Saliza came rushing down wearing one of the masks Reizo bought for her. She leapt off the stairs and landed right in front of her trainer.

"Saliza reporting for duty!" She announced with a salute.

"Alright, we'll head to the forest and continue the rest of your missions. Can I trust that you two won't run off on your own or do anything stupid again?"

"Absolutely!"

"We've learnt our lesson."

"Good enough for me. Let's go."

----------------------------------------

Uuuuuuuugh.... Why is our remaining missions all hunting missions....

Zeigel did his best to hide his sour face as he listened to Reizo's briefing.

"You'll be hunting ten groups of different monsters located throughout the forest, most of which are invasive species. I'll be leading you to each of their locations."

"Whoa, that's a lot of invasive monsters. Is that normal?" Saliza asked.

"No... It's probably a one time thing."

"Should we report it?" Zeigel asked.

"Don't. Just for today, do not report anything you see."

He brought these monsters here didn't he?

With the briefing done, Reizo brought the trainees to their next 'mission', where they had to hunt down a pack of eight cirakens.

"Got any plans?" Saliza asked.

"I think we should be fine without one."

"Really? I can go in without some boring plan?" She asked excitedly.

"Yup, go crazy."

Eight of them is still be too much for you to handle, so I'm gonna have to fight along side you.

"Heck yeah!" Saliza rushed towards the cirakens with Zeigel behind her. Loud footsteps alerted the cirakens of their approach.

I can handle at least two of them, maybe even three. I just need to reduce their numbers as much as possible so Saliza won't get overwhelmed.

With her superior SPD stat, Saliza reached the cirakens first. She decapitated one of them faster than they could retaliate and ducked a claw swipe that came from her right. She then swung her axe upwards and split the face of the ciraken who swiped at her.

As if instinctively, Saliza reached behind and grabbed the leg of a ciraken that was about to pounce at her and threw it at one that was charging towards her. She dashed towards them with explosive speed and ignited her axe. With one swift swing, she cleaved through the two cirakens like butter while laughing like a maniac.

"Gyahahahaha! Come on! More! Moooore!"

One of the cirakens screeched at her, and received a flying axe to the face in return.

Assuming that she wasn't dangerous while unarmed, two of the remaining cirakens rushed towards her. They tried to claw and bite at her, but she ducked and weaved each attack that came her way and punished their misses with lightning fast jabs.

As the damage from her jabs accumulated, the cirakens began to slow down, giving Saliza an opportunity to finish them off.

She ignited her fist after ducking under one of their bites and threw a devastating uppercut that tore the ciraken's head off its body.

She slipped under a claw swipe from the other ciraken and kicked it to the ground before stomping on its skull, crushing it with a sickening crunch.

The last ciraken looked at her with terror in its eyes as if she were a bloodthirsty predator looking for a meal. It fled from her as fast as it could, but a tug on its tail took away any hope of surviving.

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"Hehehehe, I'm not done yeeeet." Saliza laughed.

With its tail in her hand, Saliza began spinning around. She spun faster and faster with each second, and when she released her grip, the ciraken was sent flying towards a tree where it splattered against it, leaving only a bloody mess.

"Hooo, that was fun. I even leveled up!"

Well...I've clearly underestimated her. It's hard to believe her skills improved this much in a few days.

Saliza ripped her axe off the ciraken's skull and pridefully strutted towards Zeigel.

"I'm amazing aren't I." She said with an arrogant voice.

"Do you want a reward or something?"

"Praise me."

I might as well let you brag. That was one hell of a performance.

Zeigel gave her a smile and pat on the head. "You really are amazing."

"Hehe."

If I'm correct, Reizo should be behind me right about now.

"Well done." Reizo said as he dropped out of the sky.

Tch, so he doesn't appear behind me the one time I expected it.

"We'll move on to the next mission."

He looks kinda pleased. That must be a good sign.

"You'll handle the next mission yourself Zeigel."

Fuck.

"What? No fair!" Saliza complained. "Why don't I get to fight?"

"You'll get your turn later. So Zeigel, do you think you can handle it?"

"I think so."

It's just a bunch of two star monsters. It shouldn't be too bad, right?

----------------------------------------

What the hell is this? Zeigel thought to himself as he stared at a den engulfed in flames.

"There are a total of seven charadurs inside that den. Get rid of them." Rezio said before disappearing.

Even if they're just two star monsters, I'm still not strong or skilled enough to handle seven of them at once. I need to pick them off one by one.

From within a bush, Zeigel created and threw a chunk of metal at the entrance of the den, hoping that one or two of the monsters inside would come out to inspect it.

Seven flaming six-legged salamanders with charcoal skin crawled out of the den. They stuck close to one another as they scanned the area to see where the chunk of metal came from.

Tch, they're all grouped up. What to do...

Before he could formulate a plan, something behind Zeigel pushed him out of the bush. He quickly turned around but found nothing behind him. Despite this, he was certain who the culprit was.

God dammit Reizo!

After spotting Zeigel, six of the charadurs scattered while the remaining one intensified the flames from its body, scorching everything around it in a one meter radius. It crawled towards Zeigel with speed far slower than a ciraken.

Huh, well that's convenient. Now I can take them out one at a time, but tracking each of them down is gonna be a pain in the ass.

Zeigel charged up a lighting bolt and fired it at the charadur approaching him. His attack tore off chunks of its hard skin from its head and pushed it back, but it wasn't enough to kill it. It took two more fully charged lighting bolts to finally kill it. Even after death, the flames around its body kept burning.

One down, five more to...crap.

Surrounding Zeigel were the other five charadurs. Using the flames from their bodies, they created a cage of fire that slowly closed in on Zeigel.

Shit! I should've questioned why they dispersed like that more!

There wasn't enough time to charge up enough spells to kill one of them and Zeigel wasn't sure if he could propel himself over the wall of flames that surrounded.

Come on, think, what other options do I have? I don't want to go near them. Ah screw it! What other choice so I have!

With the few seconds he had left before the charadurs reached him, Zeogel covered the front of his body with as much stone he could create and charged at one of the charadurs.

While the makeshift stone armour provided some protection from the flames, he could still feel the heat sear parts of his body exposed by the small gaps in his armour.

"OW! FUCK! HOT! DAMN IT!"

As he neared the charadur, Zeigel covered one of his legs with even more stone and repeatedly stomped on the charadur's skull.

"Fucking bastard! I'll make sure the rest of your friends join you soon!"

He tossed the charadur's corpse aside and began reinforcing his stone armour as well as creating a stone hammer.

Maybe I should've just done this from the start instead of focusing on spamming ranged spells. I need to keep in mind that my DEF stat allows me to survive far more attacks than I previously could. Not only that, but at my level, two star monsters shouldn't be hard to deal with. I should've been more confident.

Seeing how Zeigel could withstand their flames, the remaining charadurs began fleeing from him.

"Don't run from me you little shits!"

Using a spell, Zeigel created wind to push him forward and boost his speed as he chased down the fleeing charadurs in his heavy stone armour, catching up to two of them who were fleeing in the same direction.

He smashed one of them in the skull with his hammer and stomped the other one to death. He then went after another two who were fleeing in the opposite direction. He dropped his hammer and grabbed them by the tail before chasing down the last one. Once he reached it, he repeatedly slammed the last charadur with the other two charadurs he had been dragging by the tail until all three were dead.

"Alright Reizo, I'm done!" Zeigel called out while healing his burns.

And he's gonna appear behind me in 3...2...1...

"Good work." Reizo said as he appeared in front of him.

Oh, has he finally decided to stop popping up behind me? Maybe he finally realized that it was a dick move to-

"YOU DID IT!" A loud voice from behind started Zeigel.

"GAH! Come on! You too Saliza?"

"What do you mean? By the way, the way you fought just now was pretty awesome! You should fight like that more often."

I'd rather not. I don't wanna keep dealing with that much pain, but I guess I'm gonna have to start getting a little used to it if I wanna help you out.

Once Zeigel was fully healed, they moved on to the next group of monsters. Zeigel was confident that at his level, dealing with two star monsters isn't much of a challenge anymore, especially with Saliza around.

When they got to the next area, Zeigel's eyes widened in fear as he discovers that the next group of monsters they had to face were large acidic cockroaches, something he wasn't quite fond of.

NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! NOPE! HELL NO! I'M OUT! I'M NOT DOING THIS!