Life as an adventurer was tough, mused Daryl as he trudged along behind his older party members. Well, he already learnt that when he first tried to earn money after signing up, but after meeting Masa and Rynn, he thought that things would look up once he levelled up and with Crystie having a stable job at the guild. He soon realised how wrong he was.

For one thing, the meals they had during their forays into the forest were particularly bad. Most of the travel rations sold in the shops consisted of a tasteless hard biscuit that was supposed to be nutritious but tasted like particularly tasteless cardboard. The only thing that could be done to improve it was to dunk it in soup, but they rarely had chances to actually cook soup while camping.

One of the reasons was that no one in the party was skilled in storage magic, or what they called "Void" in this world. Thus no one bothered to lug a heavy pot around to cook soup, let alone have salt for seasoning. The adventurers in his party would just set up a fire to keep warm and then gnaw on their biscuits and jerky that was only marginally tastier than the aforementioned cardboard, sorry, biscuit.

He mourned the instant cup noodles that Rynn had conjured out of nowhere and wished he had thought to ask her for some as a farewell present or something. Even one of her granola bars would be better than this.

Well, the food was one of his main gripes, ok, no, it was the biggest issue he had, but that wasn't all. His party consisted of six members, so the reward was usually split six-ways. That would be fine if they hunted monsters with higher rewards, but their leader was a cautious man and only took requests that he was sure they were able to deal with. Sure, that meant they were able to go home safely, but it also meant the rewards and experience points were not that appealing. He and his wallet were growing, yes, but did the progress have to be so so slow?

More than once, he had considered leaving this party and searching for another or even going solo. But Crystie's worried face always came into his mind and he decided to stick with them for just a little while longer. He made several suggestions to his party leader, a grizzled axe-wielder named Jakk, and to his surprise, the older man listened and agreed to choose a request with a higher reward for their next hunt.

…Which had landed them in this predicament. It was true they managed to hunt their targeted monster successfully, but who knew it had an even larger mate who attacked them in revenge? No, wait, maybe it was after the eggs they had taken from the nest as loot. Or possibly the feathers of its deceased mate they had plucked as trophies? Surely it wasn't the remains of the dismembered creature that they salvaged? He had heard from the others that this particular species had tough, inedible meat. Maybe that was where the jerky came from.

Jokes aside, their party was actually fighting for their lives now that they had used up their last potion. Jakk was at the front roaring his defiance as he swung his large axe around so quickly it looked as light as a feather. Their scout had climbed a nearby tree and was throwing daggers and other projectiles for all he was worth, while the spearman looked for an opportunity to get in strikes whenever he could. Their archer was standing below the scout's tree, shooting arrows, bolts of fire, and sometimes fiery arrows. Only their healer was doing nothing at the moment, since his mana had run out and he was slumped over, catching his breath.

Daryl himself was dashing here and there trying to hit the target with Chamisha. He succeeded just now and made the monster sleep for a while, but a slash from Jakk's axe woke it up again. He somehow had to hit it again before it took to the air and went out of their reach.

He ran in a wide circle to flank it, and while the other kept it busy, he struck at its tail feathers. Chamisha didn't need to hit a target's body directly. As long as whatever it touched was connected to the target, its random effect would take hold. Its damage was normally negligible anyway, but the effects could stack. And he was hoping for either the poison or instant death effect.

Petrification would defeat the beast, but they wouldn't be able to harvest any materials. Cursing it might affect the materials as well. The meat wasn't edible anyway, so the poison wouldn't be a problem, and instant death was of course welcome at any time. Receiving experience for the kill would be the cherry on top of the cake. There might be other status effects in this world, but these few were what he had seen in his journey so far.

Chamisha merely grazed the monster's tail feathers, and Daryl felt his heart drop. At the next moment, the creature gave a terrible shriek and leapt into the sky. Yikes, he was too late! Jakk and the others backed away or hid behind trees as they prepared for the lashing winds to come.

The bird-like creature flapped its wings as it kept shrieking, stirring up powerful gusts of wind below it. Daryl braced himself, hiding his face with his sleeve as he ran towards the nearest tree.

The shriek kept rising in pitch until it became a prolonged keening that hurt his ears. Then the sound abruptly stopped and there was a tremendous whump was something huge fell from the sky. The impact was worse than all the previous cutting winds and blew everyone head over heels. Daryl banged his head on a thick root and his last thought before blacking out was, That instant death effect wasn't very instant, was it…