"What?! You want us to fight that thing?! Even if there's two of us, do you really think we have a chance?! We should request professionals to do it!" I yell as the bear eyes us up and down.
"If we don't fight it now, it'll attack us later! It would take too long to contact someone else! If you could get away from it before, you should be able to at least distract it now!" Lily pleads with me with tears in her eyes.
'What's with her? She's desperate to save the village! Hold on, is she suggesting I become bait again?! Will this become my permanent position if we keep working together?!'
**Sigh**
'Well, I guess I'll go along with this for now. I know I can get away if I have to.'
"Fine, but if I feel it's dangerous, I'll leave with or without you." I say, if it comes to it I'll force her to come with me. I'm not that cold-hearted!
"That's fine, I only need one good shot." Lily declares as she places an arrow to her bowstring.
'If it was that easy, you wouldn't have lost the first time!'
The bear charges toward Lily. It appears he's determined her to be an easier target.
'Now what! I can't just block it with my body! I need to distract it somehow! Snap! No time to think!'
I activate body reinforcement magic, lunge toward the space in front of Lily and draw both my daggers. If I can make the bear feel there is a greater threat than reward, I can stop it's charge.
**Growl**
Plans don't always work out. The bear ignores me, continuing it's charge. I'm not much of a threat I guess. Lily doesn't budge, only adjusting her aim.
'Awwww snap! I'm going to run right into it!'
As the distance between the bear and I closes, I almost chicken out. But, I survived one hit from it, so two shouldn't be horrible, right?
'You only live once!'
Reaching it's side I vault over it, aiming for it's neck, but it finally feels threatened. As the dagger closes in, the bear swerves to the right, causing me to lose my balance.
"Oof" I fall flat on my back and the bear stops and turns around.
'Well, I distracted it?'
I jump up as the bear stands on it's hind legs, launching a claw toward me. I try to dodge, but my reaction time is a bit slow, and it leaves several scratches on my shoulder. Then, an arrow strikes the back of the bears skull, but bounces off. The bear turns toward Lily, but I dash forward and stick a dagger into it's armpit.
**Enraged Roar**
The bear turns around and strikes my head. I crumble under the heavy blow and my vision blurs. Looking up, I can see the bear about to finish me off.
'I stand corrected. You only live once, so value that life...'
The bear raises it's paw, twitches, then darkness envelopes me...
'This again?! No, I won't believe I died this time! I must be knocked out! I'm fine!'
"Adam, are you all right?!" Lily's voice rings in my ears, then I feel movement.
'Oh, this fuzziness, it's on top of me... I still got it wrong...'
With Lily's help I wiggle my way out from under the corpse. An arrow sticks into the back of it's neck.
**Silence**
"Well... That was anticlimactic..." I break the silence, that fight went much faster than I expected.
"Yeah... We beat a C class monster... That's amazing!!!" Lily acts like an excited toddler as she jumps up and down.
"You realize we almost died, right?" I become the voice of reason, trying to rein in her excitement.
"Oh, right. But, we didn't, so it's fine. Now the village is safe, and we should be able to make a lot from it's carcass!" Lily's mood dampens, before returning to her victory dance.
"I thought you said no one can know about the bear? How would we sell it?" I once again throw cold water on Lily's enthusiasm.
"Oh, we don't have to sell it whole, we can process it ourselves. Usually, I sell my prey without processing it, but we can separate it's valuable parts and sell them individually. If anyone asks, you can say you brought it with you when you came here." Lily describes her plan with light once again in her eyes.
"Okay, can you do the processing? I'm not good with blood and guts..." I request of Lily as I wave a hand in front of my face and turn my head. I went into engineering instead of medicine, unlike the rest of my family, because I don't like innards.
"What?! You can't leave all the work to me! And, it's important to know how to do it just in case!" Lily objects and signals me to sit next to her.
"I'm afraid, this is one of the few things I will not budge on. No dissecting! Biology was more than enough for me!" I firmly declare my intentions and turn to leave.
"Hold on, at least hold this for me." Lily tosses a sphere toward me.
I catch the object and look at it. Discovering it's covered in blood I let go, then realizing it might be valuable I catch it once again and set it on the ground.
"What is this?!" I ask as I shake the blood off my hands in disgust.
"Oh, I forgot you don't know about this stuff. That's a monster core. You can exchange them for money at an adventurers' guild or use them to power a magic formation." Lily explains the purpose of the strange sphere.
'Oooooh, so there's something like that as well! How fascinating! I should examine it thoroughly.'
"Is it all right if I keep it instead of selling it?" I ask Lily, hoping that I can obtain this research material.
"We can't sell it anyway, so I don't see why not? There's no adventurers' guild in our village. And, It would appear strange if you tried liquidating it here when you could sell it much easier in most other towns." Lily permits my request as she cuts off pieces of the corpse.
I turn the other way and attempt to repel my nausea.
'Yuck! Nonetheless, score!'
I pick the monster core back up and wipe the blood off. As disgusting as it is, I'm willing to dirty my hands in the name of science.
'Hmmmmm, how fascinating! The material is dark red and feels cold and hard like glass or metal. It's perfectly round except for two small bumps placed opposite to each other. One bump is larger than the other. Lily said it is used to power formations, perhaps it's similar to a battery? If so, maybe I can think of these bumps as the anode and the cathode? I'll have to experiment with it to figure out how it works.'
As I puzzle over the core, Lily finishes and wraps the edible meat with the pelt.
"Let's head back." Lily breaks me from my trance and we start to leave.
As we walk back the way we came, some dense foliage moves, as if blown by the wind. I ignore it, but Lily puts an arm in front of me, signaling to stop.
"Who's there? If you don't come out, I'll shoot!" Lily shouts as she equips her bow.