Return of the Runebound Professor-Chapter 821: Friendly Travelers

The enormous monkey pounded its fists against its chest. Spittle flew from its mouth and its eyes burned in fury as it shook itself off like a wet dog before bringing its hands down onto the ground. An enormous explosion tore through the ground.

Stone erupted out in a tsunami. It raced toward Noah, a thick wave of jagged rock that rose up in attempt to block out the sky as the earth trembled beneath him in fear of its approach.

Noah couldn’t help but be a little impressed. That was a lot of magical power for a Rank 5 monster to have. Its runes must have been fairly powerful. It completely outclassed a number of the mages he’d met back in Arbalest.

“Shit,” the man behind him breathed in horror. “I can’t block that.”

But, to Noah’s surprise, he found a grin pulling across his lips.

He couldn’t help but feel at least a little excited about the fight. Recent times had seen him building up a bad habit. Every single enemy he fought somehow ended up being at least a rank above him. He’d been forced to fight as hard as he could to make sure he came out on top. There was nothing wrong with trying one’s best… but not every fight had to be one where he was scared for his life.

He reared back as the wave of churning stone bore down toward them. It hadn’t quite managed to block the sky out yet, but if he waited much longer, all the stone would come crashing down on them regardless of if he destroyed the magic or not.

Noah’s hand balled into a fist.

He drew on World Tremor, drinking heavily from the rune. Power coursed through his veins and gathered in his hand. Worming strands of white energy wrapped his fingers in anticipation, and Noah didn’t keep them waiting.

He drove his fist forward in a punch that hit nothing but the air.

And the air shattered.

With an ear-splitting crack, a spiderweb of white cracks exploded out from his clenched fist. The ground in front of Noah cracked under an invisible shockwave of magical pressure. A wave of wind slammed into Noah’s face, blowing his hair back and screaming past him like furies escaping from the depths of hell.

Rumbling filled the valley as his power roared out to collide with the towering stone wave racing toward all of them.

And then the stone exploded.

The massive wall of nebulous stone split itself asunder like the parting of the Red Sea. Noah’s magic dug into its center and tore it to pieces. Jagged boulders the size of small rooms spun and crumbled to dust as the center of the wave was turned to nothing but dust and pebbles.

Noah squinted and raised a hand before himself as tiny fragments of rock pelted him. The two halves of the massive wave crashed by on either side of them, passing by harmlessly and not even coming close to connecting.

He looked down at his fist. The white cracks in the air were still there, but slowly starting to fade. Then he looked back up at the monkey. A surprisingly human amount of surprise etched itself into the huge beast’s features.

The grin on Noah’s lips grew wider.

I did that much damage without even touching anything? I suppose the lack of a domain or magical energy protecting the stone wave made it much easier to destroy… but that’s still a really impressive amount of destructive force.

“Nice,” Lee said. “You should punch the monkey next time. It’ll probably be more effective.”

Noah glared at her. “I didn’t ask for commentary, Lee.”

“It’s not commentary. It’s advice.”

The monkey roared. It dropped down to all fours, fingers digging into the hard earth like it was nothing more than butter. Then it blurred forward, screaming as it charged toward them like an ungainly runaway freight train.

Noah dashed to meet it. He drank more power from World Tremor, directing the magic toward his legs. The rune wasn’t the most efficient one he had, but it still had a fair amount of power inside it.

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Unleashing all his gathered strength directly into the monkey probably would have done a hell of a lot of damage now that he wasn’t holding back — but it also would have meant getting a fair bit closer to the huge monster than he would have liked.

He couldn’t go breaking his no-death streak before he got a chance to—

Wait. Doesn’t Lee have my gourd?

The moment of hesitation cost Noah a precious second. Tremors shook the earth beneath his feet as the monkey bore down on him, its eyes burning with hatred as it lunged for Noah, bringing both of its hands down to crush the infuriating little bug that had been thwarting its attacks.

A flicker of annoyance shot through Noah. His soul shifted as a shimmer of gold passed through his vision.

They hated being interrupted when they were trying to think.

Noah drove his foot down into the stone.

White cracks split the earth around him. The ground trembled. Then it split. A thick crevice raced out from Noah’s foot to tear open like a yawning maw right in the huge monster’s path.

The monkey’s foot moved to land on what should have been solid ground, but it found nothing but air. It didn’t even have a moment to look surprised before it plummeted down into the sudden rudely placed gap.

All the momentum the great beast had gathered turned against it. Its leg snapped under the force and speed it was moving at. The monkey blurred forward — but not toward Noah. It pitched straight toward the ground.

Its head slammed into the hard earth with a sickening crunch. The force of the impact was enough to shake the ground beneath Noah once again. He winced. The size of the monkey’s bones was enough that the sound of them breaking was impossible to miss.

That didn’t sound fun.

Noah drew on World Tremor again. He raised his hand — but the monkey wasn’t moving anymore. It remained where it had fallen. As he watched, blood started to trickle out from beneath the collapsed monster’s head.

“Ah,” Noah said. Magic poured into him in a wave, filling his runes and flowing into his soul.

“Damn,” Lee said as she walked up to stand beside him. “You killed it. That was kind of cheap.”

“I didn’t think it would die,” Noah protested. “I just opened a crack beneath its feet! Who could have known that would be so effective? I mean, I was just tripping it!”

“Physics,” Lee said with a shake of her head. “You can never forget physics. Force is mass times ass.”

“I — what?” Noah blinked. He tore his gaze away from the monkey to look over to Lee. “What did you say?”

“Physics,” Lee said.

“First, it’s mass times acceleration,” Noah said. “I remember that much. And second, who the fuck taught you physics?”

“Oh,” Lee said. “Are you sure? I’m pretty confident it was—”

“I’m sure.”

“Oh,” Lee said again. She scratched her chin. “Meh. It was kind of boring anyways. I didn’t pay that much attention. Carmen is a good fighter, but her lectures suck.”

“Carmen knows physics?” Noah asked. He supposed it must have made sense. Magic didn’t mean that everyone was an idiot and that math didn’t exist. There were a hell of a lot of patterns in math. Someone could probably make a terrifyingly powerful skillset out of understanding them.

But that someone was not Noah. He’d left math behind in his previous life, and that was exactly where he wanted it to remain.

“I guess,” Lee said. She approached the fallen monkey and crouched beside its head, giving it a poke. “Can I eat this? Physics makes me hungry.”

“Everything makes you hungry,” Noah replied. “And you didn’t even do physics. That equation was definitely wrong. If anything, mass is— oh, never mind. What do I know?”

“Does that mean I can eat it?”

“Hold off for a second,” Noah replied as his domain prickled in a gentle reminder. He’d almost forgotten that they weren’t alone on the plateau. Noah turned away from the monkey to look back at the two people that stood behind them.

They hadn’t moved from where he’d left them. Both just stared at them, their features largely obscured by their armor. It was impossible to say exactly what they were thinking.

Well, I suppose that should leave them with at least a decent impression of me. It looked like they were struggling with this thing. Maybe they’ll be willing to tell us where the nearest town is and save me some trouble.

We just have to make sure they see us as friendly passersby that helped out when they were in a bit of trouble and not—

A wet, splattering crunch interrupted Noah’s thoughts. Something pattered against his back.

His eye twitched.

He turned to look over his shoulder.

Lee stood beside the dead monkey’s body. She’d torn its mangled head straight off of its shoulders, letting gallons spill out from the beast in a thick river. The head was several times larger than she herself was, but she still held it as if it weight nothing at all.

There was a moment of silence. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Then Lee looked at Noah. Her face was completely splattered with blood. She slowly lowered the monster’s head back to the ground, then took a step back and wiped her blood-soaked hands off on her shirt.

“Oops,” Lee said. Her tongue darted out, running along her entire face as she squeegeed every speck of blood right off her face. “Sorry. I broke it.”

Noah’s domain informed him that the two armored people watching them had both taken a step back.

Noah sighed.

Goddamn it. So much for the friendly traveler angle.