The spell shot from Astrid’s staff hitting the monster, knocking it to the ground. However, it didn’t take it many moments to get back up, and Astrid feared she wouldn’t have mana enough to slay it using only her staff.

"Run!” she shouted to the startled farmers standing in the field she had been tasked to protect. She fired another blast at the monster and sprinted towards it, hoping to get it to attack her instead of the fleeing farmers.

As she got closer, she got a good enough view of the monster to identify it as a shadow creeper. To her great relief, it was only in level one. Its elongated body was covered in scales, and countless tiny legs kept it close to the ground. As it turned its face towards her, she noticed the ring of sharp teeth glinting in the fading light. The mouth took up most of its face and looked big enough to snap off a head in one bite.

Cold shivers ran down her back at the sight, yet she didn’t let that deter her as she continued her frantic dash to intersect the monster. Deciding to use her mana sparingly, she pulled out her dagger and picked up the pace even more. The monster’s attention was now on her, and she dodged to the side as it launched itself at her. Then she jammed her knife into its neck.

The monster didn’t seem particularly bothered by getting stabbed, and too late she remembered that her dagger didn’t do much damage unless she caught her target by surprise. The Shadow creeper lifted its body into the air, pulling Astrid, who was still holding on to the dagger, up with it. Dangling with her feet ten feet above the ground, her grip on the dagger began to loosen. She screamed as the monster began swinging its head, and she held on as tightly as she could, feeling the leather-wrapped handle digging into her skin.

However, the effort was futile as the dagger slipped out of the wound and she was flung through the air, landing hard on the ground. Pain shot through her body, and the wind was knocked from her lungs, but she had no time to recover before the monster struck again. Roling to the side, she barely avoided the mouth full of sharp teeth that snapped at the ground right where she had been a moment ago.

Astrid got back on her feet, ignoring the pain radiating through her limbs. There had to be some damage, but she didn’t dare check her stats in the middle of a fight. Besides, she could still move, so the damage couldn’t be too bad.

The Shadow creeper stared right at her, and she knew she had to come up with something soon if she were to defeat this monster. Her dagger wouldn’t be much help without its backstab attack, as the damage its normal attack did was weak. Astrid was about to unleash another basic blast when a previously unseen spell struck the monster in the side. The monster collapsed on the ground and didn’t get back up. She looked in the direction the attacks had come from and saw four other guards rushing towards her.

“Are you okay?” A man asked slightly out of breath. He was tall and lean with straw-colored hair. He held a quarter staff in his hand, so it was probably him who had cast the spell. Astrid recognized him as the leader of the city’s monster-slaying team. He and the rest of his team had approached her in the job hall once and offered to protect her during her harvesting quests, but she had turned him down, confident that she could take care of herself.

She also recognized two of the remaining three people as being part of that team. She had met them multiple times since the day in the job hall, as they often stood guard when she left or entered the city. Both of them were carrying swords.

“I think so.” Astrid said, looking at the monster. It still hadn’t moved, so it was safe to assume it had died. “Thanks for the help.”

“Don’t mention it. Just doing our job. I don’t think I ever introduced myself. I’m Walter.”

“I’m Astrid, but I think you already know that.”

“You took quite the fall. Are you sure you’re okay?” The last member of the group asked. Astrid hadn’t seen him before. He had dark skin, and his black hair was short and curly. He was dressed in a white robe and held a quarterstaff tightly in his left hand. “I’m a priest of medicine, so I can heal you.”

“No need. I still have plenty of health, so I’ll be fine.” She still didn’t feel comfortable about healers tending to her while the cloak made her appear older, as she feared they’d see right through her disguise. “Did all the farmers get away safely?” she looked around, noticing that they had all disappeared.”

“Yes, the other guards escorted them all back inside the city. It’s getting too dark to continue the harvest anyway, so we should get back inside ourselves.”

They began walking back to the city, keeping their guards up in case more monsters decided to attack. There was only the faintest hint of gray light left where the sun had set, and the rest of the sky was dark and speckled with stars. A torch burned on either side of the city gate, which made it easy to see. It also made the surrounding darkness seem even darker, and Astrid had to fight the urge to make herself invisible so any lurking monsters wouldn’t be able to see her. However, with all the other people around her, turning invisible wasn’t an option.

“So, Astrid, have you changed your mind about joining our team yet?” Walter asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You turned down the offer when Ina and Jerrik asked, but I thought that maybe now that you have seen what a strong team can do, you’d change your mind. So, I’d just let you know that the offer is still standing.”

Astrid remembered the offer, and she also remembered all her reasons for turning it down. Firstly, her fighting technique relied heavily on the tools and tricks she had gotten from the god of Deception and those would be difficult to hide in a team. Secondly, there was her double identity and the fact she was trying to live two lives at once. With all her other activities, adding monster slayer training wouldn’t be possible. There simply weren’t enough hours in a day to do it all.”

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“I’m not interested. I prefer to fight on my own,” she replied. “Why do you want me on your team anyway?”

“There aren’t many monster slayers left in the city after the failed expedition, and it takes years to train up new recruits. You’re a capable fighter, and you're tough. You took at least some damage from that monster, and you still kept fighting. Even now you’re walking around like nothing happened.”

“It probably looked worse than it was,” Astrid defended. She had already forgotten she had been hurt in the fight.

“Oh yeah? How much damage did you take then?”

“Eight health points,” Astrid said after a quick glance at her stats.

“See that what I mean. Everyone else on my team would have been in dire need of healing if they had taken that much damage, but you act like it's nothing.

“I have a bit more than ten health points, so losing eight isn’t a big deal for me.” She didn’t want to give a specific number because it was already known that her younger self had over twenty health points, and it would be suspicious if it were known that both she and her 'sister’ had the exact same amount of health when it was so uncommon to grow it outside of the bonus gained from leveling up a skill.

“How much extra?” Ina asked, shattering Astrid’s hope that she could get out of this conversation without relaying any more information.

“It’s over twenty,” she said, hoping it would satisfy the others.

“So, its from a bonus, then?” Jerrik asked. “Which skill?”

“No, I didn’t level up any skill to give me a health bonus. I have just been through a lot.” She briefly considered lying about leveling up a skill, but since she didn’t have the abilities to back it up, it would be easy to find out that she wasn’t telling the truth.

“So, both you and your little sister have more than double the normal health. That’s disturbing. Walter said. “I’d never have thought faming was that dangerous.”

“It isn't,” the priest of medicine said. “I have tended to multiple farmers, and few of them have more than ten health unless it's from a level-up bonus.”

Astrid felt the blood drain from her face. Had this guy just seen through all her lies? Was he going to tell on her?

“Come on, Kelan, you saw how she got up after that fall. You can’t mean you don’t believe she has a lot of health.”

“Oh, I do believe her. I just doubt it's from farming alone. Although it’s not uncommon for people to get injured while working, and farming has more occupational hazards than many other jobs, it would still have had to have happened more than ten times for her to get above twenty health points. That’s a lot for someone this young. Especially since each time your health increases, it takes a little more damage to get to the point where you’ll gain additional growth. Surely her parents would have stepped in if she repeatedly got hurt while working.”

The mention of her parents felt like someone had stabbed her in the heart with a dagger, and it took a lot of effort not to let it show. Likely the darkness helped mask her pained expression.

“So how do you explain it then?” Walter asked.

“Monster attacks surely account for some of it, at least for Astrid. She fights them along and seems willing to take a lot more risk than the rest of us.”

“What about Sigrid then?”

“How do you know about my sister?”

“Villads is my little brother. He told me about the incident at school.”

“What incident?” Jerrik asked.

“Nothing,” Astrid said, hoping again that this topic of conversation would be dropped.

“One of Sigrid’s classmates tried to kill her with a fully powered spell.”

“That’s awful. Is she okay?” Ina said.

“She’s fine. The attack barely hurt her at all.”

“Still the intend was on her life, so surely she’s shaken up about it. surely, you’re shaken up about it as well.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” Sure, someone had tried to kill her but failed miserably, so no real harm was done. That meant she was fine. She had to be. It was no worse than all the other things that had happened to her lately. All the other times she had almost died. If she just didn’t think about it, she could keep going.

“I’m still curious how your sister got so much extra health though,” Jerrik said. Since it’s not from farming or monster slaying.

“Some people are just unlucky and get hurt a lot.” Kelan said with a shrug.

Astrid realized that he had basically just called her clumsy. How dared he? She was about to tell him off when she realized it would only keep the group focused on the topic she desperately wanted to change. Since the other seemed satisfied with Kelan’s answer, this would be her best chance to change the topic without it seeming too obvious.

“You mentioned a failed expedition earlier. What happened?”

“Well,” Walter said. “There was an attempt to clear the dungeon. Well, multiple attempts, which all failed.”

Astrid shuddered at the word dungeon, but hopefully the others would think it was because of the chilly night air. “I think I have heard others mention it. That’s the reason why there’s hardly any monster slayers left in Largon.

“Yes, although I doubt those, we called monster slayers would classify as that anywhere else. We don’t have any official school for monster slaying in Largon, as all our monsters are low-level ones. Those who want to be real monster slayers travel to Okiergon to train and don’t come back.”

Okiergon was the capital of the kingdom where the king lived. It lay almost on the other side of the continent. For those who couldn’t catch a ride on a boat, it would take weeks to walk. If she remembered her map correctly, there would also be several mountain passes to cross on the journey. Astrid couldn’t imagine going through all that.

“Those sent to fight monsters here were basically just anyone with weapons training—archers, swordfighters, combat magicians, and the like.” Walter continued his story. ”The same people normally do guard duties at the city gate or privately for their families. We were all still students back then, so I only know what I’ve heard from others, but they sent out a team of five of the best fighters to clear the dungeon once it became apparent the monsters were becoming a problem in this area. The team never returned, so they’re all presumed dead. Then the mayor asked the king for help but was denied, stating the city should be able to handle a situation like this on its own. Another team was sent to the dungeon. His time it was seven highly trained people, but again no one returned, and again the king denied offering assistance. Some months passed, but the monster problem got worse and worse, so the mayor decided to send all but a few fighters to clear the dungeon. Over a hundred people went. Once again, no one returned. This was years ago, and the situation has only gotten worse since then. The mayor refuses to fund another expedition, but I can’t really blame her for that. I doubt anyone would be willing to go anyway, and we can’t afford to lose more fighters either. Well, we graduated shortly after the failed expedition, and I began to put together this team, although we are still looking for members. The hope is we’ll be able to keep the monsters at bay until we’re strong enough to clear the dungeon ourselves or until a miracle happens.