Sophie bit her lower lip. She was standing still, unsure of whether to continue with the plan or investigate the shriek she had heard. The heat pulsating from the bag in her back urged her to go forward. What if the dragons realized one of their eggs had been stolen? If she stopped now, they’d catch up to her, and she’d be lucky if there were still bits of ash left once they were finished with her. However, there was a nagging feeling telling her to investigate the sound. It had come from Aran’s direction.

Sophie exhaled and shook her head. The party established a plan, and she’d follow it. As the egg carrier, she had to focus all her efforts on escaping the wilderness. If she went to check on Aran right now, what would have been the purpose of splitting up in the first place? She steeled her resolve and sprinted forward. The horrible screaming sound rang out a second time, but Sophie ignored it, trying hard to avoid thinking of the creature that could’ve produced such a dreadful noise. She let her feet do the thinking, and all she focused on was running through the forest.

“There she is!”

Sophie dove to the side, narrowly avoiding a net made of vines. She smacked the ground with her palm, preventing her body from hitting the forest floor. With that move, she bounced to her feet and examined her surroundings. There were five, no, six people ahead of her. They wore adventuring gear…, extremely poor adventuring gear. The group looked like it was composed of total noobs. There were three men and three women. If it weren’t for the fact they were deep in the wilderness, Sophie would’ve thought they were out for a couples outing. “Who the hell are you?” Sophie asked, narrowing her eyes. She drew her rapier from her waist and pointed it at the group.

“Don’t worry about that,” one of the men said and stepped forward with a shield in front of him. “Hand over the dragon egg.”

Sophie furrowed her brow. These chumps were clearly low-ranked adventurers—rank-D at best. Where did they get the balls to stop her? “Thunder!” A bolt of lightning shot out of the tip of her rapier, striking the woman standing furthest in the back. She looked like a healer, so Sophie targeted her first. The woman’s face contorted as she let out a silent scream, unable to produce any noise thanks to the electricity flowing through her body, paralyzing her muscles.

“Shit!” the man standing next to the spasming woman shouted. He caught the woman before her body hit the ground. “Damn! Attack her!”

The man’s words were pointless. His party was already engaged in combat. After the lightning had left Sophie’s rapier, she charged forward, thrusting her weapon at the foremost man, forcing him to raise his shield to block. Contrary to the man’s expectations, Sophie’s rapier pierced straight through his metal shield, stabbing his throat. She let out a shout and kicked the man’s crotch while pulling her rapier back, causing him to hunch over and fall to the ground while clutching his neck.

A sword hacked at Sophie’s from the side, but she flicked her wrist, deftly stabbing her rapier into the attacker’s hand, cutting off a finger while deflecting his strike. Sophie hopped back and pointed her rapier at the screaming man. “Fire!” A ball of fire formed in front of the rapier, and a second later, it shot forward, setting the man ablaze.

Sophie gritted her teeth. Why did a bunch of noobs who couldn’t even handle a fireball stop her? Obviously, they had their sights on the dragon egg, but something wasn’t right. They clearly had information regarding the Red Blade Adventurers’ plans, but for some reason, they didn’t do any research into each member’s strength? Sophie’s brow furrowed, and she took a step back, creating some distance between her and the remaining three members of the ambushing party. “Who sent you?”

“W-wait,” one of the women said. “Please, don’t kill us. There’s another group of people. They forced us to do this!”

Sophie frowned. As expected, these noobs were just uninformed trash. “Who is it? Who’s targeting my party?”

“It’s Party First,” the woman said. “They knew your party was going to split up after stealing the dragon egg, so they created a plan to intercept each one of you. They didn’t have enough members to block all six routes, so they coerced us into blocking you.”

Party First? Sophie’s forehead scrunched up as she tried to remember any information about them, but she couldn’t match any faces to the name. It was such an arrogant party name, so if she had heard it before, she was sure to have remembered it. Since nothing came to mind, it was clear she had never met them before. Sophie pursed her lips. Even if she knew her teammates were being ambushed, she still had her job to do. She had to escape with the egg. Her party members were strong; all she could do now was believe in them.

Faint flapping sounds caught Sophie’s attention, and she raised her head. All this time, she had been listening for the sound of wings. Her heart dropped to her stomach, and she exhaled, taking in her surroundings. Wingbeats could only mean one thing—the dragons were coming. However, no matter where she looked, there wasn’t a good place to hide. Sophie took in a deep breath. Since there wasn’t a place to hide, the next best option was to stand her ground, look the dragon in the eye, ready her weapon, and … use the egg as a hostage.

Contrary to Sophie’s expectations, the flapping sounds did not come from a dragon. It came from an odd-looking human-dryad hybrid with wings. That hybrid was holding something even stranger than itself—a brown-skinned person with three heads and six arms. Even though Sophie was an experienced adventurer, never in her life had she seen any creatures resembling what was flying towards her now.

“That’s them!” one of the women said, pointing up at Yeoman. “Those two are in Party First!”

Yeoman examined the situation below. His target, Sophie, seemed to have been fighting with another group of people. Did someone else have the same idea as Cody? Yeoman’s crow eyes narrowed—he still couldn’t see out of his human ones. He recognized some of the people down below. “Is that Joanne’s sister?”

“I think so,” Aakash said. “Swerve left, now!”

Yeoman leaned to the left, not questioning why. His right side lit up as a streak of lightning flew past him. In Virlyce’s stories, lightning magic was pretty popular. It was only after witnessing it did Yeoman realize how strong lightning actually was. It was impossible to dodge on reflex. If someone wanted to avoid a lightning attack, they had to move before the attack was actually fired. It was even harder than dodging a bullet.

“Land!”

Yeoman retracted his wings, pressing them against his side. He plummeted and spread his wings once more when his body was as high as the tallest tree, slowing his descent. It was a rough landing, but Yeoman didn’t think Aakash would mind too much. He’d rather the Indian man suffer from a few scrapes and bruises than be shot out of the sky by lightning. Yeoman released Aakash and sprinted towards Sophie, opting to use his caesti instead of his iron club. He wasn’t sure if it’d act as a lightning rod, and he wasn’t willing to find out.

Sophie took in a deep breath. She had killed ogres and trolls before, and the weird creature charging at her wasn’t too different from one. If anything, it was smaller and less threatening. The wings might pose a problem, but she was sure she could use the terrain to her advantage if the creature decided to take to the skies. Although she it was her first time fighting this new type of monster, she could still make some quick judgments based on its appearance. The tip of Sophie’s rapier caught on fire, and she drew a line in the ground. Less than a second later, a wall of fire rose up in front of her, the flames rising as high as her chest. It was the standard defensive option mages used against dryads. Next, she used the flames to obscure her rapier from the six-armed monster’s view and fired off a lightning bolt.

Aakash was running at Sophie when she fired the lightning bolt, but her aim was impeccable. His body stiffened, and he fell to the ground, fighting his muscles for control but failing. Even with his added muscles, bone density, and skin thickness from the genes he had absorbed in the dungeon, his body wasn’t able to defend itself against electric shocks.

“Hey!” Sophie shouted. “You useless noobs”—she hopped backwards and smacked one of Joanne’s sister’s party members with her rapier—“if you want to live, kill the six-armed monster. I’ll take on the hybrid.”

The wall of fire wasn’t particularly long or tall. Yeoman was sure he could’ve jumped over it, but a jump’s trajectory was easy to calculate. It would be easy for Sophie to hit him with a lightning bolt or even a fireball while he was still in the air, so he opted to run around the wall instead. As for passing through the flames, he wasn’t sure if he’d survive. The zombies in A Rational Zombie caught on fire pretty easily—maybe the zombie fungus was flammable. Yeoman wasn’t going to take that chance. As he ran past the wall of fire from the left, three members of Joanne’s sister’s party passed it from the right. It was clear they were going to attack Aakash, but if Yeoman turned around now, he’d be exposing his back to Sophie. Since that was the case, Yeoman could only use Sophie’s own tactic against her. “If you touch him, I’ll kill all of you once I’m done with her!”

Sophie hunched her shoulders, her neck retracting into her body as if that movement would help her fend off the sudden burst of sound. She had heard rumors of a goblin king’s shouts before; she had never fought a goblin king, but she imagined the monster in front of her was just as loud as one. Sophie gritted her teeth. Fighting a goblin king on her own, she didn’t think she could do it. Adventurers grouped up in parties for a reason. If Aran was in front of her, she’d be able to fire off spell after spell at the monster without worrying about being attacked. Suddenly, splitting up seemed like a really stupid idea. What if this Claire had encountered this monster instead of her? The white mage stood no chance.

Sophie glanced at the noob adventurers. The monster’s threat worked against them. It seemed like they thought she was going to lose to it. Her eyes narrowed as she took a step forward and pointed her rapier at the approaching monster. She couldn’t run; it’d catch up in an instant with those wings. There was only one thing she could do: stand her ground and kill it. Her rapier had a longer reach than its arms. Before the monster reached her, she could get one, maybe two, attacks in. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to kill it in one shot.

Yeoman was a bit hesitant to approach Sophie. It took a certain amount of bravery—or an equal amount of idiocy—to run up to someone with a sword and punch them in the face. Luckily, Yeoman’s sense of fear was dulled by the zombie fungus, letting him fulfill one of the requirements. As long as he protected his brain, he wouldn’t die, and the metal plates in his caesti were enough to block the rapier. He raised his hands up, blocking the upper portion of his head.

Sophie was a bit surprised at her state of mind. Instead of feeling nervous, she was perfectly calm. The monster approached with its arms raised in front of its face. It was a simple creature, much like a troll. While protecting its head, it had also blocked off its eyes. When the creature was close enough, Sophie stepped to the side and leaned down, thrusting her rapier upwards at an angle, stabbing through the creature’s abdomen and ultimately piercing its heart. She braced herself for what was coming next, and as expected, the creature hit her side with a heavy blow, sending her to the ground. Her fingers tightened around her rapier’s hilt on impact, and she yanked her weapon out with the help of the external force. A grin appeared on her face. She might’ve been hit, but she had won. The creature grabbed her arm and ripped her rapier away, wasting the last valuable seconds of its life. All she had to do was survive for a few more moments, and the creature would collapse.

Yeoman hesitated. Should he kill Sophie? He had spared Aran once, and because of that, the man was able to drink a potion and get back into the fight. Logically, the best choice was to kill Sophie to prevent any mishaps from happening. Yeoman might have killed Zeke and Aran, but he was under the influence of an extreme amount of rage. He had also committed cold-blooded murder in the second stage, killing helpless people who couldn’t fight back, but that was done under duress because of Snow. Yeoman wasn’t able to look Sophie in the eyes and strangle her. He might’ve been a zombie, but he wasn’t heartless.

Yeoman took the bag off of Sophie’s back and turned her around, grabbed both of her forearms with his right hand. He glanced at Joanne’s sister’s party. “You guys can leave now.”

The three remaining party members glanced at each other. “Goddammit,” Joanne’s sister said. “Let’s go.”

The three of them went over to their dead party members and retrieved some things under Yeoman’s watchful gaze. They picked up the unconscious woman, who had been struck by lightning, and carried her away. The only man left asked, “Are we really just going to leave like this, Josephine?”

“What else can we do?” Joanne’s sister asked. “We’re lucky he’s even letting us leave.”

The man gnashed his teeth. “We could’ve taken the Indian man hostage. Forced that freak to give up the egg.”

“And then what? Get killed when he flies after us?”

The man snorted. “We should’ve done something. Damn. How is that freak so strong?”

Josephine bit her lower lip, and tears of anger threatened to fall from her eyes. Why hadn’t she been the one to leave the group? How come Joanne got such a strong party member? It wasn’t fair!