There's nothing like the thrill of battle to take one's mind away from troublesome thoughts; like those of treachery or deceit, something like that. For Katherine, that meant she had finally come around to accept my style of getting stronger… and take it a bit too far at times.

Ever since I voiced out the incongruencies in her father's actions, or lack thereof, she had been more than willing to hunt and train for longer and rest for shorter periods of time. It had gotten to the point that if I wasn't the one forcing her into taking a break, she would neither sleep nor wait for her own body to recover.

I'm not exactly an expert on how far a human of this world can take their training. It's obvious that the spiritually charged people here can't be compared on a one-to-one basis with the 'normal' humans of earth. But, I don't have to be a genius to spot when the lack of rest, the sleep deprivation, is getting to Katherine and making her movements sloppy; her judgment questionable.

Fortunately, it turns out this was just a phase Katherine slowly dropped over the course of a couple days. As much as I liked Katherine when it seemed like she was literally putting forth more than all her effort into getting stronger, it probably wasn't too healthy for her mental state to act as maniacal as I did. I mean, I doubt it was healthy for me to be like that too, but at least I had the excuse of being a literal Monster.

'Now, if only that god damn elf would stop trying to spy on us,' I thought as I made eye contact with her... 'again.'

As our eyes met for what had to be the tenth time since our first meeting, I decided to speak up instead of letting her leave like she had every time I discovered her sneaking about.

"You know, I don't think my friend here was being literal when she said that you could watch us if you wanted to," I said through a Tier 1 Transmission Spell. She wouldn't have been able to hear me from dozens of meters away otherwise.

"I couldn't care less what your friend meant," the elf said as she abandoned subtlety and approached us directly. "The two of you are security risks."

"Really?" I snorted. "I thought we were relatively weak? You should know with all the stalking you've done in the past week."

"I could kill you both if I wanted to," she sneered, "but that's beside the point. For as weak as you may be compared to me, you've proven yourselves dangerous enough to warrant my constant supervision."

"Make up your mind, would you? Are you insulting or complimenting us?" Her arrogant tone was really doing wonders to my patience.

"I'm addressing you personally, eagle. You are a threat to my village," she nearly hissed.

"I'm flattered that you think so," I did nothing to hide the sarcasm that bled through my voice, "but neither of us care to start some shit with you or your elf village. So, you can fuck right off with your annoying attempts at spying on us."

When she remained quiet and just stared at me, I tensed, momentarily cursing myself for potentially picking a fight in the most hypocritical way possible.

But then, as the elf just kept staring, I couldn't help but notice the slack in her posture. Her visage didn't so much as twitch after I fired one of the most direct insults, and her body looked completely open with no defensive measures taken that I could pick up on.

Weird…

Is she 'that' confident in dealing with us if it really came down to fighting? Or is she just beyond being verbally insulted and totally unfazed?

Eventually, after a minute came and went with us just staring at each other, I couldn't be bothered to keep up this charade and asked, "Is this the part where we fight? Because if it's not you, I'd really like to get back to hunting more C Rank Monsters."

Before the elf could answer, my eyes snapped down to the ground underneath her. There, a highly concentrated source of magic seemed to be rapidly rising to the surface as the ground started brightening up considerably.

"Move!" I shouted, making the split-second decision to warn the elf.

Despite our tense relationship, she had yet to make a hostile — physical — move against us. In fact, I hadn't forgotten the fact that she had planned on defending Katherine only to end up assisting her instead back when we first met by the lake. So, I thought of this as nothing more than paying back a favor.

Immediately, the elf's Speed was made evident as she both heard and reacted to my warning in the blink of an eye. I literally would have missed the fact that she widened her eyes after looking down for just the slightest of instances if I had blinked.

Crash!

The ground the elf had been previously standing on exploded into a massive plume of dust which was denser than I could see through, obscuring my line of sight to whatever enemy had just popped up as well as the elf.

That simply wouldn't do, so I reacted accordingly. I instantly casted a Tier 1 Gale Spell, and despite it still being Lvl 1 from barely ever needing to use it — only really doing so situationally as was required during this ambush — my Wind Magic immediately cleared the dust.

My eyes narrowed with what I saw. Not only was the enemy not in sight, but the hole it would have made from breaking through the ground was nowhere to be found. The only thing that had changed was that the elf had displaced herself and drawn her bow; an arrow already nocked and ready to be fired.

"Katherine..." Nothing else needed to be said as she was already forming a Tier 5 Earth Sensing Spell.

In the meantime, I was forming my own Tier 4 Strengthening Spells as I kept an eye out for any more potential ambushes.

I managed to cast Tier 4 Empower and Reinforce on myself before I nearly balked after being given next to no time to react to another ambush. Whatever our enemy was, it had just gotten a hell of a lot faster while moving underground and this time it was targeting me.

Crash!

Time seemed to slow down as I ignored the dust that threatened to obscure my vision once more. I barely dodged 'its' bite and was too slow to counter. But, at least I managed to cast an Appraisal.

[Appraise Successful

Name: Terracoon Elite

Estimated Rank: B-

Description: A Raccoon-type Monster prodigious in its mastery and manipulation of Earth. Usually, they are ranked a small Rank higher, but this one shows many signs of having recently evolved; most obvious of all, it's smaller than average proportions.]

Oh shit… This thing might be out of our league.

Thoom!

The raccoon got sniped by one of the elf's arrows. However, instead of being pierced, I could barely follow its actions in forming a plate of earthen armor on exactly the spot it had been hit by the elf's arrow before it was then launched dozens of meters away and through a couple trees.

"I'll kill you!" The raccoon growled and if not for this turning out to be the most serious fight I'd been in thus far, I might have reacted to it for being the first non-Tamed Beast I'd come across with the ability to talk.

Right now, I was too concerned with the lack of damage done to the raccoon to care for much else. The elf's arrow — the same one that had punched a massive hole through the equivalent of a human torso on that Marlin Monster back at the lake — had barely managed to cut an inch deep into the raccoon's hide.

Unfortunately, it didn't give me much time to think as it charged at the elf in a burst of speed; the very ground underneath it propelling it along to further boost clearly Lesser B Ranked Speed.

Impressively, the elf didn't flinch. She just lowered her stance and shot two arrows faster than most of the guns could fire from what I could recall of them in my former life.

T-Thoom!

The first of the two arrows she shot completely canceled the raccoon's momentum, punching right through the armor it could instantly make. The second one, however…

The second arrow was different. I wasn't supplemented with Magic, but it felt much more dangerous to me as it burst into a dark light of power and sailed through the air faster than I could follow. When it made contact with the raccoon, it managed to fully pierce it, leaving it to fall helplessly to the ground as blood splattered all around it.

But the raccoon wasn't dead yet. None of its vital organs must have been hit as, despite its grievous wound, it managed to instantly retreat back into the ground.

"It's not leaving..." Katherine said before grimly adding, "and I can't follow its movements clearly with just Tier 5 Earth Sensing."

Just as she finished speaking, my eyes widened as a massive field of Magic was infused with the ground all around the three of us.

"Earth Spears! Shit!" I shouted as I quickly casted Reinforce on both Katherine and the elf, and propelled myself into the sky.

Katherine, probably due to her experience with Earth Magic, was the first of the two to jump and climb up a tree. She managed to completely evade the Earth Spears I had correctly managed to predict.

The elf, on the other hand, was a bit slower on the uptake. She caught the tail end of the pikes that had sprouted out of the ground and was directly stabbed in her right leg; her left one all scratched up as well.

As I finished casting a Tier 4 Heal on her, I was completely blindsided by a Geo Bullet hitting my back.

[Life 100% → 73%]

Yeah, I'm not feeling too well right now. The simple act of flapping my wings to hover in place is excruciating. But it could be much, 'much' worse. I had been hit directly with just my Reinforce Spell as my only defense, after all.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

All around me, more Geo Bullets tried to bring me down, but before they could, either Katherine would raise an Earth Wall or one of the elf's arrows would blow them up. This was all well and good, but I couldn't trust them to keep this up forever.

As much as it hurt to admit, I was the weakest link in our makeshift group. I might have been the only one who could see the raccoon's attacks coming, but I could neither keep track of them all nor dodge them after it had started using all its power.

Again, time slowed to a crawl as I considered these dire circumstances.

We were up against an enemy whose defense we could penetrate; we could kill it. But, it could evade us and chip away at our strength until it no longer needed to hide from us. The raccoon was a Lesser B Rank threat, but it wasn't an overwhelming force well beyond our cumulative strength.

It was infuriating to think that this, of all the enemies we had come across, could be the one to kill us; and by us, I mean the others. B Ranked or not, the damn thing wouldn't be able to do anything if I decided to fly dozens of kilometers into the stratosphere.

It was so infuriating in fact, that I decided it was worth taking a gambit.

Normally, I'd never consider what I was about to do, first and foremost because I'd never tried it, and also because it could turn out to be a huge waste of Magic. But, there was really nothing else we could do given Katherine had already tried and failed with her Earth Sensing.

So, I scanned the ground for the highest concentration of magic and once I traced the path I figured the raccoon would take underground, I dumped most of my Magic into the most overcharged Fire Augment Spell I could muster.

Half my Magic Reserves were instantly tributed as a Tier 4 Fire Magic Circle quickly materialized above my chosen spot.

Zzt…

The air, the grass, the ground… All of it was superheated in a fraction of a second as the temperature skyrocketed. From what I could see, the area of effect immediately combusted and continued to blaze even as the ground was charred beyond recognition. But, I couldn't be sure that my desired outcome of heating up everything down to the raccoon was actually occurring.

At least not until Katherine explicitly said, "You… Your Magic is penetrating dozens of meters into the ground." She had a bead of sweat roll down the side of her face as she said, "Under those conditions, it seems that the Monster is too shocked to concentrate on using Magic to escape. It's flailing and clawing at the ground as it continues to struggle."

What?

This is already the highest level of Fire Magic output I am currently capable of sustaining. For that shitty raccoon to still be alive after all this…

My eyes steeled as I threw caution to the wind and ignored the burning sensation I felt from going past my limit. Better that I get burned a little now, than risk the damn thing slipping away. If I didn't get rid of it now, it would either run and come for revenge later — I assumed it was smart enough to scheme as much if it could talk — or it might continue to try hit-and-run attacks while being aware that it needed to defend against my effective Fire Augment strategy.

As I made my decision, my already dwindling Magic Reserves started emptying faster and faster as I tested the limits of my tolerance. I didn't know how much more it would take to get the job done, so I went as far as I thought I could handle.

I ignored everything and everyone as I put the whole of my being into raising the potency of my Fire Augment Spell and what I found was strange, to say the least.

As I'd expected, going past my limits ended up giving me a burning backlash. However, the difference between dumping 1% more Magic into sustaining Fire Augment and 10% hardly felt any different. Beyond that, increasing things from 10% all the way up to 80% was easily tolerable for me.

From 80% to 90%, I struggled in the face of my rapidly exhausting Magic Reserves and the inner heat the Magic coursing through me caused. But, having made it that far, I refused to believe I wouldn't be able to double the amount of Magic I could pump through the Spell.

It probably only took a few seconds, but to me, it felt like I'd been going at it for minutes before I reached my goal. Though, before I could so much as ask Katherine whether or not I'd managed to finally kill off the raccoon, a prompt more or less answered that for me.

[Worldly Resonance Triggered!]

Excuse me?

How the hell did it trigger? I didn't eat any magical resources!

[Condition Fulfilled: New Skills "Understanding of Fire Lvl 1," and "Fire Incarnate Lvl 1" Created!]

[Worldly Resonance Lvl 2 → Lvl 3]

I would have continued to dwell on how this came to be, but I was a bit preoccupied with the fact that my body had caught literal fire. Like, not the Magical kind that came as a result of using Fire Augment.

My body was exuding smokeless orange-hot flames, and it wasn't bothering me in the slightest. I was actually feeling pretty good, all things considered. I mean, I'd yet to heal from the one direct hit I sustained earlier, but at least I no longer felt like my back was bleeding.

Still, I had to make sure…

I looked at Katherine and asked, "Did it die yet?"

When she nodded, I cut off my connection to the Fire Augment Spell and sighed as it dissipated into the air. The only evidence of it even existing being the perfect char-black circle of still blazing and liquified earth.

I'd fucking turned it into molten lava.