Chapter 17: Bebe’s Strength (Part 1)
Linley stood before Matt’s corpse, gazed at it for a moment, then let out a low sigh. Involuntarily, he touched the area around his abdomen.
There was a wound there too—one that had nearly cost him his life.
“Compared to Nina, you’re far off,” Linley said with a shake of his head and another sigh. This Matt had no real bond with him; they had only briefly met on the road. That fleeting acquaintance was hardly enough to earn Linley’s trust.
What’s more…
After what happened with Nina, how could Linley so easily turn his back to someone else?
“Squeak squeak~~” The little Shadowmouse, Bebe, at that moment dragged over Matt’s backpack, urgently transmitting to Linley telepathically, “Boss, hurry up and open it! Let’s see how many magic crystals are inside! In this past month, none of the assassins who tried to kill you had a pack with as many magic crystals as the first one.”
Doehring Cowart appeared beside Linley.
“Linley, this little Shadowmouse you’ve raised seems to have taken a liking to counting magic crystals,” Doehring said with a chuckle.
“Seems a bit like that,” Linley replied, reaching out to untie the backpack. At the same time, he teased Bebe, “Bebe, when you killed this guy named Matt, it looked like you didn’t use your sharp teeth but your claws. Why didn’t you use your strongest weapon—your teeth?”
Bebe stood upright, puffed out his chest proudly, and let out a series of “squeak squeak” sounds, then transmitted, “Boss, my strength is amazing! My claws are no worse than my teeth. And this Matt was too sneaky—biting him would dirty my mouth.” Bebe even deliberately pretended to spit in disgust, as if clearing his mouth.
A little mouse standing upright and pretending to spit—the look in his eyes was far too human. Seeing this, Linley couldn’t help but laugh.
“Alright, hey, Bebe, look. This Matt’s backpack has quite a few magic crystals—over thirty of them. Looks like he hasn’t been idle this past month. But among these thirty-plus crystals, the best ones are only fifth-rank magical beast cores.”
Linley carefully tallied them up.
Over the past thirty-plus days, whether from hunting magical beasts or fighting back against those who tried to kill him, he had gathered a total of over three hundred magic crystals. Based on Linley’s estimate, the total value of these three hundred-plus crystals was around forty thousand gold coins!
“Forty thousand gold coins… if Father knew…” Just imagining handing forty thousand gold coins to his father and picturing his reaction filled Linley’s heart with joy.
“It’s only natural you’ve gained so much,” Doehring said from beside him. “Among your three hundred-plus magic crystals, aside from the nearly fifty you got from hunting magical beasts yourself, the rest came from the backpacks of those assassins.”
Linley nodded in agreement.
That first assassin who tried to kill him had brought him a full fifteen thousand gold coins. The others combined were only slightly more than that first one.
“The Magical Beast Mountain Range is extremely dangerous, so people usually enter in groups. Assassins generally don’t attack groups because they excel at killing their targets in an instant. So assassins tend to target lone individuals.”
Doehring suddenly laughed, his white beard lifting. “Linley, look at yourself. Even though you’re tall and sturdy, the lingering childishness on your face and the fuzz above your lips both tell the same thing—”
“You’re still a youth!”
Doehring laughed heartily. “Linley, in this vast Magical Beast Mountain Range, when those assassins spot a youth with a childish face training alone, do you think they’ll let you go? In just one month, you’ve run into several assassins.”
“Meanwhile, those who come with friends might not encounter a single assassin in a month. Of course, the five people we met when entering the mountain range were an exception. One, their strength wasn’t high enough; two, the assassin was too strong. But in the end, that assassin died at Bebe’s hands.”
Linley smiled and nodded.
He was only fifteen this year. Though he stood one meter eighty tall, anyone with a discerning eye could tell he was just a youth.
“A typical fifth- or sixth-rank magus might only earn a few thousand gold coins in a month in the Magical Beast Mountain Range. And even those few thousand are earned by risking their lives, given how dangerous it is,” Doehring said with a sigh.
Linley nodded in agreement. “It is very dangerous. I’ve been training in the outer areas all this time, and the strongest magical beasts I’ve encountered are only sixth-rank. Yet I’ve been injured several times. If it weren’t for the Coiling Dragon Ring, if I weren’t both an earth and wind dual-element magus and a fourth-rank warrior, and if I didn’t have Bebe, I’d probably be dead by now on my own.”
He looked at the little Shadowmouse, Bebe, who was at that moment playing with the magic crystals, nudging them around.
Calming his mind, Linley packed up the magic crystals, then set off again with the Shadowmouse, continuing his training journey in the Magical Beast Mountain Range. After all, according to his original plan, he intended to spend two months here.
…
Every day, Linley fought against magical beasts. His coordination between magic and warrior attacks grew increasingly refined. His practical experience with earth and wind magic became richer and richer. The frequency of his injuries decreased more and more. Of course, as Linley unconsciously edged closer to the core area of the mountain range, the number of sixth-rank magical beasts increased, and he grew more vigilant each day.
On the forty-sixth day of Linley’s stay in the Magical Beast Mountain Range.
“Splash~~~”
Ripples suddenly appeared on the calm lake surface. A figure emerged from the lake bottom—it was Linley. He casually wiped himself dry with a cloth.
The little Shadowmouse, Bebe, watched Linley bathe from the shore with envy. Letting out a “squeak squeak,” he leaped into the air and plunged straight into the lake. Linley just smiled at the sight and continued washing.
“Haha, stop it, Bebe. Stop it,” Linley suddenly couldn’t help laughing.
“So the boss is ticklish too!” The little Shadowmouse excitedly leaped out of the water, a hint of mischief flashing in his jet-black eyes.
Linley chuckled, climbed ashore, and took a clean set of clothes from his backpack to change into. After bathing, putting on fresh clothes felt wonderfully refreshing and comfortable. Then he washed his old dirty clothes by the lake and hung them on a nearby branch to dry. With a leap, Linley landed on the fork of another large tree, half-reclining as he watched the little Shadowmouse, Bebe, frolic in the lake.
Bebe joyfully leaped out of the water one moment, dove to the bottom the next, then floated lazily on the surface…
“Thump!” “Thump!” “Thump!” “Thump!”…
The ground suddenly emitted faint tremors, and the rhythm of the vibrations sounded like footsteps. Linley’s heart jolted. He looked toward the source—a hundred meters to the south. A tall, blurry figure appeared in the dense forest on the southern shore of the lake. But in just a moment, Linley could clearly see the target.
A massive body, two stories tall. Fire-red scales as large as shields covered it. Thick, scale-covered limbs supported it, and a tail nearly as long as its body lashed like a flexible whip. Its eyes, the size of lanterns and as eerily red as rubies, were fixed on the lake surface. White, sulfur-scented vapor occasionally shot from its nostrils.
Linley’s entire body tensed like a cat whose tail had been stepped on—suddenly alert and excited.
“Velociraptor! A seventh-rank magical beast—Velociraptor!”