"Hey, you wanna come with us?" I asked Miku. She had already failed the exam due to her teammates dying.

Our eyes met, Miku's face was dripping with sweat, and she was gasping for air.

"You were going to leave a beautiful lady like me behind?" She said sarcastically. "I'm all out of Ord. What choice do I have but to come with you? Also, there’s no rule that says students from different teams can't help each other."

Miku's special ability was straightforward and simple, but when combined with her talent and Ord amount, it was a powerful offensive ability.

As a fellow Blaster, there was no doubt that Gem's special ability was more versatile and theoretically had more room for growth. But he lacked the pure destructive potential Miku's ability had.

It was as if she made her ability to hunt creatures with a strong defense. Did she have a particular demon in mind when she created that ability? Maybe grievances from the past? I didn’t know anything about Miku or where she came from.

But her existence alone had made my interference during the training camp and trying to save more people worth it. She will be a vital asset in the battles to come. An ability that could cross so many levels of power and easily pierce through a high class demon’s defense was rare. No doubt that power will only grow stronger.

"We will rest for a bit,” I stared at Miku and pushed my glasses up. “At least until you have enough Ord to move about. Though if you want, I could carry you over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes again."

"No thanks." She refused me instantly, with a dead look in her eyes.

Was she recalling the first time I carried her? Was she embarrassed by that?

“Well, if you’re uncomfortable with that too. There’s still the option to carry you piggyback,” I offered again.

She looked at me, and her face scrunched up as if she had eaten a lemon. “No. I will just rest a bit.”

Yeah, she was embarrassed and maybe a little weirded out, which brought me immense joy. The Internet was nonexistent, and Bets and Gem barely reacted to my goading anymore. I had to find entertainment another way.

My sense of what I found funny had grown slightly twisted, and now I somewhat understood why the Headmaster acted like he did.

…

After a while, Miku recovered enough of her energy, and we started trekking the island and hoping for Carpy to find something. We had two Blasters on the team, but we had to rely on a fish to see if anyone was nearby.

There were certain things I never said out loud because they would sound rude. But the reality was that Carpy had more talent than this whole team combined.

Since he was my familiar, saying this out loud might sound like I was bragging (which I was). But even the Nekoshu demon took decades to evolve into an Ultimate Class. Undoubtedly, it took her years to go from low class to middle class. But it hadn't even been a year since Carpy was another average fish!

Sure, the Nekoshu might not have had a contract like Carpy did as help. But it sucked to be them! Carpy and I were the best team around!

My victories were his victories, and his victories were mine. My power was also his power, and Carpy's power was mine. This sounded unfair to me since he was just a fish. But when he grows into a dragon, I will have the power of something that can throw nuclear-level attacks at the snap of a finger.

Suddenly, an image came to mind of me atop a dragon's head, pointing at an island. The dragon threw a blast of fire and destroyed the island in one hit, leaving only a mushroom cloud behind.

My heart started beating faster, and every cell in my body cried in delight. For the first time since coming to this world, I realized that I had a goal of something more than saving people and trying to avoid the worst-case scenario.

Sure, it was a childish dream to have. But that was the difference between dreams and goals! Dreams were supposed to be almost impossible to achieve!

I might save a lot of people, but I was not the kind of guy who made saving people his lifelong goal.

***

Miku got a chill down her spine. Kon, whose eyes she couldn't see due to his glasses reflecting the light. He had a creepy smile, and his Ord was jumping about like a kid who had just found his new toy.

She turned toward the only other Blaster on the team. "Is he always like this?"

"Huh?! Why're you trying to look into our teammate's choices?!” Gem turned toward her and sneered. “You think Kon isn't fit to be a leader or something! This is just his way of planning complex battle strategies!"

What was with this rudeness out of nowhere? Also, Kon didn't look like he was planning anything. It would be more reasonable to assume he was daydreaming.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Don't worry about him. He's in a bad mood because he thinks you're ruining the team's vibe," Bets, the most violent-looking team member, tried to calm down the situation.

'Why is the muscled baldy the most reasonable person here?' Miku wondered.

"Yeah! She totally ruins the vibe, and I can't make dirty jokes with her around!" Gem immediately jumped on the bandwagon. He didn't even care how rude he sounded.

Miku wasn't going to let people just insult her! "Hey! You're just a weird ass team! You're too laid back, and your leader-"

She turned to address Kon, but her heart almost jumped up her throat when she saw the fish's face only an inch away from hers. The demon's dark empty eyes felt like they were staring straight through her soul. "You think Kon is unsafe with me keeping guard? I'm not as incompetent as you assume! I can sense every living thing around us! So what if master Kon wants to take a break?! He works hard!"

At the end of his rant, the fish's voice went from gurgling to straight-out demonic. It was impossible to read the emotion on his fish face, but his voice alone made it quite obvious that he was offended.

Miku wasn’t sure what she had said to offend the fish, but she didn’t want the situation to escalate. She wasn’t sure how to react.

"Hey, Carpy, settle down," Kon patted his fish's head. "She's right. You might have good sensory capabilities, but it doesn't mean you’re infallible."

Miku couldn't help but sigh internally at Kon’s reckless intervention. Carpy, or whatever the fish's name was, was a middle-class demon.

She remembered Kon walking around school with a lingering spirit fish familiar. So he probably had a contract with a clan of aquatic demons.

Maybe the fish Kon had carried around back then was the child of this one? But that didn't mean Kon could just bad-mouth a middle-class demon so flippantly like that.

“Of course, master, sorry, I won’t do this again,” … Nevermind. The fish bowed his head reverently and wrapped himself around his master without a fuss.

This team was infuriating to be around. Miku couldn’t figure out their dynamics at all.

..

A couple of hours passed, and the sun rose over the horizon when Carpy finally spoke again. “Master, I sense three people nearby. They’re all awake and have made camp along one of the trees.”

She couldn’t even sense anything! Just how massive was his sensory range? Miku was amazed by the demon’s sensory abilities.

As they approached the team, they caught them fixing a tent.

Miku smiled; they had caught them off guard. This was the perfect chance to attack! “We should charge in immediately, before they notice something strange.”

Kon looked at her, and she could see his eyes behind his glasses for the first time. He was looking at her with a stare that one would use to examine someone mentally challenged.

If this same guy hadn’t saved her life twice already, she would have loved to punch the snot out of his face.

‘I have to be calm. I have to be the bigger woman here! There’s no reason to let these insults get to me!’ Miku took a deep breath and forced a smile on her face. “If you have a better plan, please do tell me.”

“Why would you want to fight them when we don’t even know if they have the ribbon we need? That could end up being just a useless fight where we could get injured,” Kon explained his point of view.

It was a reasonable way of looking at things, and Miku would have admitted her mistake… Only if he wasn’t still staring at her as if he was looking at a dumb rat! “If you wanna say something to me, say it.”

‘I am not going to punch him; he has saved my life twice already.’ Miku repeated that in her head like a mantra.

“Carpy, go and hide. Come out only if there is a fight and it seems we’re in danger. You’re our trump card.” Kon nudged at his fish. Carpy didn’t need to be told twice and followed his orders.

After that, Kon jumped down from the tree, exposing himself and raising his hands to show he was harmless. “Hello there, fellow exam takers.”

The other team of three turned around, and each of them had an alarmed look in their eyes. They were average-looking, and nothing stood out about them except the colors of their shirts: green, red, and purple.

“Who’re you?!” Asked the purple shirt guy.

“Just another exam taker and aspiring Expert Exorcist trying to raise a dragon,” Kon took out his blue ribbon. “You guys wouldn’t happen to have a different-colored ribbon? If not, then we’ll get out of your hair and we can act like we never even saw each other.”

The other team’s members exchanged glances before the purple shirt guy said. “No, we don’t.”

“Oh, that’s all well and good then. Thank you for being understanding and have a lovely day.,” Kon turned around. But as soon as he showed them his back, the other team smiled widely.

The guy with the red shirt smiled, took out a hot sauce bottle, and poured a good chunk of it into his mouth. Tears came out of his eyes, and his face flushed. But he took a deep breath and spewed out a fireball the size of a horse carriage.

“{Spicy Balls!}”

Miku was about to warn Kon, but he had his hands in his pocket and a nasty smile, like someone who just stole candy from a baby. The fireball was fast and was about to hit him when suddenly a burst of water came from underground and created a wall of water.

Fire and water clashed, creating an explosion of mist that covered the whole field.

“Blow it away! They likely have a sensor in their team. That’s how they were able to find us!” The purple shirt guy’s voice came from the fog.

Immediately a strong wind picked up and blew the mist away. A bad smell filled the air, and Miku covered her nose. The wind grew strong enough to cause even the trees to shake.

“{Morning Breath!}”

As the mist cleared out, it revealed the green shirt guy taking a deep breath and blowing strong winds out of his mouth.

“Fuck! This hurts!” The red-shirt guy screamed in pain.

“Why did you make such an ability if you had weak spice tolerance?” The green shirt guy added. But then his eyes widened, and he looked around.

Miku followed his gaze and figured out what the team was searching for.

Where was Kon?