22 Learning To Fight Part Two

[Just a heads up all, starting tomorrow, chapters will be split in two. So I can make a regular release schedule for this novel.]

[HP]: 200/430

"No! Michi, stay back! I knew this would happen! I will handle this!" Yuki's face was pale, blood was dripping from her back, and a good amount at that. "Fireball!" "Heal!" "Heal! "Heal!

[HP]: 315/430

[MP]: 177/270

Yuki cast fireball to scatter the rock ants and then cast heal over and over, sucking up a ton of mana to heal her wound. "Ugh… At least the bleeding has stopped. What the hell was with that attack? It took more than half my health!"

Yuki's back was on fire. But she didn't have enough time to keep healing herself. Because now the rock ants were regrouping. "You guys really want me dead. I can't even kill one of you without being attacked from behind… Now, where is that bastard that is almost dead..."

Doing her best to ignore the pain in her back, Yuki looked for the one she had been working on before. Michi, who was standing at the side, was nervous because Yuki's wound had not fully healed yet, and she was still trying to fight so many rock ants. "Yuki! Let Michi tank some of them, at least! What is the point of training if Yuki will end up dead!?"

Yuki looked over at Michi's worried expression and let out a sigh. Yuki knew Michi was right. She was far too weak to keep this up. After thinking for a moment, Yuki decided to take on two. "Try to taunt three of them. I will fight two at once. I need at least this much to learn."

"Mmm, be careful, Yuki!" Michi locked onto her three targets and yelled, "Taunt!" Three of the rock ants that were going to attack Yuki, instantly switched targets and ran over towards Michi.

Seeing her enemies reduced, Yuki let out a small sigh. She took a deep breath and shouted: "Fireball! Heal!"

[HP]: 355/430

[MP]: 147/270

"That is much better. Now it is just a dull pain. I just need not to get hit!" Yuki stretched a bit, swung her hammer around, locked on to her target, and charged towards the rock ant with the lowest health. She looked at where the rock ant was positioned and quickly came up with a plan of attack. "If I use the wall to propel myself up into the air, I can get enough height to use ground slam with ease. "

Yuki continued her charge and ran straight towards the wall digging her right foot on the side and running up the wall as far as she could before pushing off with all her might. "Ground Slam!"

*Bam!*

The whole room shook as Yuki's attack smashed into the rock ant. But she was not done there. Using the recoil from her attack, she flipped her body in the air and came down once again! "Ground Slam!"

*Bam!*

Rock Ant [Lvl]: 5*

[HP]: 0/300

[MP]:0/0

Although the rock ant was dead, she knew the battle was not over yet. She quickly used her hammer, with its head on the ground, to spin her body around, and with her foot, she kicked the head of the hammer up, slamming it in the underside of the rock ant that was just about to attack her, knocking it back. "I will not fall for that again!"

[MP]: 141/270

Yuki stared at the rock ant in front of her. She was already exhausted, but she still readied her hammer to strike again. "Cross Cut!"

Michi came from the side and slashed out with her claws killing the rock ant before it could rush at Yuki.

"Michi!?" Yuki stared at Michi in surprise wonder why she jumped in.

"Yuki, that's enough for today. You lost a lot of blood, any more, and Yuki might collapse or even worse, die from blood loss." Michi said, she had noticed that although Yuki had healed the wound, she did not finish the healing, and with all her wide movements it had reopened.

[HP]: 229/430

It was only when Michii said something that Yuki noticed she was once again bleeding from her back. "Oh… Heal!" Yuki was starting to feel woozy. It seemed just because you healed yourself it did not mean it replenished her blood. Now that she saw how bad she was bleeding, the adrenaline that was moving her body wore off quickly, and she began to sway back and forth. "Heal! Heal!"

[HP] 328/430

[MP]: 81/270

"Bleeding should have stopped… Michi, help me collect the dead ants… " Michi nodded and helped Yuki to the side wall where she had something to lean on before taking all the rock ants and bringing them over to Yuki to store in her inventory. Yuki had thought a healing spell would close a wound right away. This was only because she had only healed a small scrape on the knee or a bruise from being hit by slimes.

"I will carry you to the safe room." Michi said before scooping Yuki up… Michi had forgotten her little act, saying I instead of her own name. Yuki may have been in a daze, but she quickly noticed this and smiled. "Much better… Michi, you should talk more like that. Informal is good with our relationship as it is now."

Michi looked at Yuki, who was smiling back at her and nodded. "Then Mich… Then I will do just that." Michi said with a smile. She leaned her head down and kissed Yuki's lips. Yuki smiled, feeling much closer to Michi now. She snuggled into Michi's neck and closed her eyes while Michi brought Yuki back to their safe room.

When they arrived, Yuki sealed off the entrance and had Michi brought her to the bath where Yuki drained it and filled it back up before heating it.

[MP]: 17/270

"Just enough… Michi, can you help me undress? I have no energy left… I feel so weak." Yuki was still feeling woozy from the loss of blood and she felt as if her body had no strength left in it. It was the strangest feeling for her since she had never felt like this before.

"Mmm, Michi.. Ahem I will also help you bathe." Michi's eyes lit up as she slowly peeled Yuki's clothes off. In no time at all, every inch of Yuki's white skin was exposed. It was unblemished except for the large wound on her back and the dried blood on her skin. Seeing Yuki's injury made Michi frown. She slowly and gently lowered Yuki into the water. Her earlier idea of teasing Yuki washed out the window. She used the water to rinse out the wound and wash off the dry blood.

Yuki bit her lip, doing her best not to make a sound, trying to take the pain she felt from her wound. She could tell Michi was trying to be as gentle as possible, which made her feel warm inside. "Yuki, All the blood is off. Just soak for a while and when you are ready to get out just ask."

"Mmm… I will heal it all the way when my [MP] is backup. Thank you, Michi." Yuki said with a smile.

"Yuki doesn't need to thank me. As long as you are happy, I will be happy." Michi cupped Yuki's cheek and kissed Yuki's lips. Yuki smiled and parted her lips. The two girls kissed until Yuki felt dizzy again.

After soaking for a while, Yuki climbed out of the bathtub with Michi's help and sat down on the soft horned rabbit fur that Michi laid out for Yuki. Michi then took a bath herself before joining Yuki. Yuki made a small fire using a fireball that hovered in place. It would heat up the room but produce no smoke. After an hour, Yuki was finally able to heal herself all the way, making her feel much better. Only then did she cook up some rock ant meat and feast as she tried to rebuild her strength. She still felt weak from all the blood loss but she was at least no longer in pain and could now move around.

Yuki wondered what Michi thought of her fighting. When she was killing slimes, Michi would always point out her mistakes and give her pointers. This time she did not, which made Yuki curious. "So… Michi, how was it?"

"Mmm… I think the problem is with your power and perception of what is around you. I am not sure you are using your hammer right. I noticed you do lower damage with regular hits, but if you can get a good swing or smash them from high up using gravity for your momentum, you can do much more damage. Normally a hammer can do a great deal of damage. My guess is that your skills are not leveled up yet, and you only seem to have one hammer skill. Which are hard to gain when you need to work at the skills and discover them yourself. Normally you would be taught them by a teacher, parent, or sibling. This is based on what weapon you would take up. For me my skills were taught by my father.

"But you did good with using the fireball to disperse the rock ants so they could not easily gang up on you, but with so many and no real defenses, you were going to get hurt eventually, and you did. Another thing you need to learn is that all monsters have a weak point that you can exploit that can either seriously damage them or instantly kill them. In this past battle you kept aiming for the rock ant's head, where the armor is the thickest. If you were to aim for its face you can smash its pinchers into its head causing them to pierce their brain. It will be an instakill. And you will not need to use any mana. What you will need to work on though is mobility. If you can get your mobility down using your hammer to your advantage, you can easily avoid attacks like you did in the last attack where you spun your body around your hammer and kicked it up knocking the rock ant back.

"For today, we will rest. Tomorrow we will try again. I will tank them for you while you use that opportunity to get a better feel on how to attack the rock ants. Once you get a good feel for it, then I will leave one rock to you, and then we can slowly work our way up. Rock ants make for good practice because they will not hesitate to attack anyone and are very good at taking advantage of their prey when they are not looking. This is why you were wounded." Michi covered everything she noticed about Yuki's battle and tried to give the best advice she could. She just hoped it would be useful to Yuki.

Yuki fell into thought and let everything sink in. "Michi, how do you find a monster's weak point?"