"Ophelia, do you think we should take a break? I wouldn't want you to exhaust yourself too much on your first mission with us...", her new colleague, who was as huge as a bear, asked her.
"No, thank you for your concern. You're a true gentleman..." Ophelia replied with a seductive smile on her lips, making him even more confident.
"Yes, it's all Mason's fault! I insisted on renting some horses or a carriage, but he wouldn't listen to me!" he continued, trying to make Ophelia have a better opinion of him and at the same time make Mason appear insensitive and stingy.
"Don't say that. Mason thought that there would be more chances of the beasts appearing if we behaved more discreetly, as they've only attacked small caravans so far, those not accompanied by many guards..." she answered soothingly, trying to avoid a conflict between her colleagues.
"Well, maybe he should have thought of a better option than tracking the caravan like dogs....", intervened the skinny man, who was still sweating due to the pace they had been walking, his physical condition not being exceptional. "Ophelia, would you like a cold drink? I have all kinds of fruit juices stored in my spatial ring. Just tell me what you want and I'll give it to you right away....", he continued, not wanting to fall behind his two colleagues.
"Is that so? That's very kind of you! I could really use something refreshing to drink. Do you happen to have any blueberry juices?"
Looking at Ophelia's smile that could make even stones blush, the skinny man was tempted for a second to offer her the entire contents of his spatial ring, just to make sure she would continue to look at him with the same admiration she had now.
"Yes, yes... Of course I do. Here's the bottle, the blueberry juice bottle..." he stammered as he handed Ophelia the blueberry juice he had retrieved from his spatial ring in less than two seconds, not wanting to keep her waiting.
"Hey, let's quiet down a bit. Something seems to have happened on the left side of the road. Such damages don't seem to be caused by human hands. Most likely a very powerful creature is to blame. I think we should go investigate...", Mason intervened, happy that he finally had the opportunity to interrupt his colleagues, who hadn't stopped trying to impress Ophelia since they left the city, not leaving him any chance to get closer to her.
"But Mason, the caravan will move away while we investigate the entire area. In case something happens..."
"Well, the people from the caravan didn't agree to pay us to protect them, so we have no responsibility towards them. The only thing that matters is to find out which beasts were responsible for these attacks and then eliminate them...", Mason interrupted his skinny colleague, who seemed to be much kinder and in better spirits than on other days.
"Okay, you're the boss. We'll do as you say..." said the skinny man, who, although he seemed worried, was secretly proud of his performance, aiming to give Ophelia the impression that he's a decent guy who cares about others' well-being.
While moving with his team through the hundreds of broken trees in search of clues about what creature could have caused such destruction, Mason couldn't focus well on what he had to do, constantly thinking about the attitude of his two old colleagues in the past three hours, who couldn't take their eyes off the young woman he brought into the team for a chance to get close to her, despite all the warnings he gave them before the mission started. Mason had always been aware that mixing work with pleasure wasn't a good thing, and he wouldn't have offered Ophelia a spot in his team if she hadn't shown interest in joining a team to explore the great dungeon near the city, this putting him at risk of not having the opportunity to meet her again in the near future, and others might take advantage of it to get close to Ophelia.
"Hey, look there! It's the bitch who made fools of us in front of everyone!" suddenly exclaimed the skinny man who, due to the immense anger he felt, momentarily forgot his plan to appear as a refined and benevolent man.
Pulled from his thoughts by his colleague's shout, Mason set finding a solution to this problem aside for another time and looked in the direction his colleagues were staring.
'Damn. She's much more attractive than I expected. I didn't think I would have the opportunity to see a beauty of Ophelia's caliber so soon...'. Mason exclaimed in his mind, unable to take his eyes off Kara's sexy body, who had risen from the fallen tree trunk on which she had been sitting and was slowly heading towards them with slow, hypnotic movements, like a snake dancing to the music produced by a magic flute.
Although initially, Mason intended to teach the young woman, who had made his team a laughingstock, a lesson, after being annoyed for three hours by the two men on his team and genuinely impressed by Kara's beauty, he thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to let the two of them be beaten by her while he watched from the sidelines without intervening, and then, he could apologize to Kara for the problems caused by his colleagues and kick the two troublemakers out of his team thus demonstrating the fact that he has nothing to do with these incidents.
Thinking that Mason would help them get revenge, the two men who had been humiliated by Kara the day before approached her with courage, spewing insulting words that are difficult to reproduce, and when the distance between them and Kara was about 15 meters, the skinny man cast a powerful spell that could incinerate everything in its path up to 30 meters away, ensuring she had no chance of escaping unharmed.
"Don't you think you went overboard with that attack? I told you I agreed to teach her a lesson, not turn her into ashes...", the giant man next to him said, still holding onto the idea that he could make Kara his.
"Do you think I'll give her a chance to get close and use that skill again that embarrassed us yesterday? I told you..."
"Slash!!!"
Unfortunately for the skinny man, he didn't have the chance to finish his sentence as Kara, who no longer intended to waste her time with insignificant individuals, appeared behind him and instantly severed his head with one of her hands that had transformed into weapons capable of cutting through anything after she activated the Predator Claws skill, even if she could have probably taken his life using just one finger, but like a peacock, she felt the need to show everything she had to offer to the person who had caught her interest.
"She, she's a demon. A high-ranking demon. We don't stand a chance. We need to run!", Mason exclaimed in horror, intending to grab Ophelia's hand and flee as far away as possible, without considering helping his colleague who was still alive but paralyzed by fear.
"Slash!"
"Ahhhh!!"
Unfortunately for him, Kara had no intention of letting him take advantage of the situation to touch the woman she intended to conquer, so she immediately appeared next to the two of them and cut off Mason's hand, causing him to fall to the ground in pain, screaming and writhing.
"How pathetic...", Kara said as she looked at the desperate man who didn't know how to stop the bleeding, as he no longer had access to any potions because his spatial storage ring was on a finger of the severed hand lying at Kara's feet.
Since Kara didn't want to leave Mason in the scene to continue distracting her with his screams, she delivered a powerful kick that sent him at a speed close to the speed of sound straight into his giant colleague who still couldn't move due to fear, turning both of them into a pile of flesh and metal.
'Looks like we got rid of the troublemakers. Let's see now if I managed to impress the one who caught my attention...', Kara thought as she turned towards Ophelia with a teasing smile, simultaneously deactivating the Predator Claws skill that made her appear non-human.
Unfortunately for Kara, she found no trace of admiration on Ophelia's face, Ophelia looking at her in horror, as if at a creature from the darkest nightmares.
'Huh, could she have been closer to those three I killed than I initially thought? From what I observed when I saw them heading to this location, she didn't seem to be very familiar with the rest of the team. Besides, considering the personalities of the two I met yesterday, I don't think they were capable of maintaining a strictly professional relationship with a female team member, and they most likely didn't have good intentions toward her. Well, it can be said that my intentions aren't completely pure either, but at least I'm worthy of trying to win her over...' Kara thought as she approached the young woman in front of her, trying to appear as harmless as possible.
Arriving in front of the utterly terrified Ophelia, who couldn't even blink anymore, Kara gently touched her chin with one hand to capture her attention and, while looking into her eyes tenderly, she used a very seductive voice to introduce herself, to ensure that her intentions would be known from the outset.
"Hello, I'm delighted to meet you. I am Kara, the queen of The Great Moonshadow Forest. I hope you'll give me the opportunity to get to know each other better in the future, and..."
Unfortunately, Kara didn't get the chance to tell Ophelia everything she had in mind because Ophelia fainted suddenly without any warning and Kara had to catch her to prevent her from falling to the ground.
"Well, that's not exactly what I had in mind when I said I'd become so powerful that all the beauties in the world would be impressed and fall into my arms..."
***Author's thoughts: Since the image of Ophelia wasn't initially accepted in the comments section due to formatting issues, and I had to re-upload it the next day when I noticed the problem, I will add it again to the comments section of this chapter for those who wanted to see her but were unable to do so.