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A thunderous roar resounded in the forest. It was the sound of something gigantic crashing into the row of trees. At the same time, there came a scream from nearby.

“Hyowaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?!”

It was a Strike Boar boasting the weight of several hundred kilograms. Sullivan screamed while barely dodging its charge. Seeing his pathetic state, Letina was extremely puzzled.

“This is strange. Nicole used to dodge it so easily.”
“Um, listen, young lady, that isn’t as simple as you say, okay?”

Mateus shrugged with an exasperated expression. He was following alongside Letina while dragging the longswords held in his long arms along the ground. He was positioned that way to protect her at a moment’s notice.

But that lowered the support for Sullivan who was acting as a decoy, so he was being chased about alone.

“But Nicole could just sidestep and easily dodge it.”
“Lady Letina, that’s definitely not normal, okay!”
“You’re a thread user too Sullivan, so just use two of them and dash around between the trees.”
“Please don’t be so unreasonable! Manipulating two threads individually is just absurd!”

Using a thread with one hand to grab onto a branch, while undoing the other thread and reverting it. Then fix the posture and move on to making another pendulum jump.

Reid, aka Nicole, who could do that in succession was simply abnormal, and normally most one could do was use one thread for emergency avoidance like Sullivan was doing.

Even now, he was pulling his body with the thread and barely avoiding the Strike Boar’s charges.

“Move, Sullivan!”

Once the Strike Boar’s attention was fully on Sullivan, it didn’t pay any attention to Letina even as she approached close. Once Mateus saw that, he stepped away from Letina’s side and rushed to Sullivan’s side who was running around with all his might, and slashed at the boar.

He used his long arm like a whip and delivered a heavy longsword strike to the base of its neck.

“Bumoooo?!”
“Tsk, as expected, it’s hard, huh?”

But with the opponent being hundreds of kilograms heavy, even his prided heavy strike didn’t amount to much. Not to mention, this Strike Boar’s neck had a strong enough foundation to support its rush attacks.

It was still impressive that the attack managed to cut its skin and flesh, and arrived at the bone. But the Strike Boar was still alive and well. It jumped away from Mateus and changed its target to him from Sullivan, and started to scrape the ground with its hind foot.

Mateus took on a stance with his two swords and waited for it to come. But then Letina’s covering fire arrived. A Firebolt landed at its eyes, blocking its vision. The Strike Boar reflexively turned its head up after that direct hit.

Using that timing, Sullivan flew his thread and fixed its raised head on a branch above and hung it. Then again, a branch that wasn’t very thick wouldn’t be able to endure resisting a head that supported such a giant body for more than an instant.

As expected, it easily snapped, and the Strike Boar fell to the ground. Sullivan’s thread also lost power and danced in the air. But for Mateus, that instant was plenty enough.

He snuck near the Strike Boar’s neck in one go and swung his two swords from below in two directions. Its soft ventral skin, on top of aiming at a place with the least muscles, made it possible to land a heavy cut this time around.

That attack destroyed its trachea and important blood vessels.

“Bu-buhyuu…Buhyuu…”

With its destroyed trachea it could no longer breathe, and it fell to the side and started flapping its feet around. Seeing that, Mateus changed his sword to a backward grip and dealt a finisher to its head.

It would be impossible to pierce its hard skull, but if you aimed for its eyeballs, you could destroy its brain. And he was skilled enough to accomplish that much.

“Good grief, that was quite a clamor for a mere boar.”

Looking down at the dead Strike Boar, he shrugged with an affected gesture. Sullivan sank to the ground next to him and started complaining.

“This is no joke! Strike Boars are monsters that are classified as magic beasts among the boars.”
“Oh? But didn’t I say that Nicole and Michelle defeated it with just the two? And when they were seven years old.”
“And I’m saying that’s abnormal. I suppose it’s all thanks to the gifted education from the Six Heroes…”

In reality, the only reason it was defeated by two children was that those two were Nicole, who was able to make defensive movements no child could, and Michelle, who had honed her Marksmanship Gift.

Of course, Maria was at that place, and she only allowed that test once she was certain it was safe, so there was no danger. But even so, it had to be said that they achieved it when they were children.

“But well, that missy would certainly manage that I guess?”
“The reason I told her the location of Cain’s hidden factory was so she could save the kidnapped two, but to think she would destroy it so thoroughly. She’s really nonstandard in every way.”
“Nicole would do that much. But still, if she was going to take down that fool, I wish she would take me along.”
“I couldn’t have allowed that no matter what. Master would’ve killed me.”

Sullivan was the one who let Nicole know the location of Cain’s drug manufacturing facility. He had sniffed out that Michelle and Cloud were taken captive and tried to use Nicole to solve that.

But Nicole performed far better and destroyed the facility from the roots. Not just that, she even got two of the Six Heroes, Maxwell and Reid, involved, so she was too much to handle.

The incident was something that went beyond Sullivan’s expectations.

“Still, that missy set out to solve the situation, and then even Reid appeared…is it?”
“Oh? Do you find something odd there, Sir Mateus?”
“Yeah, well, I have met the Six Hero Reid previously…”
“You have?!”

Letina heard Mateus’ words and leaned on and grabbed his collar. Sullivan knew that Mateus was once a dangerous person, so he was quite on edge.

“I mean, he does visit the mansion from time to time, so I have met him by chance. Only once, though. More importantly… Actually, never mind I guess?”
“You’re being quite evasive. More importantly, we seem like we could become a nice team.”
“Please let this be the first and the last time, aye?”

Seeing Letina start to triumphantly butcher the Strike Boar, Mateus couldn’t help but heave a big sigh.