Chapter 16: Little Rat's Secret
Little Rat charges at the beast from the side, with his Wind Walk activated, meanwhile I creep forward at his back trying to catch it unaware.
Silently raising my hand, I activate the Elemental Mine Skill, placing a Thunder Mine afew steps in front the beast.
At the same time, Little Rat sends a Wind Blade towards its head. The hit connects, but only a shallow mark can be seen on its exoskeleton.
His mouth gaping, Little Rat's attack attracted the beast's attention, changing targets towards him. As it does so, earth pikes form in the air, aiming towards him.
Face pale, Little Rat exerts his Wind Walk to the limit, evading the flying pikes, barely allowing himself to survive unscatched.
While all this took so much time to tell, only a couple of seconds have passed since we started attacking this Silver Grade Grasshopper.
Seeing the beast still fixed on attacking Little Rat, I prepare to attack.
By now i managed to creep all the way to its back, as im near I stop time, and charge my katana with thunder energy, and attack one of its rear legs.
With shrill cry the beast receives my attack and time resumes.
After my attack, most of its leg has been cut, hanging only by strips of skin still attached to the body.
The imbalance of losing its leg makes it fall to the ground, a big cloud of dust rising.
Taking advantage of the pause Little Rat rushed to the beasts back, attacking its wings with several Wind Blades.
Sadly he got too confident, his attack allowed him to cripple one of its wings, but at the same time, Earth Pikes form surrounding him.
All the hairs on my body stood up, feeling scared.
"Watch out!!!"
He hears my scream, and realizes the situation he's in. His face twisted in fear and regret as he tried to escape the attack, with his top speed. Sadly, he's too close and the attack hits him.
[PUK, PUK, PUK]
Three pikes pierce his body, blood flowing down as his body flies through the air, hitting the ground a second latter.
My body freezes, blood rushing to my head and only red color covers my vision.
"Little Rat!!!" "Corey!!!"
Me and the girl scream at the same time.
The beast heads towards him, continuing his attack.
Me and the girl start moving simultaneously, she rushes towards Little Rat's side, reaching him seconds before the beast, and casting a cover of Earth surrounding both of them.
The beast uses his strong front limbs to smack the earth dome surrounding both of them, cracks appearing in it.
I stop time and rush towards the beast with thunder jump, reaching its flank and slashing with my katana, thunder covering it.
A shrill cry escapes the grasshopper as the sword cuts its carapace and its innards get cooked by thunder.
It swipes at me with its front limb, sending me flying. I landed several meters away from it.
The beast ignores me, it seems that it's hatred towards Little Rat is big, receiving such a big wound that crippled its wing.
I stand up, feeling several of my ribs broken.
"It hurts, freaking beast"
The Silver Grade Grasshopper ignores me as it continues to attack the dome.
I rush with a thunder jump, reaching the beast. It tries to swat me away the same way it did before.
Learning from my mistakes, I stop time before it hits me, and with a thunder slash I cut off its front limb.
"Only four to go"
The beast screams in pain, getting infuriated.
It tries to rush towards me, but with its hind leg crippled and the front one cut off, it's too slow, also being imposibilited to fly.
It can only be considered a sitting duck.
Little by little I start to whittle down its strength, not getting careless. After all, a cornered beast it's the most dangerous kind and the safest one is a dead beast.
Soon after the beast breathes its last, falling to the ground with a thud.
My breath is ragged from such a long fight but i can't rest just yet. My face grim, I start heading towards the earth dome.
"You can come out now, its safe"
As I say that, the earth dome falls down, revealing a flustered girl, trying to stop the bleeding in Little Rat's wounds, panic and sorrow clear on her face as her tears fall down.
Little Rat's face is peaceful, a slight smile on it, while looking at the girl's face and whispering something in a low voice I can't hear.
His eyes turn towards me as i get near, and his smile widens
"I'm sorry Bro, I got careless. I hope you can take my body back to my parents. And she is Camile, my girlfriend, sadly i can only present you two at this kind of moment"
His tone breaks as he continues to speak, his voice getting lower.
"Stop saying that, you will get better, we still need to go back" The girl, Camile cries.
"Alright you two, stop with the melodrama"
The girl glares at me, if glares could kill I would have died a thousand times already.
I take out the healing pills I bought previously together with the Bloodmourn Pill I got from the ring.
i Pass them to the girl whose mouth is opened so big a whole can be fit inside.
"Its Healing medicine, for both internal and external wounds. First spread the medicine for external medicine on the wounds, then bandage him and have him eat both the internal I healing pill and Bloodmourn pill"
I say while signaling to the girl. While she takes care of Little Rat, I start to harvest the materials and the core of the beast. After all this one is a Silver Grade Grasshopper, its body can be sold for several hundreds Gold Coins.
After I finish carving the body, Little Rat is already standing up, although his face continues to look sickly and his body so weak he can only walk with the girl's help.
As we make our way back, 2 guys stop us.
"Hehehehe, who would have tough, a nice prey would appear right in front of us"
As they laugh with malice, they start to near us, one of them having his legs covered in both wind his spear on fire. the other one, surrounded by five water arrows.
"Use the earth dome to protect both of you" I tell Camile.
Their faces show their worry, looking at the Copper Star in front of us.
"Don't worry, just do what i say"
Hearing my words, she creates a dome to protect themselves.
I turn around to face the two guys. Lifting my hand a silver light flashes.
They put up their guard, waiting for an attack, but as nothing happens their faces twist with raage.
"lets see how long can you play around with your little tricks"
As the Copper Star one roars, he runs towards me, stepping on the mine I set up.
Different from the ones i used before, this one is full of time energy. His body freezes, and he falls down.
His companion, shocked by the development, doesn't hesitate to turn around and run away, throwing the water arrows my way to hinder me.
I stop time, and use a thunder jump, to reach him. After that I slay his neck, his head flying through the air. His body continues to run a couple of steps more by inertia. falling to the ground soon after. I turn around and go back to the other one, who's still stopped in the place he fell.
I stab my katana through his heart. killing him. Without much choice, istore both their bodies inside the space ring.
"i should be changing the name of this ring to Funerary Ring, the only thing it carries is corpses"
Talking nonsense to myself I go back to where Little Rat and his girl are, telling them that they can go out.
As they come out, her face shows her confusion about the disappearance of the two bastards, while Little Rat looks at me in understanding.
"Let's go back, it's dangerous here" I say as I start heading back to the city.
Two hours later we managed to return to the gates. Passing them, I sent both of them back to the inn to rest, while I took the spoils we have gathered to the Adventurers Association to cash in.
Some time later I leave with a heavy purse filled with gold.
We managed to hunt 23 Low Iron Grade Grasshoppers, its cores and materials netting us 60G each.
Also, we killed 4 Intermediate one, netting 90G each.
And lastly, the Silver Grade Beast netted us 1500G for its core, while I didn't sell the materials
In total this work granted us 3240G truly an astounding amount for us.
Going back, I passed through the Pill shop I had gone to before buying some healing medicines for both internal and external wounds.
I go back to the inn, intending to speak with Little Rat and Camile, but hearing the sounds coming out of their room I can only smile bitterly.
"Let's leave it for tomorrow"
Saying so, I got back to my room, took a healing pill to heal my broken ribs, and went to sleep.
Tomorrow is gonna be another bright day.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Lonely_Neet
Lonely_Neet I hope reading this story is interesting, please comment with what you think i could change or how it can be better.
Happy reading.
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