With the preparations already in place, a single Molotov cocktail took a sizable toll on the Mind Beasts. Dozens of them—about a tenth of the whole group—perished in the flames, while the rest bore burns of varying severity.
But Jiang Cha didn’t relax in the slightest.
Mind Beasts had powerful regenerative abilities. As long as they remained in The Rift and had enough time, they could even regrow severed limbs.
Unless they died on the spot, their injuries meant almost nothing. They could recover completely in just a dozen or so minutes.
And these little monsters were only the lowest-ranking Mind Beasts. That was why she was so anxious for nightfall: once darkness came, stronger, more dangerous Mind Beasts would appear. Monsters dozens of meters tall, with supernatural powers and the strength to take on an army head-on, could show up.
It wasn’t just monsters chasing them. Time was, too.
“Let’s head to the classroom building. We’ll use the narrow corners and tight spaces to get the most out of our bombs. For now, you only need to remember one thing.”
The black-haired girl held Xia Yuan’s hand as her long hair drifted behind her. Her expression was tense but not panicked, and there was even a hint of exhilaration in her spirited gaze, as if she were enjoying this life-or-death crisis.
“Stay right on my heels. Don’t stop for even a second!”
“Got it!”
Xia Yuan nodded firmly. She’d already flung off the rabbit-eared slippers that got in the way of running. Her small, pale feet hit the cold tiles with nothing to protect them, and she let the dust grime them.
The gloom in her heart was fading, little by little, under that person’s influence.
With her here, everything would be okay. With Jiang Cha here.
They’d definitely make it out alive and go back to an ordinary, happy life!
“Then let’s run! Go, go, go!”
Jiang Cha flashed a confident smile. At the corner of the stairwell, she moved with lightning speed, pulling a Molotov cocktail from the cloth bag slung at her waist. She lit it and tossed it behind her without even looking.
Scorching tongues of flame licked all over the monsters’ bodies, and the air was instantly filled with the smell of roasting meat.
“Whew~ Charcoal-grilled Mind Beast! If these things didn’t disappear when they died, I’d really want to find out what they taste like!”
“Are you crazy?! You actually want to eat those things?!”
The monsters’ wails were almost deafening. The two could barely hear each other, and had to shout to be understood.
Xia Yuan looked at the monsters and couldn’t understand how Jiang Cha could have an appetite for such grotesque, man-eating creatures. Just looking at them made her want to throw up, okay?
“Huh? They want to eat me, and I want to eat them. Isn’t that only fair?”
“How the hell is that fair?!”
They kept running, tossing Molotov cocktails around corners and into stairwells to thin out the monsters as much as possible.
But fire wasn’t all that effective against Mind Beasts. Each time, only the monsters hit directly by a Molotov or stuck to the burning gel actually died. Most of the rest were merely wounded and weakened.
“Crap, I miscalculated. We’re running low on Molotovs.”
By the time they reached the rooftop, Jiang Cha searched the bag again and couldn’t find a single Molotov left. The big cloth sack held only three bundles of explosives, resting quietly at the bottom.
“What do we do?!”
“What else? Hold the door! You throw the explosives, and I’ll cut them down!”
They’d cut the Mind Beast numbers by nearly thirty percent along the way. Of the more than three hundred monsters, only a little over two hundred remained, and every one of them was wounded. They’d be much easier to deal with now. That was Jiang Cha’s plan.
They’d face the weakened monsters head-on in a place that was easy to defend and hard to attack: the rooftop!
“Okay!”
As the black-haired girl tossed her a bomb and a lighter without hesitation, Xia Yuan realized for the first time just how heavy the responsibility on her shoulders was.
Jiang Cha was standing right in front of the rooftop door, fighting the Mind Beasts hand-to-hand. If Xia Yuan failed to throw a bomb, or threw it too close, Jiang Cha would definitely die.
“Throw it where there are more of them! Hurry!”
The black-haired girl swung a machete one-handed, chopping down the Mind Beasts charging at her one by one until they shattered into black specks of light and vanished into the air. Every so often, she punched with her left hand, knocking back any Mind Beast she hadn’t managed to cut down in time.
Xia Yuan stood a short distance behind her, her hand trembling badly as she held the bomb. The lighter’s flame flickered, but several times she failed to bring it close enough to the fuse to light it.
“Hurry up!! I can’t hold them off for long!”
The ‘Jiang Cha’ of today was still just an ordinary girl who’d had some training. She had plenty of experience, but even so, her stamina couldn’t withstand such an intense fight for long. She was already breathing a little hard.
In another five minutes, her focus and stamina would both start to fade. And against the Mind Beasts, swinging her blade even a fraction of a second too slowly could mean the difference between life and death!
“O-okay!”
Jiang Cha’s shout made Xia Yuan flinch. Bracing against the strong wind on the rooftop, she managed to light the fuse with the windproof lighter.
She hurried two steps forward and hurled the explosive with all her strength down the narrow stairwell!
“Get down!”
Jiang Cha reacted in a flash, shielding Xia Yuan beneath her and protecting her from the first blast.
The stairs shattered with a crash, blocking the monsters’ path. Even the wall leading to the small rooftop room was left with several cracks.
The thick dust almost buried them both.
“Ptooey, ptooey—damn, the explosives I made really pack a punch!”
Spitting the dust out of her mouth, Jiang Cha immediately began admiring the destruction wrought by her own handiwork.
To be fair, it was more than twice as weak as the same volume of high-energy explosives. But against low-ranking Mind Beasts, which weren’t much tougher than humans to begin with, it was still more than enough.
The damage from the shrapnel and falling rubble this time was probably about equal to what the five Molotovs before it had caused.
Jiang Cha stabbed a Mind Beast that had been knocked over to them by the blast’s shockwave, then gave Xia Yuan a thumbs-up.
“Not bad, Yuanyuan. Not many people could stay as calm as you did the first time they faced a Mind Beast.”
“How are you? Are you hurt?”
Jiang Cha helped Xia Yuan to her feet and praised her without holding back. Her smile shone brighter than the sun overhead.
“My ears are ringing a little.”
It wasn’t pleasant having a bomb go off beside her. She wasn’t hurt at all, but the blast of air had still left her feeling a little rattled.
“That’s normal. You’ll get used to it after a few more times. But we don’t have time for that now... Watch out, they’re charging again!”
Mind Beasts’ intelligence wasn’t fixed.
In fact, their ability to learn was far greater than humans’. After the two girls had taken out most of their companions with Molotovs and bombs, the monsters stopped crowding together like clueless idiots.
Each one kept a good distance from the others—a spacing that struck the best balance between maintaining a strong attack and minimizing the damage from bombs.
