Ank

The surroundings became exponentially more dangerous the further we went from the Beginners's City and its protective magical devices and the constant influx of adventurers. Unsurprisingly, as we approached the [Party]’s objective, we ended up encountering a group of monsters: they were a type of humanoid enlarged firefly with four eyes, one at the center of their face, and three flying around their head, their pupils shaped as the character for “darkness”; there were five of them, and the green screen above their heads displayed:

[Species: Akbal, Level: 12, HP: 41/80]

As we were clearly above that challenge, my sister and I simply made use of our [Title: Godslayer], and manipulated our aura into a very small bubble around us, keeping the monsters away from us, twins, and letting the [Sunight Party] deal with them and get the EXP.

“[Defiant!]”, Jao used a skill, and bashed his hatchet against his simple wooden shield, and all of the monsters flying around the group and clicking their insect mouths turned their attention to him. “[Immovable Tree]”, he quickly used another skill, and enhanced his defensive potential, a green light enveloping his body.

The monsters flocked around the blue-haired man, and scratched, bit, and kicked him all over, but his wooden armor worked well enough against those weak monsters, and when they found the breaches on his armor, his self-empowering buff diminished the damage significantly. Plus, he didn’t just stand still, but blocked as many hits with his shield as he could.

“[Glue Bones!]”, Tapa, the fox-girl conjured onto the front line warrior, and I saw his [HP] regenerating slightly from the hits he took.

“[Seek: Intestines]”, the eight eyed man, Nif, who ran all around the battlefield with his bow and arrows in hand, finally stopped and shot: his projectile pierced the most wounded enemy right through its belly, and the [Party] finally took one [Akbal] down.

As the three adventurers continued to slowly but surely thin out the monsters with their limited force, I pointed, crossing my arms and tilting my head:

“They aren’t really strong, but they’re doing quite good, hu?”

“I mean, yeah?”, Hunah scratched her chin, as we both tried to study the [Party] modus operandi. “It is as if they have no weak spots or something. Even the [SP] and [MP] spent is quite balanced between them all, so even longer battles shouldn’t be a problem.”

The team structure was quite easy to understand, but actually seeing it in practice made me even more confidant that, if we were all equally leveled, we could actually take on way stronger opponents than just Hunah and I alone.

Just we finished talking, however, the one remaining monster finally accepted its defeat, and before it could become the [Party] new target, it tried to escape. The [Party] leader greeted his teeth and dashed after the creature, but as soon as he was about to reach the [Akbal], this last one slashed at his hands, and he pulled back his fingers before having them sliced off. The eight-eyed archer shot another arrow, but the monster sacrificed their hand to stop the projectile from reaching a vital organ, and finally managed to turn around and fly away.

Or so it must have thought.

“VUSH!”, Hunah kicked the ground, and in a single jump she reached the flying monster, and grabbed it with a hand. With the other hand, my sister pulled off the wings of the screaming and crying creature, before tossing the monster back into the battlefield, where the little creature was finished off.

It wasn’t the first time we’ve been through that, but I simply couldn’t adapt to the surprising and disappointing fact that there were no lunch stops, and, obviously, no quick nap afterward, but we simply munched on dried meat while walking. Walking! I literally could summon beasts to carry everyone around, but the [Party] leader insisted that we should walk at least for an hour after eating, so we wouldn’t get sleepy.

“What if…”, I started, also walking on the ground besides everyone else, and I could hear a very mild sigh coming from the blue-haired human already. “…What if I summoned a beast to carry us, and more creatures to keep guard? This way we can still get closer to the objective, and sleep.”

“Oh~ good idea”, Hunah agreed, nodding.

Okay, then there was no way anyone could reject this idea.

Visibly struggling to keep his smile on his face, the [Party] leader turned around, and stopping to munch on his strip of dried meat, he asked back:

“…How did you two found the energy to go hunting for monsters and level up?”

Both Nif and Tapa’s expressions immediately became one of terror, as if the [Party] leader’s answer was enough to send my sister and I in a mindless bloodthirsty rage; their mouths open, and their eyes fixed on every one of our movements.

“…Man, how unnecessary…”, I replied back, scratching the back of my neck.

“Haha, sorry, sorry”, the [Party] leader said back. And the eight-eyed man and fox-girl relaxed a bit.

Once he got calm enough to smile, the eight eyed-man asked my sister and I, however:

“No joke now… How? I mean, you two are the same age as us, right?”

“Ah, I’m 18!”, Tapa corrected her companion. “Huhuhu!”, she laughed as Nif rolled all of his eight eyes.

“I’m 21, by the way”, added the blue-haired human, without stopping to walk or eat the dried meat.

“Seriously, though, how did you became so strong?”, the fox-girl asked as seriously as her companion just before.

“Like everyone else? There’s no secret, really: we have combat-focused [Classes], so in the past year we fought a lot, with a lot of strong monsters”, I replied, shrugging and eating one of the same straps of meat as everyone else. I only missed whatever was that black hot thing that Taffy always prepared for us to help me eat that salty-ass piece of desert-dry rubber.

…Actually, I hadn’t noticed it because before I became one, I thought adventurer’s food must have been great, but wasn’t Taffy’s meals just great?

“A- Are you telling us that you leveled up mostly in the past year only?”, the eight-eyed man stuttered, pieces of dried meat falling down his mouth.

“Not mostly: completely. Up to one year ago, we were both [Level: 1]”, Hunah answered.

Strangely, our replies seemed to send the rest of the [Party] into a mood, and we walked a few more meters in silence.

“It… must have been a hard year” Jao finally commented, after sighing and scratching his head. “We’re sorry for asking.”

I thought for just briefly before replying:

“Meh. We will make it worth it”, I had bones broken, organs crushed and muscle and skin torn apart, but I didn’t regret a thing. I needed all of that strength, and even more, to attain my revenge.

“…What motivated you two to seek this power?”, the blue-haired human asked again, but he quickly added, concerned: “Ah~ you don’t need to answer if you don’t want to.”

“It’s okay”, I said. And Hunah continued:

“…Our village was attacked by… some monsters. Really strong monsters. No one but the two of us survived, and we really want to pay them back, so the past year, and all the injuries we got during it, really represents just a fraction of the [Experience] we want to obtain”, even if she told a modified version the story to be more easily digestible for those who may have no hate toward the divine, it wasn’t hard to see how much rage those words carried.

And I understood it perfectly, feeling my blood boil when remembering the happenings that took the two of us to that point.

I, then, noticed the blue-haired man throw a sympathetic glance, before turning back to the road and continue to walk.

“I understand. Actually… I went through the same. Some bandits led by a necromancer and a flying head monster assaulted our hamlet and killed, enslaved, and… worse. My little brother and I, and a few other women and children, managed to run away. And, well… surprisingly, a homeless kid don’t have many opportunities”, he forced laugh. “I became an adventurer so my brother and I wouldn’t starve to death, and jumped from [Party] to [Party], until I grew strong and old enough to not be explored anymore… And founded the [Sunight Party].”, he laughed again, but this time genuinely. “My objective is just to allow my little brother to grow up safely, though.”

I turned, then, to the other two adventurers, who awkwardly and with a forced smile explained their own reasons:

“I just want to get rich…” said the eight-eyed Nif.

“I just want to find a handsome prince from a distant land to marry, kuhuhu…”

After a brief silence, as my sister and I stared at the other two adventurers, I finally pointed out:

“Good to know that at least four of us have similarly impossible objectives.”

“…Man, how unnecessary…”, the fox-girl and the eight-eyed guy replied in unison.