Chương 42: Thief

The magic beasts who had taken over the mana well were not carnivores, but when it came to defending a mana well, all magic beasts were the same. They would become territorial, and fight to the last. The only difference when it came to herbivores and carnivores was that the herbivores sometimes tried to resolve things nonviolently first. These beasts were a species of deer with antlers that seemed to shimmer in and out of existence.

Both the bucks and does had them, though it was still obvious which was which, because the bucks were much larger, and their antlers were angled forward more, almost like bull horns. They emerged from the trees and formed a semi circle around them, posturing and snorting foggy breath, trying to get Igrette and Jonny to back off. There were about fifteen of them, and their antlers grew brighter as they stepped forward. Jonny could sense them giving off a scary amount of mana.

He definitely didn't want to get hit by any of them.

"The strongest ones are third layer," said Igrette calmly.

"Most are second. I'll leave you one of the second layer does."

"Okay," he said. The next moment, Jonny felt a gust of gold wind as Igrette disappeared from his side, reappearing at one end of the semicircle of deer. She dashed forward, swinging her sword in a long arc and beheading half a dozen of the deer in one go. Jonny barely saw her move, and didn't sense her use any mana. She had done that purely with the strength of her body.

Somehow, despite her speed, the buck in the center, the largest of the bunch, somehow managed to react, and when she reached him, he lowered his head as his antlers flashed, letting out a powerful blast of mana. Igrette braced herself against it, but she still didn't use any mana, and was sent flying. She landed on her feet, skidding through the snow, but Jonny saw her clenching her teeth and grimacing in pain. A second later, another half dozen deer died, leaving one doe and two bucks still standing.

All three lowered their head and tried firing mana at Igrette, but this time, she dodged to the side, letting the mana obliterate a tree behind her instead. The two bucks died a second later, and Igrette reappeared near Jonny, leaning on a tree with her good hand holding her side.

"Your turn," she said as the destroyed tree crashed to the ground. Jonny nodded, then turned back to the one remaining doe. It looked nervous, as it should have after watching its entire herd die, but it still stubbornly stood its ground, pawing the snow and lowering its head as if to charge. Jonny stepped forward, making sure that he would be its primary target, reinforcing his body with mana as he did.

He used what he had been calling his furnace breathing technique, accelerating his circulation as he exhaled, only to stop himself after one breath. The furnace technique was great for combat, but what he was trying to do now wasn't just fight. He was trying to see if he could steal mana from the doe. He wasn't sure if it would make a huge difference, but when he did it with Tommy, he had been using the original technique, accelerating as he breathed in, so it was probably better if he started with that.

The doe pawed the ground a few more times before charging at him, and when it got about ten feet away, Jonny dived to the side as far as he could. He knew he would probably survive being hit by the mana blast, but he didn't want to take any chances. Especially when his goal relied so heavily on his ability to get in close. His dodge worked, but when he got back to his feet from his roll, he saw the doe doing something surprising.

Rather than continuing forward, or skidding to a halt, it released a blast from its antlers anyway, and not only did it halt its charge, but it had turned its head at an angle, and lifted its back feet off the ground, so when the mana blast went off, it spun right around to face him, as its antlers started glowing again. Jonny made a mental note not to underestimate magic beasts just because Igrette could run circles around them, then prepared to dodge. It did not charge immediately.

Instead, it just eyed him warily while the glow of its antlers increased. So it needs to charge up, he noted. After a few seconds, it finally attacked again. It was clear that going all out to get out of the way wasn't going to work if it could change directions so quickly, so this time, he didn't do a diving roll. He did a long sidestep instead, which fortunately worked out fine. The doe did not try to blast him, instead using its mana to stop its charge again.

By the time it turned around, though, Jonny was already running toward it. It lowered its antlers again, ready to meet his charge, but he surprised it by dropping into a slide, slipping under its head and between its front legs. As he slid under, he could have sworn it looked surprised. Directly under the deer was actually a very good place for him to be, because if he was able to uppercut it from that position, it would do a lot of damage.

A direct uppercut like that would have none of the downsides that his small size usually brought, and he would be able to use his full power to devastate its innards. Sadly, although he played baseball for one year in middle school, he didn't remember how to come up from a slide properly, or at least in a way that would have allowed for that. Instead, he used his momentum to kick out one of the deer's back legs as he slid by.

It stumbled, splaying its legs to retain its balance, and almost sat on Jonny's face as he slid past. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Once out of the way, he turned over and scrambled back to his feet, digging his fingers into the icy ground to gain some purchase.

The deer tried to turn as well, using the same mana blast technique as the first time, but with its balance broken and its antlers low on charge, it only got halfway around by the time Jonny got back to his feet and launched himself at its side. He landed squarely on it shoulder, clambering up until he was on its back and wrapped his arms around its neck, and his legs around its torso. It started bucking immediately, trying to get him off, but his grip was far too strong for that.

It was annoying to concentrate while it was moving like that, but despite the bucking, he still managed to get a deep breath, trying to ignore the powerful musky scent in front of his face as he focused on the mana. He could feel his own mana, and he could feel the deer's mana, and when his own mana accelerated and condensed, he could feel it pulling at the deer's mana, but there was also resistance. The natural barrier still existed, and despite the physical contact, the doe's mana resisted him.

This wasn't unexpected, but he still found himself a little disappointed. It had really only worked with Tommy because Tommy was already trying to give him mana. Of course it wouldn't be so easy to take mana from an unwilling target. That said, he also wasn't disheartened. He could feel his mana pulling on the deer's. There was resistance, but it wasn't like when he tried to push his own mana outside of his body. It wasn't a solid, impenetrable barrier that he wouldn't ever be able to overcome.

It was just a lack of skill or technique or something similar. He exhaled, then inhaled harder, trying his best to pull on the doe's mana. He pictured his mana pulling at the doe's mana, almost like it was reaching out to grab it. That didn't work at all, so the next time, he tried going back to what had worked with Tommy. With Tommy, he wasn't trying to pull the mana. He was just circulating it and condensing it, and Tommy's mana, which was already connected. That didn't quite work either, unfortunately.

He could feel the doe's mana get almost agitated near where he was touching it, but it never made the jump from its body to his. And as the seconds dragged on, it was getting harder for Jonny to stay on the the deer, as it bucked harder and harder, flinging its body all around, trying to shake him off. He felt himself slipping, so he tried pushing himself up a bit and re-adjusting his position, but that was a mistake. The second he loosened his grip, do flailed wildly, and suddenly he had let go entirely.

He was barely holding on by squeezing his knees against its side, and even that was slipping. Panicked, and not wanting to fall off, he flung his arms forward, instinctually grabbing the easiest target he could. The second his hands touched its antlers, it seemed to trigger some kind of primal fear and rage in the doe. It let out a screeching bellow and he felt its mana going wild, trying to throw him off.

It let out a blast of mana from its antlers, which flung his hands outward, and made them sting, but it was ultimately a concussive blast, rather than a damaging one, and while his hands stung, they were mostly undamaged. Something else had happened as well during the blast. Some of the doe's mana had entered his body directly, and was now flowing through his mana channels. It was not playing well with his mana, but it was also exactly what he had been trying to do on his own, and the doe had done it for him.

Grinning, he grabbed onto the antlers again, gripping them as tight as he could. The doe jerked its head all around, and let out another mana blast, but this one was much weaker. Jonny was not only able to maintain his grip, but when the blast pushed the doe's mana into his body through his hands, he was already inhaling, circulating his mana even faster to pull in more. With the connection established, the mana suddenly came pouring in at a much higher rate.

The doe must have sensed it, because it somehow grew even wilder, slamming its body into a tree in an attempt to shake Jonny off. His grip on its antlers was too good, though, and it missed crushing his leg, so all it did was bruise itself. Jonny inhaled as much as his lungs could handle, pulling the doe's mana out in full force. Like Tommy's the mana did not mesh well with his own mana, but for the time being, he didn't have enough of it to cause problems. He knew he couldn't just keep absorbing it, though.

His body needed time to process it, and he didn't want to cause any issues. Time to end this. He let go of the antlers, leaning forward and wrapping his arms around its neck once more. This time, instead of just holding on, he squeezed, constricting its arms around its neck. It fought back wildly for a few seconds, trying to scrape him off on a tree again, but it rapidly grew weaker as the blood supply to its head was cut off. After ten seconds, it stumbled a few steps before collapsing to the ground.

Jonny did not let up, using its lack of resistance to squeeze harder and harder, until he finally felt its heart beat its last. He also noted that when it died, the natural barrier of its mana seemed to pop like a bubble. He tried grabbing some of the lost mana before it could dissipate, but with the doe's barrier gone, its internal mana just became regular mana, and it was as off-limits to him as any other. He sighed, and peeled himself off its back, looking around at the scene of the fight.

The other deer had all died in an instant, and the snow around them was undisturbed, aside from the gradually spreading redness of the blood seeping in. The scene of his own battle, on the other hand, was utter chaos. The foot-deep snow all around was destroyed, and the tree that the deer had tried crushing him against was splintered and broken, though not completely destroyed. He realized with a shiver how close he was to having severely injured his leg.

If the doe had better aim, he would be in bad shape right now. What he had done was incredibly risky. But it was worth it, he thought, sensing the doe's mana flowing through his body. The technique wasn't entirely usable as it was. Clearly, he needed to somehow establish a connection with his target before he could absorb the mana, and after absorbing it, he needed to purify it, but if he could speed up his purification, or find a way to force that connection, it could be very useful in the future.

He dismounted from the fallen beast, brushing off some of the fur from his clothes, then turned his attention to Igrette, who was still leaning against the same tree, watching him with a pained expression. She nodded in acknowledgement, then without waiting for him to catch up, turned to walk toward the mana well.