𝙸𝚜𝚎𝚔𝚊𝚒 𝙶𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚆𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚐: 𝙵𝚎𝚖𝚊𝚕𝚎 𝙷𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚎𝚜 𝚁𝚒𝚜𝚎

Chapter 4 [Woah, An Actual Slime]

Tsubaki knitted her brows, pondering over this new information. "Then, if I were to fight alongside the other heroes, what would that mean?" She thought of rejoining with the others once they have fully mastered their weapons.

"The Exp would be split evenly between the Heroes instead regardless of their contribution." This time Lucas was the one who answered. "So there are chances of others ripping your efforts, reasons why it's more preferably for each hero to travel separately." The cloaked boy lowered his head.

The female hero mulled over his words. Interestingly, this world's system really focuses on self-improvement but at the same time, team effort. Also, the is the little issue of these weapons causing great dangers if used together. Perhaps it was better that they all split at first and tries to get a hand of their weapons better.

"Hey..." Ermes called to her, snapping her back from her train of thoughts. "There are higher monsters deeper into the forest," he pointed at the forest that they were gonna approach. "You'll get nowhere sticking to weak fries like slimes."

Tsubaki sighed as she resheathed her sword. "Yeah but I'm not gonna test my luck. I'm gonna stick to low-level monsters and practice more with my sword before I even think of facing higher-level monsters." She crossed her arms. As mentioned before, she's still rusty with Kendo, much less with an actual sword. Even with some familiarity, the sword still felt heavy at her fingertips.

She had hoped that they could scout the area and have Owain help her practice. Perhaps she could have either Madia or Lucas help her with magic.

"Let's just look around for now," she suggested despite the looks of disappointment on their faces. "Um, I could use your help with training." she brought up with the hope that it would cheer them up.

And it did, well Owain especially—the older knight looked like he couldn't wait to assist. Whereas the others seemed more curious about seeing her train.

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"Haha, is that all you got, young hero?" Owain boasted as he easily deflected Tsubaki's sword. She hissed as the sword was thrown from her grasp.

The short-haired girl was panting and collapsed to her knees. "I told you I was rusty."

Ermes smirked, "but aren't you supposed to be the destined champion? The one that was chosen by the gods themselves?" The black-haired mercenary played with his dagger, twirling it around.

"Just because I'm called the destined champion whatever, doesn't mean that I'm overly powerful right off the fucking bat!" She growled at him before falling to her back. Oh god, she's so tired. They had been training for hours. Damn her stamina and her lack of exercise.

"Need a break, young hero?" She puffed her cheeks hearing Owain chortled.

"Leave me here..." Tsubaki gave up. "Just leave me here to be eaten by the next monster." She refused to get up.

"I doubt monsters would wish to eat you," she twitched when she heard Lucas murmur. The audacity.

Tsubaki shot upward from her slump, "excuse me?! I'll have you know that I am freaking delicious!" She glared which all her party members had flinched from. Ha.

"Grr...." Her body froze at the growling. She was sure that it didn't come from her stomach. She slowly turned behind her—

"A-A dire-wolf" Madia trembled at the sight of it. All her party members became tense.

"O-Oh...good boy," Tsubaki sweated as the growling beast that was completely towering over her. With its black fur and menacing red eyes, it didn't look like a good boy.