"No."
"When are you—" Adrian cut himself off, only now realizing what I said, "Oh."
"But, let’s hang out anyways," I said, stopping him before he could excuse himself.
He visibly brightened upon hearing that, to which I smiled at.
"Oh um, sure! Uh, what were you thinking of doing?"
I stepped outside of the door, and closed it behind me.
"I’m not sure."
"You’re not sure?"
Adrian seemed perplexed by that. I didn’t blame him, we had never done an impromptu hangout session before. It was usually him accompanying me while I did something.
"Let’s just go to the village. We can find something to do there."
"Oh um, sure!" Adrian said, parroting his earlier statement.
We left my house and started walking back to Villamcreek. It was a nice day to be out and about; the sun was not too glaring, being blotted out by a small gathering of clouds in the sky. The air was calm, the wind gently rustling the leaves on the trees. And in addition to that, the birds were singing, completing this scene and giving off a serene ambience in our little walk. T was the perfect weather for me— not too hot, and not too cold. I spoke casually to the boy.
"You know, I’ve been learning how to use mana crystals."
"You have?" Adrian stopped walking, and turned to face me with a look of disbelief.
"Yeah,"— I walked a few more steps before stopping as well to turn and face him— "took me a bit but my mom taught me how."
I took out the lighter from my pocket, and let out a quick flame.
"See." I pointed at the flame.
"That’s... amazing!" Adrian was genuinely awed by that. He leaned over, staring at the fire burn gently an inch off the mana tool. "How did you learn it so fast? I thought you couldn’t do that just a few months ago."
"Practice," I said simply, not cluing him to the fact that I learnt it in less than an hour.
The boy seemed almost enchanted by the flame, so I decided to extinguish it and pocket the lighter before he somehow burned himself. Neither of us said anything for a few seconds after that, and we awkwardly stood facing each other in silence. Realizing that he would not speak first, I decided to bring up the only thing I could say at the moment.
"You’re pretty amazing yourself, Adrian. When I found out that you could use a gun’s mana crystal, I begged my mom to teach me how to use one. So it’s thanks to you I can even do this."
"Oh," Adrian said, blushing, "thank you."
…
Is that all you’re going to say?
I knew that he had a crush on me and all, but please throw me a bone here! I was not used to to speaking with people, and I needed someone else to carry the conversation for me. Ugh, this situation is so awkward, even the birds stopped chirping. It was almost unbearable, and the rustling of bushes didn't even help.
Wait— rustling bushes? But the wind stopped blowing…
I slowly turned my head to face the source of the noise, only to meet a pair of glowing red eyes peering at me from inside the bush to my right. Immediately without thinking, I jumped and tackled Adrian to the ground several feet from where we stood.
My eye contact with the Monster must have triggered something in it to attack us. It leapt out of the bush it was hiding in. My quick reaction seemed to have saved our lives. The Monster was already standing at the spot we were in, as we hit the ground.
It stood there on four clawed legs, a solid five feet tall and nearly ten feet wide. Its body was coated with yellow fur, that turned into a golden mane at its neck; it had the face of a goat, with two horns protruding from the top of its head, and a small golden beard at the tip of its chin. Its tail— which extended beyond the length of its body— was brown in color and patterned with blotches of yellow throughout, complete with the mouth of a snake at its very end.
It was a Chimera.
Adrian saw this too, and immediately unholstered his pistol as he got up. Aiming at it with both hands, he shot the monster in the face.
A bullet made of pure blue energy shot out of the pistol, flying straight at the Chimera. It knocked the Monster’s head back slightly, leaving a small scratch where it struck. The Chimera opened its mouth and let out a ferocious roar, before it was hit by another two bullets close to where the first landed, drawing some blood.
A fourth and fifth bullet shot by Adrian only hit the air, as the Chimera leapt to the side to dodge. Although there was a short interval between each shot, Adrian did not have to reload since the pistol was fueled by the mana crystal.
The Chimera circled around us in the span of five seconds, before lashing its snake tail out at Adrian. He managed to narrowly avoid the strike by stepping back and jumping to the left, while the attack missed me entirely as I was still prone on the ground.
Adrian was barely grounded when he brought his gun back up. The Chimera however, was faster and leapt forwards at him, taking a final shot to the face, before it knocked the gun away with a claw. With another swing, the Monster struck Adrian across the chest and onto a tree nearly ten feet away. But it didn’t let up.
The Chimera was immediately on the boy again. It pressed him up against the tree with its tail. It opened its mouth to reveal hundreds of sharp carnivorous teeth,
