“Alright guys, first one's up ahead,” Gen calls out, pointing. As he says, an orc stands in the distance across the sweeping grass of the windy highlands, tall and muscular, with ashen gray skin and two big, curved tusks jutting from its jaw.

Oddly, there are a few scraps of cloth wrapped around it, like clothing. Do the monsters form like that on their own or do they have the barest amount of intelligence necessary to make clothing? How do they even form into the monster shapes they do?

Besides my wandering thoughts, I notice the sizable metal sword in its hand. It's kind of bent, with rust everywhere, and badly formed, more like a sheet of metal that had a vaguely sword-shaped rectangle cut out of it.

Of course, the lack of decent equipment doesn't mean it's weak. While not the strongest monsters, their physical strength and durability are supposed to be pretty impressive. On the upside, they're supposed to be uselessly stupid.

“Let's get to it,” Gen says, and waves us all forward. As we approach, I start to spot more orcs, wandering far off in the gently rolling hills of the highlands.

When we've almost reached the monster, Gen raises a hand above his head, and a large, two handed spear appears with a bright flash of bluish light. The hell? I never heard about this world having anything like item storage! No one would be carrying packs if there was!

As he drops into a stance, I shake my head. No, let's assume it's a special ability, like a weapon equipping system from his class or something, that would make a lot more sense, he still has his own pack of traveling gear after all.

With those thoughts finished, I start forming some magic to throw at the monster. It's nothing fancy, and I toss it out just as we all approach. The orc, probably six feet tall, shrugs off the hail of jagged rock, turning toward our party as everyone dashes to begin the fight.

Yeah, I figured I wouldn't be able to deal much damage to these guys yet. Even so, I'll get plenty more experience casting spells and make the money I need to survive. Good enough for now...

After my spell, with the whole party besides our healer charging, my gaze is immediately drawn to Gen. He waves his spear in a big circle overhead as he runs, a magic circle forming to confirm my guess about him being some flavor of magic user.

When he lowers his spear to his side again, it's taken on a bright, yellow colored glow. He draws it up, preparing to strike-

A shockwave hits me before I even realize what happened, making me stagger almost enough to fall over. It feels like some sort of explosion or lightning strike just went off. I have to keep popping my ears as I look over the battle again.

It's only been a few moments, but Gen somehow covered the entire distance to the orc, striking with his spear. Or, I'm assuming as much because there isn't actually any orc anymore. Thinking a few moments back, I hardly even saw, it was like it disintegrated when he struck it.

“Woah, impressive break, Gen,” Miria calls, dropping out of her run, with her heavy armor clanking. Everyone else responds similarly. 'Break?' I guess that's the name of the special attack he used?

Hmm, is Thunder Hammer a rare Class? I never saw any back in Thanifa. I wonder which academy trains them? Helia maybe?

“I'm not Rank thirty two for show you know,” Gen chuckles with an amused smile. It's the first decent look I've seen on his face since the quest started. Of course, as soon as he notices me past them, the smile turns to a scowl. He immediately turns and points to the next orc. “Let's keep going.”

They all definitely catch the change, and even they glance back at me, looking somewhat confused. Why does he hate me so much?

We go on, taking out a few more of the scattered orcs. Either Gen doesn't want to use that same attack, or it has a really long cooldown, because he doesn't use it again as we clear them out. After about a dozen, we get a little closer to what I'm assuming is the center of the infestation, because the ones we can see in the distance are a lot less scattered about.

That's when we meet two orcs close enough together that we won't we able to fight them separately. Still, by this point I'm pretty sure any one of them could take on an orc by themselves, so I'm not worried.

As we approach them, Gen calls over his shoulder. “Everyone, we take this one. Girl, you take that one.”

What.

“W-wait, huh?!” I gasp. He wants me to fight one of the orcs on my own?

“Uh, Gen, that might be a bit much...” Even Miria seems a bit put-off by his insane decision. He isn't actually trying to get me killed, is he?! I gulp roughly, but I'm already starting to cast, pulling together something big, folding the magic together more tightly, in a way I sort of figured out over the last few days. It's still a bit uncertain though, so the effects will probably be a bit less controlled than I usual try for.

As I'm preparing, Gen dodges past the first orc that charges him and kicks it back, right toward me, before he waves everyone over to the other. It lurches to its feet, towering high over me as it wastes no time charging right at me.

Don't panic don't panic! I throw myself to the side, rolling in the grass back to my feet while it smashes the huge club in its hand into the ground where I was standing.

Come on, it's just one monster, it's dumb and slow! I fling a couple weak air spells at it, hindering its movement. I have the crowd control effect from my Area Control, and I can clearly see its movements slow as it pushes through the whirlwind around it.

This is no different from ordinary mobbing! Just kite and it'll be fine! I keep throwing weak wind spells to maintain the slow, they hardly cost anything so it's no big deal. As it advances, I continue to run away, putting distance between me and the party, back toward the area we cleared out already so I don't run into any more orcs.

Struggling and screaming angrily, the monster keeps fighting through the endless barrage of wind as it pursues, until I throw a bigger wind-pull spell at it, to lock it in place, and sprint away as fast as I can. When the spell ends, I spin back, and fire my big spell.

It's a fire-wind spell, since they're clearly my highest damage option, but the way I formed it this time changed it from a triggered explosion, into more of a line spell. Or a beam maybe. Firing straight forward in front of me, the fire and wind expand to half the size of my body, and I can feel the incredible heat from where I am, almost enough to burn me.

The column of advancing magic crashes straight into the charging orc, battering it with a swirl of magical fire and wind. Its charge is nearly halted, pushing one trudging step at a time toward me as the magic washes over it. After a few seconds, my spell ends, and I have to dive far to the side again to avoid another strike from the orc.

Rolling back to my feet, I survey the damage. Yeah, it has burns everywhere and looks in pretty bad shape, but not dead yet. The idea for the spell came from that staff, and it does seem to help concentrate my damage over a smaller area, but I'm still uncertain how well it compares to just throwing out enormous explosions that take advantage of my Focus.

Clearly, now isn't the time to worry about that. I still have the orc to deal with, and it's going to eat at least one more of those beams before it goes down. Unfortunately, my mana isn't going to hold out long enough for that, I barely have enough left for one more beam, and they take almost thirty seconds to form.

Here's where my new (non-)Passives come in handy. While I keep kiting, I start absorbing mana, and use what I have left to queue up another beam spell. Once it's ready, I turn my attention on the magic, the way I figured out after some practice, and I can actually feel the form of the spell make a strange sort of imprint on the back of my mind.

With that done, I fire it off. The orc weathers through the attack again, whole sections of its body starting to burn black, but as expected, it still doesn't go down.

That's when I realize I screwed up. I was too focused on using Spell Store on my fire beam spell, and didn't put enough distance between me and the monster before I cast. As soon as my spell ends, the orc is practically on top of me, club already swinging down from over its shoulder.

It's a quick swipe, nowhere near the strength behind it that those big swings had, but it doesn't matter at all. I lurch away from the incoming weapon, halfway between trying to duck and block. I've never fought in melee before, and have no idea what to do. All I have are my basic fight or flight instincts.

I end up bracing my arms in front of my chest as I drop low, but not low enough to avoid the blow. It crashes across my body, and I'm sent flying away. I'm hardly aware of anything as I roll in the grass, mind fleeing from the pain.

By the time I can think again, I'm lying face down on the ground. I try pushing back up, and my arm screams with pain in response, and I fail, flopping back down. Then the roar, and the pound of heavy feet draws my attention up once more.

Panicking, I ignore the pain and get up, barely diving aside as a much bigger swing flies into the ground. Even the dirt and rock it kicks up pelt me hard enough sting as I fight to maintain my feet, and wrap my head around my spells enough to get more crowd control on it so I can regain some distance.

It's true, the biggest weakness in my magic is my own ability to control it. My head is so fogged with pain, I can barely synergize my low level wind magic to keep the orc locked down.

With a grunt, I manage to get my other Passive to work. Channel Cast starts to collect and channel mana into a spell, in this case, the fire beam spell I have memorized. That's the big upside of the two abilities, I can just set it to channel a complex spell like that without expending any concentration on it.

The downside is how long it takes. Turning from the orc and running away with everything I have, I wait for the mana to collect ever so slowly.

As I go, I look down at my arms and realize that my arm guards shattered, and my left arm might be broken. Not a bad break, but it really hurts when I move it.

My right is incredibly sore but probably not broken, and a huge bruise is forming, a similar feeling coming from my chest. It makes it hard to breathe as I run away, but I push through, probably on pure adrenaline.

It's all I can do to run, throwing a few wind spells to delay the monster while I keep running it around endlessly. It's ten minutes later when I've at least recovered my wits through the pain and adrenaline, that I realize my spell isn't even halfway channeled. A spell that took about thirty seconds and half my mana. I really need to get better at channeling...

In the meantime, I've regenerated and absorbed enough mana that I can safely drop the Channel Cast Passive, and finish off the spell myself, summoning the remaining elements needed and fitting them into the magic.

This time, I make sure to put enough distance between us before firing the magic back on the orc. When I fire, I keep throwing dozens and dozens of fire and wind elements in to synergize with the beam, refreshing its duration to run longer. I wasn't sure if that would work since it's formed so differently than the magic I've done until now, so I'm glad it helps.

Still, each element hardly adds any duration, barely a fraction of a second, and I end up burning my entire mana pool, dropping to mana exhaustion again, before the orc gives in and falls under the torrent of fire.

The spell finally completes, and I sink to my knees, sweating and panting, feeling sick and exhausted.

Holy shit, I can fight an orc on my own.

Holy shit, I can only fight an orc on my own.

I have no idea if this means I'm getting stronger, or that I'm still pathetically weak.

After a lengthy break to catch my breath, I drag my ass up off the ground and hobble over to the spot where the orc died. It's long since dispersed into mana, leaving a pair of thick, curled tusks behind. Normally I don't get any of the loot on quests because I can't kill any of the monsters, but this one I managed, all on my own...

Smiling despite how terrible I feel, I take the tusks and put them in my pack. My first loot, and it's a good drop too. Two tusks from just one orc. Even if my quest rewards are reduced, I should be able to make some money from loot, right?

I drag myself forward, back toward the party. I can hear the explosions here and there from Gen's magic boosted attacks. They're all pretty flashy and impressive, like my magic is.

I don't know whether to be angry or grateful that he had me kill one of the orcs myself. It means I that I actually got to earn some favor from it, and loot too, things I've never gotten from quests before.

Of course, his intention was actually for me to die or end up so gravely wounded that our healer would enslave me in exchange for saving my life...

Ok, definitely landing on the angry side here.

Still limping and having trouble breathing too deeply, I make it over into the area where they're fighting a group of five orcs, Miria tanking aggro from three by smacking them around with her warhammer and repeatedly deflecting their strikes with her kite shield while Win tears into them with her huge sword.

The other two are chasing Gen around, his fighting style revolving around agility. He's swapped from his spear to a sword in one hand, magic glowing in the other, landing one magic-enhanced cut after another on the orcs as he leads them around by the nose.

Off in the back, Blik is tossing out ranged heals once in a while, whenever someone takes a hit. God, when Gen screws up and has to block an incoming attack with a hand or arm, all he does is wince and stagger a little. Miria doesn't even seem to notice the blows that land.

Watching them fight again, clearly seeing the difference for myself, my heart falls. I'm never going to be any good, am I? Trudging up next to Blik, I raise my good hand. “Hey, could you, umm, heal me please?” I try to ask politely.

He clearly noticed me approaching earlier, but he was keeping his eyes on the battle. Now, he turns more and winces when he sees me, eyes traveling up and down my wounds and damaged armor. My arm guards are gone, showing my dark bruised skin, and my chest armor, barely patched back together after my last quest, has the whole front crushed, the hardened leather shattered, entire sections cracking off.

“Sure...” he answers uncertainly. Then he holds a hand up, and I can see the glow of magic as he casts, the spell washing away all the pain and bruising in my arms and chest, bit by bit. “I'm surprised you're alive.” He doesn't say anything else about it as he works.

Soon enough, it feels like I can breathe right again, and most of the pain is gone. There are still some twinges from my left arm when I move it wrong, so I don't think the fracture is entirely healed. With that in mind, I pull some spare cloth from my pack and wrap it tightly around my arm. It's not a cast, but it'll help a little, I think.

Blik raises an eyebrow. “If you're not fully healed, I can use more powerful magic. Of course-”

“No no,” I immediately wave off the offer, knowing what it would cost me. “I'm fine, I don't need any more healing.”

About that time, the others have finished off the orcs, and are coming back. Before he can press me on it, Gen calls out, “Blik, why'd you stop healing us?” He looks irritated, and I'm immediately worried that he's going to blame this on me.

“The girl came back, she was pretty beat up, so I was healing her,” he explains with a shrug.

Those words draw Gen's sour look to me. I see his eyes scan my damaged armor, the same way Blik did, but he squints, gaze lingering longer than the healer's did, before he stalks toward me. “Taking our healer's time, bitch needs to learn her place.”

I stumble back a step, but it's no use. He's on me in a moment. His fist bolts out, dead into my stomach. It drives all the air from my lungs, and I feel my consciousness fade for a few moments, falling to my knees, unable to breathe.

I roll onto my side, arms curling around my midsection, screaming in agony almost as bad as when I got hit by the orc. Eyes bulging in panic, I fight and fight, but can't draw breath.

For seconds that feel like an eternity, I try, until my collapsed lungs work enough again to draw a gasping, searing breath of air. The darkness at the edges of my vision recedes, before I immediately start coughing, hacking painfully and almost throwing up. I roll face down in the grass, arms still grasped close around me as I groan and try to endure the spreading ache of the bruise from his fist.

“Uh, Gen, that was a bit much...” comes Miria's voice.

“I've got to ask,” Blik takes the opportunity to speak up too. “You have history with her or something? Some grudge?”

“Of course not,” he huffs. I'm just beginning to recover enough to look up, lifting myself with my good hand, my left still held around me.

“Then what is it? A grudge against former slaves or something?” Blik asks.

“Looking at her just pisses me off.” That's it? That's why he's abusing me like this? He just hates me for no reason? What the fuck?

That's when Win, content to listen until now, sighs loudly. “Damn kids, can't be honest. If you want her body, just take it. No one will stop you.” Her words make my blood freeze. They way his eyes have been on me all the time...

I'm starting to panic at the thought of what's about to happen to me, before he scoffs. “Don't get me wrong, if I wanted her, I'd have taken her already.”

“Yeah, yeah...” Win clearly doesn't believe him, but I have no idea. He isn't going to... to do that to me, right? Between random violence and that, I'd gladly take a few beatings...

Staggering up to my feet in a blaring panic, I bow my head and plead, “Please, I'll do whatever you want, just please...” But that just draws another angry look from him. “Or hit me! Hit me all you want! Anything!”

“Stop your yapping!” The blow that lands against my cheek throws me clear off my feet. The way my neck snaps back and screams in agony, I'm surprised it isn't broken. I stare up at the sky, twitching from the continuous stabs of pain from my face and neck.

Crying into the grass, I tell myself this is fine. He can hit me all he wants, I don't care. But it hurts... Oh god it hurts...

When they start to walk off, I drag myself upright again. It hurts so much...