After continuing to trail the people for several minutes, Mash saw where they were headed. The shapes of a rudimentary wall and small houses could be seen. He was tempted to follow and see what would happen, but that put too many lives in danger. Whatever the item was, it didn’t belong in a village. Making sure that the people in the village were safe, was a much bigger priority than finding out what the item did.

He sent a signal to Jill and his brother. Even at this distance, he could send some basic commands to imitations of Priscilla he had made. Priscilla had told him that the imitations would function independently of distance, but he hadn’t fully believed her until now. The signal was simple, the imitation would start moving in a circle. Jill would arrive within a few seconds, but his brother and the knights were still over half an hour away.

Mash didn’t wait for either of them, changing into his cat form. He had tested mixing the forms before, only to be disappointed. He couldn’t mix them as he wished, which was a bit disappointing considering how much power that would’ve given him. Not wanting to give them the opportunity to run towards the village, he launched himself into the air.

As the group of adventurers got past the edge of the forest, he descended in front of them. He didn’t touch the ground hovering a few feet off the ground as he spoke. The grass slowly shifted from the wind.

“If you want to keep the item and enter the village, you need to tell me what it does.”

The group hesitated a little, obviously surprised to see him. The girl seemed the fastest to wear off the shock and responded with sharpened words.

“I told you, he was nothing more than a thief.”

For whatever reason those words made him feel especially angry. Honestly, it might have been because it was an insult, he had never received before, but he snapped back with his response.

“No, it’s because I don’t want to let you kill everyone in the village.”

Mash was thoroughly annoyed as he spoke and prepared to dive straight towards them. None of them were strong enough to even hurt him. He would capture them and wait until his brother arrived. He wouldn’t try something stupid, like touching the item.

“You’re too late.”

The voice felt like it was right beside him, and he felt a wall of force enter his draconic domain. It was too large to dodge, and it hit him in the side with enough force to send him tumbling through the air. He was glad he was only a few feet off the ground. Mash rolled with the blow, righting himself quickly and springing to his feet. He turned facing the village. There was a man strolling out of the village, his body entirely covered in black robes. Mash considered what the attack had been. Either it was space or wind magic, though he guessed it was the former. He thought that his form would help him against wind magic.

Jill appeared a second later arriving beside him. Without any hesitation, he tossed her the ring, while giving her instructions.

“Robed man in the distance is a space mage, plus I think he murdered everyone in the village.”

Jill nodded before winking out of existence, and he saw her reappear beside the space mage, plunging the odd javelin that she had shown him before. Mash trusted her to win that fight, and instead charged to the panicking adventurers. His back sprouted a dozen tails that ended in wooden hands. He was still confident in incapacitating these people, rather than killing them.

One of the men quickly pulled out a bow and fired at Mash. He easily dodged the attack but was not expecting the arrow to explode once it was beside him. The bigger surprise was that it had done so without any mana, and the explosion covered him in flames. Even still, the damage was negligible as he got close enough to the man to strike back on his own.

Mash didn’t do anything fancy punching the man in the head. It may have been a bit too hard though as the man collapsed without so much as a twitch. Not wanting to make the situation worse, he still had one of the wooden limbs wrapped around the man and trapping him. The others were slower than the man, the other two men barely managing to draw their swords before finding themselves similarly incapacitated.

The girl managed to pull out a spear, the edge was jagged and made the weapon look like the tail of a monster. Mash was a bit impressed with the speed of her thrust, especially considering that she was probably at the same level as her brothers. However, this girl had been nothing but unpleasant thus far, and he didn’t give her any slack.

His fist landed squarely on her face, and he could feel the fur around his hands pressed against her face. The satisfying feeling of landing a punch with his whole hand filled him. The girl staggered back and fell to one knee, but she held on. She lunged again with her weapon only to have it snatched out of her arms by one of his wooden limbs. He hit her again, though this time in the back of the head. He didn’t want to be overly cruel and attempted to knock her out. As she fell another of his limbs snaked around her binding her like the others.

With his enemies incapacitated, he only needed to deal with the weird object. Turning to it, he shivered as he saw an eye gazing back at him. There was a hole in the surface of the orb, and a yellow eye stared through the gap. The pupil was in the shape of a black diamond. Then black flames shot from the small hole. Mash reacted immediately. He remembered Luke’s story and had an idea of what he was looking at.

A black flame that would probably burn his soul, warped the grass as it burned the field around him. The creature was most likely a demon, and Mash grew far more excited. A new creature meant a new form, and he could not hide his anticipation. And a baby demon couldn’t be that bad.

The limbs on his back grew longer, ending in a large draconic maw. It shot forward as he attempted to crush the egg in a single bite. He was not expecting enormous hands of sickly grey skin to intercept the closing mouths. It was only because of his draconic domain, that he managed to separate himself from those limbs and jump away. The demon erupted in black flames, engulfing everything around it. His wooden limbs that had managed to resist most flames until this point, were completely burnt as the demon jumped towards him.

It was fast and strong but had been stupid. The lunge was as amateurish as it could get, and Mash had no trouble dodging and plunging a wooden spike into its back. It had grown out of his right hand, and with his left, he formed sharp claws. He didn’t let the attack end and there, and finally got his bite. His claws ripped out a chunk of the creature, and he popped it into his mouth.

That had been a huge mistake, and he vomited as soon as the taste hit him. It was the vilest thing he had ever eaten, and a nasty smell of rotten eggs lingered in his mouth. As to be expected, the creature didn’t let him vomit without consequence, and it lashed out with a pointed tail. During the whole fight, he had been growing out his armor though it didn’t manage to even blunt the blow. It was thin and it thankfully got stopped by his bones. It pierced it like the armor wasn’t even there, and Mash finally realized what was happening as the tail got stuck.

Its attack or maybe just its body in general was nullifying his magic. Even his creations dissolved around the attack. Mash didn’t panic as he felt the tail twist inside of him. Letting out a guttural yell, he changed to his dragon form. The hardened scales replaced the fur from his previous form. Even without the transform finishing, he felt the power suffuse his body. He grabbed onto the tail, his now real claws digging into its flesh. With a push, he tore the tail in half and yanked it out of his body. The creature screamed in pain, turning, and lashing out with a punch. Despite being half the thing's size, Mash didn’t even budge in the slightest as the fist crashed into his side. Mash barely even felt the impact, as he retaliated.

His much smaller fist collided with the creature’s ribcage. It was easy to see the bones cave in, as its skin clung to its ribs like a starving animal. They broke under the blow and the creature was sent flying as if he had thrown a small stone. The creature tumbled through the ground. This time. Mash formed a wooden mouth and tossed the tail into the waiting mouth. Feeling the stats suffuse his body, he leaped towards the creature that was staggering to its feet. It let out a high-pitched squeal, and Mash knew that it was a mental attack despite being able to ignore it. Something was stopping it, but he didn’t care for figuring what. It noticed that its scream was ineffective, and instead exploded in black flames as it had before.

Trusting in his scales, and the defenses provided by the form, he unhesitatingly plunged into the flames. Pain spread around his body, but it only felt like a minor sting, and he ignored it tackling the creature. He slammed into the creature, stopping the monster, and carrying the creature into a nearby structure. Only after the impact did he realize that it was the wall of the village. Stones flee around him, as he grabbed the creature. His hands only found purchase around the ribs of the creature. He gripped the bones through the monster’s skin and slammed it into the ground with a violent explosion. Not holding back in the slightest, he rained down on it with powerful punches.

Jill’s P.O.V

Jill tumbled away from a collision of two space attacks. Her magic was being intercepted by a defensive spell from the other man. Every time their magic met, the space warped and released a violent explosion. Her armor had almost shattered the first time, and the other man’s robes had been destroyed. He was bleeding from an arm that hung uselessly at his side. Even with the damage from the surprise attack and explosion he was powerful.

She received a vision of the space behind her warping, and time slowed slightly as she teleported away. The man was clearly getting frustrated, but with her rings, she was practically untouchable until she ran out of mana. That was increasingly becoming a concern as the fight dragged on. She was looking for an opportunity, anything that would give her an advantage.

The javelin had worked for that first attack, but the man was constantly warping the space around him. It was the reason for the first explosion, and the force had damaged her weapon as much as it had her armor. Using it again would probably kill the man, but also had a good chance of breaking her items. She really didn’t want to let that happen and was betting on him messing up or running out of mana.

Her opportunity finally came when an enormous sound erupted behind them. It sounded like the very earth had shuddered from the noise, and a quick glance told her what happened. Mash had entered his dragon form, and had thrown something? As it staggered, she realized what it was, a small bit of panic fluttering into her mind. Luke had only been able to fight that because of his soul skills, how would they defeat it?

She was only distracted for a moment, as her forewarning told her of a shout the demon was about to emit. It would stagger everything that heard it, including the robed mage. Without any hesitation she teleported behind the mage, once again using her javelin to plunge towards the man. The demon’s shout came, and the shield faltered for only an instant. It was enough time for her though, and she plunged the javelin into the man’s eye. She felt the rush of a level up and could tell that she was ready for her advancement.

That came after defeating the creature, and she turned towards the monster. She could only barely track its movements as Mash tackled into it with incredible speed. Even knowing how much power the dragon form gave him, she was not prepared for the speed at which he moved. Within a second Mash had cleared the field and smashed into the village’s wall. In the same motion, he stuck his hands into the creature before slamming it into the ground. He started punching the creature, and she couldn’t help but count the blows as she ran towards them. Each swing of Mash’s fist shook the ground beneath her, and he stopped after the seventh.

She caught him glancing her way and knew that the fight was over. She teleported beside him, holding her hands out to catch him. The motion had surprised her in how automatic it had been. It was becoming far too normal for them to pick Mash up after he finished a fight. That didn’t happen this time and he gave her a grin. Since he was in his dragon form, the smile was accented with sharp pointed teeth, and the thick black scales made his face more monstrous than the demon. Somehow, she knew that it was the same stupid grin he always had at the end of a fight.

She matched him this time. After all, she had been completely right about what would happen. A simple escapade turned into discovering something big, fighting a demon and a high-level space mage, and ending with her getting to her class advancement. As the dragon scales turned back into human skin, she told Mash of what happened. Without any further hesitation, she sat down to advance.