Chapter 208: Chapter 177: The Fenrir, the Fairy, and the Dwarf.

<[Shadow Armament] [Inferno Resistance Potion (Moderate)] [Various Spell Buffs] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]>

[“Buffs applied!”] Tasianna announced the recast of her buffing spells.

[“Fire and lava threads, everyone. Create an opening for us to deal decisive blows!”] I gave my garms their orders, who took out their mana threads from the satchels Grimnir made for them to hold their tools with. Situations like these, ones where I couldn’t prepare beforehand, were exactly why giving my garms a preset loadout was valuable.

“My hammer is ready! I won’t fall to another beast of this shitehole! Umslid kain, kawuk kaan, fie Crustacia!”

Myriad runes on Grimnir’s armor blazed in action, shining brightly as an aura of mana wrapped around his skin. According to Grimnir, the runes engraved in his armor were primarily there to boost his stats as well as his ability to act as a bulwark.

With his ram-like horns and my [Shadow Armament] covering his body, Grimnir looked pretty intimidating already, but his runes gave him an extra unnatural glow, making him look like some beast from a nightmare. He spat out some fire once the process ended, shouting a warcry loud enough that the volchark stopped moving in the magma lake.

And for good reason, since it was time we made it pay for toying with us, as if we were its next snack. As for the payment, how about Hestia’s birthday present: its heart!

Dismounting Song, Tasianna returned to her [Elvinized (Moderate)] form, revealing her butterfly-like wings. With both her [Fairy of Winter] wings and her natural fairy wings flapping wildly, she flew up into the air, floating above the volchark and the lake before materializing two blue-colored magic circles.

Water formed around them, shaping into giant tentacles of the level five [Torrent Magic] spell [Kraken’s Destruction]. At her command, Tasianna had these watery appendages slam into the lake, releasing an explosion of steam to cover up the small segment of the lake in front of us. Although everything was blinding white when I used [True Wolven Instinct]’s [Heat Vision], the flailing I could see made it obvious where the shark was. However, similar to how Hestia sometimes got overwhelmed using her [Mana Eyes], I couldn’t keep the heat vision up for too long due to a headache.

Thankfully, I didn’t need to. Provoked, the volchark once again did one of its giant jumps out of the lake, mouth wide open to snatch Tasianna from the air like a bird. Without blinking, she used [Wind Blast] on herself to dodge the attack, shooting a few ice daggers at it with her catalyst. Unfortunately, they melted upon contact.

Without wasting another second, I went into action, diving my large fenrir shadow, I used [Shadow Dash] to reappear on the ceiling—the shadow the volchark cast, caused by the bright glowing magma. When it slammed its jaw shut, failing to catch Tasianna, it snapped its head over to me, probably noticing my appearance with its [Enhanced Enemy Sense].

Stygian Voltage.

Upon channeling mana into my arms, black lightning crackled, forming around the white fur on my front legs before they streamed around my shadow armor. Slamming my hind legs against the air with [Air Walk], I propelled myself downward before slamming my entire right claw onto the volchark’s left eye.

The shark barely reacted in time, closing its rocky eyelid shut to protect its squishy organ. Yet, for the member with the highest strength, before buffing spells, the shark’s vitality was no match against me. With a resounding crack, the shell shattered upon impact as lightning flew, causing the shark to release a deep, disturbing gurgle.

The lightning can’t flow like this. I need a better hit.

Aiming to deliver a more lethal hit, I shot two [Dark Tendrils] out—one to ensnare the monster and the other to grab the stalactites on the ceiling. Alas, I had to dispel both spells to kick the shark away the moment my [Foresight] warned me of an attack. In the next second, the volchark’s pores stopped oozing magma to discharge clouds of volcanic gases, hot enough for me to jerk my face away.

Tasianna’s [Air Shield] was still active around me and my [Inferno Resistance] prevented any damage, but the push back was unexpected. Unable to stop myself with [Air Walk], the gases slammed me into a wall, leaving me hanging there in my own indention. I groaned for a moment before jolting my head up, noticing that the shark’s elastic belly had bloated, a sign of its magma spit attack.

I was barely able to push myself out of the wall in time before the volchark’s magma ball exploded against the wall. “Rarf!” I barked after being launched away from the shockwave, barely hanging onto the wall as I nearly dropped into the magma lake.

Groaning, I looked at my right arm where some magma had splashed onto me. If I were in my humanized forms, [Shadow Warrior’s] [Penumbral Armament] probably would have shielded me from the damage, but [Lava Resistance Lv. 5] alone just didn’t cut it without proper armor. Thankfully, my fenrir form had the stats to tank this well enough now, far better than my rank C form.

Whoo, okay … Jeez, hoho, this rank B form feels so good. Although, I probably shouldn’t willingly receive a fellow rank B’s attack too much now. Stay agile.

Cleaning off the magma spit, I witnessed the volchark landing back into the lake, sending molten rocks splashing around like a fountain. Unperturbed by it, I could see Grimnir shouting at the monster as he began walking on the lava lake. Literally. No joke.

Two red runes on his boots glimmered in action, shrouding them in a red mana veil, enabling him to walk on the lava, or so I presumed. The rune [Defensive Rune: Pavise] on his hammer shined as well, constructing a barrier around him, blocking any magma while he advanced forward to a pocket of ground, acting like an island in this lake.

Damn, I should have asked Grimnir more about his runes. Seeing him demonstrate pavise for the first time, I should’ve expected him to have runes on his armor, just like Davison had on his gauntlets.

Information was key to fighting together, and while I knew about my teammates’ capabilities, I knew little about Grimnir’s fighting abilities aside from his hammer and tanking abilities. He called himself a runesmith. Now he was demonstrating the full power of those runes.

“Come at me, you piece of shit! I’ll show you what these tazongn arms and legs will do to a filthy disrupter! Nobody disrupts a taz while he’s inside a bladdarg mine!” Grimnir suddenly shouted from the top of his lungs, such that even the lake’s eruption was nothing against the power of his voice.

Why is he shout—Oooohhhh! Its attention!

The second the volchark turned away from me towards Grimnir, his intentions dawned on me. Its hearing. When the shark closed its eyelids, they were as hard as a shell. If it even considered closing its eyes, then its eyes weren’t resistant to magma compared to the rest of its body. Even now, from the shaking waves, I could see that it must have kept its eyes closed, that it was tracking its prey through sound alone. That was how we got into this situation in the first place, from that crying rachychephalarus.

Even without the [Taunt] ability, Grimnir was acting like our party’s tank. Drawing the aggression towards him and away from Tasianna and me.

“Mana battery bomb out!” Grimnir shouted, taking out a mana battery from his backpack and throwing it towards the shark. At the moment of contact, the battery exploded, causing a similar destructive blast like the one Davison caused.

While it didn’t crack the shark’s rocky skin, it did cause the volchark to flinch, allowing Grimnir to reach the first island. “Tasianna! Water, now!” he shouted to the sky. Tasianna’s look of confusion only lasted for a second before she figured out his intention, calling down a storm of [Torrential Rain] onto the lake, creating a never ending steam wave.

The volchark recovered from Grimnir’s attack and charged forward, far faster than its size should allow it. Grimnir reached his hand towards the pathway, where multiple black tendrils wrapped around his arm and pulled him away from the shark’s attack. Sarasa, standing on the edge of the lake, was the one who cast it.

Her tendrils dissipated mid-flight before Grimnir was caught by Song’s [Dark Tendrils], who was floating on one of Tasianna’s [Frozen Shield]. Supported by the momentum, Grimnir jumped into the air, aimed his blasthammer into the air before swinging it down onto the volchark’s head, echoing the cracking of rock throughout the room.

The volchark attempted to retaliate, but Uno jumped out of a shadow on an island, throwing a number of Hestia’s white flame bombs at the shark, wrapping it in fire strong enough to cause it to panic a bit. The health damage was minimal, but the panic caused by getting damaged by flames hotter than magma allowed Grimnir to escape unharmed.

[“Miss Saori, Mister Grimnir suggested a plan, although I didn’t understand it from the single-word sentence he shouted. I believe he wants to keep the monster’s attention on him while we continue buffeting it with damage!”] Tasianna informed me through [Telepathy].

[“Understood!”] I simply said, quickly thinking of an idea while Grimnir and my garms fought in unison. [“How is your mana?”]

Chugging a mana potion, Tasianna then replied, [“I have enough potions left. My catalyst is still full with mana, so I have enough reserves.”]

[“Good! Please, support my garms with more [Frozen Shield]s or even just floating platforms. That way we can keep them mobile. Tasianna, prepare to fully unleash your new custom spell’s potential! I will create an opening!”]

As Tasianna and I were consolidating an attack plan, Grimnir and the garms suddenly cried out. The volchark, having enough of everybody, released magma from its pores at an explosive rate, creating something like a miniature volcanic eruption. Standing with its four legs on Tasianna’s self-made island, the volchark made it impossible for anybody to approach it without getting damaged by its magma.

Grimnir could endure magma well enough as a taz, but both Uno and Song were mildly burned by that attack. The magma burning through their [Shadow Armament] and singeing their fur before Tasianna extinguished it and healed them with [Ocean Healing].

Getting anywhere close to that thing will just prompt it to use its gas or this eruption.

Close-ranged or long-ranged, the volchark had a solution for anything, but it wasn’t impossible to fight against. My strongest method of attack was being up close and aiming for weak points for critical damage, but I still had ranged options.

[“Tasianna, leave this to us.”]

I then jumped off from the ice shield and used [Air Walk] to relocate myself around to the volchark’s magma spewing mouth. I pulled out an onyx ring from my storage with my mouth, pouring mana into it to make it glow black. Although I couldn’t use its special function anymore, this ring we looted from those grimgarian shamans would serve me well as a temporary catalyst to boost my abilities.

<Ring of the Shadow Guardian: A ring made to gain favor with the God of Darkness, Marsven. An alchemical stone was attached designed to channel a dark mage’s mana to cast spells faster. A protective charm was enchanted on this ring, caused by a shamanic ritual in the worship of Marsven by granting a sliver of his godly power as a shield of shadow. Drains 90% of the caster’s maximum mana as a cost and can only be used once. It resonates with any other [Ring of the Shadow Guardian], amplifying the strength of the shield.

Skill: [Dark Magic Efficiency Lv. 5] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 8] [Dark Amp] [Dark Resistance Lv. 5] [Ring of the Shadow Guardian (Broken)]>

Once again channeling mana through my arms, my white fur stood up from static shock as black lightning jumped from hair to hair, loading into my hand like a battery. Forming my paw into a spear, I pulled my arm back and then threw it in front of me, sending a stream of electricity into the shark’s mouth.

Stygian Lightning!

Its skin might be tough as hardened rock, but that didn’t include its mouth, eyes, or internals. The volchark stopped vomitting magma rivers from its body, instead, it recoiled from my attack, struggling to numb the electric pain it was feeling inside its mouth. An opening.

More lightning!

Finally possessing a powerful longe-range attack that I could spam, I unleashed the thunder upon this fire shark. The carpet bombing I was doing right now made me almost forget [Umbral Pendulum]—rest in peace [Tenebrous Magic]—but hearing the shark cry out like a shrill engine proved sacrificing the skill for [Stygian Voltage] was well worth it.

As I was readying more lightning, Grimnir came flying in with Sarasa’s help, slamming his hammer onto the shark’s head once again, fearing no retaliation. “I can handle it, keep shooting! Hahahaha!” he bellowed. Acknowledging his bravery, I continued my assault. Even my garms began shooting [Dark Slash] at the volchark.

“SlargHHHH!” it cried out even more. Our attacks were proving successful, as I could identify spots on its rocky hide cracking and crumbling, revealing the red skin beneath this behemoth.

In desperation, another magma erupted from the beast’s pores, but before I could once again stun it with a lightning bolt, the shark shook off its pain and dived into the lake. Seeing how my [Detection Sensor] informed me its signal was going further away, I clicked my tongue, thinking that it seemed to have escaped, but that was naive to think.

The cry it did wasn’t out of pain … It was out of anger.

Like a torpedo, the signal rushed closer and closer to the surface, causing my [Foresight] and [True Wolven Instincts] to ring louder and louder to the point I flinched from the mental pain. Gritting my fangs, I kicked the air with [Air Walk], shooting myself out of the trajectory of the attack. Yet, the ringing didn’t stop.

The volchark shot out of the lake like a rocket, its belly fully inflated, making it look morbidly obese like a frog who forgot to deflate its air sac. Opening its mouth, the volchark released a beam of magma, so fast I barely was able to dodge using [Dark Tendrils] to jump around like a web-slinging spider.

I thought I could get to assess its shooting trajectory, but nothing could prepare me as the shark went crazy. Not mentally, per se, but from the fact it was flying around the room like a deflating balloon.

Streams of magma burst out from this giant shark’s belly, burning the ceiling, the wall, the islands, the pathway, everything that got in its way. The attack was entirely scattershot, as the recoil of its beam attack propelled it around with no set pattern. By bouncing off the walls, lake, and ceiling like an elastic ball, its arbitrary movement sent my skills in haywire. Although it might have looked comical, this chaos was exactly why it was so dangerous.

This was what Hestia would call a bullet-hell.

Streams of the volchark’s beam, fountain sprays of magma, and rocks falling from the ceiling covered the whole area, raining onto us like a fire blizzard. The only way to dodge all of this was to stay unpredictable ourselves.

With all the shadows cast by this whirlwind of magam, it allowed my garms and me to fully use [Dark Tendrils]’s and [Shadow Dash]’s movement capabilities to swing and teleport around the room. Tasianna was a fairy and quite a fast one at that, so by returning to her smaller form and buzzing around like a fly, she kept herself safe from the attacks.

Unfortunately, Grimnir was a different case. The garms couldn’t get him out of the way fast enough.

[“Grimnir!”] I shouted as I caught his charred body from falling into the magma lake—the red mana thread cape I gave him was in tatters. The volchark had managed to hit him head on with a full blast of the beam.

“B-bladdarg, urgh,” he groaned.

His armor managed to block the majority of the attacks, but its durability had come to an end. It was falling apart from the sheer heat, destroying the runes Grimnir had meticulously engraved on each piece.

Holding onto his melting armor, the dwarf grimaced in pain, looking like somebody about to lose something precious. “Bladdarg, s-shite. C-can’t believe it finally—hot—finally broke.”

Strapping him onto my with [Dark Tendrils], I managed to rescue him from getting smashed by the shark, but no good deed went unpunished, for helping Grimnir left me open to the full brunt of a magma blast.

Kuso! The beam coming from the shark’s mouth is so much hotter than the magma from the lake!

I felt my fur and skin being singed by the extreme heat, but pushed through the pain to use [Air Walk] to escape. This was what my new body was for! Fighting and enduring against these monstrous beings!

Eventually, the shark’s belly emptied and it crashed into the lake like a deflated balloon. It was huffing roughly as it laid on top of the lake’s surface, recovering from its attack. Without any hesitation, I trusted my garms to attack the downed volchark while I began pouring my [Health Potion (Major)] into Grimnir’s mouth. I had to save him first.

“Mister Grimnir! Miss Saori!” Tasianna finally arrived, once again in her moderate form.

[“Cut the skin off!”] I demanded from her, only able to suppress myself from going hysterical with [Absolute Pain Tolerance].

She nodded and cast the level ten [Water Magic] spell [Aqua Beam] to slice off any magma-affected area, severing skin and meat with something akin to a high-pressure water gun. She then threw two of Hestia’s holy flame bombs on me, allowing me to finally let out a groan of pleasure and relief.

I love healing magic!

Tasianna then sprayed cooled water onto my skin to treat the pain before turning to Grimnir, pouring a health potion onto his face and chest.

She grimaced. “He’s still conscious, but he’s in pain. The potion should help, but I need to treat his wounds now.”

I nodded and left her to use [Ocean Healing] to give proper medical support. Parts of my body were still regrowing from that drastic healing measure, but I ignored the pain completely to dash back into the fight to help my garms. I felt—what did you call it—in the “zone.” My wolven instincts and the adrenaline pouring through my battle made me only focus on the enemy.

Although still huffing loudly, the shark forced its body up the moment it saw me approach, diving back into the lake before jumping out from it, charging full-ahead towards me.

You’re still not trying to run?

Almost as if time stopped, I easily dodged the charging attack, before reapplying [Haste] on myself, anticipating another attack. And it did, as I saw its pores glow red-hot. I kicked the air to side step the magma shot.

[“Uno, Song, Sarasa. Wrap this thing up, now!”]

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Time to finish this. I know how to kill you now.

My three garms howled as they dashed around the new islands the volchark so kindly made for us. Its magma beam might have exhausted us a bit, but it also caused boulders from the ceiling to fall into the lake, creating footholds for us to end this battle.

As the volchark landed back into the magma, before it could initiate its next attack, I threw a mana battery I had just snatched from Grimnir’s backpack, knowing we needed this explosion to settle this. Just like before, the moment the battery touched the lake, it blew up right in front of the shark face, stunning it long enough for my garms to surround it and begin tying mana threads around it.

In the meantime, I took out one of my favorite Hestia-made tools: a bottle full of her corrosive slime. Casting [Shadow Clone], I had my shadow copy grab the vial and pry the shark’s massive jaw open. Sadly, when it threw the venom down its throat, the shark bit down, amputating my poor clone into two.

I know my clone has less stats than me, but sheesh! My cut-off torso will haunt my dreams!

Regardless, its sacrifice wasn’t in vain as the shark began to jerk around, spasming from the effects of the purple liquid. It vomited a mouthful of molten rocks from its mouth, gasping for air in vain.

However, looking at the maximum health of the thing, it’ll probably level up its resistances before the poison would kill it. Thankfully, that wasn’t my plan.

Stygian Lightning!

My actions bought enough time for my garms to restrain the volchark’s legs and tail in Hestia’s magma elemental mana threads, which proved themselves to be greatly resistant to the magma lake as long as the garms were holding and pouring mana into them. With the shark held on land by my garms while it spasmed, it was time for me to get close and personal.

The shark instinctively kept its mouth shut despite struggling for air and it had its eyes shut to protect itself from any attacks, but those weren’t my targets in the first place. Looking into the pores of this “Volcano Furnace” volchark, I unloaded streams of lightning into the body of the shark through this one weakness.

Seeing it shaking violently from the dark-elemental electricity zapping every single of its fiber, I nodded in relief that the idea worked out. This wasn’t a monster to crack from the outside, this was a monster you had to crack from the inside! Lightning raged around my arms as I eyed the volchark’s other pores. With it too paralyzed to counter attack, I was eager to make it regret not swimming away the moment it could.

I am the one with the highest Strength. I am!

With lightning wrapped around my tail, I roared out and channeled the lessons I learned from my instructors. From Hestia’s agile fighting style, to the saurians’ sword-locking aggression, and to Gael’s deft trickery, I let my body remember all the training I did to surpass Hestia. To allow me to stand side-by-side with her and to quash away her fears of harming her friends!

I jumped backwards before twisting my body. Pouring even more mana into my tail, I performed a somersault with my canine body before slamming my electrically-charged tail right on the shark’s head. With my evolution, it had turned thick and tough, almost like mace, so this would be a hit this shark would never forget!

Shrieking once again like a shrill engine, the shark burped an uncontrollably amount of magma from its mouth, but my eyes were locked onto the spot my tail had landed. The attack had dented the volchark’s skull, cracking the shell so much only red skin was left.

With a smirk, I dug my charged claws right into it. The roars of thunder continued, not stopping even for a second as I unloaded everything I had. Using [Identify] on it, I could see its health dropping, but this thing was built to endure any sorts of attacks.

Nevertheless, I was happy. The glee of reflecting on this battle and how I performed sent my brain into overdrive, fully satisfied with how I performed. My hard work finally paid off. Intelligence was still a bottleneck for my overall damage, even with the grimgarian shaman’s catalyst. Regardless, this rank B was now at my mercy.

… And it would become the foothold for Aurora’s continued success!

[“Tasianna, your turn! Go!”] I jumped back, activated [Humanize], and put on my party braclet, ready to min-max the experience gained to level up my Job as well.

<[Humanize (Minor)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]>

With everything set up, it was time for the cryomancer’s turn to shine. [“I understand …”]

An enormous cyan-colored magic circle appeared on the ground, even comparable to Hestia’s [Symphonie des Feuergottes] in size. The different parts of the magic circle began to move, a warning for my garms and me to get out of the spell’s range, otherwise, it could end very badly for us.

Tasianna was flying above us all with her two pairs of wings, having just finished healing Grimnir up. Like a winter angel gazing down in the land, her glare pierced the volchark mere seconds before she uttered the name of her second custom spell.

“Tor Eiclere’s Finulaflei.” (Ice Age’s Paradise)

And with those words, the ice age began.

The temperature instantly dropped inside the area of influence, cooling the magma lake so fast that even the steam was instantly frozen in the process, dropping small icicles on the now solid floor. A blizzard raged on, buffeting the poor volchark as pure instincts finally kicked in for it. The cold was freezing it, its body was desperately fighting for life as it began to consume the ground around it to fuel the engine inside it.

Cold rocks entered the body of the shark, all used to create the life-essential magma it needed to survive in this frozen hell. It might have lived inside a flaming hell all its life, but its life would now come to an end in the winter angel’s paradise.

However, that wasn’t all the spell could do. With a swift hand movement, the air began to freeze at the edge of the spell circle, turning everything into sharp daggers, swords, and spears all aimed at the monster. With one click of her fingers, an unlimited ice storm descended into the Emerald-Flare dungeon.

Poison ravaged its internals, black lightning burned its cells, the cold freezing its blood and fire, and thousands of infinitely regenerating blades cracked open its rocky shell, revealing how its red raw skin was slowly turning blue.

“Urgh!” Tasianna groaned as her spell continued, chugging down not only mana potions but also dragorade to keep herself going. She was even using up her catalyst’s reserved mana.

This was Tasianna’s finishing move.

Just like how Hestia had [Symphonie des Feuergottes] and [Solar Beam] to end foes, Tasianna wished to create an attack to compensate for her non-destructive spell list. From her training and from spending some SP, she managed to gain [Torrent Magic Lv. 5] for both [Azure Blade] and [Kraken’s Destruction], but neither of those spells could compare to this perilous spell.

However, it came with a cost, of course. Since faefolk survived with their mana instead of health, the more she kept the spell active, the less mana she had and the weaker she would become. The spell also had a distinctively long preparation time, comparable to [Omnictus] or [Prayer], requiring somebody to protect her while she finished the casting time. While she didn’t need to chant, spells just needed time to materialize.

However, even this hadn’t killed the volchark yet. Clinging onto life, the shark desperately began to crawl its way out of the spell, slowly making it to the edge. When my garms noticed this, they were about to move, but I stopped them. After all, somebody else wanted revenge more.

“You piece of shit!”

“Sluierk?”

A naked dwarf stood in front of the volchark, his clothes were burned off and parts of his orange hair and beard were gone, but thankfully, the scars left from his burns seemed to have healed well, courtesy of doing it fast enough. He glared at the giant monster with rage-filled eyes and raised his gun form blasthammer up.

Oh jeez, I can’t believe this is my first time seeing that! I haven’t even gotten a boyfriend yet …

“That armor was the last piece of memory I had from my clan and my dear cuoso. I spent months making it!” Grimnir shouted before pronouncing one single word in a murmur, sealing the volchark’s fate. “Die.”

The blasthammer erupted into action, shooting a mana blast right into the volchark’s gaping mouth, blasting off a piece of its skull. Somehow, still not quite dead, the volchark stumbled backwards, falling right onto its back before its struggles finally ceased. The unlimited ice storm and the freezing blizzard claimed its first victim.

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa] has risen from [Level 0] to [Level 2]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Acquired 1300 skill points>

<Experience has reached multiple breaking points. [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]’s Job [Shadow Warrior] has risen from [Level 11] to [Level 27]>

<Attributes have increased due to level up>

<Acquisition requirement fulfilled. [Magic Power Enhancement Lv. 1] gained>

<Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Mental Stability Lv. 8] [Mental Warfare Lv. 8] [Health Recovery Lv. 9] [Stamina Recovery Lv. 9] [Enhanced Vitality Enforcement Lv. 5] [Enhanced Wisdom Enforcement Lv. 5] [Monster Tamer Lv. 2] gained>

<[Humanize (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Stygian-Scaled Fenrir, Saori Segawa]>

… We did it.

As the storm dissipated, I walked over to the normal quiet corpse of the volchark—its eyes frozen solid into two ice balls. When I noticed somebody next to me, I turned my head around to see Tasianna, gazing at the monster similar to me. She also raised her head once she confirmed it was dead.

“We did it,” I said, baffled at the results.

“Yes, we did it …” Tasianna murmured, nodding in agreement. “We did it …W-we DID IT!”

“WE DID IT! TASIANNA, WE DID IT!”

Joy. Elation, like never before. The euphoria running through my veins made me unintentionally jump up in the air multiple times, something Tasianna copied without any hesitation. “WE DID IT!” we simultaneously shouted as we embraced each other, our bodies refusing to stop jumping even as we stuck together.

“Tasianna, we did it!”

“Miss Saori, we did it without Lady Hestia! We did it!”

“Damn, I can’t believe I was so scared! Ahhh, the rush!”

“‘Don’t be arrogant, everybody,’ is something you would normally say here, but … Ahh, who cares, we did it! We won!”

As crazy as it sounds, in this magma chamber, Tasianna and I were dancing around as if we’d just invented the cure for all the world’s problems. We were that happy that we finally toppled our first B rank monsters without Hestia. We did it.

“Hmph. Youngsters … urgh.”

It went without saying that it took us a while to notice that Grimnir fell unconscious from the pain he felt. Wrapping a towel around his bare body, Tasianna began to nurse him back to health while I began dismantling the volchark. Luckily, the extreme cold hadn’t damaged the heart far too much; in fact, the moment the cold stopped, the heart began glowing like it was on fire. The beating had stopped, but otherwise it honestly still looked like it was alive.

Regardless, ‘to the victor goes the spoils,’ and our rewards were extraordinary. The elation even made me ignore my students, even if it was only for a single moment. After all, we couldn’t dawdle too much. The moment Grimnir woke up, we strapped him to Sarasa’s back and continued on our trip to reunite with Hestia and my students. Of course, the volchark’s dismantled corpse was inside my storage.

Just as we were about to leave this damnable magma lake room, a roar echoed through the room.

<Magma Golem: A golem made from earth and rocks, held together by slime-like magma. Able to sling balls of fire at targets, these monsters can become a threat both in close-range and long-range. Rank C>

Really? Another monster. Give me a break.

We were exhausted from that last battle and too annoyed to want to actually fight something else. While I would rather avoid it, considering how it was blocking our path, it would probably be best if we—

“Norder Style: White Dragon’s Descent.”

An explosion, neither from us nor the golem. Instead of lightning, ice, or magma, a cloud of dust was now covering our path where the golem had stood. As Tasianna blew the dust cloud away with her wind magic, a new silhouette suddenly appeared.

Instead of a golem, it was a person. A woman, in fact. Armored in armor so white it could blind you, a woman around her late twenties with hair color similar to a Scandinavian stood before us. In her hand was an iridescent, ivory spear adorned in silver scales almost as beausitful as gems, stuck in the ground.

After pulling it out, she skillfully twisted it so fast it produced a vacuum, sending all the dust around her away, leaving only the sight of the women standing in the remains of that magma golem. Brushing her long hair to the side, she opened her eyes.

“Princess Hestia, it is my honor to—Hold on, you aren't my young aunt,” the woman in a knight’s armor suddenly blurted out.

Aunt?

She tilted her head for a moment before retrieving a book from her belt, turning pages until she landed on the one she wanted. She pointed at one area before looking at me, then back at the book, then back at me. “… Uhm, perchance, are you perhaps, Miss Saori Segawa?”

I was so befuddled by the situation that I answered without thinking. “… Yes, that is my name.”

“… Oooh, so you’re the kids’—ooohhh … Shit. Why do you smell like Princess Hestia, Segawa-Sensei?”

Huh?

…

“Hold on, the lass is a dragon PRINCESS?” Grimnir shouted in disbelief.

… What?