The foliage of trees ended and the scenery of a monster hunt gone wrong presented itself. There were a handful of bodies lying around lifeless and torn to shreds across the ground. Upon closer inspection, the bodies and surrounded trees were charred black as if something roasted them. From the ones alive, it looked like more than half of the group had already perished.

Now this monster I recognized since it was listed in the monster compendium. Flame trike, a fire attribute magic beast and not just your average one, but at its peak nearing evolution. Flame trikes are known for their large size and three horns, but as they absorb more power can eventually condense and change forms. Condensing all that power into a smaller physique allowed it to become overall enhanced in every category of strength.

I won’t make it in time. The sight of the three horns charging up flames, readying to blast at the rest of the group. The feeling in my legs as they pushed off the ground felt different and before I knew it, I soared across the field, next to the trike in an instant. To my surprise, my reflexes took over, and I punched as hard as possible into the side of the beast’s head. It looked as if I made a skip and hop into a jab all in one swift motion.

My fist exploded into a shock wave of force on contact with the massive eight-ton beast. The trike lifted off its feet ever so slightly, losing its balance and tipping over with a loud thump. The ricocheting pressure shook leaves off the surrounding trees as I confirmed with certainty what the Feral ape’s core bestowed.

I found its weakness and wanted to end this immediately by unsheathing my only dagger and gutting the trike’s throat in one swift motion. The horns dispersed weak intermittent flames as it tried to get up, only to fall back down bleeding to death. I felt sad that I prevented its long-awaited evolution and hoped it would forgive me.

“It’s safe now.” I calmed the rest of the survivors.

Surveying the survivors, there seemed to be nine alive and the leader or the new leader in charge stepped forward to speak. “Thank you for your help.”

Something felt off with this person, so I wanted to handle this fast and leave.

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“Let’s divide the spoils fifty-fifty and get out of here before we’re ambushed by more monsters.”

“We won’t be sharing our monster. Our team has made huge sacrifices and we won’t allow you to steal our blood and sweat.” It was his tone and the way he talked as if above me that gave me the bad vibe earlier.

I looked at the others behind him as they allowed him to dictate the way things worked. An unsightly and pitiful bunch of injured people, some with burnt arms and legs and others with blood dripping from wounds.

“How does that make sense? I came because of your emergency flare and saved your lives.” I got upset that I even had to argue about this stupid scenario.

“The one who cast the flare is no longer alive, and we had it under control.” Was he not in the least fearful of me killing their whole group and taking everything for myself? Where does this retarded boldness come from? To think I was contemplating asking Eris to heal their injuries once she arrived.

“Don’t bother begging for help next time.” I turned around in a foul mood, leaving through the same path entered without hearing any response.

I re-entered the tree cover as Eris and Veera appeared right in front of me. “We’re leaving.” Neither of them said anything and followed silently.

Now I felt extremely sad about killing the flame trike, its life was many times more valuable than those stupid hunters. I apologize beforehand for all the monsters in my path as I took out my anger on them. The next few hours consisted of continuous killing with very minimal to no downtime between salvaging a kill and our next target.

At the beginning, Veera’s face was filled with shock, but quickly switched gears to keep pace with filling up her cart. The cart was fully packed with many monster parts by the time my anger tapered away. I noticed that not only did the Feral ape give me enhanced super strength, it also increased my resistance to all forms of magic.

This discovery was a major factor in lifting my mood since from the beginning, I was always at a disadvantage against magic, but not anymore. The other factor being all the money we were making from the materials collected.

We had no luck running into another non-attribute beast and opted to back to the outpost before nightfall. By now Veera had seen most of our capabilities and didn’t feel scared being alone with us. Eris even healed her minor injuries she sustained during the crossfire of several monster kills.

Veera suddenly became the most important person in our group, using her water magic to clean our clothes and bodies of dirt, sweat, and blood. This saved so much time, not having to wash up before entering the outpost, and erased our scent allowing a squeaky clean commute back.