At least I could take solace in the fact that the monsters surrounding us weren’t as large or as tough as the ones I had hunted during the tournament. On the other hand, they were present in far larger number, while there were far fewer of us to keep them busy.

Now that we had entered the inner reaches of the forest, the trees stood so tall and wide that their roots spread over the forest floor to keep them stable. The horde of frog-like creatures that had surrounded us took full advantage of that fact by jumping from root to root, making it difficult to keep track of each one. The creatures were clearly some kind of evolved form of the horned frogs we had fought earlier, though they seemed a little different from before. Their horns were still present and they had grown in size, but the form had regressed. Now, their back half looked like the tail of a fish, with two flippers servicing as hind legs. These flippers were surprisingly effective at catapulting off of flat surfaces.

Their hunting tactics had advanced as well, because, from the way they were eying us while jumping around, I could tell they hadn’t decided if we were easy prey or not yet.

Unwilling to give them the initiative, I acted first. I felt the mana squirm beneath my skin as my channels overloaded. Like rivers breaking their banks, the mana spilled into the real world, where it gained its typical black coloration and physical form, a long onyx chain that circles around Emeri and me.

“Why are you antagonizing them?” Emeri asked in a hurried whisper.

I frowned. Was she not used to fighting monsters? These were creatures that acted based on instinct. If we came across as passive, they would consider us an easy target. Better to kill a score of them and chase off the rest.

“I’ll explain later. Let’s kill a few first.” I answered, before whipping my chain around in the trajectory of one of the amphibious creatures and slashing it in half. The back end of the chain followed my initial strike, catching another one in the front leg, and tearing it off in one go.

At this sight, the frogs shot into a frenzy and redirected their next launch right at us, but my chains were there to stop them. Emeri then stabbed a few more monsters through the gaps in my defence and used a skill to make the wounds she left to explode in golden light.

The smaller ones died just from that, but the bigger monsters retreated once they’d been wounded.

The horde continued their relentless assault, but they were too big to take advantage of the gaps my chains left. I, instead, could throw some overloaded orbs through, which caught the occasional frog in their blast radius, sending them sprawling and making them an easy kill as long as I used a sword arc.

Like this, our slaughter continued for a few more minutes, resulting in more and more monsters dying. By the time we had piled up nearly four dozen corpses, the horde, which hadn’t visibly thinned until that point, relented and retreated, launching themselves into the treeline and disappearing from view.

The rowdy, chaotic forest instantly became much quieter, allowing us to take a breather.

Ding! Combat finished. Congratulations on reaching [Hollow essence Knight] level 48!

I moved to distribute my free points to my physical stats like usual, but decided to hold off instead. My intelligence had nearly reached the next milestone, which could prove to be quite useful in the long run, so I decided to wait and decided later. Even if I invested all twenty points now, I would still be four points short of 300 anyway.

Once the dust had settled, we took a look at the remains of our enemies.

Dismembered monster corpses lay sprawled around us, their purple blood painting the nearby plants and soaking the undergrowth at our feet. Moving on foot became difficult because the dirt had turned into bloody mud, but we managed to tally our hunt.

“That’s 43 corpses in total.” I commented neutrally.

“Why… why did you have to fight like that? They were sizing us up, we could have just scared them off…” Emeri muttered, her equipment still purple from all of the blood.

Her comment threw me off guard, I had to admit. Why fight monsters? What kind of life had she lived until now? Nonetheless, I kept my cool.

“If you don’t mind, how did you gain your levels until now? Dungeons, monsters, people?”

Emeri seemed horrified by the last option, and quickly shook her head.

“No, no I… the church provides undead for me to train against, usually. I… haven’t killed many living creatures until now, apart from the tournament. Even then, I wasn’t… I didn’t want to do that, but I had to.”

I frowned, before leaning down to sit on one of the monster’s corpses. She had lived a sheltered life, to be sure. Her lack of understanding was not only unjust, but also dangerous. Even if I didn’t feel empathy the same way others felt it, I knew for a fact that monsters deserved none.

“Emeri, when did you join the church again?”

Not expecting the change of topic, she did a double-take before replying.

“When I was 7, why?”

“Right. Did you have parents, siblings, or friends at the time? What did they think of monsters?”

A pained look flashed across Emeri’s face and she averted her eyes.

“I can’t remember.” I thought I heard her whisper.

“What was that?” I asked, not hearing her properly.

“I said I can’t remember, okay!” she replied heatedly, anger apparent in her eyes. “I can’t remember a thing from that time. I just woke up in the church one day with no memories!”

“Oh…” I murmured. “Sorry…”

I sighed. Hitting such a sore point hadn’t been my intent, but it had nonetheless been the end result. Still, the point I was trying to make still stood.

“Listen, most people see monsters as the ultimate evil in this world.” I explained. “Just like us, they grow with each act of violence. Unlike us, they don’t possess the intelligence, at least not at first, to use that strength appropriately. Many villages and even towns in Roa are levelled every year by monster hordes. In worse cases, even a single monster can destroy a town before anyone strong enough appears to take it down. I don’t hate these creatures, they serve their own role in our world after all, but I have no love lost for them, either.”

“They’re still living creatures…” Emeri whimpered, looking into the treeline, still embarrassed from her previous outburst. She wasn’t budging, so I tried another approach.

“Emeri, just imagine the most deranged necromancer. This person feels no empathy and is even willing to sacrifice children to fulfill his own craving. This person grows more and more powerful with every heinous action, yet has no ambition to ever build anything of his own. As a result, all other warriors mostly leave him alone, since he doesn’t threaten their position. Until an opponent just happens to be in the area, the necromancer will continue to slaughter.”

“That’s horrible!” Emeri couldn’t help but exclaim.

“And yet, every last monster behaves this way. If they’re hungry, they’ll eat children. If they’re in the mood, they’ll hunt creatures of their own kind to increase their power, and so on. The only difference between the necromancer and monsters is that the necromancer should know better. He’s human, so he’s expected to care for others at least a little, while monsters can’t help themselves. At the end of the day, though, the harm they inflict stays.” I finished.

Emeri seemed pensive, though it seemed she was starting to understand my point.

“I agree with your point, but in all likelihood, these monsters would never leave the forest and therefore, never hurt humans. We’re the ones intruding on their territory, to satisfy our needs!”

I laughed. “Then, do you want to retreat and let Agard’s wife die?”

Her face twisted at the thought, making me laugh even more.

“Exactly.” I continued. “We have conflicting interests with these monsters, and the strongest will get their just reward. Such is the way of the system.” I finished, getting up.

“Come on, chin-up. Let’s go find this plant. You remember what it looks like, right?” I asked with a smile.

Still contemplative, Emeri rose and joined me.

“Yeah. I’ll recognize it when we come across it.” She affirmed quietly.

Like this, we headed deeper into the forest, unaware of what awaited us.