Despite it being cautious of Kaltyr’s ability to encompass herself in the dirt it hated so much, the plant monster didn’t choose to hide or disassemble itself back into the natural flora of the pond. Maybe it was wary but still confident in its ability to kill her? Perhaps it was unable to return to its natural state for the time being? Kaltyr had no way to be sure, but she was grateful regardless. After all, if the monster resumed being nothing more than a scattered collection of pond plants, how would she safely retrieve her spear? The polearm would sink to the bottom of the seemingly very deep pond, and no matter how high-level her Swimming skill was, she would not risk diving into the pond to find it without a guarantee that the spirit-like thing wouldn’t attack. It was one thing to fight beavers in water, but another to fight the potentially-first water spirit she’d ever encountered. She had no intention of drowning.

A bead of sweat flowed down Kaltyr’s glowing red forehead, the exertion from controlling so much earth at once nearly being too much for her. Behind her floated several masses of dirt, some topped with grass, others with a few flowers sticking out of them. Her plan was very simple: surround the pond with a ring of fire, then throw dirt at the pond monster to see how it reacts. It was imperative that she brought soil from elsewhere to the pond rather than use the soil around the pond, she figured, because the ground near the pond was likely wetter, which would make it more difficult to control.

Unless the creature is fond enough of fire to walk through it, I should be able to land some dirt on it—

Kaltyr’s pondering was cut off as the monster caught sight of her and soundlessly shot pulses of mana bolts in her direction. They were easy enough to dodge with how much distance was between the two, but a shiver still passed down her spine. She wasn’t quite over how close to death she had been at the mana bolts of the earth squirrels from days past.

Nevertheless, the plant creature couldn’t keep up its attacks for long. Something Kaltyr had learned early on, but didn’t pay much attention to because she chose to be an Internalizer, was the fact that spamming mana bolts put a lot of stress on her meridians. At most, she could shoot a few dozen before needing to rest her magic channels. She asked The System about it, but it refused to answer, saying that the information was one of the things she needed to learn on her own. But by this point she knew her suspicions were true. The earth squirrels had cycled their attack duties, and now the plant monster was taking a break from shooting at her.

Which meant she had free reign, so long as her foe kept its distance.

Without wasting a second, Kaltyr dropped the dry earth she brought and became a fiery blur as she darted around the pond’s small perimeter, unleashing her blazing flames onto the flora. Given the fact that the plant monster’s home turf seemed to be the pond she worried that the flames would do nothing to it, since it could just submerge itself if it were burning. Or maybe it could just manipulate the water directly and lift it onto the shore to put out the blaze.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be able to do the latter, because it only kept its attention on the girl, ignoring the fire completely… But maybe that meant it wasn’t afraid of the fire? So many possibilities.

Kaltyr returned her attention to her opponent, who had begun attacking again and was no longer only lobbing mana projectiles. Its aura flared and Kaltyr’s senses tingled as it moved a large quantity of its mana all at once. The girl’s first instinct was to swiftly backpedal, but a moment later she came to a confused stop. The plant monster’s mana…just disappeared? No, it went somewhere, but where?

Her eyebrows furrowed as she extended her Magic Sense to its limits and realized…everywhere. Its mana had been absorbed by the pond and was now everywhere. Before she could make do on her intent to retreat, the pond water rose to the height of her waist before smashing down onto the blazing plant life.

So…it definitely could put out her fires, but doing so cost it a lot of mana.

“Ha ha, good,” Kaltyr internally rejoiced, “it’ll have less mana to directly attack me with—”

The girl celebrated too soon because unbeknownst to her, the mana the plant monster injected into the pond was quickly infused into the grass when the water struck it. The flora around Kaltyr became animated, growing to absurd lengths and reaching out to her. Like sinewy hands, they wrapped around her legs and held her tight.

The last of her fire mana exploded out all at once, incinerating the nearby plants, but more quickly replaced the ones she destroyed until Kaltyr found herself having to rip them apart with physical strength to free herself. The plant monster did not sit still while she was ensnared—well, it still remained in the center of the pond—and chose then to resume launching mana bolts.

Kaltyr’s mana stores immediately began to plummet as she tanked the full force of the spells, unable to do much besides continuing to tear her way free from the plants fettering her. At the rate she was making progress, she would be left with next to no energy by the time she succeeded and would need to flee. However, despite that scenario being among the more optimistic ones she could imagine, it definitely wasn’t favorable to her. She thought that she had the fight in the bag with how much mana her opponent spent on putting out her fires, but she’d soon be in the same situation and would have no advantages. If she fled to meditate, the plant monster would also have enough time to refill its mana stores.

Was there really no way for her to beat this monster? She lacked ranged fighting capabilities AND didn’t have any ability to physical injure the opponent besides dropping dirt on it. Any physical strikes would just sink into its body. It also had a crowd control spell that severely limited her mobility on land? This was absurd.

Just as Kaltyr mentally prepared herself to flee without retrieving her precious weapon…she sensed five aura signatures appear above her in the sky, diving down at her. Her eyes widened to an unbelievable extent as panic set in, and she prepared to forget about her living chains to defend against the incoming fliers…

Until it became clear that she was not their target.

For the first time since initially meeting the plant monster, Kaltyr heard it bellow a mighty roar into the sky, shaking the very air. Yet, like with the birds in the sky, she was not its target of aggression. The creature seemed to completely forget about the girl as it locked its sights on the birds above, firing mana bolts and even an air spell it never used on her… She had been looked down upon by a pile of sopping wet plants.

The new challengers—five multicolored birds seemingly of the same species—had Life Levels ranging from 6 to 8. They became dazzling beams of vibrant colors as they performed beautiful aerial maneuvers, easily dodging all attacks thrown at them with a few beats of their wings.

When the pond monster’s meridians tired, forcing it to stop its onslaught of mana bolts, the birds moved as one, all dashing toward the pile of dry dirt Kaltyr prepared for her attack. They landed on the soil mound, sank their mana into it, then each lifted a fifth of the total into the air with them before dropping their loads onto their enemy. Instantly, the dirt clumps that landed on the plant creature were absorbed into its body, where they solidified. Then, before the supposed spirit could flush out the dirt, the avians dove it, unleashing a flurry of techniques, forcing it to defend itself.

It was that moment when Kaltyr realized that she had been given a golden opportunity to flee her confines. She turned her gaze away from the birds which seemed to have a prior history with the plant monster, and returned to tearing away her living chains. Although the grasses’ grips remained tight, they were no longer so quickly replaced by new flora. It seemed to be the case that the plant spirit needed conscious control over its spell to produce the greatest effect. Lucky Kaltyr that it was being distracted.

By the time the girl freed herself and prepared to dive into the pond to retrieve her spear, the birds completely wrecked the pond spirit. Its body lay in muddy clumps, all floating on the pond’s surface. The pond monster’s aura was scattered and fading, blinking and pulsing, a sure sign that its life was draining away. To think that such a powerful creature was ended so quickly by a small group of weaker birds…

No, Kaltyr had to kick out that mentality. Numbers were very important in this world, and not just those on her Status Profile. She’d only won against those beavers because they lacked access to a fundamental Skill they should have had. The earth squirrels and these five birds were solid proof that Kaltyr had to step up her game. Speaking of…

Kaltyr’s superhuman strength propelled her forward through the water as she rushed to retrieve the spear which sat atop the chunks of floating pond spirit remains before it could fall off and sink, which it was very capable of doing seeing as the birds were rummaging through their enemy’s…“corpse”? The birds didn’t seem to have expected her approach because they squawked and flapped their wings in surprise before released a few warning shots. Kaltyr deftly dodged the projectiles and dashed through the spirit’s remains, taking her spear. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if her weapon would float instead of sink, but this was not the place to find out.

The girl suffered a few mundane magical attacks before she was back on the shore, spear in hand and sopping wet. Then, she fled the scene. There was no way she would contest those birds, considering her lack of consistent ranged damage, and was happy to flee while they dug around in the spirit’s remains. She presumed it dropped phantasmal goo or something similar, since the birds seemed to now be competing against each other for whatever prize they were searching for. Unfortunately, their fight wasn’t very vicious and they only seemed to be stablishing a pecking order, because Kaltyr would have considered killing them for XP later had they been actually killing each other.

She returned to her beaver-skin bags full of goodies, picked them up, and continued her journey without paying any mind to her sopping clothes. For now, she had to find a place to recharge on mana, then keep trekking. The mystery of what lay on the bottom of the pond—if anything—piqued her curiosity, but she held that desire back. Reaching civilization was, by far, the highest priority.