Skill Hunter -Kill Monsters, Acquire Skills, Ascend to the Highest Rank!

It had seemed simple to Ike. If he couldn't cut through the pigwoman, then why bother cutting at all? There was more than one way to skin a cat… or in this case, cook a pig. If he couldn't butcher her, why not fry her?

Holding his breath, he looked at the pigwoman. She looked rough. Her skin was blackened, and her hair was frazzled. The smell of crispy bacon filled the air. In fact, it even smelled like burned bacon. The pigwoman's fat leaked out of her wounds, running down her body like clear-colored blood. She staggered, then fell to her knees, breathing heavily. She was still alive, but barely.

"Mag, Wisp!" Ike shouted. Dropping the spider thread—which had survived the lightning strikes, thanks to Wisp's fireproofing skill—he charged the pigwoman. Wisp shot a thread from the trees and raced across it toward the pigwoman, and Mag swooped down from overhead.

She struggled to sit up and raise her arm. Mag's claws tore into the crisped skin of her forearm rather than her scalp. But that was all the more she could block. Wisp's sharp-ended legs tore into her face, and Ike jumped up, lashing out at her throat once more. This time, River-Splitting Sword carved through her weakened flesh. She clawed at her neck, trying to close the wound, but it was too little, too late. Her blood poured out, and she hit the ground.

Ike sighed out. Releasing Storm Clad, he sunk to his knees. "Gods. That was way too hard."

Wisp stepped down beside him. "That was pretty intense, yeah."

"There better not be any more of her."

"Doesn't look like it." Wisp paused. "In this round, anyways."

Ike groaned. "Don't say that."

She glanced at him. "We won't win if we keep this up."

"No, we won't," Ike agreed. He climbed back to his feet and dusted off his legs. "Which is why we're changing tactics."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. I was trying to preserve the castle's defenses for later rounds, but that's stupid. It's not going to work like that. We need to use the castle as a basic, fundamental part of our defense. We can still fight in the periphery, but we can't be the primary line of defense."

"Makes sense, but we're good at fighting. We're not good at… anything to do with castles."

"Then we need to get great. Or utilize what we already have. Those people we recruited, the Old Guard, I'm sure they can fight. They just don't want to, for some reason. If it's because they can't get directly involved, that's fine, but let's figure out a way to let them fight. Fire weapons from the battlements, or aim the cannons, or anything else that needs doing. We need all hands on deck here, whether those hands are beast, human, mountain, or… or whatever those guys are."

"They aren't human?" Wisp asked. "They smelled human."

"I think they're part of the trial. Spirits, or illusions, or ghosts, something like that," Ike said.

Wisp nodded slowly. "Ohhh. Weird. Makes sense, but weird."

Mag landed next to the two of them. "I don't see anything else coming our way, but the other castles are still fighting."

"Anyone struggling?" Ike asked. I did promise to help Scarlet, and I'm interested in helping Vi.

Mag thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Didn't look like it."

Ike nodded. "Good." He wasn't really surprised. This was the first round. If another castle was struggling already in round one, he'd really wonder what they were doing in the trial at all.

Yeah, because no one would just randomly barge into a trial like this… haha… He grinned awkwardly at his own thoughts, then nodded at the others. "Let's head back to our castle. We can use this time to reinforce our defenses and armaments for the next round."

"Sounds good to me! I'm gonna go build some webs. Those Old Guard people really didn't understand the elegance of a well-placed web. The spell formation thingies they set up aren't going to be very good webs," Wisp informed him.

"The more the merrier," Ike replied.

Mag bobbed in place. He was in full bird form, and a black orb of an eye glittered as he looked at Ike. "There's some places I saw from overhead that could be reinforced. Do you want to see?"

Ike blinked. Want to see? What does that mean? Is he going to show me from the battlements? "Sure, take me there."

Mag nodded. He hopped onto Ike's shoulders. Claws looped around Ike's arms. With a wild downdraft and the flap of wings, Mag lifted him into the air.

"Whoa!" Ike said, startled. He grabbed Mag's claws as the bird hefted him higher.

Down below, Wisp smirked up at him. She pointed and laughed.

"Don't point and laugh at me," Ike complained. He looked up at Mag. The bird flew on, not even glancing at him. It seems like he hasn't even realized that I might think of this scenario as threatening. Well, I'll keep my mouth shut. Don't want him to get any ideas about dropping me if he hasn't had them yet.

For all that Mag might drop him, he had to admit, a higher point of view really revealed a lot about the battlefield. From up here, he could see the shape of all the other castles' defenses. Unlike him and Wisp, the majority of the other castles had, in fact, utilized their castles and the associated defenses against the pigmen. However, that meant they weren't out in the field, directly fighting the large monster at the end of the wave. Their defenses, which had easily crushed the boarmen, crashed against the giant pigpeople like waved on a beach, striking but doing little damage. The pigpeople waded forward, tearing a great hole in the opponents' forests as they slogged directly toward the other fighters' castles. In their wake, a straight-line gap in the forest pointed from the back of the other fighters' territory, directly at their castle.

He turned back toward his own battlefield. The pigwoman had run around some, but they'd distracted her. The swathe of forest she'd cleared swooped randomly around the back of the battlefield, rather than pointing directly at the castle. I don't know if that's an advantage, but it feels like one. It's something to remember, anyways. We can't only rely on the castle, like the other armies did, or only rely on ourselves, like we did this time. A mixture of both is how we get through this.

"There," Mag said, lowering his head to point with his beak. Ike turned away from the others and followed Mag's gaze. There was a river that wound around the rear of their territory. For most of its length, the river had high, clifflike walls, but where Mag pointed, the walls lowered to smooth banks. Hoof marks marred the wet earth where the boarmen had crossed in droves.

"Seems like a good place to lay a few traps, or maybe some webs," Ike agreed.

"Or to reinforce the river's walls. We could try holding them on the far side of the river," Mag pointed out.

"True," Ike allowed. He twisted his lips. If they reinforced this spot, they'd have to hold it. Reinforcing it alone—building up the river's walls, but doing no more—would only slow whatever monsters came next down marginally. They'd have to take to the field and defend their reinforcements for it to really mean something. It was too far for the castle's defenses to hit, which meant it would be the three of them fighting solo, but one, they needed to get stronger, and two, they could always start here, weaken the enemy, then fall back to the castle when the time came. "We can discuss it with Wisp and the Old Guard. Any other places?"

Mag nodded. He dipped his wing. The wind flowed over them, and they turned. The sun beamed down on the forest, filtering through the green leaves and giving Ike a beautiful, deep view of the forest from above. It was amazing how much texture and height the trees had when seen from a bird's point of view. From the ground level, they were big, vertical logs that held the shade, more or less. Sure, he'd climbed his fair share of trees, snuck up into their branches, but seeing them from above was a totally different experience. It was like looking down on a field of tall grass, but each blade of grass was so deep and complex that he could have spent a full day staring at it.

"It's beautiful up here," he commented quietly.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"I know," Mag replied, pleased. Ike expected some boast, but instead, Mag started singing. Not with his human voice, but with birdsong. The sound filled the air and echoed off the trees below them. Other birds joined in, singing a different chorus, and Mag quieted.

Ike glanced at him. "That was a nice song. Why'd you stop?"

"Sometimes, I hope someone else will pick up the song. But no one ever does," he said softly.

Ah. Didn't he say it himself? That he's the only one of his kind. Well, if his story is true, it's not like many dragons are going to mate with crows. Ike snorted under his breath to himself, but the amusement didn't last. The melancholy he'd heard in Mag's voice ruined his ability to laugh at the bird. The only one of his kind. Must be lonely.

"Teach me the song," he offered suddenly.

"Huh?"

"Teach it to me. I can sing with you."

Mag laughed. "What's that going to do? It's not like you can sing."

Ike shrugged. "I can try." He couldn't sing like a bird, but he was human. He could craft tools. Instruments and whistles. Even if his throat couldn't hit the notes, he could still 'sing' along, with the right assistance.

Mag flew on. For a long moment, he was quiet. And then he nodded. "Yeah. I can teach you."

Ike smiled. "I'll look forward to it."

They passed a ridge. Mag lowered his beak to point something out again, and Ike followed his direction. They circled the area, slowly taking in full account of their territory. As the other armies finally took down their big boss monsters, Mag swooped back toward the castle to land, Ike in his grasp. Wisp was waiting for him, alongside Relin and the Old Guard.

"So? See anything?" Wisp asked.

Ike nodded. "We've got quite a few points we could reinforce. Relin, Wisp, come with Mag and I. We need to discuss our plan for the next round."