Shin and Rionne shifted their gazes toward the sphere. About a minute later, the globe finally reached its limit.
“KyuAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
A huge cry was raised together with the sound of something similar to glass cracking, and something broke out of the sphere.
“What is that?”
Rionne appeared to have never seen the emerging monster.
“…Looks like a Gryphon.”
“Gryphon?”
“It’s a monster that usually inhabits the forest or highlands.”
While Shin explained, he activated 【Analyze】.
――――『Guardian of rbh%t& Lv$%&』
“It has garbled letters, huh?… A Guardian?”
Barely readable portions of the name were displayed, and Shin looked puzzled while tilting his head.
There was a monster with a ‘Guardian’ prefix attached to their name. However, it was a huge golem with full body armor that would appear in the city and become the base of the players. On top of that, it didn’t come out unless there was a special event.
The current Gryphon before them had crystal wings. Because the wings were made of transparent blue ice and had an angular-shape, it had a solid feeling that living things didn’t have.
“Is that ice?”
Shin judged that those wings were composed of ice crystals, as he saw the cold wave of air released by the wing of the Gryphon, who was generating white mist around it.
When observed carefully, ice also covered its talons up to its foreleg and the horn that had grown from its forehead. Though they were the same base color as its wings, there was also green blended into several places.
A portion of the ground near the Gryphon was already frozen. Was it due to the influence of the ice on its forelegs?
“………”
“Shin, is there something wrong?”
“…No, it certainly resembles a monster I know, but it’s slightly different.”
The monster was similar to ‘Glass-Blue Gryphon’. It was a monster that appeared in ice and snow zones.
However, a Glass-Blue Gryphon had its whole body made of crystal-like glass, which was different than the Gryphon that had just appeared. To begin with, Shin didn’t know of any kind of Gryphon that exceeded 5 mels in body height.
“It’s looking this way!”
The Gryphon, which raised a roar, turned its gaze to the direction where Shin and Rionne were.
Since their eyes met perfectly, it’s not possible to say it was just their imagination.
“Kyuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!”
“Mu! Is it up to something?”
“It’s bad to stay here, so I’ll break the wall!”
At the same time as the shout, Shin broke through the wall in the room and jumped outside.
Rionne followed soon after, and the breath of ice which the Gryphon released hit the building directly. The building was frozen in an instant.
The Gryphon seemed to have seen that Shin and Rionne escaped, as it turned its neck while breathing out ice in order to put them in the line of fire.
“That’s dangerous! We’re gonna jump!”
“Kyaa, what!?”
Shin carried Rionne and kicked through the air against the looming breath of ice.
He dodged the breath mid-air by a movement system martial arts skill 【Flying Shadow】, and jumped into the shadow of another building.
“It’s a ‘mowing down’ breath, huh? I’m sure there’s no such attack used by gryphons…”
“I-Is that so? Rather, Shin, I want you to lower me down now.”
Rionne said, while stuttering in Shin’s arm.
The current body pose of Rionne was commonly referred to as ‘holding the princess in one’s arms’ state.
“Ah sorry. It was emergency, so it was either this or I carry you under my arm.”
When Shin pulled Rionne’s arm and evaded the breath, he was able to hold her under his arm, but as expected that may be inappropriate for a princess, so he changed it.
“You really…so what would you do? We cannot go near it since it attacked as soon as we showed up.”
“That kind of attack is a breathing spell or magic power charge; there will be a cooldown-time when the attack is used somewhere, so we have no choice but to attack at once. I will take charge of the front, so aim for its back while hiding in the building, Rionne.”
Though it was a surprise attack, Shin knew the capture method of a Gryphon himself.
Even if he was directly hit with the breath, he shouldn’t be killed on the spot.
“Will you be alright?”
“Leave it to me. I don’t want to be hit, but I’ve a way even if I’m hit.”
The worrying Rionne nodded, and Shin stood up.
After seeing Rionne off, who was moving away from him, he jumped outside the building.
“KyuAAAA!!”
The Gryphon promptly shot its breath.
As if it knew Shin was there, its aim was accurate.
Shin bent over and evaded the breath coming straight at him, then started to run.
Though the Gryphon made a mowing down motion with its breath like it was natural, a similar attack wouldn’t become a threat to Shin.
Using both movement system martial arts skills 【Flying Shadow】 and 【Shukuchi】, Shin sometimes jumped over and dove under as he closed in upon the Gryphon without