Never let your guard down

"...o-okay…"

Catherine tensed up, looking at the waiver and reading it through to make sure that it stated exactly what the shopkeeper had said.

After confirming that, the black-haired girl signed the form and left the shop.

The first thing she did afterward was to go back to the dormitory to talk with Melinda about whether her plan was something she approved of, but the gold-haired girl's room was locked, and no one responded to Catherine's polite knock.

That left her with one other option, so the black-haired girl hurried back to her room, changed into her adventuring gear, and ventured out of the city gates.

Catherine knew roughly where she should look for Melinda - at least she had a rough estimate of that range in mind - so it wasn't like she was going in blind.

Not to mention that she was also aware of where to look for the one she was going to gift what she purchased.

Catherine made her way through monster spawning grounds. She wasn't keen on confrontations when she was alone, as even with the solitary Pigkin Orcs, all that was needed was one furious squeal to lure in more of them.

Not to mention Boarkin Orcs, which normally traveled in groups of no less than three.

Both kinds of Orcs were susceptible to elemental magic, and Catherine did have a few of those in her repertoire, but even so, a lone adventurer could never be too careful.

With that in mind, the black-haired girl snuck her way into the clearing in the forest where a certain someone would usually gather herbs.

"~!"

Catherine's eyes sparkled, and her face brightened when she saw a crouching figure on the opposite side of the spot where she had emerged.

A large hooded individual with a shield strapped to one arm.

"M-mister Ross, i-it 's me~!"

The girl called out timidly but with unmistakable happiness, hurrying over to the figure.

"...-hi...?"

"...!"

The hooded individual flinched and let out a surprised squeal, turning around to face the newly arrived human, and the girl froze mid-step as she realized that not only the individual had the shield on the opposite arm from which Ross carried his, but more importantly the one in front of her had both arms!

"Bu-hi…!"

"!!!"

To make things more apparent, as the hooded individual stood up and fully turned towards Catherine, the girl could see that the hooded cloak he wore wasn't enchanted with perception interruption magic and was just a normal piece of clothing.

That allowed for the hairy boar snout and two long tusks protruding from the Boarkin Orcs's lower jaw to be clearly visible from under the hood.

"STONE SPEARS!"

Catherine jumped back without hesitation and cast a spell while waving her arms, causing two earth-element spells to erupt from the ground under the monster's feet and stab into its stomach.

"BU-HII!"

The monster squealed in pain, although there was frighteningly more anger than agony in its voice.

 It slammed its shield against Catherine's spears, breaking them off to free itself, and pulled the remains out of its body.

"STONE SPIKES!"

"...!"

The girl used that chance to back away even more, and at her command, the remains of the spears broke down into splinter-like shards and were shot at the Boarkin Orc.

"BU-HI!"

The monster growled, backing off and smacking down all the projectiles with his shield while reaching into a satchel at his side, from which he pulled whole healing plants that still had some earth stuck to their roots.

"BUHI!"

"!!!"

The monster tossed the plants in the air and squealed decisively, making Catherine's eyes widen at the sight of the herbs being swept by the twister of green light that dried them up while healing the monster.

"Bu-hi-hi-hi~! BU-HI!"

The monster laughed triumphantly at the sight of the girl's shocked face, taking out even more plants, but this time crushing them in its hand and apparently squealing another incantation that caused its robust body to glow with faint green light.

"BUHI!"

The monster squealed and launched itself at the girl, wielding its weapon - a mace spiked with what appeared to be rusted nails. 

"Enchant stone!"

The Borakin Orc was too fast for Catherine to get away from in time, so she made a split-second decision to cover herself in earth-element armor and brace herself for the impact.

She survived her way out of the encounter with veteran Boarkin Orcs, and at first glance, the one charging at her appeared weaker than those. Her level was now appropriately higher, too.

"BU-!"

"HURGh…?!"

That's why the power of the attack to her side surprised her—the force it carried caused the rusted nails to pierce through the stone armor that grew around her body and toss her to the side like a ragdoll.

"...hu-urgh…"

The girl tumbled on the ground and spat out a mouthful of bile that was forced out of her stomach.

All in all, it wasn't that bad. The stone armor ended up absorbing most of the power, and although the attack painfully stirred up the girl's insides, she could still stand up and move around.

"Stone wall!"

Which she did - pushing herself upright using the newest spell in her repertoire, and creating an obstacle between herself and the monster.

"Bu-hi-hi~!"

The monster on the other side merely laughed, putting up its shield and launching a charge to break right through.

"...stone spears…"

"?!?!"

But the monster didn't account for Catherine's hushedly cast spell, which caused the stone wall to sprout dozens of massive spikes right when it was too late for him to stop or change direction.

"BUHIGHH…!"

"..."

Catherine couldn't see it from the opposite side of her stone wall, but the pained squeal of the Boarkin Orc suggested that the beast had been skewered on at least one spear.

"Stone spikes!"

"HIIIFGHH…!"

The girl didn't hesitate even for a moment to cause her stone spears to splinter into shrapnels, and the monster she couldn't see let out an agonizing howl that suggested it was suffering heavy damage…

…the black-haired girl did kill a veteran Boarkin Orc with that kind of attack before…

…but despite knowing that she should be close to level up, Catherine didn't hear the characteristic ringing sound announcing that, which meant that either the experience points from killing the monster weren't enough…

…or it wasn't dead...