While Soup was taunting Tanuki, the boy’s attention was someplace different.

Kurohyou fell out of his pocket, right into a small pond of rain. Instead of the water cleansing the brush from ink, it sunk into its fabric and coated the weapon in blue paint.

Despite the incredible pain in his chest, Tanuki’s full attention was bestowed upon Kurohyou. He pulled the weapon closer and observed the blue ink.

“What is this?”

Soup was about to finish humiliating the boy and she readied her light red horns to attack.

“Don’t worry, Tanuki! Once this is over, I’ll make sure to give Maduka the worst torture imaginable. Now die!”

At that moment, when Soup launched her devastating attack, Tanuki’s body acted on its own. He pushed himself to his back and sent his own attack with Kurohyou, shooting blue ink in an arc around himself.

“Kurohyou, activa––“

Tanuki couldn’t finish his sentence because he coughed up blood.

Still, the blue ink activated, growing in size and drawing a protective arc around Tanuki. When the horns touched it, they were caught in the blue liquid and redirected to the ground.

“What?” Soup recoiled.

She’s never seen anything like this before, a weapon that could raise shields. Unbeknownst to her, Tanuki was just as confused, if not even more.

Soup forced herself to smile again.

“You think this will be enough, Tanuki?”

Before she could’ve summoned another attack, Tanuki grabbed her ankle and pulled the goblin to the ground. Coating his brush in blue again, he shot an arc towards Soup.

“Kurohyou!”

The ink detonated and formed a protective shield around Soup’s chest, chaining her to the ground.

“Don’t think you can fuck with me!” Soup kicked back Tanuki.

Immediately after that, she summoned five horns and attacked.

“Ancestor’s Path, Savage Horns!”

The horns pulsed with red lightning as they attacked Tanuki. He pulled another protective shield around himself, that redirected the attacks away from him.

Soup broke free of her chains through sheer force and quickly crawled to the spearman goblin’s corpse. Tanuki quickly rushed after her, then suffered a stab in his right arm as Soup defended herself with the fallen monster’s spear.

“Gaah!” Tanuki pulled away as he cried out in pain.

Masterfully using the spear, Soup sent a barrage of attacks at the boy, who could barely defend himself with the Beginners’ Shield.

“What’s wrong, Tanuki? If you concentrate only on defense…”

Soup faked her next attack. Tanuki raised his shield to defend himself, only to get stabbed in his right thigh.

“…then I’ll eventually break through it!”

Tanuki lost his balance. As he fell back to the ground, Soup launched one final attack. She aimed at his eyes to pierce through it and stab his brain, killing him with one decisive strike.

“Goodbye, pretty boy!”

At that moment, the spear and Tanuki’s glasses collided. The glasses cracked from the powerful attack, but still held back her spear and defended Tanuki from death.

Splash!

He fell into a large pile of mud.

Soup quickly went after him, jumped on his chest, and began pummeling the boy with her fists. She laughed crazily from bloodlust, spitting her own blood all over Tanuki’s face.

“Screw the rain! I don’t care about those weakling losers anymore! I only want you Tanuki! I want to marry you!”

Tanuki raised his hands to defend himself from the monster’s punches, but she was way stronger than him.

“Come on now! Won’t you marry me back? Huh? Come on now, what do you say?”

Tanuki grabbed a palmful of mud and pushed it into the goblin’s mouth.

For a moment, Soup thought that this was his desperate attempt to degrade his opponent before getting killed. But as Tanuki forced his way into the back of her mouth, she felt the mud in her throat clog her windpipe.

She couldn’t breathe.

Soup tried to cough up the mud, and she could’ve succeeded, were it not for Tanuki’s surprise attack.

“Kurohyou!”

Blue ink spattered across her face and when it activated, a large liquid shield glued down Soup’s nose and mouth.

She tore and shred the liquid shield around her face, but it wouldn’t budge. All the while the mud sunk deeper into her windpipes, gluing them shut.

Desperate for air, she got off of Tanuki and looked for the spear from before. It took her a while to find it, losing precious seconds in the meantime.

Once it was in her hands, Soup began stabbing the sticky shield around her face.

“What kind of monster do you have to be, to betray your love?”

Tanuki pulled himself up into a sitting position. He couldn’t stand up, nor crawl away, yet he bore a confident smile.

“You were talking all that hot trash about how much you love rain, and five minutes later you’re ready to cheat on her? With me? Not that I don’t get it, not everyone is as perfect as I am, but still!”

Soup was ferocious. She aimed the spear at Tanuki and tried to attack, but couldn’t, as the loss of air made her light-headed. She lost her balance and landed in the mud.

The fearful and sadistic leader of the goblin’s tribe was lying in the mud, half-dead from the loss of air.

There was still hope for her though. It was an offer Tanuki proposed.

“I can make that shield around your face disappear. All I ask for in return is that you apologize to Maduka and…”

As he said that, Soup’s eyes turned even redder. Why would a leader, the boss of an entire tribe, apologize to such a lowly, pathetic commoner? Who does he think she is?

Mustering the last of her power, Soup grabbed the spear, jumped into the air, and launched an attack at Tanuki.

Seeing this, he could only sigh with disappointment.

“Right, I figured you would do something like that…”

Suddenly, Tanuki lunged forward and grabbed Soup’s spear. He pulled the weapon aside, then with the same motion, launched his fist into the goblin’s face.

“Hngh?” Soup grunted one last time before getting knocked out from the blow.

Her body flung lifelessly through the air. It landed in a small pond of rainwater, where it remained, devoid of any signs of life.

Tanuki deactivated his shield. There was no more need for it.

After all this time finally, Soup, the Daughter of the Blue Minotaur, has been defeated.

The rain picked up. The clouds cheered with loud thunder. The wind cleaned the blood off Tanuki’s forehead. He couldn’t keep it inside himself anymore, and he let out a victorious roar.

“YEEES!”

Maduka was still watching from the safety of her cage. She cheered on Tanuki, and even tried to call out to the boy, who couldn’t hear her from the storm.

“Good job, Nuki! Good job!”

Even though he was victorious, his body was still pulsing with pain. Tanuki could feel the effects of blood loss finally catch up to him.

“Right… it feels like I’m about to pass out…”

His body gradually turned numb. He couldn’t feel his legs anymore and it got much harder to concentrate.

[ Wave Ongoing! ]

[ Title: Beginners’ Trial ( 3/3 ) ]

[ Challenge Rating: 1 ]

[ Active effects:­­ ––– ]

[ Enemies left: ‘Soup, Daughter of the Blue Minotaur’ (Deceased); Goblin (1/5) ]

A new option appeared under the information menu of the ongoing wave.

[ The following Enemies would like to surrender: Goblin (1/5) ]

Under the line were two options for Tanuki to choose from. One to accept the monster’s surrender and one to deny it.

Tanuki knew it was Maduka. Surrendering wasn’t the best word for her, as she has done nothing wrong, nor did she ever want to partake in the enemy’s attack.

Tanuki accepted her surrender.

“Welcome home, little Maduka…”

Immediately after he did that, the rewards menu popped up. Tanuki had no time to read it, as his eyes turned blurry from both blood loss and exhaustion.

Before he would’ve fallen unconscious, he made sure to accept one of the rewards sure to be there.

“Beginners’ Box No. 3… open and… heal me…” Tanuki muttered, before collapsing.

.

.

.

Somewhere in a place far from his world, a group of miscellaneous shadows gathered. They observed the boy through a small orb, feeling bitter emotions about his victory.

“Did Soup really die to him?”

“Incredible… what kind of weapon was that?”

“I knew she was weak.”

One of the shadows remained silent. It turned its back to the orb and approached the exit to the room, a bright white glowing portal.

“Where are you going?” One of the three observers asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? That boy is easy prey. I could use his skull as a drinking bottle.”

“Oh, didn’t you know? Diablo already called dibs on him.”

“What?!” The shadow stopped before the white portal. “That lying bastard! We made a deal that if I give her my [Great Antler Summoning Scroll], I could go first on the boy!”

“Well, you know, that’s just the way she is.”

The shadow was furious. He whispered curses under his nose, then returned to the white portal and stepped through it.

When he was finally out of sight, one of the observers sighed.

“Poor boy. First, his father dies, then his sister gets killed in front of his eyes. So sad. You know, this reminds me, I could go for some hotdogs right now…