A Desperate Play

Evan understood that his primary means of attack had a fatal drawback in the injury it could deal to himself. If the ogre managed to sprint quickly enough, it would get close enough to Evan himself to get him caught in the stone's explosion radius. He would then prevent himself from throwing the stone, resulting in his death as the ogre eliminated him with its overwhelming strength. He couldn't hope to outrun the ogre with his half-assed physical reinforcement, either.

Still, Evan was not helpless. He gritted his teeth, prepared to lose a limb, and threw a pre-prepared modified pebble from his thigh bag to the ogre.

The pebble was loosely coated with a thin layer of silver, a material with low mana resistance and high mana capacitance. This meant that upon contact with a foreign object, the loose coating would break apart, and the high residual mana due to the high mana capacitance of silver would flow into the seal, activating a stunted explosion. This was Evan's final resort that he had coined if he were to ever be chased, although he had planned for himself to be farther away from the explosion.

With a grunt of effort, Evan immediately began to run. His plan was to buy time with the contact stone's stunted explosion, then deal decisive damage with a dart once he created some distance. Though he had to survive this first explosion, which would hopefully end with losing only one arm. Yet as he ran, no explosion seemed to ensue. As he turned around to check on the ogre with an expression of fear, he was pleasantly surprised to see a fallen ogre, and a man with dangling arms and a vacant expression stood atop it.

Evan's jaw fell open. What was this?

Exactly half a second ago-

Mia watched the pebble fly toward the ogre. Having trained with and watched Evan train, the four were familiar with what it meant when he pulled out a dart and had braced themselves for the impact that stunned the other adventurers. The moment she opened her eyes after she closed them to cover her eyes from the light of the explosion, she saw a pebble fly towards an ogre furiously chasing after a desperately running Evan, and her body sprung into motion before she fully comprehended the situation.

At the moment she dashed forward from her position diagonally behind the ogre, the pebble was roughly halfway between the ogre and Evan. Her dash that temporarily surpassed the ogre's speed came from concentrating most of her mana along with her perfect mana reinforcement.

By cleanly slicing the pebble she recognised to be part of some self sacrificial play by Evan into two, she rendered the seal null, preventing any explosion. The ogre did not see her dash in front of it, and Mia did not think that it did. Not only because the ogre would have immediately smashed apart the prey speeding before it, but because Mia was aware that Emma, who had also just recovered, had used an illusion to hide her dash.

However, this did not mean Evan was saved. In fact, the situation before Evan tossed out the pebble was reinstated, shredding his already slim chance of survival as a product of his desperate plan.

Mia swiftly began to sprint with a mad fervour into the forest to catch up to Evan. If Mia carried Ethan, she was confident in her ability to use the trees to keep the ogre at arm's length with physical reinforcement.

Yet now, it was her turn to be surprised. A few meters into her dash, she tumbled into an Evan, who should have long since disappeared into the foliage, who had been standing still looking behind her. Mia hurriedly scrambled to she feet then dashed to Evan so she could throw Evan onto her shoulder. However, as she ran to him, she couldn't help but notice that Evan still stood looking behind her in a daze. Slightly annoyed at this point by what looked to her like frivolous behaviour, she turned as well to try to get Evan to run, only to spot what he was staring at and follow him in dropping her jaw.

Noah was atop a collapsed ogre's torso, with dangling arms indicative of broken bones. As Mia joined Evan in watching with a dazed expression, an orb of light rose up from the ogre's body and sank into Noah's body. His eyes looked vacant, as if he wasn't quit mentally present. Time seemed to have frozen. Emma was running over, but Evan and Mia did not react to her, and just stared at Noah. Strangely, his body seemed to be drooping towards the ground. The next moment, he promptly collapsed.

"Noah!"

At Emma's yell, the other three rushed over to check on their collapsed friend. With a worried expression, Mia placed two fingers on his neck to look for his pulse.

One beat. Two beat.

He was alive. With a sigh of relief, she smiled at the other two who wore similar worried expressions. Mia thought back to what Noah's face looked like moments ago, and opened her mouth to inform them, before she was interrupted.

"He'll be alright. Just slightly shocked, I reckon. Kid's crazy though; it's one thing to suggest it, but to actually go through with it? Is that what makes a person a hero, I wonder?"

"?!"

The unprompted voice of who they recognized to be the A-rank tank caused them to flinch. Their surprise was amplified when he mentioned the word 'heroes'. No one on the subjugation team was supposed to be aware of their status. How could he have figured it out? Did they have to take action and drag him along to the castle to report him? The tank would not silently come along if they asked him to, would he? The source of the voice noticed their reactions, and hurriedly tried to clear his good name.

"Hey, calm down! He told me, alright? I can almost see a bushed-up tail standing up behind you."

He explained that Noah had prepared somewhat of a contingency plan. Noah foresaw that something was highly likely to go wrong. Four children fighting a demon was a ridiculous sentence, no matter which world, and the mental battle would be an uphill battle for the four of them, even Evan. Noah revealed his identity to the A-rank tank, which the tank obviously did not believe. Expecting this reaction, Noah paid the adventurer.

Adventurers were, at the end of the day, mercenaries that hunted monsters and did odd jobs. Where there was money, they would usually follow. Noah wanted the tank to play defensively to prioritize safety in the event that something unexpected occurred, and lo and behold, comes a mysterious dart from the guy with the mysterious boom rocks. In such a scenario, the A-rank tank, who had revealed his name to be Caleb, would usually pose himself for a counterattack with whatever opening the dart could open up, but in this case, he fully retreated into his shell to commit himself to defense. Combined with his A-rank prowess, the tank was unscathed following a blast that would have at least left him stunned, which was much better than the other adventurers, some of whom had been knocked unconscious.

"Well, the dumbass boom rock fella was getting chased down, so this madlad Noah jumps on my shield and starts counting down for me to launch him to the ogre. I understood his plan, right? A spike from that height is nice and all, but with that kind of crappy physical reinforcement, of course he would break his bones. Honestly, he's so bad you would think he learned it last month or something!"

Three people averted their eyes.

"No way. You're fighting an ogre. After a month of training? What's next, considering that boom rock guy's crappy judgements, you're gonna tell me this was your first fight or so-"

"Haha, hey man, thanks for the help. We'll have to be on our way to make a report, don't spread the news about being a hero! Thanks for the help; we'll be on our way then!"

After promptly throwing Noah's body to Mia, who flung his body over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes, the heroes made their escape to the castle before Caleb could properly react to Evan's interjection.