Nothing happened.  

“You shouldn’t take hits from an opponent bigger than you if you don’t have the strength to block it.”  

She opened her eyes and saw the Traveler in front of her. He was holding the monster's claw with one hand without even looking at it. He pushed the creature back effortlessly, sending the giant monster flying into a cluster of trees. It crashed and got half-buried under the fallen trees. 

“Look at me.” The man pulled her chin towards himself and inspected her eyes. “You don’t have any brain damage, but two of your ribs cracked from the impact. You seem fine and ready to go. Come on, get yourself together. You have a monster to slay!” He gently slapped her cheeks with two hands and squeezed her head. Surprisingly, that brought her to her senses.  

He gently pushed her from the back towards the monster. “You misjudged your opponent. You thought it was a mindless beast and rushed in without a second thought. Always measure your opponent first, figure out its strengths and weaknesses, and act accordingly.”  

While he was lecturing her, the monster got back up. It looked around cautiously. The previous attack had surprised it, and it was still trying to recover from it.  

“Yes, I can do this! This time I will bring it down!” She made mistakes but learned from them, too. This time, she was sure she would be more cautious.  

“That’s the spirit! I don’t think you can beat it, but show me what you got.”  

“Aren’t you supposed to support me!” Was that something to be said in a situation like this? “So, what am I going to do?” 

The man shook his shoulders with a careless face. He stepped back a little and leaned on a tree. “If I were you, I’d keep my eyes on the opponent.” 

“You are not going to help, right?” 

“Nope. But don’t worry, I’ll protect the others.” 

She had completely forgotten about the Band. She looked at them for a second; they were lying low and were trying to hide somewhere safe to tend their wounds. She had only turned her head over for a short moment, but that moment had almost cost her life. 

Another ball of acid was coming straight to her. She dodged it by hair and rolled behind a tree to take cover. She took a deep breath there; she could do it. She just needed to fix her mind on it. She looked towards the monster while taking cover, but the monster was not where it had been before. 

Panick rose within her while she tried to find the monster. She couldn’t understand how a monster of that size could hide like that in such a short time. Then she heard something, a rustling was coming from her left.  

She took her stance as fast as she could and blocked the incoming attack. The monster was far stronger than she was. She couldn’t stand her ground and slid away, but this time she had more control. At least she didn’t hit her head anywhere. 

“Never lose sight of the enemy.” The Traveler's voice came from afar. So, he was not going to help her. Fine, she could do it by herself.  

The monster didn’t stop after the first attack. It was bigger and stronger and had no reason to back off. It attacked relentlessly without giving her any space or time to breathe. Yes, it was bigger and stronger, but she was faster. She dodged every attack carefully; she had no intention of getting hit by one of its attacks again. So, she focused.  

She focused like she used to when she was reading an interesting book. But this couldn’t go on much longer; she was already getting tired after that long night, and she was starting to feel her cracked ribs even more.  

The monster was not giving her any openings to counterattack, but then the monster stopped suddenly. It was the opening she was looking for. She attacked... and missed. She missed because the monster slid back with an impossible motion, and she noticed the cause of it as it flew back. The traveler was there. The monster stopped because he grabbed its tail with one hand and threw it away from there like it was nothing.  

“I liked your focus, but you are focusing on the wrong thing. If you keep that up, you will wear yourself out.” He started to give her another lecture as he got close. “Don’t focus on its claws or tail. Don’t look at the weapon, look at the user. Focus on the monster and analyze its movements, learn its pattern, and let your body do the dodging.”  

“Let my body? How should I do that?” What he said was the complete opposite of how she did things until now. She had to focus on the attack to evade it properly. Letting her body react was like a call to get hit. 

The man put his hand on her back and pushed her towards the recovering monster. “Come on, I know you can do it. Just read it like a book.”  

Read it like a book? How did he know she was approaching most things like reading? Did he just guess it? 

The monster got itself together and looked her in the eye. There was no time for questions. She discarded the thoughts and focused again. This time, as the Traveler said. 

She focused on the monster as it charged at her. And she almost got hit. The second attack came. And she almost got hit again. And again, and again, and again. At first, she thought she would die at any moment. But after a couple of attacks, they started to feel more... predictable. She watched the monster; it had a certain way of attacking, a pattern like the Traveler said. And before every attack, the monster was making a slight motion to get ready. That motion was giving away its intentions.  

It was hard at first, but Elise was always a fast learner. She was Blessed with it, after all. Her parents had noticed the difference between her and the other kids first. She could already talk fluently at the age of two and read and write as well as an adult at the age of four. 

She quickly adapted to the situation and started to react to the monster's attacks with precision. She dodged the claws, dodged the tail, dodged the bites. And she found it, the opening she was looking for. 

 She crawled under its incoming claw and swung her sword to its throat. Its pink blood splashed all over the place. Elise barely avoided it, with only a few drops splashing on her cloak. The dying creature started to cry in pain and threw itself around. The blood that splashed during this time was smoking like hot water.  

Elise looked at the drops on her cloak; they had opened holes where they landed, and some of them were still smoking with a disgusting smell. 

She heard clapping behind her. “Well done,” the man said. “You held on to a lot longer than I thought, but it was not bad.” He was looking at the monster on the ground with pitying eyes. It was still twitching while bleeding severely. “But try not to make them suffer next time. It was already looking miserable enough.” He didn’t look sad, but his voice was telling the opposite.  

“What was that thing?” Elise had never seen a monster like that before. It looked like a lizard, but most of its parts seemed to belong to other creatures. It was so extreme in many ways, almost impossible to be natural. 

“This forest has all kinds of creatures inside, but I don’t think this one belongs here.” He was looking thoughtful. He put his bare foot on the monster's belly and pushed it to turn it upside down. The monster was still oozing pink and sticky blood, which was smoking aggressively. While they were looking, the monster’s belly started to inflate. 

Before she could realize it, they were far off from the monster's corpse. The Traveler was holding her wrist tightly. How did they come this far in an instant?  

The monster kept inflating. They watched it as it exploded like a ball of smoke and acidic blood. The explosion was not that big, but Elise was happy to be outside of it. The plants that were in the area started to melt with the fireless smoke coming from them. 

Elise looked around and saw the Band behind them. Somehow, the Traveler had brought her here just before the monster exploded. Questions arose in her mind, but there was no point in bothering herself about it every time he did something unreasonable. She would eventually learn his secrets if they traveled together. 

Instead, she focused on the Band of Steel. They were a wreck. They all had acid burns all over them, and two of them had some deep wounds. The boy named Jacky and their tanker were seriously injured, and the others were trying to tend to them.  

“Don’t worry, I cleansed their wounds from that monster's poisonous claws while you fought. As long as they stop the bleeding and keep the wounds clean, they should be fine.” Again, another almost impossible feat. 

 Cleaning an unknown poison was not an easy thing to do, even for master healers. She stopped thinking about it; there was no point in asking now. The time would come. 

Their broken, half-molten pieces of armor were removed, and something shiny on their leader caught Elise’s eye. It was a necklace. Elise leaned forward to take a better look at it. The symbol was familiar. She turned her back to him as soon as she recognized the crest of the Landa Family. She cursed to herself; how did she not realize who he was? If he had recognized her, it would have caused so much trouble. 

She started to feel dizzy immediately after turning. Something was off, and her mind was too numb to understand what was going on. Her vision started to blur, and she felt her head drop. After that, there was only darkness.