Before Grom had made his move, my arm seemed to move of its own accord, raising my shield with a split second to spare. His ax slammed into it hard enough to send my entire body backwards several steps, leaving my left arm severely numb.

Even with the shield, I could see that I’d lost nearly a fifth of my HP bar from that one attack. There was no way I could take a hit without my shield, but my arm also refused to move from its limp position at my side. Really, there was only one course of action to take.

So, I ran.

I didn’t run back the way I came. Even in his heavier armor, I was basically unable to see Grom’s movements and only by reaction before the hit was I even still alive. No, there’s no way he wouldn’t just catch up to me if I tried running in a straight line.

Instead, I jumped across the river’s bank, and somehow landed on the other side. Only Monty followed me over, while the rest of my pets surrounded Grom, but didn’t attack him. For his part, he seemed to ignore them since they hadn’t done anything to him and was completely focused on me.

Considering the strength in his arm, there was absolutely no way I could go blow for blow against him with my own longsword. I was better off putting it back in my inventory. With a flash of blue light, the sword was swiftly replaced with the folding fan, the only one of my Conduits I had any idea of how to use.

The orc seemed all but prepared to leap across on his own, up until the moment that I switched out a sword for a fan, that is. His eyes still shone that bright red, but there was some hesitation in them.

“Hey, Eve, do my pets respond to my mental commands the same way that menus do?” I wondered, confident that the distance between Grom and myself was enough that he couldn’t hear. At the same time, my pets, aside from Monty, probably couldn’t hear me either.

“Hm? Oh my! It seems your battle is already moving along quickly!” She sounded surprised that it was just Grom and me left. Or, perhaps, that I was still alive at all. That feeling was mutual. “Well, to an extent. Your pets, at least the ones you spawned with, do have a mental connection with you akin to the one that you use to control the various aspects of the System. They respond much more readily to verbal commands, but dome Players do utilize that connection to give their pets simple commands to follow.”

That’s perfect. Maybe I won’t have to even get close to Grom if I can play my cards right. That would be for the best since I could only just start feeling my arm again.

Glancing around, I noticed various rocks on the bank and sent what I hoped was a simple enough mental command to Monty. He responded as I’d hoped, and grabbed a particularly large one in his beak, taking to the sky far above.

“What’s wrong, Grom? Afraid to fight the Aetherborn, after all that big talk?” I shouted across the river. It was actually quite wide at this part, and the wind may have distorted my voice, but I hoped the general emotion was at least carried over.

Based on his reaction, it apparently did. His smirk degenerated quite quickly into a snarl, and I swear I could see his knuckles turning white as he gripped the ax harder. I opened the fan and swung it even as he leapt from one side of the bank.

[Gale Slash] Ability Gained.

By swinging an Air Conduit diagonally, you can infuse the atmosphere with your Aether and create a strong, gale-force wind that attacks any target before you. It becomes stronger the longer it lasts, and the more MP you infuse into it.

Despite his heavy, metal armor, Grom flew backwards just as easily as the ground had a couple hours ago the first time I used this spell. I had no way to tell exactly what his HP was, but the fact that he bounced hard into the ground three different times probably meant it was a safe bet to assume it had hurt.

And, to add insult to injury, I had Monty drop that large rock from the sky at that moment. It fell with enough force that I could hear it shatter against his leg all the way from my spot across the river.

When he didn’t move for a few seconds, I let out a sigh of relief and jumped back across the riverbank. That had gone so much better than I could’ve reasonably hoped. I didn’t even have to really do much with my pets.

Thinking about them, I glanced at the four monsters under my command and noted that they were still focused on Grom. He probably hadn’t been killed by just that, but was he still a threat? Well, if they thought so, then I’d believe them.

Warily, I watched Grom’s body with my shield raised. My fan was closed, and I looked at my MP bar. I could probably do that spell once… maybe two more times. The bar was steadily increasing each second, so at least just simply stalling for time was a proper tactic until I could somehow increase my MP. I’d need to figure out how to do that later.

Grom jumping to his feet broke my focus. His snarl had become downright menacing and I think my HP bar dropped a bit just from the heat of his glare alone. “Grom… does not like magic.” He finally growled, before spitting onto the floor, his saliva a very unhealthy red.

“And I don’t like the idea of dying.” I replied rather honestly, with only a hint of sarcasm. “So how about we part ways and neither of us needs to get hurt anymore.” I had far too much I needed to remember to die here, and I really didn’t feel like I could come out of a fight with this orc unscathed.

“Grom doesn’t think so.” The orc replied with a toothy grin, ax in hand as he stared me down. “Either Grom will walk away with the Goddess’ favor, or you will. There is no running away from Grom’s fate this day. We fight to the end, and not a moment before that.”

This damned orc was too hard-headed! Fine. If that’s how he wanted to play things, then I’d just have to use all of my, admittedly limited, advantages to take him out. Monty took to the sky once again, another large rock in his beak.

This time, however, my other three pets gathered around me. I didn’t know what sort of things they could do, so I simply had to use my imagination and the memories of how they’d attacked the goblins to my advantage.

My shield moved of its own accord again, blocking Grom’s strike as he rushed forward faster than I could see. This time, however, Squishy jumped upon his back, easily sliding through the gap between his helmet and breastplate.

The orc screamed as the slime followed my orders to consume his flesh. Distracted by what was probably an absolutely mind-numbing amount of pain as Squishy ate the flesh from his back, Charlotte and Sadie made their own moves.

Sadie pounced on him from the front, teeth gnashing at Grom’s helmet-covered face, doing her best to tear him apart. Charlotte, instead, thrust her sharp legs into the crevice between his breastplate and the armor covering his thigh. The Cuisse. Ah, yes, thank you.

Even through the pain, Grom seemed to find the strength to slam his helmet into my wolf. “Sadie!” The shout came as soon as I saw her head roll off her body, but my anxiety was quickly soothed as the skull simply barked back in response. Her body rushed over to its head, and I watched as it reformed itself with nothing more than her sticking her neck back into the skull.

Charlotte then thrusted another leg into the crevice with a second, sickening squelch and moved them in opposite directions, creating a larger gap in between the pieces for her to stab with her fangs, injecting whatever sort of venom she had into the orc.

Through it all, Grom still seemed to struggle, no matter how futile it was. Though, his movements did seem to slow, and even stall, after Charlotte bit into him. Whatever her venom set out to do, it seemed to be working as his arms and legs became still.

Once again, Monty came in, almost as an afterthought, and dropped his rock right onto Grom’s face.

I replaced my fan with my longsword in a flash of light, approaching my opponent. “I gave you the option to leave.” My voice was colder than I meant it to be, almost devoid of any emotions. With a mental command, Sadie grabbed the plume atop Grom’s helmet in her mouth, pulling it off to expose his face - mangled, but still nearly human if not for the green skin.

“Grom… merely wished to prove to the Goddess my strength. The Aetherborn are destined for greatness, and Grom felt… he might be able to take that greatness for himself.” The orc coughed violently just then, red spittle flying all over his armor, contrasting sharply with the bright metal.

“I’ve got too much to do to let some orc take me down on my very first day here.” I replied as I pointed the blade at his neck, amazed that I wasn’t shaking. I was about to take this thing’s life. Sure, it wasn’t human, but it felt like I should be a bit more… anxious.

Then again, this was probably far from my first ever kill, wasn’t it? Even if I didn’t remember it, maybe my body did. “Grom will accept his Fate and return to the Goddess. As Grom said earlier, one of us would walk away with the Goddess’ Blessing after today, and the fight would not end a moment before. You were a worthy opponent, Blackwell. Grom is honored to be a part of your Legend.”

Without another word, I pushed the point of my sword through the orc’s throat, watching as blood first coated the blade, then overflowed out of his neck and onto the floor beneath him. He convulsed for a few moments, before becoming very still.

“My Legend, huh? I don’t even know who I am.”