Ellis looked up at the sky.

He couldn’t actually see the sky, only the endless canopy of trees that covered the forest. Rays of light occasionally pierced through the leaves and illuminated the world around him.

For the past few months, the forest had been bombarded with heavy rainfall. It was a downpour decorated with the occasional lightning flash and crackling thunder. Strong winds passed through the leaves and rattled the branches.

The forest floor wasn’t quite as affected as the outside world. The trees blocked off most of the rain. Still, even if it was only a mild drizzle, the air still felt damp and humid. For a man who walked around naked all the time, this was certainly not the best weather to be in.

Luckily, the weather had begun to clear up. Not a single drop of rain had fallen for the last three days.

Ellis surmised that the region that the forest was in had only two types of seasons: a hot season and a wet season. Usually, places like these tended to be located near the equator. It wasn’t much, but this discovery gave Ellis a rough understanding of his current location relative to the rest of the world.

Looking up at the canopy, he could picture the bright burning sun hovering over a clear, cloudless sky.

Today was another ordinary day.

The group was walking along the bank of the river when Ena’s ears suddenly perked up.

“Oh?” Ellis noticed the change and looked over.

Usually, Ena would not even bother reacting whenever monsters came running out of the underbrush to attack them. To her, those types of enemies were simply nuisances, things that she could not even bother dealing with.

There were very few things in this world that could cause her to react like that. He wondered whether or not she had found another dragon. Ena really ‘loved’ dragons, after all.

To his surprise, she shook her head.

“No? It’s not dragons?” Ellis thought for a moment. “Then is it a strong enemy?”

A strong adversary was probably the only other thing that could cause Ena to react like that.

There were very few monsters within this forest that Ellis’s group of freaks would consider strong. In this case, strong monsters referred to those that rivaled the hydra in power. So far, they had met five such creatures.

Ellis liked to refer to these guys as Boss-class monsters. In a sense, they were exactly that: monsters that lorded over a small chunk of the forest.

After the encounter with the hydra, Ena would occasionally drag their group away from the river and venture deep into the forest. Sometimes, these trips lasted only for a few days. Other times, it took upwards of five months to finish. These trips always ended with an encounter with a boss-class monster.

Ellis concluded that these guys were like kings of their own little hill. They lorded over a specific area of the forest, like little overlords playing kingdom.

For him, they served as perfect training partners. The rest of the group viewed these encounters rather differently from Ellis’s lackadaisical attitude. For Wight and the wolves, they were life-and-death experiences. They also happened to be the perfect stimulus for their growth. It pushed them to the very brink and allowed their untapped potential to overflow.

Their current strength was only possible thanks to these constant encounters.

The Bosses of this forest rivaled the hydra in strength. Of course, that was only in terms of the hydra in its initial form (14 heads).

The strongest monster that they encountered was a creature that resembled a giant t-rex. It had possessed strength that was about half as strong as the hydra’s final form (pure estimation). Back then, everyone almost died (except him, of course). A harrowing experience, but nonetheless, it contributed to their growth.

Since it had been a monster with a dragon-like appearance, naturally, they looted its entire corpse. Whether that were bones, blood, scales, even its teeth, they took everything.

Although the memories of those sleepless nights of descaling still sent shivers down his spine, reminiscing over the past brought a slight smile to his lips.

“Is it actually a strong enemy?” He repeated again.

Ena looked somewhat conflicted. After some hesitation, she shrugged her shoulders. She made an expression as if to say, “It’s only so-so.”

“Eh, then it’s not worth pursuing. Why even bring it up?” Even Ellis had grown disdainful of all the cannon fodder that constantly attacked them. Rather than the excitement of battle, those guys only served to annoy him.

In response, the little fox shook her head. She made a few gestures with her paws. In the end, she told him that there was no point in finding it. The monster in question was heading straight towards them.

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“Oh?” Ellis raised his brow. He felt somewhat surprised. Usually, they were the ones who chased after strong enemies, never the other way around.

Before he could think any further, he heard a noise coming from somewhere in the distance. Turning around, he saw something break past the tree line. Ellis furrowed his brow.

“That’s a…”

It was a creature that resembled a troll. Humanoid in shape, but feral in appearance. It had a large hunched back and pale-yellow skin covered in welts. Its arms were thick and muscular while its legs were short and stout. Its most notable feature was the pot belly sticking out from its gut.

The Troll mindlessly rushed towards them.

As he watched, Ellis noticed a peculiarity. For some reason, its eyes were hazy. There was something wrong with its mind.

With one glance, he was able to ascertain a few things. This thing was a little bit weaker than a normal Boss-class monster. Still, it was fairly stronger than most. It stood at a height of fifty feet, a somewhat average height for the creatures of this forest.

Ellis was concerned about its eyes.

Was it drugged? Poisoned maybe? Umbra knew how to produce hallucinogenic poisons with his ability, so it wasn’t that farfetched to imagine that there was someone else out there capable of a similar feat. Still, to his understanding, poisonous monsters were quite rare within this forest. Maybe it was something else. A flower or plant might be able to produce a similar effect.

He wasn’t very sure about the whole thing, but that was a problem for a later time. For now, he needed to deal with this overzealous guest.

After some thought, he decided to confront the Troll head on. Since it was a rare humanoid monster, it was the perfect opportunity to practice his rusty spearmanship.

He held his spear and swung at the approaching beast. In an instant, he sliced off its arm. The severed appendage fell to the floor with a wet squelch.

Ellis was about to swing again when he suddenly widened his eyes in surprise.

The arm that he had just cut off, it instantly regenerated!

For the first time, he was thoroughly startled. The Boss-class monsters that he had encountered all possessed some form of enhanced recovery, but they paled in comparison to the hydra, who possessed the ability to regrow its heads. The troll’s high-speed regeneration was on a whole other level. Its arm grew back in almost a blink of an eye!

“…” Ellis thought for a moment. He then turned to Ena. “When I give the signal, you send out a fireball, got it? Make sure you aim for its left arm.”

“Kyuu!” Ena nodded.

She did not know what her master was planning, but that didn’t really matter all that much to her. Ena’s eyes were still locked onto the distant forest.

Ellis was too preoccupied to realize her abnormal state. He glared at the troll and quietly waited for it to approach.

The creature let out a loud roar before it dashed forward!

Ellis suddenly shouted, “Now!”

At the same time, he moved in to strike. His figure blurred, a black bolt of lightning descended down onto the Troll’s left arm. The arm came flying off.

Almost at the exact same time as when he severed its arm, a searing ball of flame rocketed towards the Troll.

BOOM!

The smell of burning flesh filled the air. When the smoke cleared, he saw clearly that its arm had been transformed into nothing more than a burnt stump. For a moment, he thought it had worked. Unfortunately, he was proven wrong a mere five seconds later.

Although somewhat slower than last time, the creature’s high-speed regeneration still kicked in. Its new arm looked no different from the old.

“That didn’t work either…” Ellis muttered to himself.

The Troll once again charged. He reacted by kicking it. The creature soared through the air before it crashed into a tree nearly one hundred feet away.

With this, Ellis now had a bit more time to think.

Will cutting its head work? He felt somewhat hesitant at the thought. If it was like the hydra and had the ability to also regrow its head, then he would truly be left with no other option short of drowning it in the river.

“Wait, that’s a brilliant idea!” He unconsciously blurted out to himself.

“I’ll just drown it in the river. Going by how heavily this thing panted, surely it still needs to breathe.”

By this point, the Troll had recovered. It got up, shook its head, and once again attacked. In response, a slight smirk floated to his lips. Ellis rushed forward and jumped onto its neck. He grabbed the creature by its ears and stirred it towards the river.

The wolves seemingly understood his intentions. They tackled the Troll’s back, further pushing it forward.

SPLASH!

Like that, the Troll and Ellis both fell into the river.

Although the river was a bit shallower than before, it was still considerably deep. When they first hit the water, the Troll struggled quite fiercely. Still, Ellis was persistent. He clung to the creature with a standard chokehold.

Bubbles danced all around him. No matter how fiercely it fought, Ellis held on tightly. It eventually realized that getting rid of the bug on its back was next to impossible. At that point, the Troll attempted to swim back to shore.

Naturally, he stopped it.

He wrestled the thing even deeper into the river. Ellis was quite adept at holding his breath. He had tested it out previously. He could go twelve hours without needing to surface. Back then, the only reason he eventually did surface was because he had gotten bored. If push comes to shove, Ellis could probably go for even longer.

After a grueling six hours underwater, the Troll finally lost its strength. After a while, the last of the air escaped from its lungs. A single bubble left its mouth and rose to the surface. Five more minutes later, the Troll passed out.

Ellis could tell that it wasn’t quite dead yet, and only just lost consciousness. At this point, he breathed out a sigh.

Thank god this worked. It would’ve seriously sucked had this not worked. He would have wasted six hours for nothing.

He grabbed the unconscious troll by the foot and dragged it back to the surface.

“Ah, I’m finally back!” He couldn’t help but shout the moment he broke through the water’s surface. “My plan worked.”

Ellis shouted towards the wolves, but when he looked over, he immediately froze.

“…!”

Sitting there, surrounded by seven wolves and one fox, was a single woman. The woman looked clearly frightened. The wolves bared their teeth at her. They growled and snarled. Even Ena showed wariness on her face.

The lady had pale skin and dark lines beneath her eyes. She wore a sloppy outfit that consisted of an unbuttoned white blouse and a torn skirt. Due to the nature of her outfit, a large portion of her chest was visible. From his initial observations, Ellis concluded one thing: it was a very bountiful bust.

For some reason, she was wearing a witch’s hat.

Right now, she sat on her knees with her back straight and her hands in her lap.

The lady looked up at him. A peculiar gaze colored her face.

Ellis stared back.

“…”

This woman… she was the first person he had ever encountered in over six years.