When a sudden breeze passes through you, you feel a cool sensation. There may be hardly anyone who hates the gentle wind. Neither hot nor cold, zephyr could help with a person releasing their tension, stress, and days' workout. In my case, I usually love heavy rainfall during the nighttime with strong wind, but I wouldn't mind standing in the middle of the grassland and let the gentle breeze hit my face. Normally that's what kind of situation I would like to find myself in.
Nevertheless, the situation wasn't really what I wanted. In fact, even the bleeze I felt was created due to something running past us. And the first thing that hit my face was some sort of liquid hindering my vision. Though as blurry as my vision turned out to be, while I didn't get to see the monster, I saw Mamane who rushed toward us for some reason injured.
Since the situation had turned worse, I wiped my eyes as fast as I could to get a clear vision. As the fear lingered inside me, I saw everyone get in position. Even Mamane who was injured get into the position, forming battle mew formation. Naturally, I was in the middle since I didn't have any power to fight myself. Normally, the members of UG wouldn't have gone through forming any formation, but due to a large number of people and the unknown enemy, it was better to be prepared just in case. Also, while battle mew formation has a lot of hole in it, it was one of the best formations to protect someone while fighting. And that someone they had to protect was me.
Why? Because I don't have any firepower, duh. Not only that, we should have time before reaching the destination, where the monster was supposed to be, rather, we are being attacked far earlier than predicted. Well, that explains why there were no mutants in the vicinity. In fact, I am wondering why we didn't discuss the monster changing its hideout. I mean, thinking about it, mutants aren't really territorial, so they could go wherever they want right. So the fact that we are at fault 'cause we overlooked such basic knowledge. Was it due to the monster keeping its base at the same place or was it we thought it was keeping watch for its territory?
All in all, we made a mistake. We never thought we would be the first one to be attacked. I don't know how I accumulated such a large quantity of bad luck on a single day. I really want a huge pile of good luck as compensation for all these troubles, of course, that is if I don't die at the end.
Just then something weird happened. While all of us were waiting in anticipation, gazing all over the place, we were never attacked the second time. Not a single attack came by like the first one, in fact, I couldn't even feel any presence of the monster anymore. Of course, none of us relaxed despite the change in the environment. If not for the wounds on Mamane, we would have probably thought that the first attack didn't even happen. But despite the few moments that passed, the monster didn't punch the second time.
As more time passed, my shoulder relaxed a bit. I don't know much about others but even if I were to stay on guard, I doubt I would do much considering I am nothing but fast food. Having nothing to do, I called out to Mamane, also to break this weird atmosphere. As I asked Mamane who turned to face me if he was okay or not, everyone around me finally began to reclined, loosening themselves a bit. After all, they can't be certain when the monster was going to charge again. They can't get careless like before, it could be fatal in such a situation, even losing their lives wasn't impossible. They talked about the weirdness of the monster while diligently watching their surrounding.
As I watched the member of Aether Paradise, including Looker, discussing the monster's behavior, Mamane looked at his own wound before replying he was okay. "At least, it wasn't fatal," Mallow said as she proceeded to apply some first-aid to his wound, "Why did you even jump like that?"
Mamane stretched his cheek, "I just felt something running toward Ms. Anabel. Well, I guess it hit the mark." Oh! Cool. I have to agree that he actually protected Anabel, despite not being unable to see his enemy.
But still- "What do you mean by feel? Look at you trying to play cool." Kiawe said teasingly as he arm-locked Mamane. It wasn't really he felt the enemy but rather sense it. His suit's specialty, the Pikachu tail around his neck. Of course, his normal wear has the same design, guess he ended up having the same with his battle suit. Just like the halo above my head. He can sense all his surrounding through the aid of repulsive force. Though I said repulsive force, the mechanism works slightly differently. The pikachu tail around his neck constantly generates a driving force, comparatively weak that other parties don't feel a thing, so when the subject interacts with the force, it creates repulsion and sends information to Mamane.
Mamane can generate the force over a five-meter radius, in fact, it was more amazing that the mutant's speed was able to cut through Mamane's defense before hitting him. If not for the self-defense mechanism of the suit, I doubt Mamane would have come out with light injuries. Honestly, I guess the auto-healing feature of the suit also played the role. If anything, the mutant was amazing for actually injuring Mamane despite the limitation created through various defensive elements. Not only was it able to bypass the sense of Mamane, but it was also able to penetrate the energy shield of the battle suit.
While males' suits had more of their body parts covered, unlike females, I guess I could say I can trust the defense of this suit. But that doesn't mean I could get careless. A bit of incautious could cost me my life. Leaving aside such thought, now this is troublesome. Why? Because we don't know what we are supposed to do. After its first attack against Mamane, which was initially meant for Anabel, it showed no sign of attacking again.
While it is true that we can't rule out if the one who attacked us was really the monster we were going after but judging by its speed, there was a fifty percent chance that it may indeed be the monster we are after. If the monster was our original target, that means it is no longer on the outskirts. And no point going there if we wouldn't find it.
"Does that mean we are going to cancel this pursuit?" Mallow asked remaining vigilant to her surrounding. To which, I shook my head, "We can't. If that mutant heads toward the city, it could inform disaster. While there are soldiers stationed outside, remember that the mutant was able to hurt Mamane." We don't know the thought process of the mutant or what it wants. While most mutants aren't intelligent, judging by its act, we could say it has some intelligence. It isn't really weird, as I mentioned previously that some people had adopted friendships with mutants. Of course, I am not the only one thinking this, pretty sure Anabel, Lana, Faba, and Looker have reached the same conclusion.
This mutant has really high speed so if it were to make it to the city, the soldiers outside the veil wouldn't be able to retreat inside in time. Only slaughter awaits them even if they saw the mutants first. Also, they can't risk the mutant inside the veil through teleportation. I doubt it could go inside the veil but it would be still bad if it were to destroy the teleportation circle. There are barely three checkpoints but they are in opposite directions. So the only way to repair the broken is either using other circles or disabling a portion of the veil. No matter what, it is still not an ideal situation.
And here, we are still having difficulty deciding whether we should head back to the checkpoint or the outskirts...