Chapter 46: Derrick Loves...

Chapter 46: Chapter 46: Derrick Loves...

"Do you know about the rankings of the beast?" The moment Derrick pulled a donkey roll to dodge he heard Keira’s voice coming from his mind.

But his mind did not register what she said. At that time, he was thinking about several ways he could hack his way into the simulator and instantly destroy the beast before him.

Everything in the simulator was just a string of codes. It was like he could see them even within the spear he was holding.

Derrick shook his head, snapping out of it. "What?"

"I asked if you know the rankings of beasts," Keira repeated, voice flat through the speaker.

"No."

Arghh!!! A moment of distraction allowed the beast to sway its huge trunk and slammed the end of it in him from the side. Derrick felt like he had been hit by a truck and his body was sent hurling to the side.

"You better focus on the fight." He heard Keira’s cold chuckle while he tried to stand up.

"How can I focus when you are—" Before he could finished another attack came.

He rolled to the side again and saw that the mammoth’s tusk had carved a smoking trench through the grass where he’d stood a second ago.

He gulped audibly wondering what would have happened if he had been standing there.

"I am what? You should be able to do listen to me while fighting a beast, if you cannot it means you are lacking."

"Whatever." Derrick knew better than to argue with her. He started running around the elephant in circles, faster than it could keep up.

"Beasts aren’t like humans," Keira said, tone shifting into something almost lecture-like despite the chaos unfolding in front of her screen. "They grow stronger by eating earthly treasures. Divine herbs. Natural resources soaked in raw energy. Humans refine that kind of thing before they use it. Beasts don’t have to bother. Honestly they are so broken."

Derrick planted his feet, spear angled low, watching the mammoth’s front legs for the next telltale shift in weight.

"Because of that," Keira continued, "beasts end up with abilities most humans only unlock at the Superpower Stage. Some are just born with them like talents in humans."

The mammoth charged again, ground trembling under its weight. Derrick darted sideways at the last second, feeling the heat radiating off its tusks as it thundered past.

"There’s a ranking system," she said. "Wild Beast sits just below a Physical Strengthening Realm human. They don’t have powers, but they are strong enough that a normal person, even a moderately trained one, can’t take it down alone."

Good to know. Wish I’d known that before agreeing to jump into this thing. Derrick always assumed his enemies would be humans so he never really researched on the beast that much.

"Above that is Awakened Beast. Powerful as the strongest Physical Strengthening Realm humans out there. Takes a group of five low level PSR fighters just to bring one down."

Derrick lunged, driving the spear into the mammoth’s exposed foreleg.

HIIIIIiiiiii!!!!!

Thump!

Boom!

The beast howled, stomping hard enough to crack the ground, but he was already gone, slipping away before the impact landed.

"After that, Captain Class Beast. Then General Beast." Her voice stayed steady, almost clinical. "And at the very top, King Level."

"Anything past that?" Derrick asked, breath ragged, dodging another wild swing of the mammoth’s trunk.

"That’s it. For now."

"For now?"

"If you ever meet something stronger than King Level," she said, "you won’t be alive long enough to breathe let alone ask me about it."

My teacher really knows how to comfort me.

Derrick shrugged mid-dodge, more out of habit than anything else. "Good to know my limits, I guess."

"This thing in front of you," Keira added, "is an Awakened Beast. I’m not expecting you to kill it. I want you to go all out. Stop holding back."

"And if I die?"

"You won’t. Not really." A faint smirk colored her voice. "It’s a simulation, genius."

Derrick froze mid-step, the words settling into his brain like ice water.

...Right. Right! This isn’t real. None of this is real.

Something in his chest loosened all at once, a tension he hadn’t even realized was still there since the fight with Kenny, since the bullet, since every moment his body had flinched on instinct whenever he sensed danger.

There is no death. What is there to fear? It is just me and this thing.

His grip on the spear tightened.

The hesitation drained out of him completely.

He surged forward, faster than before, spear weaving through the air in sharp, decisive arcs. Derrick did not know how to hold a spear but with the help of Body Coordination Technique and some talent, he was able to hold it strongly enough to fight.

But his movements were awkward. He stabbed and pulled way harder than necessary. So he tried to refrain from attacking until he was sure of the outcome.

The mammoth swung its trunk, tusks glowing brighter, but Derrick ducked under the strike without flinching, driving the spear tip into its front leg again, deeper this time.

The beast roared and stumbled once more.

Again. Outside the simulator, Keira was starting to grow surprised by how powerful his attacks were when he was not holding back anymore.

She felt it during their fight as well. Derrick feared death.

He knew it himself and tried to fight against it but whatever he did was not enough.

"If he fears death. All I have to do is just beat it out of him." She stared intently at the screen and watched Derrick do what she thought someone like him was incapable of doing.

He circled fast, targeting the same leg, then the other, chipping away at its stability with every pass. The mammoth’s massive body swayed, weight shifting unevenly as its wounded legs buckled.

Derrick saw the opening the second it appeared.

The beast’s back end dipped low as it tried to reposition, exposing a wide, unguarded target.

Perfect.

He didn’t think deeply about it and just moved, closing the distance in a single burst, driving the spear straight into the mammoth’s rear hole with every ounce of momentum he had.

The sharp double sided tip of the double sided spearhead went straight into the deepest cavity before it could even sense where Derrick was.

MOOOOOO!!!!!

The beast let out an ear splitting howl. It tried to jump forward away from the attack but the back legs of the beast gave up and collapsed entirely.

Then the inevitable happened and its enormous body came crashing down into a sitting position with the spear still lodged deep in its backside.

Before it could fall completely, Derrick abandoned the spear and ran away.

...

Silence followed, the grassland eerily still except for the mammoth’s ragged breathing.

Even Keira did not utter a word for a while.

Then the beast’s form flickered, light dissolving off its body in slow, fading particles until nothing remained but scattered motes drifting into the gray sky.

Derrick stood there, chest heaving, spear still raised.

...I actually did it.

Outside the pod, Keira stared at her console screen, expression completely blank, mouth slightly parted.

She said nothing for a long moment.

Then, slowly, she leaned back in her chair. "...Do you have some kind of obsession with asses?"

Derrick’s face flushed through the glass casing. "That was an accident!"

"Sure it was." She shook her head, still staring at the replay frozen on her screen, the mammoth sitting comically atop its own defeat.

Then her expression shifted, sharpening into something far more serious. "Forget that. Tell me your actual stage. Right now. Don’t lie to me."

Derrick opened his mouth...