Not only was there a hole in both walls of her house, but the foreman was fighting the beast she brought into the village. He wasn't fighting seriously, since he hasn't even tried to avoid any of his attacks yet, but since a beast had to be at least three ranks higher than the foreman to take on a human form he probably wasn't even feeling the hits. Hopefully the beast wouldn't kill the field manager, he probably wasn't a terrible person.

Actually, he was being fairly courageous right now. Despite being massively outclassed in rank, he was still throwing himself into the maw of a ferocious creature to protect the commoners. Obviously not the best course of action to reach that end, since the moment he was rent limb from limb there would be nothing standing between the commoners and death, but even with his rank three power over ground allowing him to throw himself across the land at speed without any consequence from the landing it would take at least five minutes to get to the sect for reinforcements. They would be able to arrive much faster, assuming he managed to speak with the correct people quickly enough, but that was more than enough time for a powerful enough creature to kill it's way through the houses and escape into the forest.

Trackers would be needed at that point, and depending on how much of a head start the escaping creature had it was entirely possible even they wouldn't be able to catch up before it got into the deep woods, where few could tread and keep their lives. Usually the forest was a boon; a hunter could go in for two minutes and come out with some kind of animal for butchery thanks to the fact that a second outside is a minute within. Animal life would flourish within, though with so much natural time acceleration any who spent time in the woods would find themselves unable to claim much Energy of the Heavens, if any at all. Animals living within the forest are similarly limited. At most, the land would support the growth of the beats within to Rank One, at which point they would have to leave the forest to grow any further.

Past the normal woods, the deep woods lose the time acceleration effect. That ends up being where the powerful beasts lurk, as any who come out on the village side would be taken care of handily by the sect provided foreman. Once out of the forest, the beasts would get their first taste of regular density Energy of the Heavens, and would generally not subject themselves to the lack of it again.

As such, the worst the village ever had to deal with was a single Rank Two beast, assuming it had managed to avoid being detected for the year or so it would take for it to advance all the way through the nine rank one subranks, and the rank two bottleneck.

Sometimes Puren Ning was envious of how quickly beasts could advance.

Come to think about it, the foreman had only ever seen rank one beasts actually come out of the forest and been warned about rank two. Looking out the brand new window, she sees that the foreman is still attacking with full force, and the beast seems to have one arm behind its back or something, clearly not taking this seriously. It had been long enough that any rank one beast would have been punched to death by now, surely the foreman comprehended that this was not an odd looking rank two. Then again, he might assume that the humanoid features were from the beast having become a monster. Appearances didn't necessarily tell you about what any particular creature actually was, that would require some sort of scanning technique.

Anything could be a monster. Not only in the variable appearance either; a plant could become a monster at random, as could any beast. In humans, it was more understood. Usually it would occur when the person gives in to their base urges, which leads to a transformation into one of the commonly seen monsters. More rarely, the impetus is when someone confronts the monster to be, and their sins are laid bare for all to see. Those usually remained at least somewhat recognizably human, if only in minor details.

As one ascended the ranks, the more human the monster could be. Higher rank monsters could even keep their minds, and even bodies. Sometimes it might be in the form of a regular human torso emerging from a whole giant monster that could be killed separately, sometimes it might take on the monster's original appearance and erupt into a mountain of flesh when a person of significant strength approaches. In a case Puren Ning had heard rumors about, a person transmuted, killed the hero that confronted it, and carried on as if nothing has changed, not even showing it's improved strength in public. It would sneak out in the cover of night to commit depravities in the alleyways of the capitol, and transform into it's monstrous true self to consume the evidence, including any guardsmen who would find it. That was what xxxxxxx was famous for at least, meeting the creature and staying alive long enough to force it's retreat.

Speaking of attrition, the foreman seemed to be tiring. He might be forced to stop from exhaustion at any time. There was no way he didn't realize this wasn't just some rank two beast, right?

On a whim, she says out loud, “Scan,” sticking out her hand toward the foreman as if she actually has a special technique. Surprisingly, the helmet responds.

HP 26/26 SP 3/18 : 0/2 STR 26 DEX 14 Special ?/? INT 11

How could someone who had gone through Brain Refining have such a low number for intelligence? Actually… “Self Scan!”

HP 9/9 SP 9/9 STR 9 DEX 10 Special ?/? INT 11

Mmph. Perhaps the numbers were just low in general.

Regardless, his stamina was relatively low, and he was making no discernable progress in killing his opponent. She would need to Scan the beast when she had a chance. Those would be statistics to wonder at.

“That's not just a Rank Two beast, it's humanized!”

Apparently he hadn't realized that. As soon as Puren Ning shouts the information to the foreman, he pushes off against the ground and flies off into the distance, leaving the villagers to their fates. It was fortunate that this wasn't a real time critical high rank beast situation, or he would be dead in addition to all of them, the sect wouldn't be notified, and the next village would just have to hope their foreman was more competent.

Sometimes the ‘you keep what you kill’ mandate was counterproductive.