As the next day came about, we set off to find ourselves a red ribbon. I was all but healed up except for some lingering aches.

We sprinted from tree branch to tree branch. We had to jump the distances that even a car on a ramp would have difficulty covering, yet we did so with ease. I stood at terrifying heights while the wind gently brushed against my skin.

In my last world, I was afraid of heights. Who wasn’t?

But in this world, I felt only a rush of excitement as I leapt onto another branch, unworried about falling from heights that would break every bone in the body of an average person.

"Don’t worry, master. I will catch you if you fall." Carpy protectively clung to me like the worrywart he was.

Since the trees were so big, falling from the branches would be like falling from a seven-story building. It wasn’t a massive height for someone who had awakened their Ord.

Gem, who had a scythe on his back, smiled at Carpy. "What about me, little guy? Will you catch me if I fall?"

Carpy stared at him for a few seconds and then turned toward me. "Anyways, master, have you made sure to eat all your breakfast?"

"Don't just ignore me!" Gem protested. “If you don’t wanna answer, at least act like you didn’t hear me!”

But Carpy sighed and continued to ignore him. I also zoned out Gem's complaints.

With his sensory abilities, Carpy should be able to find a demon or another team nearby where we could get a ribbon from them.

"Master, a team is being attacked by a demon about a couple hundred meters to our left," Carpy suddenly said.

Even with the fishy look on his face, and cold dark eyes, I could tell something was bothering him. "How strong is it?"

"It is high class," the fish answered immediately. "But it seems like it is trying to portray itself as middle class. For whatever reason, it's hiding its power."

Well, we weren't going to get involved with it. "Is there anything else strange about it?"

"Humph, yes," Carpy gurgled some water, and his voice cleared up. "Though I'm not a hundred percent sure. It feels like the demon is looking at us as if already aware of our presence."

A chill went down my spine when I heard that.

There shouldn't be any high class demons on this island!

If it wasn’t in the original story, it was safe to conclude this change was related to me.

I only knew two people that could send a high class demon to do something like this.

One of them was the Ultimate Class Demon, Shuten Doji, and it would benefit him if everyone in the exam died. But it wasn’t his style to do things half-assedly. He would have sent hundreds of high class demons and killed everyone here. Sending just one demon didn’t suit his style at all.

So that led to the second suspect being the more likely option. The Demonic Exorcist, the man who would gain nothing if he sent a high class demon here. But he was the kind of selfish guy who only cared for his entertainment.

Should I just run away? That was the safest choice at this time. But it would be a naive choice. If the Demonic Exorcist went through the trouble of sneaking a high class demon into a secure island, he wouldn’t take well to me dodging the challenge.

He would probably kill my family, friends, teachers, and coworkers. Just so he could entice me to attack again. The Demonic Exorcist had shown the last time I met him that he considered revenge a good fuel.

I stopped on one of the tree branches and sighed.

The best choice would be to attack the demon now. Not only would we fight on our terms, but we also wouldn’t be taken by surprise later on. There was another team battling the demon already, and we could cooperate.

Damn it! This was going to be difficult!

"Let's go and help that team," I said.

I expected Gem to cry out in protest and question why we would ever willingly attack a high class demon. But instead, he had a smile on his face. "Hell yeah! That's just what I was waiting for!"

Bets never questioned me, and neither did Carpy.

Sometimes I would like it if they questioned me a bit more. They might have some view or perspective on the situation that I didn't. But I had a feeling that both were overestimating my wisdom.

Only Gem questioned my decisions, which was a good thing. At least he knew I wasn't some kind of perfect schemer.

…

It took us only a short time to reach the battle zone.

What greeted us there was a red-haired leech mermaid. Her lower body was that of a leech instead of a fish. She had normal human proportions and wasn't too small or big, which was rare for a demon of her rank.

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But what caught my attention was the team fighting the demon.

It couldn't be called a team anymore, as two team members had already been reduced to husk and bone. One had a leech on his arm, and the other had one running through his mouth. The gross bloodsuckers were the size of my forearm.

The team's last standing member was a thin girl with dark hair and brown eyes.

It was Miku, the girl who was one of the survivors of the training camp. This will be the second time I saved her against a demon.

Surviving so long against a high class demon and having no visible injuries was a testament to her power. Either that, or she threw her teammates under the bus to save her neck.

The leech demon turned toward me, and she had red hair and crimson eyes. She smirked and extended her hand. “Seems like we have a couple of heroes on our hands.”

Bets was the first to act; he took out a nail gun and shot at the leech demon. She smiled and raised her hand so quickly that I barely saw anything.

Then her smile widened as she opened her palm and showed scrunched metal nails. "Honey, you must do better if you want to impress a girl like me."

This time she spoke fluently, showing her true personality.

Gem charged right after with his new scythe in his hands. The demon raised her arms, and he slashed at them dozens of times in less than two seconds.

But the demon only got injuries that were nothing more than scrapes. She had a nasty smile on her face.

"Carpy! Grab him!" I yelled.

I didn't need to explain the situation to Carpy. He used a water whip to grab Gem by his midsection and pulled him away.

"It's already too late, little fishy," the leech demon hummed, pointing her lower body at us. She had a mouth with rows of sharp teeth at the end of her leech-like lower body.

Spew!... She shot a red bullet from her second mouth.

The projectile zeroed in on Gem. He used his scythe to cut the red projectile mid-air. But when the shot and scythe made contact, it caused a small explosion and pushed him away.

"That's some durable weapon you have there," the leech demon showed them her bloody arms slowly mending shut. "Quite sharp too. No average weapon would be able to get through my skin."

"There's more where that's coming from, lady," Gem landed on the tree branch next to us.

"Hmmm, is that so?" The leech demon seemed more amused than afraid of the threat. "I'm gonna go on a wild guess and say that you're not a Creator, and that weapon is a Magical Item."

"How did you know!?" Gem exclaimed.

The leech demon looked at me as if asking: Why do you have such an idiot on your team?

Hey! Gem might be a dumbass, but he's our fool!

"Because you didn't use Ord to coat your weapon. Creators always do that, and it improves a weapon's sharpness and durability." I explained.

The leech demon opened her mouth and was about to say something, but she leaned back. Her red hair fell and almost touched the ground as a light blue arrow whisked past where her head would have been.

"Why didn't you try and block that, you bitch?" Miku had a stony look in her eyes.

The leech demon was the kind of creature with good endurance and regeneration to take most attacks head-on. Miku's ability must be pretty destructive if even the leech demon had to dodge.

"Huh?" Miku was surprised when she was grabbed by a water whip and brought next to us.

At the same time, Carpy grabbed Miku’s teammates too, but as soon as they got close, there was a discharge of energy from the leeches feeding on them.

Carpy tried to block the explosion with his water, but Miku was faster and created two arrow-shaped projectiles out of her own energy, and those two arrows shot toward the leeches attached to her teammates and pierced the bloodsuckers.

Booom!... The leaches exploded as soon as the arrow touched them.

That was close! If those things had gotten closer to us and exploded, none of us could have escaped that uninjured.

I looked at the leech demon in a new light. It wasn’t just some arrogant monster. She was a strategic fighter, and despite her power the demon didn’t seem arrogant.

What a troublesome opponent I had stumbled on.

Her lower body began to bulge to the size of a car, emitting an odd and resounding hiss. It was as if a slight wind came by, and I realized she was using her other mouth to breathe in. Her lower body continued to expand, growing beyond the size of a truck in only a couple of seconds.

An elongated tongue came out of her mouth, and she licked her lips. “Get ready for a surprise!”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out she was about to do something dangerous.

“Get us out of here!” I screamed.

Carpy understood his order, grabbed everyone, and took shelter behind the thickest trees.

The next thing I heard was the deafening boom of the sound barrier breaking.

This attack was going to be even more devastating than I had thought!

The trees we used as a shield shook and then blasted apart. Some wood splinters hit my body, but I used my arm to protect my face. Thankfully I only ended up with some small scratches.

I got a better look at the projectiles that destroyed the tree; they were red spheres the size of bowling balls.

There were hundreds of them, maybe even thousands.

Carpy wrapped himself around me and hissed at the leech woman.

There wasn't enough water around for Carpy to form a barrier. But he opened his mouth and spewed out a tidal wave of water, creating a wall of water.

I didn't even have the time to contemplate how Carpy could create water out of his own energy!

Even though Carpy was stronger than the average middle-class demon, battling against a high class showed he was still lacking as the water barrier was ripped apart. The only thing it did was slow the attacks down a bit.

Miku created hundreds of energy balls shaped like arrows around her. She breathed heavily, but her gaze was like steel.

"{Tricky Arrow}"

Each of her energy arrows moved as if it had a mind of its own and pierced the projectiles one by one, causing explosions on impact.

"Concentrate on the projectiles! I will handle the movement!" I said to Miku as I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

I only heard explosions behind me as we all jumped into another tree. Carpy also used his water to create platforms for us to step on.

"K -Kon, what're we gonna do about that?" Bets had a pale face, sweat pooling over his bald head, and he pointed down.

I looked at where Bets was pointing. My guts twisted, and it felt like I was gonna have a heart attack. "Fuck me.”