'Come on, don't tell me there are no monsters around.' A few minutes have passed since Aurora went to look for a monster to try her new magic out on.
Unfortunately, she wasn't able to find a single monster. Normally it wasn't too difficult for her to find some low-level monsters like Vicious Trappers or Spore Spreaders, but now it seemed as if there were suddenly no monsters around.
'When you don't need them, they show up everywhere, but when I actually need them, I can't find a single one!' What she didn't realize was that the problem wasn't with monsters but rather with her.
Monsters are known for their relatively strong bodies compared to humans and also their special race abilities. But they are also known for something else: their very low intelligence.
Monsters are unintelligent creatures that are made of pure mana. Unlike humans or magical beasts, monsters are made of mana and mana only. This is because the original monsters were creatures created by the system itself, unlike magical beasts that evolved under the influence of mana.
The ironical thing is that despite being purely out of mana, monsters cannot really control due to the lack of two stats: intelligence and mana. This means that monsters cannot use magic, nor can they control mana.
To make up for this, their bodies are naturally stronger, and every monster receives a special skill based on their race. An example of this skill is an Acid Belcher's ability to shoot out acid. But the lack of the intelligence stat has another effect besides the inability to use magic.
When a human or a magical beast raises their intelligence, it doesn't just make their magic more powerful. As the system said, it slowly raises the being's overall intelligence. Thanks to this, magical beasts can easily become as intelligent as humans; they just need to raise their intelligence stat.
Now, what happens if a being as stupid and unitelligent as a monster lacks the ability to raise their intelligence? They don't get any more intelligent than they were when they were born.
This means that no matter how powerful a monster is, they will forever remain unintelligent. But this doesn't mean that a monster is completely unable to think and act accordingly to its thoughts.
Their instincts are sharp—very sharp. In fact, monsters are no different than a low-ranking magical beast. And one of the main and strongest instincts is the instinct of self-preservation.
Thanks to this instinct of theirs, monsters can sense a strong opponent based on the aura they give off. This is exactly why Aurora can't find any monsters.
It's not that there are no monsters in the forest; rather, they are avoiding her because they can sense her aura, which is much stronger than theirs.
'Huh?' But even with their sharp instincts, not all could escape her. Out of the corner of her eye, Aurora managed to spot a Spore Spreader. Making sure it doesn't run away from her, which would lead to her losing it, she quickly dashed in its direction.
The poor monster's agility was no match for Aurora's, meaning that she easily caught up to it. And before the unfortunate Spore Spreader could even react, a chunk of sharpened ice was already heading its way.
'Ice Bolt!'
*Whoosh* *Crash*
The spell collided with the monster's body, which resulted in it being torn apart. No less than a second later, a light blue system screen popped up in front of Aurora's eyes.
[You have defeated the Spore Spreader level 3.]
One attack. That was all it took for her to kill the monster. Of course, the Spore Spreader was much weaker than the current her, but she was still surprised that she was able to kill it in one attack.
Even before she defeated the Iron Wood Berserker and became much stronger, she could easily defeat monsters like this one. Their level was low, and their attacks were easy to read.
But despite all that, it always took Aurora at least a few hits to kill her enemy. Even if she used her magic, it took her at least three or four spells to kill a level 3 monster.
With her ice affinity now being higher and her skill evolving on top of it, she definitely expected to be able to kill such low-level monsters in about two attacks. Actually, her thoughts sometimes drifted off, and she thought that maybe, but just maybe, she could kill a monster in one attack.
But when such thought crossed her mind, she quickly dismissed it, telling herself to not be delusional. Even then, she still hoped that she would be able to do it. And she was.
This, of course, was a very welcome surprise in Aurora's eyes, but it also wasn't the source of her greatest surprise. Killing a monster in one shot didn't surprise her that much; what did, however, was how easily the spell killed it.
The Ice Bolt easily pierced through the Spore Spreader's body and continued in its trajectory without being hindered at all. The spell did not lose any momentum or its deadly sharpness.
The bolt made of ice only stopped when it came into contact with a tree that stood in its path. The bolt shattered into tiny, sparkling ice crystals after it hit the tree, but not before leaving a deep cut in the tree's trunk, almost piercing through it.
'Holy! This thing packs a punch!' Aurora finally came out of her stupor and exclaimed internally. Her new skill was really strong. In fact, it was so strong that it would be an insult to even compare it to its previous version.
This was something that made Aurora obviously incredibly happy. She got stronger, way stronger! All that pain and even death was worth it in the end... maybe.
After all, no matter how strong she became thanks to it, it was still incredibly painful. At the end of the day, death was still death. No matter how one tried to sugarcoat it, it was still definitely not a pleasant experience.
Still, it did make her a lot stronger. It was as if instead of adding salt to a wound, one were to add sugar to it. It would still be incredibly painful, but at least it would taste sweet.
What? What do you mean that that's a very bad analogy? Well, too bad! I'm the one writing this book, so piss off!
Ahem, sorry about that.
Well anyway! The awkward talk aside, now that Aurora's little test proved to be a success beyond expectations, she may have gotten a bit too excited about her newfound power.
'Let's find something strong to fight! Ideally something at the level of the Iron Wood Berserker.' And with that, Aurora excitedly shot off into the forest, not at all caring about her stamina consumption.
It's not like running at full speed will drain her that quickly. And since she leveled up recently (after killing the tree), her stamina was still almost full, so there was no need to worry about that.
At least it would definitely speed up her search for a new opponent. And when she said that she wanted to fight something at the level of the Iron Wood Berserker, she wasn't kidding.
During her search, she passed many monsters, but she completely ignored all of them. None of them were strong enough to be worth her attention.
Now, the problem was exactly in the fact that she tried to look for an enemy equal to that of the Iron Wood Berserker. In the fight against that very tree, Aurora almost lost her life. No, scratch that. She did lose her life but came back thanks to the system's power.
She was forced to go all out in that battle, and even then, she died. Even if she was a lot more powerful and had an incredibly powerful magic skill, was it really enough to close such a gap in strength?
But none of that mattered to her. Aurora had absolute confidence in her current strength, and she wasn't at all afraid of clashing with such a powerful opponent. Actually, rather than being afraid, she was excited.
Excited about her new power. Excited about the possibility of seeing an opponent as powerful as one that made her lose her life getting easily defeated by her.
Perhaps not even Aurora herself realized her own thoughts and feelings. Those that seemed too foreign to belong to the Aurora she knew. Even with her memory gone, she still knew herself, or at least she thought she did.
But now, the thoughts and emotions that ruled over her didn't seem like hers at all. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, she didn't seem to notice this fact at all.
Be that as it may, it took her some time, but Aurora finally managed to find a monster that seemed at least quite a bit more powerful than the others.
'It's definitely strong, but judging by the pressure it gives off, it's weaker than the Iron Wood Berserker.' A smile appeared on her face as she shot out towards the source of the pressure she felt.
Even if the creature was less powerful than the Iron Wood Berserker, for her, it was enough of a test subject. Aurora wanted to see. She wanted to see what her new magic can really do. Not against some puny level 3 monster, but against a target worthy of being a challenge.
She leapt out forward, closing in on her target. Without any hesitation and without even taking a proper look at her opponent, she immediately opened up with a Scratch, intending to take her enemy by surprise.
*Swish*
Her claw slashed through the air, but before it could connect with its target, it hit nothing but the very air it cut through. It was obvious what happened. Her opponent dodged the attack.
After all, the senses of such a powerful being were sharp. As soon as the creature felt someone strong coming its way, it knew it had to dodge.
Landing back on the ground, Aurora quickly jumped back a bit to create some distance between her and her opponent. Then, she quickly took a good look at her opponent.
'Really? Another damn plant?' What stood before her was a creature that seemed to be made of leaves. Its form resembled a humanoid figure, but its body was clearly made out of plant-like material.
This material looked like leaves of an exotic plant, or maybe that of a palm. Two of these leaves coiled around each other to make up one of each of the creature's limbs. Two arms and two legs. Eight leaves in total.
The parts that made up the creature's torso were basically impossible to count as they coiled and folded in irregular patterns. On top of its torso lay a singular leaf that appeared to be the creature's head.
All in all, the creature wasn't too big, with its height being similar to that of a Vicious Trapper.
As Aurora observed and analyzed her opponent, the creature seemed to be wary of its next move. Thought it could feel that the aura of the creature before it was weaker than its own; it felt strange.
This strange vibe it gave off caused the creature to hesitate to attack. Unfortunately, Aurora didn't plan to wait at all, as she quickly cast Ice Bolt twice at once.
Before the creature made of leaves could react and swistly dodge, the two ice bolts were already heading its way. The creature tried its best to dodge at the last moment, allowing it to survive when the attacks failed to hit its head or torso.
Unfortunately, by dodging in the way it did, the two attacks ended up tearing the leaf creature's legs apart completely, making it fall to the ground.
Before the creature could do anything more, one more ice bolt hit its head, turning it into nothing but leaf paste. The poor creature didn't even understand what hit it before its life slipped away from its hands.
[You have defeated the Swift Leaf level 13.]
[You have reached level 12.]
[You have unlocked a new system archive entry.]
(AN: I'll stop writing these archive entry messages unless they are important or relevant to the story's development.)
Meanwhile, Aurora stared wide-eyed at the current state of the now-dead Swift Leaf. Three spells, about 10 seconds. That's all it took her to kill a monster that was two whole levels above her.
'This thing's main stat was probably agility, which means its defense was probably its lowest stat. Still, I killed it a bit too fast.' In the end, all she could do was shake her head and sigh helplessly.
'Though my stats were probably lower, the Swift Leaf was a lot weaker than me. Agility-based opponents are my best matchup since my attacks can easily heavily hurt them. I can also hinder their dodging capability thanks to the agility-lowering debuffs my attacks can inflict.' Suddenly, Aurora looked up at the sky and then back down at the corpse of the Swift Leaf.
'The monsters here are too weak for me now.' This was something that was true even before. But now, not even the strongest monsters around here could pose a threat to the current her.
'That means I have two options if I want to fight stronger opponents. Either I can find a way to leave the forest, or...' Aurora looked in a certain direction before finishing her thought.
'I can head deeper in.' Right, that was her other option. Though she wasn't sure, Aurora had a hunch that this forest was way bigger than it might seem at first glance.
There, somewhere deeper in there were powerful monsters. So powerful that they could probably sneeze and it would kill her.
If she went deeper, she would most probably find the powerful monsters she was looking for.
'Even if I find a way to leave, I have no idea how the world outside the forest looks. To be honest, though I'm confident in my strength, I'm probably far from being strong enough to handle what awaits outside.' Aurora fell silent for a moment, contemplating her options and slowly forming her decision.
'I'm not strong enough to leave; at least I don't feel like I'm strong enough to do so.' Finally, she seemed to come to her decision as she stared intently in the direction she was facing.
'I'll head deeper, become stronger, and only when I feel confident enough will I leave this place.' Suddenly, a sly smile spread across her lips.
'Which means that I'm not leaving until I defeat the strongest monster in here!'