The tide of the battle shifted abruptly.

“—??” As Fenris tried to punch the goretusk, he suddenly felt an uncanny weight pulling down on him, reducing his blow to a mere tap.

His body seemed to be resisting his movements, preferring to simply fall limp—a call which Fenris naturally refused. However, the pause in his assault cued the goretusk to his weakened state, and it immediately reared up to gouge him. Instinctively, Fenris put the remainder of his strength into one final, primal surge, meeting the goretusk’s attack head-on.

Resonating from the epicenter like the blast of a tank shell, the sound of the collision blew across the steppe, pushing the grass aside as Fenris—now unconscious—was launched away, tumbling into the dirt like a ragdoll.

“Oh crap—” Louis muttered with a grimace. “That was a guard break…!”

Although running out of SP didn't stop players from blocking, having their guard broken through would then inflict the debilitating [Broken] status, rendering them unconscious until their stamina recharged. Players had yet to find any way to recover from it yet—and so Fenris was completely defenseless.

“Not so fast!” Gen used her [Provoke] on the goretusk before it could charge away and finish their comrade off.

Cold sweat ran down Gen’s back as the beast glared menacingly at her. Even so, she stood firm; her job remained unchanged—to bide time until the others could defeat the enemy. 

‘... Well, that's easier said than done.’ Gen huffed as she rolled out of the goretusk’s charge.

In all likelihood, regardless of whether her HP or stamina ran out first, they were going to die here.

——But that much was fine.

The challenge was the point—moments like this seldom existed outside of video games, and Gen looked forward to these moments the most.

And so she laughed as the goretusk’s horn clashed against her shield.

“Come—let us dance!”

———

“... Oh man, I can't believe you’re actually enjoying this…”

Louis was also laughing, albeit for a completely different reason than Gen.

Fighting the goretusk was absolutely terrifying, and he would much rather have never come anywhere near the beast; there wasn't anything he could do about it, though, so he simply grit and grinned through it.

Gen, on the other hand, seemed to be having the time of her life. Louis couldn't help but chuckle at the gap between her usual cool-headed demeanor, and the heated battle-mania that put her on the same wavelength as Fenris.

‘I didn't expect her to be such a muscle-brain…’

“Whoopsie~” Sensing some rude thoughts, Gen ‘accidentally’ made the goretusk charge in Louis’s direction.

“Woah, geez!” Louis dived out of the way. “I know I deserved it, but don't ya think that’s a bit overkill?!”

“PLEASEFOCUSIDON’TWANNADIE--” Lily screamed.

… She had actually been screaming pretty much the entire time they were fighting, but everyone started tuning it out after a while.

Unlike Gen and Louis, who were still somehow joking around, Lily was very stressed out because she couldn't figure out where Fenris flew off to in order to heal him. Even though the other two were practically still safe, the prospect of another becoming incapacitated because of their shenanigans and getting thrust into an even deeper predicament was seriously trying on her nerves.

“Alright, alright— We’ll stop playing around.” Louis sighed, feeling a bit sorry for Lily. “Just try to keep your cool, yeah?”

“And how am I supposed to do that?!” she snapped back.

“Trust us a bit! As long as nothing out of the ordinary happens, we’ll be able to stall until Fen recovers, and it’ll be smooth sailing from there!”

“... Y-you're right! I believe in you two--”

However, just as Lily finally seemed to collect herself, Gen suddenly spoke up.

“... I don't mean to alarm you two, but… that was a flag, Louis.”

““...”” Louis sheepishly glanced at Lily, who started tearing up.

Naively hoping for reassurance, she unwittingly uttered a forbidden phrase——

“T-this… can't get any worse, right?”

“—!” “Lily, no!”

——And so, things suddenly got much worse.

Letting out a roar, the goretusk began rampaging, thrashing about and trampling everything around it.

Naturally, Gen put up her guard—but to little avail, as a single kick from the beast’s powerful rear legs destroyed her buckler and carried through into her gut. Grunting from the pain, she desperately raised her sword to block again—and although it did marginally soften the blow, Gen was still flung away and [Broken] by it.

The goretusk huffed as it recovered from its tantrum, slowly turning its gaze onto Lily.

‘... Ah. I’m dead.’

Her mind blanked out as the goretusk prepared to charge her, kicking dirt behind itself.

‘... I’m super dead.’

“Ha ha…” she laughed in spite of herself. “What-- whatdoIdo? I’mgonnadie, I--"

Louis shoved Lily out of harm’s way.

“You need to dodge! Don't just stand there!”

Jumping back immediately after saving Lily, Louis barely managed to back out of reach, his scarf being torn right off his neck by the sharp tusk.

“L-Louis?!” Snapping out of her terror, Lily quickly got back to her feet and called out to Louis. “Are you alright?”

“I’m so glad I went with a scarf instead of a cape!”

Although capes had higher defensive values than scarves, that would have actually backfired here since it would have gotten caught instead of tearing away like it had done. The thought of getting dragged around by his neck made Louis shudder.

He didn't have the time to dwell on that, however; pricking the goretusk in the rear, Louis pulled its ire onto himself and away from Lily.

“... I should’ve planned this out a bit better.”

In hindsight, it probably would've been better to keep the aggro split between the two of them so that they would have time to recover. He was also regretting his decision because the goretusk was glaring very angrily at him right now.

He dove out of the way of its first charge, but had to immediately jump again to avoid the second. Then came the third one, the fourth—and, by the fifth one, Louis was too off-balance to properly dodge.

‘What the heck?! That's so unfair!’

Grimacing at the imminent collision, Louis planted the butt of his spear into the ground before jumping backwards as hard as he could.

“Guh--"

As Louis took the hit, his spear lodged itself into the goretusk’s eye before snapping like a twig under the beast’s momentum. For its sacrifice, however, it had dealt a significant amount of damage to the goretusk, which let out the loudest, most agonized roar it had made yet.

“Ow— ow—”

Louis tumbled for several seconds, bouncing off of the dirt a few times.

“Oh maaan, that smarts…!” he groaned, forcing himself onto one knee.

As if disdaining the being who had inflicted so many wounds upon it, the goretusk took a moment to look down on the fallen Louis. Without a backup weapon, he could only smile nihilistically as the goretusk started running towards him.

However, it recoiled in shock as a stone suddenly pelted it near its remaining good eye. With an infuriated snort, the goretusk stopped to look at the source.

Lily, frozen with her staff pointed at the goretusk, was already tearing up.

‘... This is bad. Why did I do that.’

———