I am Cathie Scarlet, a C ranked adventurer from the town of Cloud Meadow. I am a magic only adventurer with all my skills centered on the usage of fire-related abilities. From my childhood, I showed extreme talent in flame magic and apprenticed under a wandering adventurer who also used fire-type magic. I followed her for a few years, learning everything I could about magic and monster hunting before returning to the village after she let me go.

Although I used to call her teacher all the time, I don’t know her name or even what she looked like. She always wore a red mask, with only a single eyehole top the right. I fear her, I also never dared myself to ask her that. She was, strong. Extremely strong! I once saw her burning a legion of monsters in minutes with her unique red flames.

Anyway, its due to her I learned the magic I am famous for in my town. People in my tiny little town call me ‘flame queen’ but they don’t know how embarrassed I am every time someone calls me that. Flame queen! Don’t kid with me! How can someone like being called like that? Not only it's flashy but also it doesn’t fit my cool and reserved personality. I would rather prefer not to have a nickname at all.

After returning to the village, I reunited with Leah, my childhood playmate and got to know about how she became an adventurer against her family’s wishes. In my town, among my age group, she was the only girl I could call my friend. Others, either steered clear away from me due to my overwhelming talent in magic or didn’t talk with me due to jealousy.

Leah and I collaborated to clear many high paying dangerous missions. Again, these people with nothing better to do gave us an embarrassing corny title, “the star duo”. To my chagrin, my friend Leah for some reason liked the title very much. Reluctantly I had to accept it.

Recently Leah was in distress over a matter. She was trying her hardest to level up to rank D, but due to her inability, she couldn’t. Unlike me, she didn’t have that much talent in magic. She was purely a close-range fighter and only knew some simple magic like ‘Physical Buff’ or ‘Agility Boost’. As such, even though she already accumulated enough experience to have her promotion, she always fell short in the most important section, her magic concentration. She had been trying for years and was unable to pass that final hurdle. With my help, she could even take on Rank-C monsters and defeat them… but the reality was too harsh on her.

Recently, as if rubbing salt on her wounds, her family made a deal with her. She had to pass her advancement before this month or else she would have to return home and be someone else’s bride. Knowing her, she would rather die than be a stay-at-home trophy wife, moreover the groom her family found for her was a well know douche in a neighboring town. How can she accept it? Forget about her, even I couldn’t accept it.

Therefore, we made a deal with the guild master of the Adventurer’s Union and took on this advancement job to hunt and kill an upper Rank-C monster. After days of looking around, we entered this dungeon infamous for its overabundance of such powerful monsters. Although it was unwise to come here with only two people, we were hard-pressed for time and didn’t have any other choice. We decided to hunt in the outer periphery of the dungeon and as soon as we successfully kill one, we will collect the proof and return.

Unfortunately, things didn’t go we wished. Forget about a strong monster, all we could find was slimes and those green hicks. Forget about using magic, I beat one of them to death with my magic casting stick. That’s how weak they were. Therefore, we walked a bit deeper. This time, however, our luck was good. We spotted a Snake-tailed Boar loitering around the corner.

This boar was huge, around a meter and a half with a body full of thick black fur. As its name implied, it had a snake for its tail. This snake had a very nasty ability to cast a spell that could immobilize the target for a few seconds. It could also exhale miasma mist every so often whose intake would even kill an elephant. Due to these two abilities and coupled with the boar’s natural over the top strength, it ranked among the top C-Rank monsters.

We couldn’t be anymore happier. Although this monster had strong abilities and was equally herculean, it was just too dumb compared to other monsters of equal rank. Hunting it would many times easier than hunting an actual rank-C monster. At first, it tried to engage us with full force, probably thought us as a bunch of low ranked ones that used to loiter around the outskirts of the dungeon. In fact, this dungeon was very famous for another reason, its high mortality rate. Every week raiders would come around and look for fallen corpses, not to give them proper burial but to loot their valuables. Therefore this boar thought we are also raiders, weak but daring.

And this simple-minded thought cost it quite a beating at the hands of Leah. Its snake-tail did freeze and poisoned her a few times but it wasn’t something I couldn’t handle. A shake of my hand and all the negative effects would vanish in a breeze of wind.

However, we underestimated the vitality of that boar. Just when we were getting complacent, it suddenly threw a plume of miasma to mine and Leah’s face and made a hasty retreat to one of many corridors of the dungeon. After curing the effects of the miasma, we followed behind its footsteps. At that time, however, we didn’t know what horrors waiting ahead.

As we passed through one of the hallways, suddenly a white needle hit Leah. It was just the beginning of the nightmare. At first, a few dozens of goblins flanked us, attacking from all sides. Since those were only F-ranked monsters, it wasn’t a problem for both of us to get rid of them, but that’s when the situation got weirder.

A never-ending goblin army attacked us nonstop. With these green creatures surrounding us from all sides, we could neither advance nor retreat. Gritting our teeth, we could only continue to fight this unfair battle. But we are humans and all humans have a limit. As we rapidly approached that limit, our movements got sluggish and we started to make mistakes here and there.

“Cathie, we can’t go on like this…” Leah kicked a goblin approaching her from the bottom then jumped back, and stood with her back facing me. She was panting heavily.

“I know, but what can we do?” I shook my head. In fact, I too was approaching my magic limit. A few more casts were all I was capable of. Then the situation turned for the worst again, one of those group-leader level goblins came with a huge backup. It extinguished whatever remaining hope we had.

“Oh shit, Cathie are you seeing this? What is this? Why the hell does this floor have so many goblins?” Leah screamed in fright as soon as saw the horde. Even I was spooked at the scene and felt goosebumps all over. Logically speaking, monsters would never gang up unless we specifically raid their habitat, but now we were only moving in the hallway, which was nowhere close to their habitat, what was this situation?

“Leah, we should better run. Let’s open a path and make haste.” I pointed my wand towards a bunch standing behind us, blocking our exit and sent a ball of a scalding hot fireball. It was one of many fire type skills in my arsenal, which I learned during my travel with my teacher. The fireball burned a path among the goblins, but it was soon refilled by a dozen more. No matter what we did, the situation looked like a sure death trap.

Amidst this, Leah said something stupid.

She had the gall to say “Cathie, run away while I hold these things back. You can not go on anymore!” I admit due to over drafting my magic, it had started to affect my life force. I ran out of magic a while ago, and to cast skills, I had to trade my life force for it. Didn’t she know how much I care for her? She was my only friend who wasn’t fake and pretentious.

And it seems even a usually dumb girl like her could tell what’s happening sometimes. Seeing my complexion, she advised me, again and again, to stop using my magic… but as a magic caster, without my magic, I would be a burden to her. I am neither physically strong nor agile enough to run away, my strength revolved around the magic I know.

Thus, after a little struggle, I decided to use the remaining life force to cast the strongest spell I know and create a path for Leah. Knowing these goblins, if they catch us alive a fate worse than death itself await us in those dark, stinky and dirty caves they call home.

A life full of humiliation and a baby-making factory!? Yeah right, I would rather die of life force depletion.

After some words and promises, she finally decided to heed my advice and run away… well not before promising to bring back help to rescue her. Nodding to her absentmindedly, I cast a huge green fireball that had a tendency to explode when touching a solid object, successfully opening a path for her. It's only after she vanished from my sight did I lose my ‘cool’ persona. I was afraid to die and that was displayed perfectly on my face. I was even more afraid to be a captive of these goblins… again that too was displayed on my face. With no Leah around, there was no need for me to pretend to be calm.

That earlier fireball went off in a huge explosion and wiped out nearly all of the goblins surrounding me. The price I had to pay was steep too. I lost 70% of my life force with that one and now I am only a dried-up husk with only skins and bones. Even my vibrant green hair turned paler.

Ah… what a waste~

But, at that time when my future was bleak and I was at the end of my road, I met him. An Imp who not only saved me from goblins and death from my own hands but also helped me to recover and even become stronger than before. Of course, it’s a story for another time.