CHAPTER 10.

Malty turned towards him, "Where is that man going? He is supposed to take us back to the castle!"

Adrian looked at her with one eyebrow raised," We are going to be in there for about three days or so if all goes according to plan, better he wait in the village inn than out here for no good reason." he turned towards the brat after this," Andrea, any last-minute advice regarding the forest?"

Malty ignored the fools and tried to calm down, this pest was getting on her nerves! That driver worked for her, it was his job to wait here for her, not rest in an inn while she had to sleep in a forest on top of filth.

"Alright, let's get going." said Adrian, his sword shifting forms to a vicious looking blade, that was slightly glowing,"Our goal, for now, is primarily just levelling up so that we can tackle the whole forest safely, but please note that materials are still critical, a minimum of at least one sample from every living thing in that forest."

He started walking, the brat moved to his side, going a little forward, while the church's little pet followed behind him. Malty let her irritation fade, she had known from the start that she would need to deal with fools, what Queen didn't? She could not allow these imbeciles ridiculous actions to alter her plans. Not when they were sure to succeed, she would not allow mere irritants like these to allow her to fail. So she followed staying to the back like they had discussed during the carriage ride here, prepared herself to use her magic, and drew her sword.

For nearly ten minutes they encountered no monsters, and she was beginning to get impatient, especially given that the Hero kept stopping to pick up clumps of herbs, occasionally cut down and absorb trees and branches, and once even picked up some soil. Then they encountered their first monster at a distance, the brat was the one who saw it first and she signalled a stop.

"Pyramid Tortoise?" muttered Adrian, looking utterly incredulous," what the fuck? How can something like that even exist? How is that a tortoise? It's an artillery platform!"

Malty didn't understand what he was saying. What was the problem with the monster? She looked at it and noted that while it was a little odd, it was simply a tortoise which had a pyramid for a shell, this pyramid was currently half open and she could see that it had some spikes on top of it, fairly large ones at that, that it had launched at a tree with a loud cracking sound, once the tree fell over the tortoise slowly began to eat the leaves. It had yet to notice them since it was looking in the opposite direction.

It was nothing important or special, one hellfire spell from her would kill it in an instant.

"Sir Adrian, I shall use my Hellfire spell to take it down, please give me a moment," she said, voicing out her thoughts, this brute only valued combat ability, and this was a good chance to show it.

Unwise," said the brat, "chance of something catching fire shall be very high. Also, the tortoise has high magic defence and affinity for earth magic, it shall resist fire very well. Recommend close combat and striking the head to kill. Or using Light magic to kill from range."

Malty opened her mouth to tell the brat what she thought of her advice, but the Hero interrupted, "I want to try out a few skills on an opponent that has some defence until now practically everything I've hunted has died in a hit. Please do not interfere unless I am close to getting badly injured. Andrea buff me up please."

"Understood. I am the source of all power. Obey my orders. Giant Strength. Fortress Wall."

"Thanks," he said, smiling at the girl. And then said," Dash."

From one moment to the next he had vanished from her sight, she turned quickly trying to follow and found a blur moving from his location towards the tortoise, she couldn't make out any features but she could see the glow of the gem in the Legendary Sword, it looked like a blue streak was going through the forest.

He didn't stop but she could see from the way the streak had moved that he had managed to strike the shell of the tortoise, a moment later, the top of the Tortoise had been cut into two pieces, the upper portion sliding of the top. The Hero seemed to come into existence right to the side of the tortoise but nearly five meters away from it, he seemed to focus for a second and then swung his sword twice at a speed she couldn't follow, a white light emerged from each swing in the shape of the arc the glowing tip of the sword had followed and slammed into the tortoise.

It was shredded utterly and clearly dead.

Adrian looked annoyed. Malty felt exasperated, he couldn't even enjoy victory properly, but she did note that she got a fair amount of exp, perhaps she would level even more than she did yesterday now that the Hero was no longer a level one weakling.

Malty lead the others towards him while the hero changed his sword to another form and began to cut the beast into pieces, it took the fool nearly a minute to cut the beast into shreds and then absorb it, another thing he did that was odd, if he was going to absorb it anyway, why not absorb the whole thing at once rather wasting time by butchering it? No doubt it was some idea from the heroes world where doing something like this was needed.

Adrian got up, changed his sword form to the vicious weapon from before, and said," I think we'll need to target at least another three of these things, preferably five to be certain." then he frowned, "Andrea do you know of any monsters that have more defence than this one?"

The brat said nothing for nearly a minute, then said, " Yes. It is a rare monster called Crystal Demon that lives deep in the mountain there" she said pointing to the mountain that was at the distant edge of the forest. "You're attack is too high, nothing else will survive a hit from the attack you used. Normally the Pyramid turtles are killed with their shells being completely untouched, you cut through it with both your attacks."

She looked at him dead in the eye," Your attack stat is on par with most level 30's who specialize in attack especially when I boost your strength."

"It is to be expected from a Legendary Hero," said Bellamy, with a puffed-up chest, as if the fool had anything to do with it.

Adrian looked a little concerned for some reason but shrugged, "I see, in that case, please leave it to me to make the first attack, for now, I have a few more things to test out. Let's continue."

He started moving soon after that, and their hunt continued. The monsters gave them no trouble, and Adrain killed almost everything that they encountered in one shot. Only rarely did the rest of them have to participate and that was when they were small swarms of enemies, frankly Malty hated the pests in this forest.

"Interesting," he said, as the Hero observed the massive bear creature eating something that it had butchered, the smell of blood had spread throughout the region but the monster still turned to look at them despite neither of them making a sound, Malty could see the blood dripping from its mouth. She felt a surge of disgust at the monster, she wanted to blast it with her fire, kill this filthy thing dared to stare at her as if she were just another meal to be eaten!

"Metal hide bear." the hero continued," may I presume that it has a high defence?"

The girl spoke quickly," No."

Adrian's disappointed expression made her want to laugh, it seemed that the brat was funny sometimes, at least she was comic relief. But the man did nothing else, and a dozen swords began to emerge from his blade, each of them looking just a little different, they flew forward towards the bear, two of them missing, but most of them slamming head-on into it. They dug in deep, but despite having its skull nearly cut in half and 5 swords sticking out of this back, and another three in its limbs it still roared and tried to get up.

"Wind Slash," the hero said, and a nearly invisible blade of wind went towards the beast, which couldn't move, it cut plain through the bear, nearly slicing it in half. He sighed after it cut through it, and the bear stopped moving "I suppose that it is conclusive, my attack is sufficient for this place. But does something like Metal hide bear truly not have high defence Andrea?"

Andrea spoke," High for level 15 adventurers, but not high for you."

He nodded at that," I need to understand just what is it a normal adventurer can do. The locations that the guild maps out are according to what the average person can deal with right? I'll need to understand what a level 10 is compared to a 15." at the end of his sentence he began to walk towards the bear, his sword changing to the now-familiar form that he used to butcher the monsters, it was a vicious but short blade that seemed to cut through flesh like it was paper," Malty, Andrea, please note that there are some interesting herbs, there and there," he said pointing to the locations, "please pick them up. Thanks."

Malty kept her annoyance down and smiled at him, continuing to visualize the crown in her mind, this was a necessary sacrifice, soon she would make him understand his place.

They spent the whole day roaming the forest, killing, butchering and absorbing everything in their path, by the end of the day when they finally broke for dinner after only having snacks and short breaks for the rest of the day, they were all filthy, covered in blood and smelled of the same. Malty had blood cleaning armour but the other three didn't so they were all quite filthy. To her surprise, however, once they got cleaned off at a nearby river, the Hero just pulled out some clothing for them to wear from his sword.

Malty was still furious, but her exhaustion was dulling everything, so when the Hero said," Malty please get the firewood with Bellamy,"

She looked at him and shouted, " He can get it on his own, I am not taking another step." for a moment after that she was surprised when all she got was an amused look, "I see that you are not used to activity for this long. I suppose it is irrelevant, Bellamy please get the firewood with Andera."

The other two nodded obediently and left, and she was alone with him for the first time in two days. She could feel her blood boiling, had this fool been testing her, how far she would go? Did he dare?

"Sorry princess, I have been quite excited about this whole trip, didn't realize how tired you had gotten." the man then continued to pull things out of his sword and started getting ready to make dinner.

Malty wanted to tear this man apart, did he think his paltry apology was enough?! She was no fool, he had to be testing her!

"It doesn't sound like you mean it Sir Hero," she said, her tone cold, she would have him running to her.