As they had planned, today, Diana, Anna, and Crystal will be heading back to the trading town of [Zestra] to sell the monster parts they’ve gathered from Anna’s training yesterday.

But, well…Aside from the receptionists’ shocked faces from the abundance of monster parts we gathered from just one trip(and also from one person battling), it seems like some trouble has popped up too.

“Hey, you girls, do you know anything about the murder of two bandits yesterday?”

As Diana was busy trying her hardest to organise the different money types into different pouches, an old man with a beautiful long beard came up to her and asked so. And of course,

“Huh? No, I haven’t heard anything. Is there something wrong with that?”

She answered so. She asked Anna, and she too didn’t know anything, which was obvious, since she was with her all day long yesterday!

And then, she also asked Crystal, and while she did say no…She was fidgeting a bit and she could spot some sweat trailing down her neck, so she probably knows something.

And by ‘know something’, she could somewhat guess that she’s the culprit.

“Being honest, I don’t like bandits roaming this town either, but we’ve got a strict rule to not commit murder inside the town, and breaking that law costs money.”

“I see…We should be careful then, right, Crystal?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Thankfully, the old man didn’t seem to suspect Crystal about it, so he let it go and turned around with a soft smile.

“Well, sorry for taking your time. Good luck out there, girls.”

“Thank you~”

And with that, he’s off back into the staff’s room.

The sun’s getting quite high in the sky now, so some breakfast would be nice. This time however, Diana and Anna will be the one going to buy the food, while Crystal sat back at a nearby bench.

“Stay here and don’t cause any trouble, okay?”

“Y-Yes ma’am.”

Hah…Seriously, her anxiety over it was so obvious, that she’s rather surprised that the old man hasn’t caught on to it yet…Or, maybe, he did catch on, but let them free? She’ll put all her hopes on it being the former.

Anyways, some more fruits as today’s breakfast should be nice, and maybe even some as refreshment later in the day too! The fruits aren’t so cheap, but Anna sure gathered them enough money to sustain themselves for a while!

Oh! Talking about money, the money system in this world works around coins, and different types of coins(just like in many ‘other world’ light novels she’s read).

It started from copper, being the lowest, silver, then gold, before platinum(also known as ‘white gold’ apparently). Each coin is worth 10 coins of the lower tier, except for copper of course.

Today’s market list will be some apples, pears, and oranges.

‘If she wanted to buy around 5 of each, then…wait *much mental calculations happening*…if a fruit’s about 8 copper each, then…around 120 copper coins? Then that’s about…11-, no, 12 silver coins? Yeah, 12.’

Phew, all that mental arithmetic was making her tired. She’s rather surprised she hasn’t received an [Arithmetic] skill or something from all that. Or, does knowledge-based skills not count as [Skills] per se? That’s something she should keep in mind.

Either ways, 12 silver coins goes down the register, and a bag of 15 fruits received. Now, time to head back to where Crystal was!

“U-Umm…Where did Miss Crystal go?”

…Or that’s supposed to be the plan, but…Once they returned back to her latest known location, she wasn’t there anymore.

Alright! Switch of plans! Time to look for Crystal!

First up, they went to the adventurer’s guild and asked if they knew where their friend was, and lo and behold, she was being interrogated behind the scenes!...Wait, what?

Okay, plan to look for Crystal, finished!

Luckily, it wasn’t about the murder she committed on those two bandits, but she seems to have gotten angry on someone who provoked her, and nearly sent him to his death bed. He’s still alive(somehow), so she didn’t get pressured by the fine, but, just…she’s a bit of a dunce sometimes, isn’t she?

‘So she’s a battle-junkie, a magic nerd, a tsundere(confirmed), a ‘yandere?’, and a dunce, huh…’

Huh, it somewhat reminds her of Team RWBY, in a loose sense.

That aside, she managed to come out fine, but she did receive a warning from the guild master, so she should’ve learnt her lesson…hopefully.

With that finished, the three returned back to the camp(the one they stole from the bandits), had a nice fruity breakfast before they went back to the forest to supervise as Anna battled the monsters that lived inside.

This time, now that she’s improved her skill with the bow, the monsters were easily dealt with, most of the time. Actually, as more time went by, more and more monsters that were much stronger showed up, forcing Rei to intervene.

Which was, weird, since the receptionist back at the guild said that this forest was relatively easy. The deeper you go in, the tougher the monsters are, but last time they were here, the monsters were definitely not this strong, so what happened?

Being suspicious of it, after she created a small dogoo and left it in Crystal’s care, she moved away from her party and went deeper into the forest.

She didn’t know what’s happening deeper inside, but those tougher monsters looked like they were running away in a hurry, as if they were just being chased. Which could mean that either: A strong monster has appeared, or a strong person has appeared.

Whatever the case, it’s exciting, and she wanted to get a look herself!

And, yep! As she guessed, a strong looking werewolf-like monster was standing there, just idly looking up to the sky, contemplating his life choices or something.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He stood over 2 meters tall, his body and limbs were huge, his purple coloured fur ruffled with magical energy, and those teeth in his jaws, man~. Getting bit by those teeth would probably kill a human in one go!

Well, she should be fine, since any physical attacks will just faze through her. Then again…it looks like its emanating some intense MP there, so she would probably still take damage even from getting hit by its large arm.

*Awwoooo*

Ara, and it seems like it just noticed her too, watching idly from the treetops. As a greeting, the wolf sent several large wind blades through the air, which she easily avoided by jumping down from the tree. She returned the favour by shooting a quick volley of explosive bubbles at it.

Alright then! [Battle Begin]!

First up, she created a small [Corrosive Slime Wave] and trapped it inside, suffocating it and corroding it. And while she’s at it, she also forced some of the corrosive slime down its throat to corrode its voice away, just in case no more monsters show up.

The slime trap didn’t last long though, since it quickly blew up and scattered the slime prison around using an explosion of mana, similar to what that minotaur did back in the catacombs.

*AWWOOOOOO!!!!!*

Oya? Even after getting its throat burnt and corroded by her slime, it’s still able to make quite a loud howl, eh? Heck, that howl was actually powerful enough to blow back several trees around it, which created a nice free space for their battle arena.

Or, that’s what it intended at least, but when it looked down to see its opponent, she wasn’t even there anymore. All that remained of her was a pile of adventuring clothing, several pouches of coins, and a leather bag of cooking ingredients and utensils.

Where did she go, he wondered as it walked over to her pile of dirty clothing, not noticing that Diana was standing behind him, a [Slime Cannon] readily prepared in her hands.

Without his notice, and her added [Assassination] damage bonus, she fired down at him, and smashed the werewolf down into the ground! *Bam!* It went as small chunks of dirt and rock was flung into the air!

Of course, the werewolf wouldn’t die just from that, so she added another [Slime Cannon] onto him, merged the slime together and trapped the werewolf inside the slime, again.

And of course, she also added the corrosive touch and forced her slime into the werewolf’s body through every orifices, including his anus.

*A-AWWOO!?* Is the sound she guessed he was making right now as slime was being forced up his ass, but she couldn’t tell, since some more slime was being forced into its open mouth too.

Uwah~, this somehow feels wrong…but, hey! It’s all in the name of victory!

Some time later, some more werewolves appeared on the scene. This time, they weren’t as big as the purple one, which was most likely their leader or whatnot, and their fur was grey coloured instead.

Well, not like it mattered, since the purple werewolf finally gave in and died from her slimy assaults! All she hoped was that the werewolf was a male, because if that was female, then…Muu, it’s not something she wanted to picture.

I’d have to put an R-18 warning on this chapter then

Anyways, realising their leader was dead(and corroding away), the werewolves were absolutely terrified and was now trying to run away, but she’s not letting them get away so easily. After all, she’s quite hungry, and lunch was still several hours away.

“Ehehe~, time for some lunch~”

**A-AWWOOO!?!?!?**

…………………

After some running, Rei, together with Anna and Crystal finally made it to where they heard that loud howl, and there, standing in the middle of an empty land, Diana could be seen cheerfully humming along as she was cooking something.

“Oi, Diana, we’re he-…Why is your mouth all bloody?”

“Eh~? Really? I didn’t notice at all~!”

Once she turned around, everyone got a good look at Diana, whose mouth was full of blood, fresh blood mind you. From her expression, it didn’t seem like that was her own blood(she didn’t even have blood), but what the hell did she do?

‘I swear, is she getting ditzier or something?’

No, seriously. After she revived from the dead and opened herself up, her personality seems to be getting ditzier and more cutesy as time goes by. Not that it’s a bad thing, since Crystal quite enjoyed seeing her like that, even if she couldn’t admit that.

But, all that aside, Diana’s trying out a ‘new’ cooking technique today.

And said technique is: Frying. Heck, she even had a mini-sized frying pan she bought at a local utensil store she found in the town.

Of course, Diana’s no cook. The only thing she knew about cooking was from that occasional scene in anime about cooking, and the added trivia from Food Wars, so she’s not going on much.

But, she at least knew how to fry stuff. It’s simple! Just get some oil, get some meat, pour said oil on pan, heat said pan, place said meat at said pan, then wait as said meat sits and gets cooked.

And I said way too many ‘said’ there.

Or, that’s what she assumed at least. From the looks of it, her werewolf meat(yeah, ‘werewolf’ meat) was looking pretty golden for a simple meat chunk kneaded with some salt and pepper.

And so, with the fried werewolf meat chunks placed in four different wooden bowls, the four sat down and happily ate their meal. Of course, nobody knew that it was ‘werewolf’ meat, but they didn’t need to know that, right?

…………………

Meanwhile, back at a certain snowy mountain, where the snow never stops and the shriek of a terrified young boy is lost in the storm.

Standing alone at that snowy mountain, a single wooden cottage could be seen, with a warm fire burning inside and a mug of warm coffee idly sitting at the wooden table. And there by the wall, a boy could be seen, happily sleeping away.

But then, something suddenly snapped him out of his beauty sleep.

*BANG!*

“Guhaa! Haa…It’s warm…”

Barging in with no manners whatsoever, Ilgua came in, with a large mound of snow piled up on his short green hair, and many scratches and wounds seen all over his frail body.

But most importantly! In his shaking frozen hands, there were 3 blue shining feathers, the quest item that his master had asked him to collect for something he didn’t mention.

And now, he’s supposed to get to his master and wake him up, but…his body just felt way too heavy, and the wounds he sustained was not light. Before he knew it, his eyes slowly closed, and his consciousness flew away, not realising that his master had just woken up then and there.

“Haa~, I heard something loud…but it’s just this kid…”

Seeing Ilgua lying there at his death bed, he got up and brought him over to the bed-

…Or that’s what he was supposed to do anyways, but he’s just so tired you know~? His body was feeling a bit sore from all the sleeping he’s done in the past centuries, so moving was a no go yeah~

But…well, if Ilgua died just then, that’ll suck for several reasons, so he decided to use some of his magic to forcefully close the door and float Ilgua’s unconscious body all the way to his bed using the power of his mind.

Of course, he’s also floating in the air now, since he didn’t really want to sleep together with Ilgua and get himself all bloody now, would he?

Ah, but on a second though, the sheet was all bloodied now…

Anyways, for now, he’s keeping his blood from flowing out, and slowly healing his open wounds. But, still…

‘He actually got the three feathers I asked him to get…How sturdy…Or stubborn maybe…’

The Ice Phoenix, the monster that resides at the peak of this deadly snowy mountain, the majestic bird that ruled over all the other monsters as ‘King’. Well, that little birdie’s nothing against him though.

Despite that, Ilgua, someone who he measured had terrible physical prowess and would easily lose in a strength contest against a pig, still somehow made it through the snow, hiked all the way to the peak(Which was pretty high up from where they were), and got the feathers.

He might not have killed the bird, but getting the feathers was already a commendable effort.

That, or the guy somehow got lucky.

That aside, he’s done healing up all the wounds Ilgua had now. Muu~, but he’s feeling tired again now…

But, being serious for a moment here, he wondered if perhaps, he should actually be serious for once. After all, another one of them had just made an appearance, and that’s sure to attract some company, unwanted ones included.

Those who held incredible powers, one that differed and triumphed over the rest, just like him.

Even if he didn’t show it face front, a creeping worry lingered at the back of his mind, reminding him of the mess he created 200 years ago.

As of recent, he’s been making some dodgy actions here and there, but he didn’t see anything too terrible or suspicious crop up from him, but he might still be planning something.

In fact, he had a suspicion that the recent ‘World Traveller’, and him, was closely related in a way.

It might be wise to take a careful approach to this ‘World Traveller’, just to make sure she wasn’t against them. Alright then! Once Ilgua wakes up from his near-death experience, he’ll send him back out to watch over her!

He’ll probably complain for a bit(a lot), but he’ll accept it. And while Ilgua’s out there doing scout duty, he’ll be sitting here, to make sure he won’t do anything dangerous.

And while all of this was happening in his mind, Diana was busy explaining to Rei about Cookies, American ones by the way.