A wounded gendion limped through the forest, its jaws were scarred with acid burns and its tail had been melted off after a failed hunt that went terribly wrong for it. The gendion barely escaped the foreign monster it tried to hunt and was left exhausted.

Up ahead it was a den, a perfect place for it to rest in. The gendion used every ounce of energy it had left to reach the den as soon as possible, and luckily for it, the den was empty.

The gendion crawled into the den and laid down to have its long awaited rest. Its ability to hunt was crippled by the loss of its venomous tail and a weaker bite force, but at least it survived.

The gendion felt something hard hit it at back of its head and turned towards the direction where it came from and spotted Zeigel outside the den with a devilish grin on his face.

"GET FUCKED!" Zeigel shouted before activating a new skill he had just registered. Flames violently spewed out of a rock he threw at the gendion, turning the den an oversized oven. He manically laughed as he watched the gendion being cremated alive, getting him a concerned look from Layda.

"I thought we were supposed to fight it together." Said Saliza who sounded more disappointed than anything.

"It was injured. Fighting it with me wouldn't be satisfying for you since you want a challenge and whatnot. We'll fight the next one together, I promise."

"But why did you kill it in such a gruesome way?" Layda asked while staring at the pile of ashes inside the den.

"Fuck gendions, that's why."

"But still, it seems a little-" Layda paused after noticing something behind Zeigel. Her eyes widened and she dashed towards him and pulled him towards her before he could even react.

"What? What happened?" Zeigel asked once he found himself in her arms. He heard sizzling behind him and whipped his head around and found a large puddle of acid melting through the ground where he was just standing on.

"What the hell just happened?" He asked while eyeing the acid puddle with horrified eyes.

"Over there." Layda pointed at a massive worm with two long antennas crawling towards them with hundreds of stubby legs. It had a dark green body with big white spots across it and was the size of a several meter long train.

The sight of such an atrocious creature was making Zeigel cringe. "What in gods name is that?"

"It's a vile spewer." Layda told him. "It's an invasive monster."

"Great! Me and Zeigel can handle it!" Saliza confidently told her.

"No! I am not handling that ungodly abomination!" Zeigel snapped.

Acid jetted out of glands on vile spewer's head, sending another wave of acid towards them. Layda quickly grabbed the two trainees and moved them further away from the vile spewer and set them down once they were a safe distance away from it.

"It's a four star monster, you two can't beat it at your current levels." Layda told them. "I'll take care of it."

She summoned a spear into her hand and launched it at the vile spewer with such speed that her movements seemed almost instantaneous. Her spear zipped through the air faster than a bullet and pierced through the vile spewer's head, splitting it apart.

Layda then summoned a shovel into her hands and dug the blade deep into the ground and held it there for a second. When she lifted it, a massive chunk of dirt was scooped out and dumped aside by the shovel blade that was now several meters wide and long.

She pushed the vile spewer's corpse into the big gaping hole in the ground with the giant shovel blade and pushed all of the dirt back inside to cover it.

"That should do it." She muttered to herself. "Now monsters won't try to eat it and get burned from the acid."

The blade of the shovel shrunk back to normal size and the shovel vanished into light.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Whoa, how did you do that?" An amazed Saliza asked.

"Do what? The shovel thing?" Layda asked.

"Yeah, how'd you make it so big? I wanna make my axe big too!"

"That's my soul link." Hasn't Reizo taught you guys what they are yet?"

The two trainees shook their heads.

"In that case, I'll just give you two a quick rundown of it."

Layda cleared her throat before explaining to the two enthusiastic trainees who were paying close attention to her.

"Soul links are special weapons that are linked to your very soul, hence the name. These weapons can only be wielded by you and are usually indestructible. Having a soul link replaces your skill slots with a new set of unique skills that can't be replicated with spells."

Layda summoned a sword into her hand. The sword morphed into an axe, then into a bow, and finally into a pair of sunglasses.

"For example, my soul link, the Omni Tool, has only one skill called 'Transform' that allows me to turn it into any item I can think of. There's no cooldown on it and the mana cost depends on the size and material of what I'm transforming it into."

"Man, these things sound pretty awesome! Where can I get one?" Saliza impatiently asked.

"You'll be able to summon your very own soul link once you reach level 60."

"Level 60?" Zeigel exclaimed. "Why's it so high?"

Saliza let out a dejected sigh. "Why do I always have to wait so long for the stuff I want..."

"Wait, I have an idea." Said Zeigel. "Killing a high star monster gives us more exp, so if you pin down one of them while me and Saliza slowly kill it, we'll able to level up much faster."

"That doesn't work unfortunately." Layda told him. "At your level you'll barely inflict any damage to even four star monsters. It'll take maybe an hour or two for you guys to kill a single four star monster, and anything higher than four stars would put me at risk if I try to pin it down for too long."

Zeigel clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Isn't there a way to level up faster?"

"It took me a few years to get my soul link. Just take your time levelling up and you'll get there eventually."

I'll go insane if I have to stay in this world for more than a year. No soul links for me I guess.

"That settles it then! Tomorrow we'll be going on a hundred missions so we can get soul links as soon as possible!" Saliza announced.

Zeigel pointed at her. "You see, she's insane."

"So how about it Layda? Can we go on a hundred missions tomorrow?"

"M-Maybe you should think it through while we complete the last few missions."

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

While searching for the last two monsters they had to hunt, Saliza suddenly exclaimed, "We forgot to do our daily spars!"

"Why are you bringing that up now?" Zeigel asked.

"Shouldn't we be doing them everyday."

"Reizo isn't here, so there's no need for it."

"We can get Layda to help."

"Or even better, we don't do it all it."

"But it's fun."

"Not to me."

"Wait, you two spar each other everyday?" Layda asked.

"We spar with Reizo." Saliza told her.

"With Reizo?" Layda's eyes widened in disbelief. "His level is maxed out, why is he sparring with you two?"

"He matches our speed when we spar and gives us the challenge of hitting him once." Saliza explained.

"Oh, that makes more sense, but doesn't he still have his reaction speed? It's still going to be near impossible to hit him when your movements are in slow motion to him."

"Exactly! That cheap bastard is trying to rig the spar as much as possible!" Said Zeigel

"But didn't you manage to win?" Saliz asked.

"Not my point."

"Oh yeah, I've been meaning to ask, do you guys hate Reizo?" Layda asked.

Saliza shook her head. "Not really, but Zeigel does."

"I-I don't hate him okay."

"Even though you curse him out a lot?"

Zeigel nodded to her question.

"I won't tell Reizo what you said about him, so be honest, do you really hate him?"

"I really don't, and besides, I've said worse things to his face before so I don't care what you tell him."

"...I think you should try being a little less mean to the guy who already looks that depressed."

"I would if he didn't constantly make me feel as if I'm going to die horribly. But despite all shit he puts me through, I know he still cares about me, to a certain extent at least. He just does all those things to me because he wants to prepare us for the future or something, but you can't exactly expect me to not be mad after what I've been through. I once had my leg torn off and my arm crushed because of him!"

Layda let out a sigh. "I still think you should be a little nicer to him, but I get where you're coming from. Some people aren't all that passionate about being a vanguard and think that this job is complete shit, so putting them through these sort of things only pisses them off. Admittedly, I'm one of those people."

"You are?" Zeigel gave her a surprised look. "Then why did you join?"

"When I was your age, my parents forced me to join the vanguards despite my protests because they wanted me to 'make a name for the family' and also because 'vanguards can earn way more than artists'. The only reason why I haven't quit yet is because we're suffering a shortage in manpower, and I can't just abandon my friends who made my life here much more bearable."

Despite being in a completely different situation than Layda, Zeigel could still relate to her. She may not have been thrown into another world, but she too had her ideal life thrown away and forced into a job she hates, and worst of all, it was all caused by her parents. She's their daughter, their own flesh and blood, and those selfish bastards still robbed her of the life she wanted.

"Have you considered getting revenge on your parents for what they did?"

"I did cut ties with them over a year ago, so that probably counts. I still feel a little bad about it though."

"That doesn't sound good enough. You should also try burning down their house."

"....What the actual fuck dude."

Saliza pointed at him. "You see, he's crazy."