The five wolves, which had been static, suddenly distorted and merged, creating a new figure.
Ethel looked with some disgust at the monster in front of her. She had green skin, pointed ears, and an ugly figure with only disgusting leather armor to cover her, not to mention the short stature that barely reached Kayla's...
"Wow… a hobgoblin, I heard that even a dozen level 49 people would have problems if they met several at the same time…" Brice turned to Kayla, wanting to share his knowledge, however, his words stuck in his mouth.
Instead of the Kayla who always showed herself with a smile before he, Brice was stunned by the girl with hatred and rage in her eyes that she was next to her.
Kayla, who was previously smiling as she bit into a skewer of meat, now had red eyes and squeezed the skewer in her hand, breaking it. But even though her food fell to the ground, Kayla continued to stare at the hobgoblin.
Should I say something?... Brice looked at Kayla with a little concern. Although they had only known each other for a short time, Kayla had earned a tiny place in her heart.
But despite her concern, he remained silent. He didn't know Kayla well enough to comfort her...
Meanwhile, Kayla, the recipient of his concern, was not even aware of his gaze and glared at the hobgoblin, who was identical to the green creature that came every night to torment her.
Kayla bit her lip. All the nightmares she had had since that tragic day ran through her mind and only made her hate grow even more.
Even though, thanks to seeing him so many nights in a row, she had lost the fear of seeing him like in her first nightmare, the words that the goblin general said every time she appeared in her dreams ate away at her mind.
It's your fault.
She died because of how useless you are.
You haven't changed, you're still the same coward who can't save anyone.
The words that became an everyday occurrence at night since that day resonated in his ear like an annoying mosquito.
She bit her lip harder, drawing blood, and she watched with mixed emotions as Ethel began to fight the hobgoblin. I want to kill him... destroy him...
However, Ethel, who was focused on her test, could not hear his dark thoughts and began his fight against the creature in front of him when Ahmed gave the signal.
Like a referee, Ahmed raised his hand and brought it down hard. And as if by magic, the hobgoblin, which had previously been static, began to move.
He looked around, confused. Little by little he began to panic when he realized that he was not in a forest or a cave, his natural habitat. But soon he saw a gift that seemed to have fallen from the sky. A beautiful silver-haired woman on the other side of the strange room.
The hobgoblin smiled evilly and ran towards her, ready to immobilize her and unleash her most primitive instincts.
Ethel saw the hobgoblin approach her with eyes full of malice and frowned. This must be a high-level illusion formation... maybe level four or even five from the way that bastard is looking at me.
Unlike Kayla, Ethel knew what the room they were in was doing, after all, she had had one in her room.
Illusory fields. Ethel remembered as she raised her hand and invoked a magic circle.
A room full of magical inscriptions that form a high-level formation in which illusions literally come to life.
The ice blue circle in the air quickly completed and an ice spear flew towards the hobgoblin at high speeds.
The hobgoblin's eyes widened as she saw a blue blur approaching him and he dove to the ground, narrowly avoiding a fatal blow.
However, the greenskin's eyes were filled with terror when he felt the wound on his back. He raised his head and looked at Ethel in terror. For a moment he seemed to consider giving up, but his lust for the woman before him seemed to win out and he stood up again.
Ethel frowned, stunned. Never...she had never seen an illusory field with such a level of detail.
He watched silently as the goblin even had a cut on his back from not completely dodging his ice spear.
However, what interested Ethel was the level of detail of the cut. Even from a distance, she could notice the torn skin and the frozen green blood.
Not to mention all the ranges of emotions that seemed more typical of a real hobgoblin than an illusion.
If this is something used for common people... what kind of illusory fields do nobles use? Ethel's eyes widened because she couldn't even imagine what it could be like.
Heh... And I always thought that Kaetelia had better technology magic than Sloffizia. How naive I was... no, we were. Ethel sighed. He knew very well that the people of Kaetelia generally thought it was the place with the most advanced technology magic.
"And with only two days in the capital, that idea is falling apart on its own…" Ethel smiled. Although her native empire was Kaetelia, she was never fond of him.
And it only got worse when she had to flee her home due to internal problems in her empire. So since she moved to Sloffizia, she began to see it as her new empire.
So the stronger her new empire is, the better for her. I just hope my parents can come with me one day...
Ethel sighed melancholia and raised her hand, invoking three magic circles. She had had enough of her little experiment...
The hobgoblin, unaware of his fate, approached Ethel excitedly. Ethel's beauty could even be appreciated by monsters like goblins.
However, before he could even get ten meters closer to Ethel, three ice spears were launched towards him.
The hobgoblin's eyes widened in surprise and he attempted to dodge one, barely succeeding.
However, he wasn't so lucky with the rest.
Before he could react, an ice spear stabbed into his stomach. And as the hobgoblin clutched his stomach in pain, a spear stabbed into his head, causing a bloody explosion and sealing the hobgoblin's fate.
Ethel frowned as some green blood was going to fall on her, although luckily, just before the blood touched her, it turned into pixels before disappearing into the air, just like the hobgoblin's body.
"Congratulations, I must say that you are stronger than I imagined" Ahmed gave Ethel a round of applause. He was really surprised. There were few people capable of defeating a hobgoblin with Ethel's level, not to mention doing so with such ease.
"Thank you," Ethel smiled graciously. That hadn't been much for her.
"From what I could see in your fight, you are at least a three-star E-rank adventurer." Ahmed smiled at Ethel for the first time. "So tell me, although you have the option of leaving the test here if you don't want to show off your powers, don't you want to try your luck and see if you can reach D rank?"
Ahmed crossed his fingers. D ranks were normally around levels 75-100, so if he got this girl to take the test for D rank and she made it, she'd get a pretty juicy bonus...
"Sure," Ethel nodded. She was going to do it anyway. Elle wanted to see what the D-rank dungeons of Sloffizia were like.
"Good!" Ahmed's eyes glowed and he made some signs, causing a new illusory monster to appear.
However, Ethel wasn't paying attention and turned to Kayla, ready to show off her strength.
However, she frowned when she noticed a dark atmosphere around Kayla. Her eyes, which normally remained clear and bright, were now dark and cloudy as if her thoughts were tormenting her.
What happened? Ethel glanced at Brice, who was standing next to Kayla with an uncomfortable expression.
However, Brice could only shrug his shoulders and shake his head. He hadn't had enough courage to ask Kayla what was wrong with him.
Not to mention asking her before, when she basically had a murderous expression on her face. It was lucky that he calmed down when the hobgoblin died... Huh?
Brice's eyes flashed for a moment, understanding something. She must have some history with the green skins!
Several possibilities ran through his head and some were so horrible that he couldn't help but look at Kayla with pity...
Ethel noticed this and was confused. For a moment she considered stopping her test and going to ask Kayla how she was doing, but she quickly dismissed the idea.
Maybe she doesn't want to talk about what's wrong with her, we better finish these tests quickly and walk around the city so she can distract herself... I should also buy her a chocolate cake, that should cheer her up.
With new determination, Ethel waited for Ahmed's signal to bombard the monster in front of her with spells, finishing it off in seconds.
Ahmed and Brice watched this in a daze, not understanding why Ethel was suddenly fighting in such an exaggerated manner.
However, Ethel didn't care about her surprise and she motioned for Ahmed to continue the tests.
Quickly, several more monsters appeared and Ethel defeated them with the same ease.
Ahmed saw this and smiled excitedly. He had already realized that Ethel was definitely a D rank.
I wish I could pass her through the D rank tests at once, we would save time. Ahmed sighed.
Ethel was currently doing tests to check the number of stars of an E rank. A rank that she had obviously surpassed. But even though Ahmed knew this, she couldn't skip the tests because of the rules.
So Ethel had to defeat several monsters until she finally reached the D rank tests.
And finally, when a giant falcon was killed by a spear that was stuck in her heart, Ethel began the D-rank tests.
"Congratulations Ethel, starting from now on the monsters will get much stronger, so be careful" Ahmed looked fondly at his gold mine... ahem, Ethel and warned her.
"Calm down, I'm going to end this quickly." Ethel, who had not even broken a sweat, responded calmly.
And true to her words, she defeated several dozen monsters in less than an hour.
Even though various types of monsters appeared; some with elemental powers, others who were strong fighting in groups; None of that mattered to Ethel.
She destroyed with her ice any other element that approached her and whether they were monsters that attacked individually or in packs, she defeated them with the same skill.
Quickly, Ethel had reached the test to become a five-star D-rank adventurer.
"Are you sure you want to continue? The monster you are going to face is not going to be as easy as the previous ones" Ahmed looked at Ethel with concern.
"...Yes, I can continue" Ethel sighed tiredly. Beads of sweat ran all over her face and body. She had already started to feel the difficulty since the first D rank test.
And this is only going to get harder... Ethel frowned as she saw a large cut on his side that she had frozen with ice so that her wound would stop bleeding.
For a moment, the thought of giving up for today and coming back tomorrow when she was at her best crossed her mind. But a quick glance at Kayla quickly changed his mind.
Even though it had already been an hour since she started doing the tests, Kayla still had the same dark look.
Although I don't know why she got like that, it happened after we entered this place. The best thing would be that we both finish our business here so as not to return later...
Determined, Ethel nodded towards Ahmed to continue the test.
He looked at her disapprovingly, but still made some movements with his hands so that the monster he would have to defeat would appear.
Soon, a new figure appeared in the white room.
A scaly, muscular figure, with rustic red scales, stared at Ethel.
"That's... A Lesser Lava draco?!" Ethel looked at the lizard in front of her in disbelief. She didn't know she was so unlucky!
This is going to be difficult... Ethel looked cautiously at the monster that had the dragon's blood in her body, no matter how diluted it was.
She looked at Ahmed and the latter finally began the fight, making the lava draco move.
The Draco began to look around confused when he was finally able to move. That didn't last long though, as he found a target on which to vent the anger inside him.
He looked at the human woman a few meters away who was exuding disgusting icy energy from her body and charged towards her, following his instincts to destroy his natural enemy.
Ethel smiled when she saw that. How impatient you are, you piece of shit!
She extended her hand and created several magic circles, which shot several spears of ice toward the Draco.
However, the drake didn't flinch as he covered his body with lava, easily melting the spears with the heat that exuded from his body before they hit him.
Ethel frowned. Although she already expected that result, it was worse than she imagined. Unless I use that, my ice won't be strong enough to hurt him...
Several thoughts ran through Ethel's head as she retreated, keeping some distance from the drake, casting several spells at him in a futile attempt to hurt him.
Anything made of ice, be it spears or chains, would melt without even getting close to its scales.
This is too complicated... Ethel bit her lip. A confrontation against her opposing element was much more difficult than I expected.
Although it is not impossible.
Ethel smiled as she watched as a few drops of water, a residue of one of her ice spells, fell on the Draco, creating a black patch on its lava-filled skin that was soon expelled.
She brought her two hands together and cast a large, simple magic circle.
The magic circle, which at first was just a few centimeters, soon began to enlarge little by little.
Sweat ran down Ethel's face. In addition to conjuring this magical circle, she also had to circulate a large amount of mana through her legs to escape from the drake, which did not stop roaring while he chased her.
I guess this is why she is called "minor." Ethel observed that the drake did not have a single ranged attack and could only chase her miserably by moving its four legs.
However, she stopped caring about that when he finally completed his magic circle.
A ten-meter blue magic circle slowly rotated in front of Ethel, slightly illuminating the place with a blue glow.
"Your time has come, damned beast!" Ethel roared and activated the spell.
The magic circle shined with a white light, and something began to create in front of him. Small particles of snow gathered together, forming a... snowball.
Brice and Ahmed were stunned when they saw that. They had believed that Ethel would conjure a lethal attack due to her war cry, but they never expected that what would come out of the ten-meter magic circle would be a snowball.
But without knowing what they thought, Ethel continued smiling as the snowball grew larger and larger, measuring more than ten meters.
Ethel smiled madly and pushed forward with her arms as if she were moving a very heavy door. Along with her movement, the snowball advanced at high speed toward the lava draco.
The lava draco roared, disdaining the snowball and only generating more lava on its body, to the point that it dripped onto the ground.
As expected, the snowball melted the moment it approached the lava draco.
However, something happened that no one expected!
The snowball, which melted a few meters before reaching the draco, became a giant jet of water that advanced towards the draco taking advantage of the momentum that the snowball had in the beginning!
Soon, the jet of water hit the Draco, filling the entire room with steam!