System vs Rebirth

"What are we going to do now? That guy must be running away, leaving us here to fend for ourselves." Lezlev gritted his teeth, looking at Alfred. Even though he could cooperate with Noel and trust him a bit, this was already beyond his ability.

"Nothing we can do." Alfred shook his head. "Even if we run, this demon will hunt us down. We need to find an opportunity if we want to run…"

"An opportunity?"

"Yeah. If there's another battle around us, we can drag this demon there to get some help from others. But… let's wait for five to ten minutes first. If he doesn't come back, we'll do it." Alfred nodded in agreement. He also wanted to escape right now, but the situation didn't allow him to.

Seeing there was still a trace of trust in Alfred's eyes, Lezlev could only grit his teeth and endure this battle for another few minutes.

The battle continued as the demon continued to overwhelm them. Alfred had exhausted most of his stamina while Lezlev was covered with bruises. The hope became dim as these few minutes felt like a few hours.

The one they expected to come back never appeared.

But when the situation couldn't get any worse, they heard a shout from the side.

"Lezlev, Alfred! Run toward me!"

"!!!" Lezlev and Alfred turned their heads, finding Noel on the side with his shirt completely soaked with sweat.

It seemed Noel had been working hard on his own.

After exchanging a nod, Lezlev and Alfred hurriedly ran to Noel.

As Alfred said earlier, the demon chased them. Its speed was quicker than them, so the demon caught up to them soon.

the demon was about to leap and pounce them, Noel leaped forward and grabbed Lezlev and Alfred's shoulder

three suddenly dropped to the ground, making the demon

painful, Noel still stood back up and

it stopped in mid-air as if he was stuck in that position. And Noel thrust his sword to the area that wasn't protected by

*Huft!*

*Huft!*

a few times as he dropped to

happening?" Lezlev widened his eyes. There was a shock and confusion reflected on his

planted on the ground. Two of them impaled the demon's face, making him stick

No, they're roots."

I thought about using a surprise attack to impale him. This way, the fangs won't be fast enough to stop them." Noel explained

"The demon tree?"

the same time, we didn't have enough time to carve a spike made of its trunk. Hence, I chose the roots that had pointed tips. They were perfect to pierce our body, so I thought it was at least better than a normal tree trunk to

the reason why it took you so long…" Lezlev looked

back

why did you think about using a

take down a demon tree earlier… The time limit and the difficulty

crystal back. They want us to use their parts to kill them. Just like

made of metal. And one

they're the time it takes us to create traps and strategy to kill the demon. And the other reason

is that?"

to be far easier to kill the demon with that number." Noel looked at Alfred. "It's just

in the group would allow them to kill the enemies easier. However, he didn't like the fact that he was taking advantage of other

difference between your words and Lezlev's previous plan. It's to have an equal cooperation.