There was the option to summon Sagittarius or Orion and fire off Alnasl or Rigel, but I dismissed the idea. Firstly, the Fiery Ape clearly had an affinity with fire. Not only would it have a resistance against my fire-based arrows, there was a possibility that I would just inadvertently made it stronger. I doubted that, though. Not unless it was a rank A or S monster with unique abilities. As was the case with a certain game regarding monsters and b.a.l.l.s, just because the creature was of the same element type didn't mean it would be immune to attacks of that elemental type (unless it possessed a unique ability such as Flash Fire, though that got patched pretty quickly in the next generation). It just meant it took about 50% less damage.

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With how powerful the Fiery Ape was, I couldn't be sure I could kill it with just 50% of the firepower of my arrows. Best to be safe than sorry.

It also meant I should avoid summoning Vermillion Phoenix, as his flames would be ineffective against the Fiery Ape. Of course, this went both ways, but my goal now was to destroy the monster before my schoolmates took any casualties, not merely to survive.

Right now those schoolmates were fighting for their lives to buy me the time I needed to summon the appropriate soul beast.

Let's get real. They weren't fighting for me. Even if I wasn't here, they would still be doing their best to survive. Before I arrived, they had already been fighting as hard as they possibly could and defying the Fiery Ape's brutal attempts to slaughter them. The only difference was that they knew my summoned beasts could provide a slim chance of victory and increase the odds of their survival. So they decided to stake everything on me. Not because I was the protagonist, or because I was some important person.

Merely because I held their biggest hope of getting out of this mess alive.

"GUOOOH!"

The Fiery Ape's head whipped back as Jin Hao's lightning struck it, but before it could throw a fireball at him, Nicholas kicked its arm aside, throwing off its aim. The Fiery Ape twisted to retaliate, but was forced to raise its arm to block an axe attack from Elliot. While it focused on batting the burly axe-wielder away, several spells detonated against its face as the remaining party members added to their magical onslaught. Thanks to that, Elliot was able to safely withdraw before he got pulverized by the Fiery Ape's ma.s.sive arms.

The ideal image of a party working together, covering each other's weaknesses and watching each other's backs. It wasn't perfect – the corpses and wounded lying sprawled around the area attested to that – but it definitely prolonged Nicholas and Elliot's lives even as they kept the monster's attention away from the long-range but vulnerable spellcasters.

Most of all, they were buying the time I needed.

"!!"

The Fiery Ape suddenly erupted from rage, its fiery aura boiling upward in an inferno. Elliot and Nicholas jumped back, but the axe-wielder was weighed down by his weapon and couldn't escape the flames in time.

Splas.h.!.+

Fortunately, a girl with long blue hair raised her hands and conjured a blast of water that washed over the flames. Like my attempt with Aquarius, the water immediately boiled away into scalding steam. But it was more than enough to buy Elliot the few seconds he needed to withdraw to a safe distance. As he landed right next to her, he nodded gratefully.

"Thanks, Aoi."

Mizuno Aoi nodded, but didn't say anything, instead directing another geyser of water at the bellowing Fiery Ape. The aqueous attack didn't have much effect, vaporizing before it could reach the monster's fur, and it turned on her, summoning a colossal fireball in its palm to fling it at her.

Before it could hurl the fireball at her, a lightning bolt detonated against the side of its head, causing it to stagger and the fireball to dissipate before it could finish forming.

"Over here, you brute!" Jin Hao shouted. Snarling the Fiery Ape turned toward him, but Nicholas appeared behind him.

"Nope. Behind you!"

A kick to the back of the Fiery Ape's neck sent it stumbling forward, but it was far from down. Growling, it whipped around to swat him away, but already Elliot had renewed his attack and attempting to cleave its arm off.

Flames erupted along the length of the Fiery Ape's heavily muscular arm and it succeeded in knocking Elliot back. Even so, a thin line of blood dripped from a deep cut across its matted crimson fur.

"Hah!" Elliot crowed. "So it can bleed!"

"If it bleeds, we can kill it," Nicholas declared.

Spoken too soon. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the Fiery Ape slammed both its fists against the ground. A supernova of flames expanded out of it in a circle, rus.h.i.+ng forward to engulf and incinerate everyone within twenty-five meters of it. Elliot and Nicholas tried to retreat, but they couldn't get out in time. Neither could the injured ranged casters such as Jin Hao…

And I knew I wouldn't make it in time either, despite being one of the people furthest away from the Fiery Ape's apocalyptic fury.

s.h.i.+n!

Fortunately for us, a barrier propped up around not just me, but Nicholas, Elliot and the other mages. Glancing at the party, I saw that a few of them were standing together, linking their magic to cast a combined barrier spell that created a circular forcefield in front of us. The flames collided with the s.h.i.+mmering, translucent screen and stabbed at it, but didn't cross the line. The three mages were gritting their teeth, perspiration pouring down their pale faces as they struggled to maintain the protective s.h.i.+elding, and fortunately for all of us, it held.

"Thanks!" Nicholas breathed in immense relief, wiping the sweat from his face. "For a moment I thought we were a goner!"

"It only worked because the Fiery Ape was casting an areof-effect spell, so the firepower of its attack was diluted," the only guy of the defensive trio explained, panting heavily. "Otherwise it would have destroyed our barrier easily if it had focused its attack to a single point."

That made sense. Area of effect spells were able to spread their effects across a larger number of targets, but at the cost of firepower and intensity. Even then, I had to admire the trio for combining their spells into a single defensive barrier. That had to be difficult to maintain too. Ironically, it was easier for them to link up and summon a single gigantic barrier than to try and precisely conjure a barrier at specific locations when the Fiery Ape attacked their vanguard, which was why they didn't cast the barrier spells for Elliot and Nicholas when they fought close to the monster.

Nonetheless, I was beginning to realize the importance of having a good party and trustworthy teammates. I had been an arrogant fool to think I could go through this solo just because I could summon my own allies. My summoning spells took too much time and magical energy, and I worked best with people defending me while I stayed at the back to safely complete my summons. Only an utter edge-lord would spout nihilistic bulls.h.i.+t about the world not worth trusting and insisting that I go solo without weighing myself down with "burdens" in the form of teammates. I depended on them to keep me safe just as they relied on me to finish the enemy off with a single powerful technique.

I was horribly mistaken if I thought I could go through life and survive such grueling combat all by myself. I had gotten complacent and taken my summoning magic for granted. Too in love with the idealistic image of my Dad as a solo operative, I had forgotten that I wasn't my Dad. I lacked his experience, his skills, his knowledge and a whole variety of other factors that allowed him to work on his own. Furthermore, I was pretending not to acknowledge that Dad more frequently than not worked in teams or parties. I had seen him join parties before, even met several of his colleagues. Just because I hadn't actually seen Dad at work, I always had this idealistic imagination of him being a cool Mary Sue protagonist completely capable of working alone and winning by himself.

However, there was no doubt that even during the battle against the Syndicate, Dad definitely enlisted the help of his colleagues from his mercenary group, the Apocalyptic Apostles. There was no way one man could single-handedly destroy an underground organization in such a short time by himself, despite movies that romanticized violence and heroes would have you believe. I never asked or sought the details of Dad's missions – to be fair, they were highly cla.s.sified and kept as top secret, so even if I wanted to, there was no way for me to find out the details – and then I went and built up this unrealistic, heroic image on my own.

Just like how Harvey was hero-wors.h.i.+pping me, I was blindly hero-wors.h.i.+pping my Dad and making all sorts of deluded a.s.sumptions. Solely because I had read way too many wish-fulfilment, power fantasy web novels that featured G.o.d Mode Mary Sues who could destroy the world on their own.

"Are you done yet?" Nicholas panted as he kicked the Fiery Ape, who had renewed its a.s.sault. He kicked it in the calf, and then jumped up to kick it in the face. The monster turned to block his foot and retaliate with a burst of fire, but Elliot had pounced on it with his axe.

Snarling, the Fiery Ape batted him away, but to Elliot's satisfaction, he left an ugly cut on its bleeding forearm.

"Yeah. I'm not sure how long more we can hold out against this beast!" Elliot growled as he landed a few meters away, heaving.

"Done," I replied as I finished the last of my casting. "Sorry to keep you waiting, guys. I'll finish this."

All around me, fountains of water erupted and surged into the air, almost as if they were piercing the heavens. In a second, it almost seemed as if I had just conjured a gigantic lake. The fires left behind by the Fiery Ape's elemental spells were immediately extinguished, turning into smoke as water splashed onto them.

Realizing the imminent threat, the rank C monster whirled around to face me, a ferocious snarl distorting its already brutish face.

I smiled as a gigantic spirit emerged and materialized behind me, its form s.h.i.+mmering as rivulets of water poured down the sides of its black figure.