Chapter 186: The Fights
Fian’s stamina never seemed to run out. Every strike aimed cleanly for a rabbit’s throat, ending the fight in a single blow. Orman’s earth blocks, at this point, existed only to shield him and Yuvika.
After resting a bit, Yuvika returned to the fight, while Orman let his barrier crash down, crushing a few beasts beneath it. Still, it was clear—there was no way they could keep pace with Fian’s points.
But at least they were doing better than most.
It was no coincidence either. Fian had deliberately brought them straight into a rabbit nest—saving time and ensuring plenty of targets all at once. A strategy most people could never pull off.
With his sharp elven hearing, he’d pinpointed the nest long before. He was used to forests after all, training side by side with Gara. Every forest was different, yes, but they all shared patterns.
And more importantly, Fian had confidence. Confidence that his stamina, honed through relentless training, was enough to handle them all.
When the rabbits’ numbers thinned, they finally realized that—even though their enemies were only three in number—they were far too dangerous.
In the end, the rabbits fled.
Yuvika and Orman collapsed onto the ground, completely drained. The fight had been intense.
Fian almost gave chase, but when he saw the two sitting there with no strength left, he decided to rest as well. He uncorked a leather bottle and drank the Niskara tea Gara had brewed with his water.
He glanced at the two, their clothes smeared with dust and blood, their faces a mess. Then his eyes shifted back to the tea in his hand.
"Here." He held the bottle out to them.
Truthfully, he didn’t want to share. That tea had been prepared by Gara specifically for him. But Fian knew what Niskara tea could do, it washed away fatigue in an instant. And that was exactly what these two needed.
He was often a little cynical toward Yuvika; the girl clearly had a special gaze reserved only for Gara. Still, she treated Gara kindly and was an important business partner of his. As for Orman, he was simply a good friend. For their sake, Fian could part with his precious tea.
The two of them, too exhausted to even reach for their own drinks, turned toward him.
The elf had never spoken to them before, and now he offered them a single word. Of course they would respond eagerly, forcing their weary bodies to move.
Glug, glug, glug.
And, wolah, it was the right choice. The moment they swallowed the blond elf’s tea, their fatigue vanished as though it had never existed.
It felt like waking from a deep, refreshing sleep; their strength returned in full.
Yuvika immediately recognized the taste. She even carried the same tea in her own flask. Niskara tea.
But the version she knew—the same kind currently being sold by the Yugo Merchant House—had nothing like this effect.
Ordinary Niskara tea could soothe headaches, relax the body, and help restore energy after hard work.
But this... this was different.
The exhaustion hadn’t just eased; it had been erased completely. Yuvika even felt like she could use her Talent again, a feat that usually took hours of recovery after intense training.
"So Sir Gara doesn’t sell the complete recipe for Niskara tea," Yuvika murmured, almost giddy. "That makes sense. The effect is too extraordinary to be distributed freely. Only a select few should ever possess it."
Orman didn’t quite understand what she meant, but he nodded along enthusiastically. He felt so full of energy he wanted to jump and shout.
In fact, he did jump a few times before remembering where they were—a forest crawling with wildbeasts.
After wiping off the dust and blood from their bodies and clothes, the group pressed on to hunt more prey.
"Ahh!" A series of panicked screams reached their ears.
The closer they drew, the louder it became.
"Sounds like someone’s being attacked," Yuvika muttered.
"Should we help them?" Orman asked.
"Defeat the beasts," Fian answered curtly.
Yuvika and Orman exchanged a glance, then nodded. Right—simple and to the point.
They pushed forward until they stumbled upon a sight that left them stunned.
A swarm of bats—no, not ordinary bats but ones that spewed fire—was attacking three figures. They weren’t exactly human. Their ears flared wide like gills, and on some of them, shiny scales glimmered on their hands or around their necks, like fish.
"Whoa!" Yuvika yelped before she could stop herself as one fire bat spat a torrent of flames at one of the fishfolk.
The poor soul crumpled to the ground, skin melting away, but instantly a massive bird swooped down from the sky and lifted him up.
Another bird, just as large, sprayed water from its beak, dousing the burns and saving him.
Her outburst, however, drew the bats’ attention. Several turned their blazing eyes toward her.
"Oops, sorry." Yuvika clamped a hand over her mouth.
Fian didn’t seem to care. He reacted instantly, launching a towering spike of ice that shot upward, skewering a bat flying nearly 2.5 meter above the ground.
Yuvika and Orman were only stunned for a heartbeat. They’d been through too many shocks today to let this faze them for long. Both moved into their positions at once.
Time for another point-hunting feast.
But fire bats weren’t rabbits. They flew, which meant their attacks rained from above. Earth blocks wouldn’t be enough to protect them now.
Orman switched tactics. Instead of shielding his allies, he raised earthen walls to ram directly into the bats. Every time one swooped close, it crashed headlong into his stone barriers, reinforced with enhance crystals until they were hard as steel.
Yuvika’s strategy stayed the same—but in the air, her Jet Wind had even greater effect. A single blast sent three, sometimes five bats spiraling out of formation.
Fian, however, dominated the battlefield. His towering ice spikes formed a frozen maze in midair, forcing the bats into narrow paths while his ice nails cut them down one after another.
Their arrival gave the surviving fishfolk a chance to breathe. Even so, with fire poured endlessly from the bats, another fishfolk fell.
The last remaining fishwoman quickly closed ranks with Fian’s team. She had no choice but to stick close if she wanted to survive.
Yuvika and Orman opened their formation, giving her room to stand among them.
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