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

Ike stared at Palio. A centaur? But that was impossible. They were myths. Like mermaids, or fairies. People were either people, or animals, but not… halfsies. Even if beasts and beasts interbred, they'd produce either beasts or humans, not centaurs. And failed beasts, who didn't quite manage human form, looked like the owl girl, full-body mixed features, not half human, half horse, split down the middle.

But now that he was looking at her, the upper half of her horse and her legs were both very static, almost as if they were an illusion or conjuration of some kind. And she and her horse were both the same exact Rank, which was almost impossible, even if they fought together in every battle.

Palio scowled. Her horse's head and her legs both vanished, revealing her true centaur glory. She jabbed her spear at Ike and Wisp alike. "Now that you've realized, I must kill you."

"Yeah, good luck," Wisp said, totally unintimidated. Palio was only Rank 2. She might as well have threatened them with a wet dish towel.

Beside her, Ike stared, mouth agape. At last, he managed, "How does food work?"

Wisp laughed. "That's what you're hung up on?"

"She's got two torsos! Gods only know how many stomachs. Does the food go into her stomach, then turn into poop, then get pooped into her horse stomach? How does she eat enough to feed the horse half without nonstop grazing? How… what—"

Palio's scowl deepened. She jabbed the spear at Ike. "Silence."

Wisp nudged him. "She's a mage. Doesn't need to eat."

"Gods, you do know that!" Ike exclaimed, staring at Wisp in shock. The way she talked gave the impression that mages needed to eat more than ordinary people did, not less.

She rolled her eyes at him, but chuckled. "Yeah, yeah. Fair."

Ike cleared his throat. He turned back to Palio and bowed. "Sorry about that. I was so taken aback by meeting a legendary creature that I forgot my manners."

"What's there to forget?" Wisp muttered.

He elbowed her. "Maybe we should start back at square one? It's nice to meet you, Palio."

She had kept her spear pointed at them this whole time, and jabbed it at them again when Ike spoke. "I have to kill you. No one is allowed to know of the existence of centaurs."

Ike sighed internally. She was a Rank 2, he was a Rank 3. The fight was all but a foregone conclusion. If they fought now, he basically had to kill her, to keep her from tailing them and harassing them all the way through the badlands ahead of them. Better to push the inevitable off. In fact, if they fought later, he might even be able to get away with incapacitating her and leaving her behind in the grassy plains.

He nodded at her. "How about this? Right now, you let us live. We go to the badlands, and you tail us all the way there and back. If we survive, then you can kill us on the way back, since you don't let anyone out of the badlands. If we don't, then you can let the badlands do the hard work for you. How does that sound?"

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Palio considered for a moment. She furrowed her brows, thinking. Her eyes flitted from Ike to Wisp to Mag, judging their strength.

Oh, right. Ike glanced at Mag as well. He'd almost forgotten that the bird boy was Rank 3, too. High Rank 3, at that. Unfortunately, Mag specialized in external spells, which had been basically worthless during the battle, but he was actually a powerful mage. If he faced three mages at a higher Rank than him, and they offered him an out that didn't involve a fight to the death, he'd pick it every time. Enjoy new chapters from My Virtual Library Empire

Of course, he wasn't Palio. Maybe she was the noble warrior type, who'd fight to the death anyways. Though, to be fair, if she did start fighting here on the edge of the grasslands, the rest of her herd might hear and rush over. It wasn't as disadvantageous a situation to Palio as Ike had made it out to be. He cut his eyes at Wisp. If she did decide to attack, they'd have to move quickly and precisely, or else risk getting mobbed by the herd.

Wisp nodded back. The both of them changed their stances subtly. Ike lowered his hand toward his hip, preparing to grab his sword.

Palio nodded. "Acceptable."

Ike beamed. He lowered his hand. "Excellent. Come on, then. Let's go to the badlands!"

Wisp chuckled. She shook her head and followed after Ike. Mag flitted into the air again. Palio trotted after them, picking her way through the woods. For the first time since they'd begun to speak, she sheathed her spear on her back.

"Now we have to trail her around everywhere," Wisp complained.

"Better than fighting every centaur on the plains."

"Mmm… maybe."

Ike sighed, but he didn't disagree. He wouldn't mind fighting the entire centaur herd, it was just that he didn't really want to announce his presence here yet. Much better if he could sneak into the badlands and see how the puppet people lived without alerting them to his presence, so he could see the way they actually were, instead of whatever Brightbriar wanted him to see. True, he had no indication that Brightbriar was monitoring the badlands, but he had no indication he wasn't monitoring it, either. One way or another, it was better to sneak quietly in to get a true view of the way things were, than to cause a big fuss by massacring the centaurs first.

The forest here never grew thick. Slender trees shivered around them, little more than a wrist's width at their widest. He could see the far end of it from here. In fact, rather than call it a forest, it was more like a stand of trees to break up the grasses. Instead of endless grasslands, the grasslands from here on out where fractured, broken up by the slender trees. Not far from here, the outskirts of a city appeared. It wasn't ringed with walls, like the cities Ike was used to. Instead, suburbs sprawled a long way from the dense city center, and a river flowed through its center.

"Huh," Ike muttered.

"You thinking what I'm thinking?"

"No wonder he could conquer these people easily. They don't even have walls."@@novelbin@@

"I know, right? It's like they're asking to be conquered."

Ike shook his head. "Let's move closer, but hide ourselves from the city. Let's get as close as we can without alerting anyone. I want to know what the puppets do, when no one's watching."

"If a bear shits in the woods and no one sees it, did it happen?" Wisp asked, deliberately making her voice sound wise.

"Yes. You can still step in the shit afterward. Come on." Ike jogged through the woods, sticking to the trees as he took a diagonal tack toward the next stand of trees. One stand at a time, he closed in on the city.

For her part, Wisp turned into a spider and hopped onto his shoulder. Mag transformed into a bird and flew high, so no one could tell his large size apart from a normal bird's size. Palio hesitated, then gestured. Her body blurred, turning half-transparent. Ike glanced at her, only to find his eyes slipping naturally off. He raised his brows. "Is that an illusion skill?"

"Yes. We use it to appear as humans, but it can also be used to hide our presence," Palio replied.

"Can you put that over me, too?"

Palio hesitated, then lifted her hand. The air shimmered around Ike and his two shoulder passengers, and they faded from existence.

"Thanks!" Ike said, giving her a thumbs-up.

"You're welcome," she murmured, half to herself.

Well-disguised, the group hurried toward the city.