Crusher Kevin, steel-ranked adventurer, whistled as he strolled down the dusty road leading to his new life.

“Hey bro, are you sure this was a good idea, coming out to the boonies like this just for a small promotion?” his sister Amy asked from the side.

“A promotion I never would have gotten back at Starfort, you know that” he replied. “The guild needed an experienced swordsman to come over to Terra and teach these newcomers the ropes, and I just barely fit the bill.”

Kevin thought they'd already been over this, but she continued “Yeah, but is it really worth it? You're steel ranked, you completely outrank anything in the area. There's going to be nothing good to buy. If you want to find any monsters or materials worth a damn you'll have to back track all the way to the Pathways to find anything decent. And a guild rank up will be impossible out here, because there's no decent requests. There's a reason most people only take these kinds of jobs when they want to retire and live a peaceful life”

“Hey, don't knock a peaceful life until you've tried it” he chuckled. “But this is all an investment for the future. These people need a guiding hand to help them adjust to their new circumstances, and by providing that hand we'll be able to put ourselves in positions of authority ahead of time, and they'll owe us a debt of gratitude later, when they get stronger.”

“Hmph, that's assuming we have a future here. I've heard whispers about the Empire trying to expand over here” Amy snorted derisively.

Kevin hadn't wanted to get into that discussion with his worrywart of a sister, but... “Yeah, they are” he admitted.

“WHAT?” Amy yelled. “And you still accepted the job? Are you crazy!”

“It's not as bad as it sounds.” Kevin tried to console her. “The Empire doesn't always try for conquest. According to the intel the guild has scrounged up, they accepted a nearby group as a subordinate 'nation', but that group is very diplomatic in its dealings with outsiders.”

“That doesn't make them any less dangerous” she huffed.

“It'll be fine. The Empire shouldn't have the manpower to truly try to expand outside of their little dome any time soon. Not after their last disastrous war against Oswaldia” Kevin added derisively.

“Just because they shouldn't, doesn't mean they won't try anyways” she grumbled. Kevin knew she had a point, but still felt the job was worth the risk.

“You didn't have to follow me. I'm set to receive a trainer position with the guild, which will set me up nicely, but you're nearly steel rank yourself. What are you going to do out here?” he pointed out.

Amy stuck her tongue out playfully at her brother “I don't know, maybe I'll try to get a trainer position too.”

“What? As a magic trainer? Good luck with that. You know how the guild feels about new assimilations.” he said, before adding mockingly “A bunch of primitives who are only good at waving around sticks. Throwing magic at them is like throwing gold at a bunch of toads.”

Kevin thought it was unfair for the few true talents that inevitably popped up in each new world, but experience had shown that most worlds took centuries to develop a decent pool of magical talent.

Amy snickered “Heh, that just means I have to find some promising disciples. Those old farts will change their minds if I make it worth their while.”

“Really, though, you didn't need to follow me. Was it your old team? I knew you had some issues with them, but I thought it was all working out” Kevin asked with some worry.

“Well... it was working out... mostly, but that's only because I could fall back on my scary big brother who crushed his own party for their treacherous ways.” she said shyly, before regaining her enthusiasm “Besides! You need me. What would you do without your beautiful little sister to act as your wingwoman?”

“Probably find an actual girlfriend” he replied drolly.

“Yeah, one that would take advantage of you and waste all your money” she stated sagely. “You should thank me for weeding out the bad ones for you!”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

Kevin rolled his eyes, wanting to point out that it was Amy who ended up wasting most of his money on her magic tomes, but he couldn't deny that having a skilled mage to back him up when he needed it was a great boon.

“This forest is such a bore” Amy pouted. “Nothing but goblins and slimes and maybe a few magically mutated native species for miles and miles. The least they could have done was import a few bears!”

“That's actually a good thing for the newbies we'll be teaching. It'll be a good chance for them to get some experience without too much ris- Wait!” Kevin broke off their conversation and reached out to stop Amy.

“Hey, what's the matter Kevin?” Amy whined, before noticing he was serious. “What's wrong? Is it your Danger Sense? There shouldn't be anything too dangerous around here.”

“It's not a monster” Kevin whispered to her.

“Are you sure?” Amy whispered back.

“Definitely. Something is observing us, but without intent to attack” he confirmed.

“Bandits, maybe?” Amy asked worriedly.

“Not an ambush, I don't think. I only sense one person. Could be a scout, I suppose” Kevin replied.

“Can we catch them?” she asked, holding up her staff in preparation.

“Guard me while I try to find them” Kevin said as he closed his eyes and tried to sense where the outside presence was coming from.

The observing presence seemed to come and go briefly a few times, before returning its focus to him once again. He felt the light touch coming from almost directly in front of him, though slightly off to the right.

“Let's hope they're not throwing their perception” Kevin muttered, grabbing one of his paralyzing needles and flicking it towards where he felt the presence.

The needle flew silently through the air, striking a large bush just off the side of the road. A muffled clink sounded out, as the needle deflected into a nearby tree.

“Crap!” Kevin shouted “They have armor on!”

The bush shook as their observer fled into the forest, but the thick growth prevented them from getting a good look at their unknown opponent..

Amy began forming a fireball, but Kevin stopped her before she could fire it. “Are you trying to burn down the forest? The guild leader will have our heads for that.”

“Sorry, I got a bit carried away” she replied sheepishly.

Kevin walked over to the bush their opponent had been hiding in, and crouched down to look for any clues as to who it was.

“Find anything?” Amy asked from behind, looking over his shoulder as he worked.

“Nope, nothing.” Kevin replied, irritated.

“Nothing?” Amy asked with surprise. “Looks like you're losing your touch” she joked.

“No, I mean there's literally nothing. No foot prints. No threads. No hair. There's not even any broken branches. Hell, I don't even sense any mana residue. Whoever this was, I don't want to mess with them. The real question is why they even let me sense their presence in the first place.” Kevin couldn't make heads or tails over what was going on.

“You don't think this is some kind of prank by the local guild master, do you?” Amy threw out. “Some kind of welcoming party, or hazing ritual or something?”

“... I sure hope it is.” Kevin replied after a pause. He knew some guild leaders could be eccentric so it wasn't completely impossible. “Let's hurry and get through the forest and report this to the guild. If this all turns out to be some kind of joke, that would be great.”

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'Where'd I run off to?' JJ wondered as he looked at the unfamiliar forest around him. 'I could head back to the road, but I don't know if those guys are still there.'

His stone core covering had half an inch deep groove carved out of it, and he still had no idea how they had even noticed Clarity in the bushes.

Glancing up at the trees towering over him in exasperation, he had a sudden thought. 'My lake is pretty big. I bet I could see it from the tops of those trees.'

Picking the tallest one he could see, he began climbing, Clarity's malleable body making the process trivial.

As he reached the top, he looked around, seeing a vast, sprawling forest for miles around.

A small path seemed to snake through the trees a short ways behind him, likely the road he'd just left behind. It led to the middle of the forest and stopped. The other end presumably lead to somewhere outside the forest.

Several lakes appeared in his vision, showing through holes in the tree tops, although only one of them was large enough to be his home lake, a bit to the left of where he'd been running.

Climbing back down, he made a beeline for the lake, Clarity's extreme resistance to obstacles allowing him to avoid any detours.

On the way back he ran into two small goblins that were busy eating something small and bloody, either a squirrel or a rabbit judging by the size. Casting his dark magic over Clarity's body once more, he made short work of them with his new boar tusks, impaling both of them through the back of their chests before they even noticed a thing.

Clarity dragged them along as their bodies slowly dissolved into mana. Looking down at the two half-absorbed goblin corpses, JJ noticed their large pointed ears.

'Hmm, my eyesight is based on light magic. I was hoping to find or create some kind of sound magic slime to fix my hearing problems, but ear drums aren't too complicated, are they? Could I simply recreate them with Clarity's slime?' he thought to himself.

'This would be right up Steven's alley' he chuckled ruefully 'meanwhile I'm just brute forcing most of my problems with magic.'

By copying the ear drums within the now fully absorbed goblin corpses, he managed to recreate a crude facsimile of Clarity's own by the time they returned to the lake. Unfortunately, unlike his eyesight that gave him a magical sense of what light was entering his “eyes” and made it somewhat easy to interpret, the most he could understand from his self-made ear drums was “vibrations” or “no vibrations”. 'Looks like I really do need to figure out sound magic'

Swapping back to Dwayne once he entered the lake in order to fix Clarity's damaged shell, JJ noted that Clarity had now grown to be able to support a three and a half feet tall frame due to the mana it had absorbed. 'It's almost time to customize my character! Clarity is finally solid enough that I don't have to stick with a simple human silhouette!'