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I stood deep into the forest with my katana held up, facing the enemy in front. Before me stood a monster commonly referred to as Green Devil. It shook its amorphous body and watched me for an unguarded moment. But I was a veteran in battle. I didn’t give it any openings that it could use to rush at me.

Instead, it was me who had more composure in this battle. I gradually shortened the distance between us, until I arrived at the distance from where I could deliver a definite blow.

“—Yah!”

With a fighting yell, I instantly closed the distance and dealt a deadly blow to it. The attack landed where it should and bisected the Green Devil—a giant carnivorous mold monster called Poison Mold.

“Mya!?”

But just as it split into two, it suddenly attacked me. Taken by surprise, I took that blow straight on. But at the end of the day, it was a monster made of mold, and with its light weight, its rush had no real power to back it up.

I held through the counterattack and attempted to respond with my own. But then, I noticed the abnormal state of my body.

“H-Huh…?”

I couldn’t lift my arm. No, my entire body was hard to move. In but an instant, that fatigue spread through my entire body and I couldn’t even stand properly. I fell to my knees and then fell on my face.

The Poison Mold started to approach the fallen me. But then came a carefree voice.

“Alright, that’s it.”

At the same time she declared the end of the battle, a strike from the lightning magic fell on the monster, obliterating it instantly.

“Physical attacks hardly have an effect on Poison Molds. You should’ve used Enchant to pour magic power into your weapon.”

“A-Aghh…”
“The effect of your Enchant is still meager but it’s versatile. Though you also need knowledge on how to use it in various ways.”

“Ghhhhhhh…”

“You have to learn to use magic as it fits the situation.”

“I’m…nu…numb…”

When I was alive, I specialized in personal battles, making light of the monsters and leaving their identification and beating strategy to Cortina and Maria. Thanks to having no knowledge, I ended up tasting defeat today. But setting that aside…

“Teacher, Nicole seems to have gone numb.”

“That’s not surprising. After all, it’s a ‘Poison’ Mold.”

Cortina approached me and poked my arm and armpit. Every time she did, a sense of numbness ran through my entire body.

“Aghhhhh…”

“Ehehe. Kids who don’t study well need to be punished.”

“Y-You demon.”

Following that, she had a lot of fun with my body until eventually casting Antidote on me.

This place was located in the forest about two hours from the capital of Raum. Today, we were having a real combat lesson and joined with the Adventurer training academy, and practiced by finding and battling various monsters.

Given how far we were from the town, the danger level of monsters also rose accordingly. They weren’t like the animals that were almost like livestock that we usually hunted in the immediate surroundings. These were genuine, grotesque monsters. Poison Mold was also one such monster.

It was a giant green ball of mold. If you thought about it, there was no way a normal slash would work on it. In fact, it could only be defeated either by physical attacks strengthened with magic or by magic attacks itself. Simple physical attacks could not deal sufficient damage to it… It seems.

You could easily find the info about its characteristics if you checked the library or something. I was just negligent in doing so.

I found the enemy and slashed at it without much thought. As the result, I got poisoned. This was a total disgrace on my part.

After I was healed with Antidote, I immediately continued searching for the next monster and stumbled on another Poison Mold. We were in a deep and damp part of the forest, so these types of mold monsters were a common occurrence.

“Looks like it’s the same monster as earlier, huh? Could you leave this one to me?”

“To you, Letina?”

“Due to your blunder, now I know what its weakness is. I’m sorry but I’ll have you be my stepping stone. Ohohohoho!”

“Letina, shut it.”

She started laughing loudly, but I smacked her to shut her up.

Poison Molds didn’t have high intellect. Her laughter only served to disclose our location to it; it wasn’t smart enough to run away. Our only demerit was that we lost the advantage of a surprise attack.

In the first place, there was no need to even attack it individually since we came here as a class expedition. In my case, I just happened to discover the monster first and decided to fight it solo, also thinking to gauge its ability of surprise attacks.

But now, there was no real reason for Letina to fight it alone. This was probably spurred by her rivalry with me. Still, Cortina did not try to stop her from doing it.

Poison Mold wasn’t especially intelligent, nor was it particularly fast. Letina’s laughter gave us away, but it wasn’t moving well enough to attack us. There was some distance between us, too, ideal for a preemptive strike.

“Crimson Three, Ultramarine One, Jade Three. Firebolt!”

“Wai-, you idiot!?”

The chant told me that she was about to use Firebolt that had more power and could reach further than normal. It had more than enough power to reduce the Poison Mold to cinders. However, when she heard the chant, Cortina yelled out.

The reason for that became immediately known. The Poison Mold lit up instantly as the Firebolt hit it. It was a plant by root, after all, and a powdered thing like mold at that. It just needed a trigger to light up like nothing.

And lit up like nothing it did… with terrific force, setting the forest itself on flames. Seeing that Cortina hurriedly casted Create Water and engaged in fire fighting.

With that, it was now Letina’s turn to be lectured after me.