Suddenly, the elf spit out some sort of small object which shot towards Edwin.

The boy immediately reacted by intercepting it with both of his daggers, however, when the object made contact with his weapons, it suddenly exploded and cold mist spreaded out and covered Edwin's two arms, after which, the mist turned into ice.

While Edwin's arms were frozen, the elf took this opportunity to kick him away and stand up.

Edwin easily broke the ice, and saw the elf was looking back at him harshly while catching her breath.

He knew that the elf won't be able to escape with her current condition.

On the other hand, Edwin's thought was spot on as the elf also inwardly knew that she probably had to lose some limbs to escape by this point.

The eyes of Edwin flashed with a cold glint and rushed towards the elf while using Burst Steps.

However, rather than running away, the elf let out a faint grin.

The elf grasped the air with her hand, and a silhouette of a bow appeared.

She pulled the bowstring and an arrow made of energy materialized, and she shot it towards Edwin!

Then another Edwin appeared on the battlefield, one was still charging towards the elf while the other tried to run away.

But the arrow was too fast! In fact, even faster than the ones she shot earlier!

The arrow tore through the clone that was left behind and caught up at Edwin in a flash.

Edwin initiated Shadow Steps at the last moment and dodged the arrow, but the energy arrow exploded at his side with a boom.

Due to the shockwave of the explosion, he flew off the ground and landed far away while piercing through a tree destroying it.

As soon as he landed, Edwin coughed out a mouthful of blood and felt a pain on his back, specially at the part of his body where the backbone and the lower part of his body was connected.

Good thing that he wasn't as powerful as a mage apprentice anymore, or else the bones on his back would have been crushed due to the strength of the impact.

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'I hope there's something that can help me in this bag!', Edwin reached out at his satchel and searched inside it.

"You even forced me to use my Spirit Bow. I'm already telling you, you should really raise up your standards of your judging on every living being in this forest.", the female elf replied with an even paler face.

Using the Spirit Bow obviously took a toll on her.

She picked up a crystal from the ground and threw it towards Edwin.

On the other hand, Edwin knew that it was the same crystal that could release a blinding light, so he closed his eyes immediately.

After a few seconds, he opened them again after the blinding light pa.s.sed. However, he didn't notice that a short sword came for him.

The short sword accurately pierced his wrist of his arm that he was using to search for something in the satchel, exactly where there wasn't any cover of robes' sleeves, which made him hiss in pain.

But as soon as it subsided, he found out that his arm was numbed by the weapon!

He was about to use his other hand to search the satchel again, but the elf nocked an arrow on the bow.

"If you move, you'll become a blood puddle.", the elf warned.

Edwin paused on his movements and looked around him. Finally, he sighed and gave up.

"Well, this is the third time my life is at the mercy of somebody else.", he muttered while looking up at the tree branches and leaves that were hiding the sky.

"You shouldn't really underestimate everyone you see even if they're weaker than you.", the elf said as if hearing what the boy grumbled. However, she didn't approach Edwin.

"You're not going to search my belongings?", Edwin asked.

"Why should I? I don't have the same level of your stupidness to fall for your trap.", the elf replied.

Meanwhile, Edwin inwardly felt wronged when he heard the elf's comment. He truly gave up by now. His back was extremely painful to the point he couldn't move his lower body, he even feared that he'll get paralyzed if not treated immediately.

"What do you want then?", Edwin asked.

"I just want to observe a human's reaction overtime in this situation.", the elf replied.

"It's your first time seeing a human, I guess?", he asked, but the elf didn't reply back.

Some time pa.s.sed...

"So, are you just going to stand there aiming the bow at me all day?", Edwin asked again.

The elf still didn't answer back.

"I guess that's a yes? Won't your back get hurt by staying at that posture for a long time?", he asked again.

There was still no answer.

"I guess that's a no then?", the boy answered his own question.

"Even if I'm injured, I can do this post for a week.", the elf suddenly replied back.

"And why are you so talkative?", she asked back.

"You said that you wanted to observe what will I do in this situation, so... this is what I'm doing.", Edwin shrugged his one not numbed shoulder.

"..." The elf became speechless at what Edwin said. 'They were right, humans are this stupid.'

"You can drop the bow down, I won't even be able to move with my back. I feel that my backbone almost separated from my lower body. Though that shouldn't happen with the toughness of my body... or maybe...?", then he remembered about the grazed wound from the arrow on his face.

'So that's probably the reason why I got injured this seriously?', he pondered.

"Hey, what's on that arrow?", Edwin asked again, but the elf didn't reply anymore.

Time pa.s.sed and night replaced day.

Due to the density of the trees in the Monarch Forest, it wasn't always snowing hardly inside the said forest, as such, the snow beside Edwin didn't acc.u.mulate that much yet, but if it's outside the said location, he would've already been buried alive under the current circ.u.mstances.

One could still feel the bone-chilling coldness during the night under the robes, specially for Edwin.

Even if he had already magical robes and that almost useless magic that Anna taught him to use mana on heating up his body, he still could feel the extreme cold.

"Why is it much colder inside this forest anyway?", he complained. "Wait, I think it's because the light of the sun is blocked in here, I don't know."

'This human... is really stupid. Are they all like that?' The elf thought.

He checked at the elf, who was still aiming the bow at him.

"So... aren't you going to heal yourself in case that some sort of beast will suddenly attack?", Edwin asked.

"I can just leave you behind so whatever kind of animal can take you as its food.", the elf replied coldly.

"Alright then, but won't you take it into account?"

"Take account of what?", the elf asked.

"That I can already move again!", Edwin moved his body in a flash, but he didn't even get away from his original position because he only moved his upper body. "Just kidding, hahaha...!"

The elf was startled at first and got ready in an instant, but when she found out that Edwin was only joking, her face became gloomy and even wanted to shoot the arrow.

'Are other humans as crazy as this one?', she asked within herself.

"I'm joking again.", Edwin suddenly stood up in a flash; removed the short sword from his wrist; then threw it at the elf.

The elf was caught off guard by the fast action of Edwin, and the short sword pierced through her hand where she was holding the bow, but still managed to release the arrow.

-whoosh-

The aim of the bow was a bit crooked downwards and landed somewhere near in front of Edwin, followed immediately with the explosion.

He was about to charge forward but stopped at the last moment and readied himself before the arrow landed with a bang.

The shot up snow settled down at a fast rate, then he saw that the elf picked up all of her belongings already and readied to shoot more arrows.

As the battle was about to start again, the both of them suddenly stopped and looked towards a particular direction after sensing something was coming.

"No good!"

"Roar!!!", the nearby trees where all destroyed as a monster's roar came to them. Afterwards, an enormous sized bear attacked them.

"So it came by itself after all?" Realizing what it was, Edwin prepared himself.

Of course, it was none other than the demonic bear he was after.