Chapter 27: One Punch

There was no time to think.

The wolf was already in the air - mouth open, the full spread of those oversized fangs flashing in the amber glow, aimed directly at the height of his head with the commitment of an animal that knew exactly what it was doing.

It would be too late for any kind of card - the time from summoning to activating would not be enough.

The wolf was already halfway there, faster than he could ever be with a card. The distance to Ash was negligible, and the angle was wrong. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Something stirred inside Ash’s body that wasn’t a choice.

His left arm shot forward.

The fist connected with the wolf’s face mid-flight, producing a sound unlike any punch - something crashing.

And then the wolf flew in a new direction - sideways, fast, spinning slightly.

It crossed the gap between the road and the treeline in less time than it took for Ash to realize what just happened, impacting the tree at roughly mid-trunk. The tree cracked, but it didn’t bend - it broke.

The upper part fell to the ground with a crash, knocking the dust from the roots and shaking the air with concussive force.

---------------

[✦Fang Wolf Defeated✦]

[Rewards]

[EXP + 200]

[SP + 30]

[★LOOT DROPPED★]

> Magic Stone x1

> Wolf Fang x2

[✦Skill Upgrade✦]

[Storage: 20 > 30]

[Storage: 23 / 30]

---------------

The panel appeared in front of him, and Ash’s eyes moved to it automatically, his mind absorbing the information.

The fang wolf had dropped him two hundred experience points and thirty SP. Storage was now expanded up to thirty slots. He was now at four hundred and fifteen EXP and sixty-five SP, both numbers looking clean in the interface.

He was reading the panel for the second time when she spoke.

"I thought you were a mage."

He turned.

Rinna was standing right where she had been, her arm half-extended in the pose that told him she had screamed a warning to him a second ago. She wasn’t looking angry, though.

None of her usual ease was in her expression - none of that familiar easy smile or relaxed manner. This time, it was something different. Her crimson eyes moved from the broken tree to him, wide with undisguised surprise.

He looked past her.

Lissa was surprised, too, although she didn’t show it - she had been able to mask all kinds of emotions. Now her jaw had gone slightly slack, and her hand hadn’t left the hilt of her blade, which meant that her body was still processing the event.

From his seat on the carriage, Bowen looked at him as if he had witnessed something beyond human understanding.

"How did you punch a fang wolf so hard you managed to break a tree?" Rinna asked.

Ash remained silent.

He locked his eyes onto hers, trying to gauge her reaction - her expression gave him nothing to work with.

The silence held for a little bit.

"Are you an Anima?" Rinna asked.

Her question hung in the air, finding no purchase in his mind.

’What is an Anima?’ he thought, not recognizing the term. He simply had no reference for what she was asking.

"What’s an Anima?" he asked.

Rinna blinked, then stared at him incredulously.

"You don’t know what an Anima is?" she said, pronouncing every word slowly, the way people repeated things they couldn’t quite believe they’d heard.

"But you can’t be one," she continued, trying to piece everything together. "I saw you use a fire spell in the grassland. That was magic, no doubt."

She tilted her head.

"So what exactly are you?"

A brief moment passed as they waited for the answer that was never going to come.

"I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean," Ash finally said.

"Forget it, sister," Lissa said, her voice calm and unequivocal. "He doesn’t seem to want to share anything about himself."