Chapter 68: Red Forest 2

Chapter 68: Chapter 68: Red Forest 2

Dreadhorns charged toward the students with bloodied hands and jaws—one of them aiming directly at Xavier and Fiona.

RRAAAAKH—SKREEECH!! GRAAAAHHH!!

Xavier and Fiona dodged to either side as the beast slammed its hand down between them, blasting dust and dirt into the air.

GRAAAAHHH!!

"Come on, students. Dreadhorns are really simple beasts. They only attack what’s in front of them," Professor Freya’s voice echoed through the forest, which had just turned into a battlefield.

All the teams worked together against the dreadhorns, raising barriers with their talismans and distracting the creatures with offensive fireball and wind spells. Nine teams focused on two of the beasts while Xavier and his team took on the third alone.

As the dreadhorn charged again—this time aiming at Allen—its feet slipped on ground that had suddenly turned into slippery mud, a trap laid by one of Team 10’s students. The beast lost its balance and dropped to its knees.

HSSSKREE—!! GRAAHH!!

A quick wind spell from Allen struck its face but did little. It was about to regain its footing and continue toward Allen when multiple wind spells hit it’s face in rapid succession. The rest of Team 10 had joined in at once, bombarding the off-balance dreadhorn with wind spells and a few fireballs mixed in. The combined force finally shoved it backward.

RRAAAARGH!! SKREEECH!!

In an instant Xavier appeared in front of the dreadhorn, his entire body crackling with lightning. He leapt from the ground, tightened his fist, and drove an uppercut into the beast’s jaw. The blow knocked it completely backward, crashing onto its back with a heavy thump.

GRRK—!!

Silence held for a few seconds.

"Did we do it?" Allen asked.

The next moment the dreadhorn opened its mouth and screeched even louder than before—that same long, horrifying cry—as it pushed itself back onto its feet.

SKREEEEEEEAAAAAARGH—!!!!

Xavier, standing behind Allen, tapped him on the shoulder. "Man, you need to stop raising flags."

The dreadhorn steadied itself and prepared to charge again. Suddenly Fiona dropped from a tree trunk onto the beast’s side, her nails lengthening into claws. She slashed across its blood-red eyes, blinding it on one side.

The dreadhorn screamed in pain and agony.

HSSSKREEEEE—AAARGH!! GRAAAAHHH—!!

"Shouldn’t have done that," Professor Freya called down. "A dreadhorn is predictable. A blind dreadhorn? How are you going to know where it will attack next?"

True to her words, the beast went into a frenzy. It could still see from one eye, yet it kept crashing into trees on its blind side while chasing the students.

RRAAAAKH!! SKREEECH!! GRAAHH!!

The students fired every kind of spell they had from all directions, confusing it further. All they could manage was to keep it running in circles without truly subduing it.

Noticing their struggle, Freya dropped one final clue.

"Their weak point is their horns. Break the horns and they’ll simply bleed to death."

The nine teams working together finally had a clear direction. They focused everything on the horns.

Xavier and Fiona called out to their teammates and formed a plan. Fiona and several others kept the half-blind dreadhorn distracted, forcing it to run in circles, colliding into trees while Xavier, Allen, and the rest dug a deep pit using earth spells. At Xavier’s signal Fiona led the beast straight into the trap. The dreadhorn tumbled in and, in sudden confusion, froze for a few seconds.

GRAAAAH—!! SKREEE!!

In that brief window Xavier, Allen, and the rest of the team unleashed fireballs and stone-bullet spells aimed directly at the elk-like horns. The heat was meant to make them brittle; the impacts were meant to crack them. The dreadhorn thrashed inside the narrow pit but could not move far.

HSSSKREECH!! RRAAARGH!!

Small cracks began to spread across the horns. Xavier signaled his teammates to stop.

He aimed both hands at the cracked horns. Small stones materialized in front of his palms, swelling second by second until it became a foot-long boulder. He launched it at incredible speed—the same stone-bullet spell the others had used, only on another level. The boulder slammed into both horns one after another, shattering them. Long spurts of blood gushed from the stumps.

SKREEEEE—AAARGH—!! GRAAAAHHH—!!

The beast’s body went limp as the blood loss mounted. Soon the dreadhorn collapsed completely into the pit, body covered in its own blood.

"Is it finally over?" Allen asked.

"You’re not going to stop raising flags, are you?" Xavier replied. Allen did not understand what he meant. The beast was dead.

The other teams finished dealing with their own dreadhorns soon after. Exhausted students leaned against trees to catch their breath.

Xavier was fine. He could have simply dealt with all three beasts himself. Weakness or not, it would not have mattered if he had beheaded them with a single slash of Miss Incinerator. But that would have defeated the purpose of the lesson. The core of this training was survival. If he had handled everything alone, the other students would have simply relied on him. Instead, he had coordinated with his teammates, formed a plan, and when they finally brought the dreadhorn down, the confidence on every face was clear. Even those who had been terrified now felt they might actually be able to handle themselves.

"Good, good. It took you a while, but you still dealt with them. That’s good," Freya said. "All right—gather the beasts, butcher them for meat, strip their hides, and collect the broken horns in one place."

The students were still catching their breath when the next instructions came.

"But Professor, why do we need to do that? We already have our gear and supplies for the whole week," one student asked.

"If we leave this here it might attract other beasts and they might catch our trail. Besides, you never know when something might come in handy. No more questions."

Freya clapped her hands, gesturing for them to move quickly. The students obeyed. Xavier and Fiona hauled their dreadhorn out of the pit and dragged it over to the other two. Everyone worked together to butcher the meat and strip the hides.

Fiona’s hands moved with flawless efficiency, surprising even Xavier by her skill. Hunting was a well-known sport among the nobles, so the students from noble families had at least some idea of butchering. They all worked together; those who struggled received help from Fiona whenever she was asked. She obliged without complaint.

Soon the butchering and hide-stripping were finished. They resumed their march deeper into the Red Forest.

They walked all day, encountering other beasts along the way—smaller in size, yet still dangerous. None of them, however, proved as deadly as the dreadhorns. It was clear the dreadhorns were the prime hunters of this region. After dealing with them, everything else felt rather easy.

Freya carefully observed a mark on a tree ahead and signaled the students to stop.

"We’re about five kilometers deep. That’s it for the day. We’ll set camp here."