Earth Violent Bear

Deep in the dense woods lay a huge cave, its entrance large enough for a dinosaur to pass through. There was no vegetation nearby, only scattered bones that served as a warning. No animals showed any signs of activity—not even flies landed on some of the fresh bones.

Well, there was one sign: a huge footprint about 1.5 meters long. It belonged to the cave's occupant.

The footprint alone showed that the cave's occupant was enormous. Today, all the animals that normally lived near the cave had fled deeper into the woods. The occupant's roars kept echoing from deep within.

Along with the cave dweller's roars came the voices of humans.

"With Prince Karen here, this mission is a breeze."

"Yeah, this is a high-level magical beast, an Earth Violent Bear. With our abilities, we couldn't deal it a fatal blow before it slapped us into meat patties one by one."

"We've been fighting it for ages, and it still sounds just as fierce.

"Before it slaps us all to death, we probably won't even manage to do any real damage.

"Now that Prince Karen is here, all we have to do is stand still and keep attacking. We can wear it down eventually."

Karen had wanted to experience life recently, so he'd joined some mages from his club to take on a few missions. This time, their mission was to obtain the Earth Violent Bear's magic core.

Normally, this mission wouldn't have appeared in the Mage Association's job listings. Intermediate mages couldn't complete it; they would need at least one advanced mage leading a group of low-level mages to take down an Earth Violent Bear.

This was a mission for the advanced mages' circle. As Karen had learned before, jobs for that circle weren't posted in the mission hall used by low- and intermediate-level mages. Their missions circulated only among advanced mages.

But the mage who posted this mission was the mentor of an intermediate mage in Karen's club. With Karen in their adventuring party, they were confident they could complete it, so they accepted the job.

The mission had been posted a long time ago, but no one had taken it on.

The Earth Violent Bear was the undisputed ruler of this forest, and its location was well known. Yet no one dared to provoke it. It wasn't simply that the beast was too powerful; fighting it just wasn't worth the trouble, so hardly anyone was willing to take the mission.

Karen's team had chosen it because they wanted to try an advanced mage mission. They also had a way to counter the Earth Violent Bear, and weren't worried about the cost or the reward.

Although the Earth Violent Bear was a high-level magical beast, its magic was mainly supportive in nature. It had almost no offensive spells and relied mostly on physical attacks. But its strength was immense, its damage formidable, and its hide thick, with solid resistance. And as a bear, with such a massive body, it was sure to have an enormous amount of health and a high rate of recovery.

If an advanced mage stood still and attacked it, their mana would probably run out. Besides, the bear wouldn't just stand there and let them hit it. Its paw was as big as a person, and one swipe would nearly break an advanced mage's magic shield.

An advanced mage would have to keep moving while wearing it down, which meant using support spells too. There was no way their mana would last.

Without a team backing them up, they couldn't beat this Earth Violent Bear. It would waste time, energy, and even potions, while the mission's reward wasn't worth the cost. That was why no advanced mage had taken it on.

But with Karen on the team, the fight became simple.

Karen used the magic barrier on his necklace to block the middle of the cave passage. The barrier was tiny, only two meters by two meters.

Compared with the enormous cave, which the Earth Violent Bear could pass through without trouble, it hardly blocked the way at all. It was like putting down a little stool.

The thing was, that little stool was suspended in midair. The Earth Violent Bear stood over ten meters tall—or five meters even when crouching—so it had no way to get around the barrier and attack Karen and the others.

The bear had to break through the barrier before it could attack them. But the barrier's defenses were terrifyingly strong, with the protection of a master-level mage. Even the Earth Violent Bear's savage physical attacks took several blows to break it.

And the moment it broke one barrier, Karen put up another. The main cost was Magic Crystals, and he could afford them.

The rest of the adventuring party could attack the Earth Violent Bear at their leisure from the wide-open space beside the barrier.

Most of them were intermediate mages, so their spells didn't do much damage and they had to wear the beast down slowly. Fortunately, there were plenty of them.

As time passed, the Earth Violent Bear's roars grew fainter. It began to panic, its anger giving way to fear, and turned to flee.

"Keep your distance. Pursue it," Karen ordered.

When the Earth Violent Bear was chased too hard, it would turn and attack.

But Karen always managed to place a magic barrier directly in front of it. The bear could only keep retreating. There was no back entrance, and the cave was only so big. At last, the Earth Violent Bear had nowhere left to go. Even a rabbit would bite when cornered—rabbit? No, the Earth Violent Bear went berserk.

But with Karen there, nothing could change its fate. With a mournful wail, the Earth Violent Bear's hill-like body collapsed to the ground, defeated and helpless.

"Ah, what a shame. If only we hadn't used fire magic, we could've saved that hide. A tanner could've made several suits of leather armor from it. Earth Violent Bear hide is worth a fortune."

"If we hadn't used our most damaging fire spells, how much longer do you think it would've taken to wear the beast down?

"Besides, most people around Dalaran use magic, so there's not much demand for leather armor. There aren't any high-level tanners here, either, and the low-level ones can't even process a hide."

"We could still sell it to someone who needs it. There's bound to be a buyer. Even if the merchants try to drive down the price, they can't push it too low."

Hearing them talk, Karen realized that preserving the hide would actually be easy. He had a top-tier master-level bodyguard by his side, after all.

For a top-tier professional, taking on an Earth Violent Bear alone without taking any damage was no big deal. But Karen had come to experience life. When he'd joined the adventuring party on previous missions, he hadn't used any equipment or skills. This mission was difficult enough that he'd finally used a skill from his gear.

Besides, the hide probably wasn't worth as much as the Magic Crystals he'd spent, so there was no reason to regret it.

But hearing them talk about tanning and tanners reminded Karen of the secondary professions in the game. His primary profession had hit a bottleneck, so he could try his hand at a secondary profession. After returning from this mission, he'd look into what secondary professions existed in the real world, and whether they differed from the ones in the game.