"Hotdog is mine!" I shouted and then teleported before anyone could answer.

As the hellhound leaped at the girl I appeared right before it. With extended phantom claws, I grabbed monster by the head and then tossed at a nearby wall.

While the monster was still flying, two Hano2 appeared in my hands and I unloaded twenty bullets.

Even with the body full of holes, the monster was still alive and after recovered from the collision with wall, looked at me with anger. Whoa, when I read that they are hard to kill I didn't expect they are 'this' hard to kill.

"Run!" I shouted to the girl.

Most of the people nearby were already doing that.

"N.. no, you ha.. have to save my father." shuttered the girl while pointing at the corpse.

"I am sorry, but I can't help to the dead." I said while looking at the monster.

"You are lying! He can't be dead. Whaaaa..." the girl started to cry.

I wanted to chase her away, but the monster was about to attack.

He opened its jaws, and there was a bright lava glow coming from inside, I knew what was coming next.

I teleported right before him and blocked a stream of fire with my phantom claws. Devour mana and heat absorption were working well in tandem and the attack of hellhound did nothing more than replenishing my reserves of mana.

Devour Mana has reached level 5. Heat Absorption reached level 3. Heat Resistance reached level 5.

Right after his attack ended I sliced at him with my tail. The monster quickly dodged to the side and even when I changed the direction of my tail in mid-swing he managed to shift his direction as well and was only slightly grazed.

He was fast. This is the first time someone managed to avoid my surprise attack by the tail.

I quickly glanced at my clothes. Unlike my body, they can't handle the heat coming from this blazing monster, and it was obvious from the smoke. If not for the heat absorption I used through the skin, there is a chance I would be naked already. I need to finish this quickly.

I attacked him with my claws, but just like before, the monster displayed his extraordinary speed by evading them all. It was still reluctant to attack me directly, as I already caught him once by the head. After a dozen more of missed attacks, I started to consider of using my limit break. Though in the end it wasn't necessary.

From all attack he managed to evade, hellhound got cocky. He circled around me at high speed and then suddenly charged again. I didn't miss this chance he was slightly in the air and pierced him with my tail. Through the head and all the way to the rear. Take this shish kebab!

While keeping his body above the ground with the tail, I activated devour mana and heat absorption. Now.. what next?

This annoying cockroach was still alive!

Even while skewered, it tried to use its fire breath. Sadly for him, the skill was based on mana and couldn't work while my devour mana was active.

Should I crush it with a large boulder? Hmm, I am sure that a few fireballs of Phoenix would do the job. When I looked at his previous location, only templars with soldiers could be seen. Magra, Elder, and Arodin were pointing at different locations and ordered their men, only a small group of soldiers was rushing in the direction from where I could feel Phoenix through the bond.

Well, first of all, I should drain all of its mana and retrieve used bullets. If what Elder said is true, then we have a long battle ahead of us... Oh. I am such an idiot, I could spare myself some trouble with this hellhound. I could have used bullets in its body to suspend him in the air with my metal manipulation... Well, there is always next time.

It didn't take long to drain him dry, and as its mana capacity was tremendous, I managed to charge quite a few mana potions as well. I also made an interesting discovery.

The moment I consumed the last drop of its mana, the body of monster simply crumbled into a pile of ash and only its monster core was left intact. Books failed to mention this detail about hellhounds, it seems that the mana is a source of their life. Then again, I doubt there are many adventurers capable of finding this on their own.

From gunshots and explosions in the distance, it was obvious that our party found their target. I guess this is a reason why I still got no experience for killing this monster.

"Please wake up. *sob* I promise I will be a good girl and will always listen to you. *sob* Dad, please..." I looked at the girl who was crying while shaking the corpse of her father.

"Where is your mother?" I asked while hoping that the dead man wasn't her only family.

"Ah! Mommy! She will know what to do. We need to bring her here..."

"Could you take care of her?" I asked one of the guards that was approaching me.

He was a part of the team that entered the base of assassins with us.

"I was ordered to help you deal with monsters, not to babysit a girl." complained the guard.

"Oh? Does it mean that while I search for her mother, you will manage to kill monsters like this in my stead? I am sure that the Captain will be very pleased." I said while pointing at the pile of ash.

"This is... fine. We will take care of her. Go help the others." said the guard.

After leaving the girl in their care, I rushed to others. I could feel through the bond that Phoenix was fine, but if they face another hellhound, there is a high risk of someone getting hurt. They are way too fast.

*

On the way to our party, I saw remains of arachne. Their bodies were full of holes, and one more was in unrecognizable shape, probably from explosions caused by fireballs. A bit further, a group of soldiers was fighting three more.

Warriors with shields were in the front while ones with spears and bows were supporting them from behind. They were working well as a team and monsters were slowly losing their ground.

When I saw Phoenix with the rest, I sighed in relief. The opponent of our party was 'only' one formida. Well, Phoenix was the one doing the fighting while the rest were helping to the soldiers.

Turion was on the roof of a building, sniping monsters with his ST2 gun. Precise shot to the head already reduced the number of arachne, to two.

I looked back at the fight of Phoenix.

A large swarm of firebolts was circling around the monster and one after another they launched at her from different angles. Formida, he was fighting, had markings on her body, just like Darson, so I guess our summoner has already used that spell on her. Well, with my knowledge I shared with him, Phoenix should be able to kill her...

Though why doesn't he fight her seriously? Those were just firebolts, not even fireballs. They deal almost zero damage to her. His fighting style was to bombard her with firebolts and teleport a distance away if she managed to get close.

Wait .. this is... ah, so this is why he didn't use stronger spells, those firebolts don't hit at random, Phoenix is trying to recreate my technique of resonating waves. That's .. an interesting idea, maybe I should try it as well... Though it seems that Phoenix needs a bit more practice. For this to work, the flight speed, angle, and force behind each attack of firebolt had to be performed with incredible accuracy .. and I noticed that the timing was a bit off. Still, with each passing second, he was getting better and better.

A worried look of Darson let me guess that the time of his spell was running out.

Well, it's only a matter of time before she is dead. I just hope he will make it in time and we don't lose money we could get from Darson. I looked at others and it was obvious they don't need my help either.

Miriel was standing out from the rest. She was floating in the air with a small tornado under her feet and was out of reach for monsters. With the wind looking like an extension of a large tail, she reminded me a mermaid. She was attacking with a gun too, but unlike others, was taking her time to aim. How I wish I could fly as well...

> Name: Miriel Deo Lartilua Health: 145/145 Level: 19 Mana: 1283/1320 Race: Elf Stamina: 143/147 Gender: Female Strength: 28 Age: 28 Agility: 30 Class: Sorceress Endurance: 39 Subclass: Enchanter Mind Power: 165 State: Healthy, Enslaved (Darson) Unallocated attribute points 0 > ACTIVE Mana Manipulation LVL 4 Lie Detection LVL 2 Meditation LVL 8 PASSIVE Eternal LVL 1 Nightvision LVL 2 Poison Resistance LVL 2 Enhanced Hearing LVL 3 Lightning Resistance LVL 2 Enhanced Sight LVL 3 Cold Resistance LVL 4 Acrobatics LVL 3 Mental Resistance LVL 1 Mana Perception LVL 8 Quick Cast LVL 2 Enhanced Mana Pool LVL 2 Handguns Mastery LVL 3 Martial Arts Mata Coun LVL 1 Accuracy LVL 6 > Lightning Magic LVL 3 Enchantment Magic LVL 4 Wind Magic LVL 4

Level 19, when we first meet, she probably was just above level ten. Unlike wizard class, she is limited to what she can learn, and she will never wield earth or water magic.

From the sight of her in the air, I wanted to get a better look at our surroundings as well .. we need to plan our next move.

Just before I teleported high in the air, I suddenly got an interesting idea. That's right, metal manipulation. I wonder if it will work...

I tried to gather used bullets from nearby corpses, but only a handful of them floated to me. Most of the bullets used in this fight were probably made by Phoenix and had no mark of my mana. Well, it's not like that amount would be enough anyway. I summoned few large chunks of metal from my dimension and started to work.

With my mana entering the metal I was able to control it and made it into a liquid. Very quickly I reshaped it into a disc, one meter in diameter and ten centimeters thick at the center. As later this might be used as a weapon, I made edges of the disk sharp.

Now, this is what I call blacksmithing!

I hopped on its now solid surface and with metal manipulation, started to 'lift' disk into the air.

"Hey, look, Melissa is flying too!" shouted Tia while pointing at me. "This isn't fair! I also want to fly!"

It works! I was afraid that metal manipulation uses my body as a lever. In that case, it would be impossible to lift myself like this, as it would be no different than lifting oneself by the hair.

Luckily it wasn't the case.

Enhanced Sight reached level 5. Enhanced Sight reached level 6.

High in the air, I looked at the city below. There were a few more monsters here and there but templars were already rushing there. As I looked at the edge of the city, I noticed a few more hellhounds leaping over the wall. Just how many of them slipped through the Outpost? As I looked behind the wall, I saw no more monsters that could be a threat.

Why all of them go straight to the city? Is this some kind of instinct? Doesn't matter, need to deal with those hellhounds immediately, even I had trouble with one, so there is no telling what will happen if they caught some soldiers or templars unprepared.

I wasted no time to descend and just teleported near the ground.

In the end, Phoenix managed to apply my martial arts to his magic and formida was dead.

Level Up.

You have reached level 22.

"Just two more..." whispered Darson with a grin.

Yep. Seems that Phoenix successfully secured a bit more gold.

"Master, I reached level twenty! What should I pick?" shouted Miriel with excitement.

"Finally! What does it offer? ..." it was easy to miss, as Darson was masking it well with his arrogance, but I noticed that he was genuinely happy for her. Wait. Does it mean he is tsundere?

"Darling, we need to hurry. There are two more hellhounds at the east." I walked to Phoenix.

*

Finding hellhounds took us more time than the actual fight. After my first fight with hellhound, I put my idea into a practice and used metal manipulation to suspend them in the air with bullets inside their body. It worked perfectly and after that, all we needed to do was to finish them off.

I absorbed mana of one, while Phoenix simply tossed a few fireballs at another. How ironic that a monster immune to fire died from it. Well, technically it was from an explosion, but it still shows that even with immunity to fire, one shouldn't think he is safe from all it can do.

Even with all that speed, hellhounds were unable to evade our bullets. Sure, they could effortlessly leap six meters or more, but I could easily match this by simply turning my gun a bit to the side. It's pointless to dodge before guns are even fired.

"There are few hellhounds nearby, have you seen them?" asked Magra who just rushed from a corner with some soldiers behind.

Miriel pointed at a few piles of ash on the ground and the orc stared at them for a moment before realized it was remains of monsters.

"Oh, I guess I should have expected this. Thank you for the help. Once this is all over I will make sure you are rewarded."

"No problem, I am sure it's within objectives of emergency requests the Guild has issued." smiled Phoenix. "Speaking of which we should head there, we need to inform we are participating."

"Go ahead, we can deal with the rest. I am sure they could use your help. If we need help in the city, we will send a signal to your guild badge like before. With your Space Time Magic it shouldn't be a probelm to get back." said Magra and looked in the direction of dungeon.

*

As we entered the Guild, there were very few people inside, and it was a very unusual sight.

"You there! What are you doing here?!" shouted receptionist when noticed us enter.

"We are here for an emergency request. We already helped with some monster within the city, those are their cores as a proof." said Phoenix while showing her monster cores from arachne and hellhounds we killed.

"This isn't time for that .. Wait! Those are hellhound cores! You must be B rank adventurers. Perfect! Please head to the Outpost, at the moment our Guild Master is there personally and he needs all the help he can get."