"No," Laura said firmly.

"Eh? Why not? Did something happen?" Clara asked, her voice full of confusion."

"You need to get some rest before the wave. I'm not using a bunch of potions to speed up your recovery. Also, go take a shower, your hair is a mess," Laura finished, returning to beating the absolute cr*p out of the sandbag in front of her. Each hit sounded like a thunderbolt going off in the distance. Clara shuttered and slowly walked out of the room, followed by Reiya who looked at Laura with wonder and a bit of fear.

"She's really strong," Reiya mumbled.

"I know. Well, we got some free time to kill. What do you want to do?" Clara inquired. She checked the time on her tablet and saw that she still had quite some time before she could level up with Sherone again.

"Needle Lady said for you to take a shower? What's a shower, Miss Clara?" Reiya questioned, looking at the tablet and the book in Clara's hands. "Is that a shower?"

"No, this is a tablet. It allows me to talk to people from far away. Though I still don't understand this world's language so I have to use a book to translate things," Clara explained.

"So what's a shower? I wanna try and take one!" Reiya exclaimed, waving her arms around.

"Fine, follow me. We might as well since I got nothing else to do," Clara mumbled.

"Yay! Shower, shower, shower!" Reiya chanted excitedly, walking after Clara. The hero smiled at the girl's bright and cheerful smile.

So cute! I wish I could be this carefree.


"Ow! It stings!" Reiya shrieked, furiously rubbing her eye.

"Wait, hold still I'll wash it out. Just blink a bunch," Clara said, turning the movable faucet to low power and gently pouring some water over Reiya's face. The girl pulled her hand away and blinked several times until the pain went away.

"Why does it sting so much? And you guys do this every day?" Reiya asked, glancing angrily at the shampoo bottle.

"We close our eyes when we wash our hair to avoid getting shampoo into our eyes," Clara explained.

"Oh… What is that room over there?" Reiya questioned.

"That is a big shower. Instead of this shower head, that place has like 10 on every wall and a small magic panel that controls them all," Clara started to explain. However, Reiya already shot up from her seat and walked into the room, marveling at the buttons on the wall panel. As Clara turned away and washed the rest of the shampoo out of her hair, she heard a violent torrent of water erupt, followed by Reiya yelling out in pain as she was flung out of the room by a wall of water.

"Miss Clara, the room hit me!" Reiya whined, hiding behind Clara. Clara sighed and walked up to the door, which was still pouring out gallons of water across the entire room.

"Erst Lid, Second Lid," Clara said, summoning a lid inside the room, blocking off the jets of water, and another under the ceiling, creating a small safepocket next to the panel. She clicked on a few buttons and the shower turned off.

"My savior!" Reiya exclaimed.

"That's what a hero's for!" Clara smiled and did a little bow before turning back to the shower head.

"I guess that's how Ellis almost drowned himself," Clara muttered.

"Who is Ellis?" Reiya asked curiously.

"He is… he was the vassal jar hero. But he is no longer with us," the small hero mumbled.

"Oh… were you two close?"

Clara shook her head. "Not nearly as close as Hol was to him. Oh, the guy with the hoe," Clara clarified when Reiya shot her a questioning look.

"I see. What was he like?" Reiya asked.

"He was nice. Gave me a tutorial on my weapon, a translator, and some advice. But he completely lacked self preservation and the concept of safety did not exist for him. One time he flung us both from the ship to a nearby island hundreds of kilometers above the ground for a bit of training. But we didn't know each other for very long, and he got killed by a vassal hero from another world," Clara explained, looking sadly at the water.

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. What happened to the jar he used?" Reiya inquired.

"It got stolen by the other hero. Hol went to another world to get it back," Clara answered.

"Wait, so Mean Hoe Guy left you all alone?"

"Pretty much. So I'm going to be fighting the next wave on my own," Clara sighed and began to dry off.

"That's horrible! I'm gonna need to slap some sense into him for you when he gets back!" Reiya promised, putting on a determined face.

"Please don't. If anyone is gonna do that it's gonna be me. Plus, he might hurt you, but he needs me in one piece. Who knows how drunk he would be when he returns," Clara replied, petting the top of Reiya's head. "Now let's get ready. We are gonna be grinding for a while."

"Okay~!"


"Hello there, Clara. Who's the new friend?" Sherone asked as he packed a box into the trunk of his Thunderbolt.

"This is Reiya, she's gonna be joining us to level up," Clara explained. "Reiya, this is Sherone. He helps me level up."

"Nice to meet you Sherone," Reiya waved at the man from behind Clara.

"Likewise. Welcome to the grind. I hope you can teleport her back with you after this since I have to stop by Tiger Fang to commission new armor," Sherone replied as he closed the trunk of his ship.

"Oh! That reminds me! I'll be back in a minute. Portal Knife!" Clara exclaimed, disappearing and reappearing in her room. She grabbed the melted shield and opened up her coin bag. Inside lay a few shards of the core that she broke when defeating the third wave. She absorbed enough to unlock the core weapon form, but several shards remained behind. Clara didn't know what to do with them so she threw them into her coin pouch to maybe sell later, but now she had a different idea.

She ran back to where Sherone and Reiya were standing.

"So this rock is what makes it float, but this thing is what makes it not float?" Reiya asked, poking at parts of the engine in Sherone's car.

"Pretty much. Though there are also a few other rocks all around the ship to keep it stable, and giving them less or more power helps tilt or turn the whole ship. Hey Clara, got what you needed?" Sherone asked as the cooking hero approached them.

"Yeah. I wanted to ask you if you could make a weapon commission for me as well. I got some materials from the bosses of the last two waves and I wanted them to be turned into a weapon form," Clara said, showing him the melted shield and golem crystal core.

"Damn, what the hell happened to this thing? Did it get hit by artillery or something?" Sherone inquired, examining the melted shield.

"Uh… kinda?" Clara replied, while Reiya tried to not act suspicious.

"Huh. These look pretty good. Not exactly the highest quality crystals, but they would definitely fetch at least a couple gold, even if they were shattered. I can pass on the order. What do you want made?" he asked, putting the crystals and shield into a bag.

"A bread knife would be nice, I guess? I want a bit of extra reach," Clara replied.

"Gotcha. Well, hop on, I'll pass on the order after we level you up," Sherone replied, starting the ship. As Clara sat down, she noticed a new message pop up in her status menu.

[Portal Knife mastery increased to 34%]

[Portal Knife effect increased]

Huh? What did it add?

Clara opened up the portal knife menu and saw that not only did the cooldown and cost seem to drop a bit, but a new waypoint option popped up.

Waypoints:
-Royal Palace Secret Room

-Cloud X Hero's Quarters

-Holy Springs

-none

Huh. Interesting. I can set another waypoint. Do I get 2 more when I get to 100% mastery? Either way, this is great!

Clara smiled at her status screen and thought of several ways she could use this skill, as the ship floated across the sky.

This is gonna help tremendously later.


[+21 EXP]

[+28 EXP]

[+24 EXP]

[+37 EXP]

[+43 EXP]

[+23 EXP]

*CRUNCH*

As the gang made it through the forest, Reiya has proven just how strong she can be even without being starved half to death. The second that a Drevo monster scared her, she turned and punched it so hard that it split into two. She followed up by catching something out of the air and then eating it with a loud crunch,

Oh my god, I'm lucky I didn't fight her in her human form. Like Jim would say, I would get 'folded like an omelet 7 times over'.

"Miss Clara! I got another one!" Reiya yelled, throwing one of the tree monsters in her direction. Clara absorbed it with her knife and sighed.

Well, this is some decent exp.

"Alright, let's go a bit deeper. There are barely any monsters left here," Sherone said, driving his ship towards them.

"Alright. Maybe I'll finally get more weapon forms to master," Clara agreed, following behind the floating car.

Would it be more accurate as a car rather than a ship? Or is it a boat?

Clara asked Sherone this and he shrugged.

"The model itself is Thunderbolt, but it is a boat. Earlier models were used as lifeboats on bigger ships, when the risk of them crashing was a lot greater. I think that name came from one of the heroes who helped construct the bigger boats," Sherone explained.

"How big were the boats before?"

"Not too big. The first was a prototype which is now known as one of the early models of the Cloud ship. There was also some crazy guy who tried to build the Titanic 2.0, the 'Unlandable Ship!'. It did in fact land when it couldn't turn well. Turns out, building a super long ship does not allow you to turn super well when there are a bunch of floating mini islands in the sky shredding your hull," the tanker said.

Huh. Was it someone who was summoned as a vassal hero? They were probably from my world or a similar one considering they called it Titanic.

"My grandad was one of the passengers of that ship. This boat is actually the lifeboat he got from the shipwreck. He and a bunch of other civilians escaped with it, and he got to keep the boat. My dad handed it down to me after grandad handed it to him. I got it upgraded of course, the thing was falling apart for years, but now it's basically brand new!"

"Wow. So is this like a family heirloom?" Clara questioned, looking at the ship with newfound awe.

"Yep. Gonna pass it onto my children, if I have any. Imagine this thing in like a hundred years? She is gonna be an absolute beast!" Sherone exclaimed, patting the front panel. "Also, you might not want to step there."

"Step whe-?"

*Splat*

Clara looked down at her feet and grimaced. A thick coating of green semi transparent slime covered the ground and covered her shoe.

"Ew!" Clara exclaimed, trying to take a step back. However, the slime stuck to her shoe and slowly began to creep towards her. "Knife Throw."

Clara threw the burning knife in her hand at the slime, burning its body and receiving some exp.

"I haven't seen any green slimes yet," Clara mumbled, absorbing the monster remains into her knife.

Green Slime Knife

abilities locked equip bonus: +2 attack

special effect: sticky knife

mastery level: 0

"Huh. Weird effect. What does this do?" Clara questioned, swapping to the new knife. It looked just like the other two slime knives, except a murky semi-transparent green color. Unlike the other two knives, which just felt like wet slime, this one felt very sticky. However, Clara could still move it from hand to hand with ease. She slapped it onto one of the Drevo carcases and pulled her knife back.

As she expected, the corpse followed the knife, as the weapon stuck to it like glue.

Don't know when this will be useful, but I'll take the two attack points.

"Ew! It tastes so weird and sticky~!" Reiya complained, opening and closing her mouth, as if trying to unstick something.

"Well, don't eat everything you see. Besides, we have sandwiches in Sherone's boat," Clara said, absorbing the remains Reiya brought her.

"We do? Yay!" Reiya exclaimed happily, jumping into the boat in search of snacks.

"You guys want to take a quick lunch break before we continue deeper into the forest? From now on more dangerous monsters will appear. The green slimes are the least of our worries," Sherone warned.

"Alright. I could use the time to master this knife anyways," Clara agreed, attaching the knife to her hip.

"Mmh~, it's so tasty~!" Reiya exclaimed, biting into the food Clara packed her.

"Really? Lemme have a bite," Sherone asked.

"Noooooo! These are mine!"

"I can let you try some of my food."

"But your food will phase through me! Miss Clara didn't make it," Reiya protested.

"I'll trade you one of mine," Clara said, handing Sherone one of her sandwiches. He handed her a small cup of noodles that Clara remembered Goron cooking earlier that day. However, the small metal cup was still warm.

"How did you warm this up?" Clara asked, biting into the noodles.

"I have a pocket stove in the back of the boat for trips and camping. Mhm, these are pretty decent," Sherone commented, taking a bit out of Clara's sandwich.

Dang it. Only decent?

"Can I take a look at the stove?"

"Sure. It's in the trunk," Sherone replied, pressing a button on the front panel. With a soft click, the back of the boat opened up. Clara saw a small pocket at the side of the trunk with a round piece of metal. The top was a clean silver surface, with a few small scratches here and there, while the bottom was a light purple. There weren't any buttons or anything, however, her status lit up as a new weapon form was added to her inventory.

Pocket Stove

abilities locked equip bonus: "Heated Grounds"

special effect: automatic stove, consumption (medium)

"That's gonna be useful for camping. But what does this skill do? Heated Grounds!"

Clara saw her SP bar deplete, but nothing seemed to happen for several seconds.

Huh? Is it a dud? Can that happen?

But before Clara could search her status screen for answers, she smelled some smoke coming from under her feet. Clara looked down to see a glowing red aura covering the ground below her.

"Shoot!" Clara exclaimed, jumping back. However, the aura followed her and the air around Clara began to heat up even more.

"Get away from me!" Clara exclaimed. To her surprise, the glowing aura did just that, and quickly moved to the side.

Right, skills can be mind controlled. Keep forgetting that. So does it just heat up the area I select? Can it burn anything though?

Just as she thought about this, her SP began to drain faster and the glowing aura got brighter. The grass dried out and caught on fire, quickly burning away under the intense heat.

But just as the glow appeared, it quickly disappeared as Clara's SP hit zero.

"Miss Clara, are you alright?" Reiya asked, running over to Clara.

"Yeah, everything is fine. I'm just looking over a skill right now," Clara replied, tossing the form onto her back.


The gang finished lunch and continued to go deeper into the forest. Clara encountered a few more green slimes, but a throw of the burning knife easily took care of them. Not much had happened for about an hour after that, and Clara was beginning to lose hope in gaining any levels for the day.

However, the gang soon heard a low growl from the bushes. Sherone looked over to the noise and raised his shield.

"What is it?" Clara whispered, raising her vulture pot.

"Sh*t, not sure. It looks like a lunar wolf, maybe fourth or third in succession, but by all logic it shouldn't be here," Sherone replied, slowly backing away and pulling Clara behind the boat. Reiya followed the two, quietly tiptoeing to them.

"What do you mean? What's a lunar wolf, and what do you mean fourth or third in succession?" Clara questioned.

"You know the solar lunar islands we have? They have these temples which give a drop of the sun and drop of the moon every once in a while. While those can be used to give blessings during class ups, they are rare as hell and also expensive. Some dude tried to mix them with a fox and a wolf as an experiment to try to get more power out of them, and he created the Solar Fox and the Lunar Wolf," Sherone began, as the wolf slowly walked through the trees.

"Ok, I'm following so far," Clara mumbled.

"Right, so the experiment worked and gave them a ton of powers and they receive power when the sun or moon is out. One day the two kill the scientist and escape, and then flee into the wildlife onto Ground Zero. From here they reproduced with others in their species, but their children didn't have the same power output as the original two. They were dubbed the 2nd succession or the Waning Moon Wolves. Then those types had kids and reproduced, and so on and so forth, each generating being weaker than the last. Fourth in succession means it's weak compared to the originals, however, it's still pretty strong compared to a normal version of their species. They are also known as Crescent Moon Wolves, one rank lower than Half Moon Wolves

"So why shouldn't it be here?" Clara inquired.

"For one, the Lunar Wolves get their powers from the moon. This is why they hunt during the night, when they are at their strongest. Second, the original Solar Fox and the Lunar Wolf split the area on Ground Zero and the rest of the generations tend to respect those boundaries. And this is the Solar part of the forest, so to see a Lunar wolf here, in the day, shouldn't be possible!" Sherone finished. He looked carefully over his boat to try to see where the wolf went. However, it seemed to have disappeared.

"Thank god. Those things are a pain to deal with," Sherone muttered. Clara looked around and sighed in relief and leaned on the boat. It was then that she felt something liquid hit the top of her head.

She glanced up slowly to see a large set of sharp white teeth above her, covered in foam. Two large blue unfocused eyes looked down at her, it's claws digging into the hood of the boat

Oh… f*ck.