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.

leap and pounce them, Noel leaped forward and grabbed Lezlev and Alfred's shoulder and pushed them to

three suddenly dropped to the ground, making the demon

Noel still

the demon reached the bushes, 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!*

panted a few times as he dropped to the ground, smiling.

was a shock and confusion reflected on his

planted on the ground. Two of them impaled the demon's

No, they're roots." Alfred

is protected from all sides, so I thought about using a surprise attack to impale him. This way, the

"The demon tree?"

I chose the roots that had pointed tips. They were perfect to pierce

why it took you so long…" Lezlev looked at

back here before planting these

you think

from Shale. "Let's admit that we're weaker than the demon. Even if we combine our strength, we can only take down a demon tree earlier… The time limit and the difficulty don't match up. So, I thought this is a test to apply all the lessons we've learned so far.

crystal back. They want us to use their parts to kill them. Just like these roots, if we use those

superior weapons other than a weapon made of metal. And one of them is a weapon created by a demon body." Alfred nodded

The time limit is too long. So, I figure out they're the time it takes us to create traps and strategy to kill the demon. And the other

that?"

to be far easier to kill the demon with that number." Noel looked at Alfred. "It's just I don't think you're fond with this

the fact that he was taking advantage of other people. After all, they could simply leave after achieving their objective. It was basically

your words and Lezlev's previous plan. It's to have an equal cooperation. We can't go back until