. He could not deal damage to the bear, but he had not neglected his training, so he could barely evade the bear’s attacks.
But how long could he last?
No one in the mansion knew that Lionel occasionally visited the cave in the forest. No, before that—was there even anyone who would notice he had disappeared?
No one cared about Lionel. Not the mansion’s servants, not his father, his only family—no one knew where Lionel was or what he was doing outside of designated duties and hours.
The crisis before him was something Lionel had to overcome entirely on his own. But he could see no way out at all. Was he meant to die here like this?
‘No, I want to live.’
He wanted to live madly. Lionel had not the slightest desire to die.
Just moments ago he had thought he wanted to disappear, but that did not mean he wanted to be swallowed in one bite by a bear.
Rolling on the ground to dodge the bear’s relentless attacks, Lionel’s eyes caught sight of a thick, sturdy wooden stick.
The stick, with one end broken off, looked far sharper than the previous one.
Lionel grabbed the wooden stick and rose to his feet. The bear, enraged at failing to catch its prey in one go, was roaring toward the sky.
What should he do? If he turned and ran now, could he shake off the bear?
No, the moment he turned his back, the bear would strike him from behind. He would only be exposing his weakness, making himself easier to attack.
‘Then what?’
The longer the fight dragged on, the more disadvantageous it was for Lionel. Yet the bear was not an opponent Lionel could defeat in a single blow either.
Could he use mana? Lionel knew that vast mana slumbered within his body. But it was a power he had never once drawn upon.
If he coated the stick with mana and struck the bear, it should deal some damage.
Gripping the stick tightly, Lionel drew up his mana and channeled it into the stick.
He felt strong resistance, but the mana flowing from his fingertips forced its way into the stick.
The mana-infused stick glowed gold, but that was all.
The mana scattered quickly. He was already struggling just to dodge the bear’s attacks; he could not consistently draw out and maintain his mana.
‘Just a moment, just a brief moment—if I could hold the bear in place, I might be able to do something.’
The bear, having finished its roar, was preparing to charge at Lionel once more.
Just then, beyond the bear’s arm, a familiar wheat-colored head of hair flickered.
Lionel thought his vision was blurred by the rain and he was seeing things. But it was his playmate, Jaelin, without a doubt.
Jaelin was frozen stiff as ice on the spot.
‘If you see a bear, at least run away. Or go to the mansion and call for help. What on earth is that idiot doing standing there?!’
Dodging the bear’s swinging paws, Lionel shouted at Jaelin with all his might.
“Hey! Run!”
Jaelin did not seem to be in her right mind. In this urgent situation where the bear could attack at any moment, far from running away, she was sitting on the ground, densely inscribing something on the muddy earth.
“Go to the mansion and call the knights or whatever!”
Lionel screamed at the top of his lungs. But the sound did not reach Jaelin.
Jaelin was still crouched on the ground, busy drawing something. Just as Lionel was about to shout once more—
Jaelin suddenly pressed her hand to the dirt.
A bright green light began to glow along the mysterious letters Jaelin had inscribed on the ground.
What Jaelin had carved into the ground was a magical formula written in runes.
As light filled the formula completely, the magic circle activated, and an arrow glowing green was created.
The arrow, spinning in the air for a moment, flew swiftly toward the bear’s back.
Though he was on the opposite side from where the arrow was launched, Lionel could tell. That arrow could not take the bear’s life—it could not even scratch the bear’s body.
Lionel’s assessment was correct. The arrow that struck the bear’s back crumbled uselessly, meeting its end.
The bear, howling in pain, stopped its assault on Lionel and twisted its massive body around.
Only then did Lionel realize Jaelin’s intention. The arrow was not meant to defeat the bear—it was merely a device to divert the bear’s attention.
‘You fool! Idiot! Simpleton!’
He had known she was foolish, but he never imagined it was to this degree.
‘You could have just run away. Why did you do that? Why on earth!!’
It was a situation Lionel simply could not comprehend.
Lionel stood dazed, heaving ragged breaths.
Jaelin, her face pale blue, screamed at Lionel with all her might.
“Y-Young Master! H-hurry! P-please run!”
Her small body, trembling violently, was clearly visible even from a distance. The vivid terror reached Lionel even where he stood far away.
The bear, having turned its body fully toward Jaelin, charged straight at her.
It was obvious as day that if left alone, that small body would be torn to pieces by the bear’s massive forepaw.
“N-no…….”
Lionel, snapping back to his senses belatedly, ran after the bear, but it was not enough to catch up to the bear’s speed.
Meanwhile, Jaelin, trembling with terror, did not take her eyes off the bear. There was still something she had to do.
When the bear reached the spot Jaelin wanted, Jaelin once again poured mana into the magic formula she had written on the ground in advance.
A formula completely different from the one that had created the arrow earlier responded to Jaelin’s mana and emitted light.
Just before the bear lunged at Jaelin, tree roots surged up from the formula and entangled the bear’s arms and legs.
The bear, halted right before Jaelin’s nose, could no longer move forward. The bear, deprived of its freedom, howled and roared.
Jaelin, her face pale with terror, plopped down backward.
Jaelin pushed at the ground with her hands and feet, struggling to get as far from the bear as possible. Her hands and feet were instantly covered in mud from the rain-soaked earth.
Unfortunately, the mana Jaelin had poured into the magic formula was terribly feeble.
With each struggle of the bear, the tree roots binding it snapped off one by one. It had only been able to hold the bear in place for a very brief moment.
But for Lionel, that instant was an opportunity.
Lionel, having caught up to the bear, kicked off the ground and leaped onto the bear’s body.
‘Please, please!’
Clinging to the bear, just before thrusting the stick into it, Lionel drew out every last bit of mana he had and poured it into the wooden stick in his hand.
He knew it was a crude method, but it was the only way Lionel could manage in this situation.
The wooden stick, raised with all his strength, glowed gold as it held Lionel’s mana at its maximum.
Lionel drove the sharp end of the stick straight into the crown of the bear’s head. With a sickening sensation, the stick pierced completely through the bear’s skull.
The bear, letting out its final death cry, slowly tilted to one side.
As the bear collapsed completely, Jaelin’s face—hidden behind the bear’s massive body—finally came into Lionel’s view.
Covered head to toe in the bear’s blood, her eyes squeezed tightly shut, in that wretched state.
“Jaelin.”
At Lionel’s call, Jaelin opened her tightly shut eyes. Her terrified green eyes frantically scanned Lionel.
“H-huh? Y-Young Master! B-blood…! What do we do!!”
Jaelin, scrambling to her feet and clutching Lionel’s sleeve tightly, her hands trembling pitifully.
“I’m fine. It’s not my blood.”
“The b-bear…?”
“It’s dead.”
Lionel covered Jaelin’s eyes so she would not see the bear’s gruesome carcass and turned his body slightly to the opposite side of the bear.
“Are you all right?”
Jaelin nodded, the area around her eyes flushed red. The rain was still pouring down in torrents, but Lionel could tell that Jaelin was crying.
“Are you crying right now?”
Her tiny face was a mess of blood, mud, and rainwater.
Jaelin nodded.
“Why? Because the bear was scary?”
Jaelin shook her head vigorously.
“The b-bear was scary, but m-more than that, I was so w-worried about you, Young Master, I thought something t-terrible had happened… Hwaaang.”
Jaelin could not even finish her sentence before bursting into loud sobs.
Soaked through by the rain and crying as if her breath would stop, Jaelin’s body grew colder and colder.
Discovering her lips, blue and trembling violently, Lionel helped Jaelin to her feet.
They needed shelter from the rain. The cave was much closer from here than the mansion.
Lionel judged it better to take shelter in the cave until the rain let up somewhat.
Having arrived at the cave, Jaelin’s body shook violently.
Lionel brought a blanket, wrapped it around Jaelin, and gathered all the wood he had collected while wandering the forest for carving and lit a fire.
“Once the rain stops a bit, we’ll head back to the mansion then.”
Jaelin clutched the blanket and nodded. The warmth of the fire filled the small cave.
The two sat around the bonfire, drying their wet hands and feet.
Outside the cave, the summer rain was still pouring down fiercely. Occasionally, a rumbling sound echoed across the sky.
