A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Oliver prepared himself. Beasts never seemed to be creatures that wanted to wait. Its eyes showed its anger, and it made it quite clear that it didn't want Oliver to be walking around unharmed for much longer.

It came dashing in again, its front paws reaching forward, tearing fistfuls of dirt up from its grip, as it hurled the rest of its weighty body along with it. Compared to those giant front legs, the rest of it seemed to be mere appendages. Those back legs hardly seemed to touch the ground to lend its attack more speed, and yet it came far more quickly than one would expect.

It lowered its tiny head like a bull as it came nearer, rounding its shoulder forward, forming a shield for itself underneath those massive caps. As effective as that charge might have been against a slower opponent, it was reckless against Oliver.

Ducking its head like that only worsened its view of him, and once more he dashed off to the side, this time scoring a deep wound across the width of one of those giant front legs.

The creature roared its displeasure and pounded its paws against the ground once more, this time only quickening the rate at which its swiftly flowing blood was lost into the depths of the soil.

"Come," Oliver said with a small smile, waving at it with a hand. Others might have seen his behaviour as uncouth, to be enjoying the hunt as much as he was. But what was progress if one didn't wield it properly? Though he was a fair bit stronger than the Moonbear, it proved to be a most excellent target for testing new ideas on.

Once more it flew past him, and this time Oliver hit it with the same series of light lunges that he had used on the Bel Birds and the Water Sprites. The sorts of light strikes that he was sure would never pierce the hide of any reasonable sort of opponent.

His sword drilled up the width of the creature's side as it passed, managing to score five hits on it. Five remarkably quick hits, an achievement, to be sure, to be able to land that many hits in quick succession.

That achievement didn't count for much though. As the creature skidded to right itself, turning for another charge, Oliver could see that the holes that he'd left in it were relatively minor. He would have been better off dedicating the opening to a single overwhelming attack against an opponent of this sort of strength.

The failure didn't irk him, for he'd expected it already. If anything, he was surprised at the depth of those wounds. Whilst not enough to kill a Moonbeast, they might have been enough to kill goblins. Now that would be a remarkable trick – to be able to kill five goblins in that short window.

The idea excited him and he decided to try it out on his way to the Hobgoblin. By now, the Moonbeast had fulfilled its testing purposes. After a few charges, showing all its strength in those single explosive movements, it was puffing mightily, beginning to wear. The wounds that Oliver had already dealt didn't help matters any.

He suddenly remembered the efforts that he'd intended to take as far as keeping the corpses intact, and admonished himself lightly for being so childish and playing with his food. Though the wounds were minor, they could quite well have impacted whatever area of ingredient Nebular wanted them to harvest.

Since Oliver hadn't looked at the harvesting list properly, for most of the creatures, he wasn't sure.

That being what it may be, it was far easier just to leave the corpse fully intact. This time, as the Moonbear assailed him with another all-out charge – a pattern of angry attack that was becoming quite predictable – Oliver tracked it with a considerable degree more alertness than he had been before. He stepped back more swiftly, timing the movement better.

By the time the Moonbeast neared, Oliver's sword was already swinging down towards his neck, and his hips were twisting, putting his all into the strike.

With that single powerful motion, he dodged the upraised arm that had been raised in an attempt to defend, and instead sliced cleanly through the back of the Moonbear's neck, severing muscle and bone alike, behind it completely.

The head thudded to the floor, and Oliver paused, expecting the body to fall with it, as it always did whenever he'd freed a foe of the burden of its head. The Moonbear betrayed that expectation, though.

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Those strange front legs of it merely splayed further out in front of it, until they came to a complete stop in the soil, supporting the rest of the body, leaving it reasonably upright, even in death.

"Well, this one is going to be a pain to drag back," Oliver noted, plucking the head off the floor, just in case it was amongst the ingredients he needed to gather.

In the end, he had to grab the Moonbear by its small back legs to stand a chance at moving it. The huge front paws dragged in the snow behind it, as though clinging to the territory that it had so dominantly inhabited just a few moments before.

Then it was back to the initial trail once more. As with the Water Sprites, Oliver avoided leaving the body too far off, removing the possibility that a Bell Bird could trouble his comrades. He dragged the corpse beyond their territory, making use of Ingolsol's awareness, as he slashed any of the silent and spear-like birds that were set to come his way.

He didn't catch them on the trail this time, which provoked a frown from him. He was sure that enough time had passed for them to catch up. It was not until he returned to the main thoroughfare that he spotted them.

Through brief conversation, they reassured him that everything was alright, they had merely been struggling to arrange the new ingredients across the sledges. He eyed them doubtfully, noting the sombre mood about the party. Blackthorn's two retainers had the unmistakable shade of green monster blood on their clothes, and neither girl looked happy about it.