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Letina revealed herself a bit ahead inside the valley. She looked at me and gave a brief nod. So far it was according to plan. The only unexpected thing was that the Serpent turned out to be faster than I imagined and I could not put any more distance between us.

Even so, Letina started chanting resolutely and fired her spell. She judged that at this rate it would catch up and swallow me.

What she used was the most effective spell in her arsenal, the Fireball. It crashed into the cliff opposite her and caused an explosion. The cliff that had weakened from wind and rain crumbled oh so easily.

Then all that crumbled mass rained down towards me and the Serpent chasing me.

I managed to dodge them by a paper-thin difference. I used the thread strengthening, Enchant magic and all the skills from my previous life to their limits. As the result, I managed to weave through the rain of rocks with skills that were nothing short of divine, and got out of the danger zone.

However, the Serpent couldn’t do the same. Let alone the skill, it didn’t even have space to dodge them. It crawled into a deep valley, so its horizontal movements were restricted. And with that avalanche falling on it, its vertical movements had also been restricted.

Naturally, something like a cave-on wouldn’t deal any significant damage to it. Its vitality and toughness were on another level. It wouldn’t even restrict its movements for long. If Michelle was going to shoot, this was the only time.

However, the dust cloud wrapped its head and hid its eyes which was our aim. But then, Letina… No, the being next to her, made the next move.

“Kabby!”
“Squee!”

With her shout, Kabby raised a (what seemed to be) valiant cry, which was followed by a gale. That gale blew away the dust cloud in one go. It also scooped up the surrounding water and carried it to the inner parts. Of course, along with me who was in that water.

“Waghhhhhh!?”

I was lifted into the air as I raised a somewhat pathetic shriek. But this was a necessary action.

What followed immediately after was a flash of light.

The first move was Letina collapsing a brittle cliff on the Serpent. Next was Kabby sweeping away the dust cloud. And finally, Michelle who was positioned appropriately let loose an arrow from the Third Eye.

It was a steel arrow released by a longbow with an unimaginably heavy draw pulled to the limit with the equally unbelievably strong strengthening magic.

It was a special arrow that had a spiral carved around the tip of its arrowhead to aid its spin during flight. That arrow broke the sound barrier, ripping apart the very atmosphere as it passed, and pierced through the Serpent’s head.

True to its aim, it accurately pierced the Serpent’s left eye. And the next instant, it burst through the opposite end of the skull and continued flying until it met the water’s surface.

It raised a giant water column on the impact and created a tempest so destructive it could change the very terrain itself. The shockwave caught up to it a moment later, blowing the water off the river, shaving the cliff, and pulverizing the Serpent’s head until it became nothing more than a spray of blood.

If I was still down there, I would’ve gotten caught up in that disaster. I intentionally let myself be carried up by Kabby’s magic to avoid that. This time, it wasn’t one of those clumsy moments.

As I confirmed the headless body of the Mountain Serpent from high up, I turned towards Letina and Michelle and gave them a thumbs up. After confirming the corpse, they also returned a signal towards me.

There stood a smiling Michelle with the face of a man(?) who had accomplished something grand. But she would probably start writhing in pain any minute now due to the backlash of using her magic tool.

Nevertheless, she was feeling a complete sense of accomplishment, having managed to protect the scenery she wanted to protect.

Seeing her like that filled even me with a sense of fulfillment. It was well worth putting myself in danger of almost getting swallowed, letting out cat-like shrieks, running around in the forest, and getting swooped into the air.

Before long, I reached the vertex of ascension and started slowly descending.

Then I finally noticed it. Everything was according to plan until now. Everything transpired as we predicted it would, and we succeeded in subjugating the Mountain Serpent. But I didn’t plan anything beyond that.

“…………How should I land?”

I was up in the sky. On my left was a precipitous cliff, on my right a crumbled cliff. Letina seemed to have caught up to my situation and was darting about in panic. It went without saying, but she had no way of helping me.

Michelle had yet to realize it, so she was just standing there in all smiles.

I quickly sent a thread towards the cliff to support my body. But that was a blunder. A fatal one at that. It was an obvious thing if you thought about it calmly, making a fulcrum at the side during a fall would naturally swing me like a pendulum. In other words, I would get splattered on the cliff with my falling momentum.

“OHHHH FFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU—!?”

Along with a desperate scream, I took a defensive posture. I directed my legs towards the wall so I would land on them. But my frail body was unable to handle such a shock, so I still ended up violently crashing into it.

That shock unfastened my thread and I ended up tumbling towards the river.