"Erst Slash!"

Clara ran forward with her shield raised, and slashed away at the nearest enemy. The hit cut the large red slime in half, creating two smaller slimes. Clara followed up with Knife Rain, throwing several glowing knives at the slimes. They continued to split with every hit, but even their ability could not keep up with the relentless attacks and soon exp notifications flooded Clara's vision.

"Nice. Hol didn't really absorb the monster materials as much, but for the short time I was with Ellis I saw him stuffing everything into his weapon, even if he already got the weapon form," Sherone said from the backline. Even though the two partied up, Clara asked Sherone to let her fight alone as they went deeper into the forest. So he stayed behind in the 'car' (Thunderbolt was the model's name, but he called his Stormcloud) and would move it towards her every few steps.

"Ellis had a method where the things he stores buff him. Too bad I can't use it. But the monster drops are pretty nice," Clara responded, shifting through the list of materials. They were mostly herbs and some kind of cream. She closed her status and continued to press onwards when an idea came to mind.

She picked up some grass and stuffed it into her weapon form. After getting no response for a few seconds she threw in a clump of dirt, but nothing happened either.

I guess not everything unlocks a weapon form.

Clara ripped off a tree branch from a nearby tree and saw that her gem began to glow as she pushed it closer.

Oh, so it only glows near materials that will unlock something. That's good to know.

Clara pushed the branch into the gem and a new weapon icon popped up, but it was only half full. She grabbed another branch and pulled it down.

However, this branch didn't break for some reason, instead opting to bend. Clara pulled it again and was about to slice it off with her knife, when the branch suddenly lifted her off the ground with a growling noise.

Clara looked to the side and saw an angry pair of burning eyes glaring at her.

"… I'm sorry," was all she could say before the whole tree stood up and launched Clara to the side. She crashed into another tree and yelled out in pain. The tree monster launched at her, swinging one of its branches like a whip, but Clara was prepared for this.

"Second Lid, Chain Bind!" she changed her weapon form and called out her skills, blocking the attack and chaining the monster to the ground. It growled and began to shake from side to side, launching its leaves in all directions like little ninja stars. The second lid blocked some of them, but it soon shattered under the onslaught of the attacks, crashing into Clara's pot.

Flaming Vulture Beak Pot

abilities locked equip effect: "Second Lid"

It was one of the many weapons she got from the vulture and despite not being from a boss or having any mastery levels, it had a very good defense stat. Plus, with her level rising as much as it did, all of her weapon forms have increased in power.

Despite her best efforts, several of the leaves made it past her defenses and cut her armor and skin. The cuts were shallow, but they still hurt nonetheless.

The tree stopped shaking and slumped on the ground. Clara didn't waste any time and swapped to her strongest knife, the unobtanium knife, and dashed forward.

"GRAAAAAA!" the tree creature screamed and swung several branches at Clara. She ducked under the first one and swung her knife at the next, slicing the branch off. As two more branches were about to crash onto her, she summoned 'E Float Knife' and used both knives to attack the branches.

She managed to slice one of the branches, but the blue knife shattered upon impact. Clara tried to jump away but it was too late. With a loud crack the branch crashed onto her body and sent her flying once again. She tried to pick herself up quickly as she heard the loud creaking of the tree get closer and closed. However, the world looked like it was spinning as pain ripped through her side.

Clara swapped her knife to the old bandage knife and used its special effect 'bandage grapple' to pull herself away from the monster. Just in time too, as the monster fell silent for a moment before a loud crash rang out and the ground shook beneath her.

The world finally stopped spinning and Clara saw the monster rush towards her again. She glanced at the available weapon forms and picked out the giant knife from the last boss. Despite its huge appearance, it was a lot lighter than it seemed, allowing Clara to swing the massive blade at the tree monstrosity.

Thunk*

The tree monster roared out in pain as the blade sliced into its body. However, the weapon wasn't strong enough to slice through the monster all the way, leaving it trapped inside the bark. It began to wrap its vines around the weapon, keeping it in place, as a few more vines rushed towards Clara.

"Knife Rain!" Clara screamed out in a panic. Glowing green blades burst forth and crashed into the wooden tentacles, breaking and cutting the incoming branches.

"Erst Slash! Second Slash!" Clara yelled the only other skills that were off of cookdown. A bright green glow surrounded her blade and burst deeper into the monster. A second burst of light fired up the weapon and pushed the blade even deeper, almost slicing the monster in half.

"Just fall already!" Clara screamed and kicked the dull side of the blade, pushing the blade further. A loud crack rang out and the monster finally let out its dying screech as it was severed in half. It collapsed onto the ground with its branches twitching for a few more moments. A few more seconds passed and the tentacles finally came to a stop.

"Phew."

"Behind you!" Sherone yelled. Clara turned just in time to see several branches fly at her.

Oh no, I can't dodge them! She panicked, swapping back to her strongest pot to try to tank the hit. But just before the attacks reached her, 5 stars flew past her and formed a barrier. Sherone grabbed her collar and pulled her behind as he raised his shield. Clara saw that the barrier shimmered out of existence, turning back into 5 stars that turned from a formation to an x just before-

BOOM*

Clara ducked as wood splitters flew in every direction. Sherone raised his shield, blocking most of the debris. He kept his shield raised until the noise of falling debris stopped.

"You alright?" he asked, turning towards Clara with concern written on his face.

"Yeah. Thanks," she mumbled, letting out a heavy sigh.

I struggled so much to kill one of them, but Sherone just blasted it to bits so easily as a tank! I thought those had low attack. Or is the magic in this world just that powerful?

"I think we should take a break for now and treat any wounds you have. That hit you took looked pretty painful," Sherone said.

"But I'm fine! I can keep go-AGH," she screamed as Sherone poked her side. Pain ripped through her body as if she got hit by the vines again.

"War is war, but lunch is on time. Let's go," he said, throwing 6 glowing stars at Clara. The pain seemed to ease and she saw the small cuts around her body close up as if they weren't even there to begin with. There was still a dull ache in her side, but it wasn't a searing pain like before.

Sherone opened Stormcloud's trunk and pulled out a-

Is that a table?

Sherone climbed into the car and began to turn the seats all to be facing each other. He then pushed them all further back and set the table in between the seats. Clara watched as a normal car, or as normal as a floating car can be, transformed into a fine dining area in the matter of seconds.

Well, I have living trees and floating islands, I don't know why this surprises me.

"Have a seat, I'm gonna close the car to keep the monsters out," Sherone called Clara over as he pulled out his food. Clara quickly threw the tree monster she defeated into her knife and opened the statue when she sat down.

Drevo Pot

abilities locked equip effect: 5 defense

Drevo Leaf Knife

abilities locked equip effect: "Erst Throw"

Can I please just get normal skills and not another variant of Erst? What's next, Erst Bash for my pans?

The gem on the knife seemed to shiver as if challenging that, but it seemed to disappear the second Clara blinked, so she shrugged it off as a trick of the light.

"So, what have we learned?" Sherone suddenly asked, while Clara was eating one of the sandwiches she and Goron packed.

"Hm?" she asked, swallowing a bite.

"From the fight. Every time we finish a fight, my party would go over the fight and see where and how we can improve. It's just a quick rundown, but it definitely helps prepare for future fights," Sherone explained. "Like from what I can see you definitely relaxed too fast at the end, allowing the second tree monster to sneak up on you. That can be a fatal mistake when out and about. Always be aware of your surroundings even when you think you're safe."

Yeah, that was really dangerous. And despite all my bonuses, my defense stat is way too low to block all of the attacks. I guess with most of my stats being in attack and power, I'm supposed to dodge the attacks. But then why would I also get skills like Erst Lid? Maybe I'm supposed to have a little bit of everything and I just need to become a high enough level and get a lot more equip bonuses?

"By the way, how did you do that barrier explosion?" Clara inquired, as she transformed her knife to an unmastered one.

"A trick I picked up from a mage friend. Since reinforced magic wall and mana burst have the same amount of stars and combination, just at a different angle, you can theoretically block with the barrier and then deconstruct it, turn it slightly, and reconstruct it again, changing the spell without having to recast the stars. Saves on time and is a neat trick mid battle," Sherone explained.

"That's pretty cool. I'll try to remember it for later," she responded and dropped her sandwich onto the blade of her knife. Sherone looked at her in confusion.

"What is that?" he asked, pointing to the knife.

Flaming Vulture Knife

abilities locked equip effect: fire resistance (small)

special effect: burning knife

"This is a knife I got from absorbing a flaming vulture. It has a special effect that makes the blade burn," she replied.

"You had that, and you didn't use it on a living tree you just fought?"

"Well yeah, it's stats aren't as… oh."

Clara slumped in her seat and dropped her head onto the table with a loud thud.

I COULD HAVE JUST SET IT ON FIRE! Well, I would have to get closer to it and it had a better range of attack than me. But I just got this throwing knife skill, so I should try to master it and then throw the flaming blade at it.

Clara finished grilling her sandwich and swapped to the newest knife to mastery it as she ate.

So the battle plan for now is to get this ranged skill, which will help me get some more range capabilities, as I don't have magic, and the giant butcher knife will get stuck on everything. This, plus Knife Rain, will make grinding a lot easier. I wish Erst Slash and Second Slash had more range to them.

Now that I think about it, this skill is actually pretty good. I don't know why I got three different Erst skill sets, but with this I can swap between range attack, melee attack, and defense.

"I see you have a game plan?" Sherone teased, smiling at the girl. She nodded and chowed down on her food. "Good! We still got plenty of sunlight so we got a lot of time to grind."

"Erst Throw, Knife Rain, Chain Bind," Clara called out her skills, binding another tree monster and showering him with skills. Once she was sure it was immobilized for now she ran up to it and swapped to her flaming knife. "Second Slash!"

The knife sliced through the monster much easier than the giant cleaver, and it left a burning wound on its side. The flames quickly engulfed the injured abomination as it screamed and thrashed around, trying to hit Clara with its burning branches or leaves. However, the leaves had burned away and the branches were already broken, leaving the monster to die without a way to escape.

Wow, that was a lot more brutal than I thought that was gonna be. But these guys give pretty good exp. I already gained another level from today's grind.

…

Oh god, I only gained a level.

"Alright, that should do it for today. I'm gonna drop you off and then run some errands so let's hurry back before it gets too dark," Sherone said, walking back to the car.

"I can just teleport back if you want," Clara suggested, pointing to her knife.

"Really? That can work. Just make sure you tell Ellrona that you returned or she's gonna kill me, alright?"

"Alright! See you later. Thanks for the help. Portal Knife."

Clara appeared back in a random hallway and sighed. The reason why she didn't teleport to her room was because she picked that knife up and teleported to it every time the cooldown ended to try to raise its mastery. It definitely worked and the time lowered to just a bit under an hour and she hoped that if she raised it high enough she could get more waypoints.

Clara pulled out her map and traversed the ship for a few minutes until she got to the captain's room where she saw Ellrona alone looking at a map and different numbers on the panels.

"Hey, Captain," Clara called out to her, making the woman jump and pull out a gun. An awkward silence hung in the air as Clara was too afraid to move for the fear of getting shot.

"Holy… never do that again. I could have fired!" Ellrona said, leaning on the table with the map.

"Sorry. I just came by to tell you I got here safely. I teleported back a few minutes ago," Clara explained, walking into the room.

"Why didn't you just ping me?" Ellrona questioned, lifting a glowing tablet from the table.

"Oh… I don't think I have you in my constant li-" she began, but Ellrona grabbed the phone out of her hand and typed in her number. Or whatever could be classified as a number in this world, as Clara was still not fluent in the native language yet.

"There, now you should be able to message me. And don't sneak up on me like that, ever," Ellrona commanded, handing Clara her phone back.

"Alright. Good night then," Clara responded and walked back to her room. Her body was injured and healed several times by Sherone and it was still sore from training so she was ready to collapse onto her bed the second she made it back, Clara she instead took off her armor and clothes and reached towards the holy water and bandages.

She could teleport to the church but she would have to wait for another half an hour or so and she didn't think she would be awake that long, so Clara instead did what the nun at the church recommended and soaked the bandages in holy water before tying them around the burned areas.

"Ow!" she exclaimed as a quiet hissing noise erupted from the burns. It wasn't as bad as in the holy springs, but it was also less effective, so it was still better to soak in the springs later. But this will do for now.

As soon as Clara finished she jumped up and down a few times to make sure the bandages were all in place. When she confirmed that they wouldn't come off during the night she finally allowed herself to crawl under her blanket and let out a sigh of relief. The warmth and softness of the bed was luring her to sleep, however, it took her a while before her consciousness drifted off into an unsatisfying and short sleep.

"Hey kiddo. How was leveling?" Goron asked as she manned her post and swapped out her knife for a new one.

"It was alright. I got another level and two new weapons," she replied, chopping up the vegetables before her. After a few seconds she realized that Goron was still looming over her and looking at her hands.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Have you been practicing cutting things while you were hunting?" he asked, pointing to the already chopped up vegetables. Clara frowned and looked at her knife.

Flaming Vulture Bone Boning Knife

abilities locked equip effect: dissection skill 1

Does dissection help with cutting vegetables? Wait, is this like a passive skill? Can I get swordsmanship 2 or sewing 3? HOLD UP! YOU CAN NOT ONLY READ MY MIND, BUT ALSO SHOVE SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE INTO MY HEAD?!

The knife didn't respond, not like she expected it to. But this made a few questions pop up in her head.

So you can summon a random person and just shove experience and skills down their throat?! What's the point of summoning someone at all? Just give yourself to a random person and throw in every battle skill imaginable! No need to summon people! Or why not just give me a bunch of skills and let me go nuts? Wait, no, I can see why that would be a bad idea. But still! This just feels… wrong.

"Clara?" Goron waved his hand in front of the girl, breaking her out of her thoughts.

"Sorry. I think this is one of my knives abilities," she replied, handing over the chopped vegetables to one of the chefs.

"Huh… alright then," Goron muttered a few curses and something about 'cheats' under his breath, but Clara ignored it and continued as usual. She also took a look at the other forms from the vulture series.

Flaming Vulture Meat Skewer

abilities locked equip effect: food taste improvement 1

Flaming Vulture Feather Knife

abilities locked equip effect: heat sense

While Clara was sure she knew what taste improvement did, she was confused by what heat sense was. She swapped to it for a moment and felt a shiver run down her spine. She gasped and closed her eyes. She 'felt' a presence of something to her left and a bit further behind her. Shen she looked in those directions she found a frying pan and a pot with boiling water inside. She couldn't quite describe it, but she was just… aware of its presence.

Clara quickly swapped back to the boning knife and sighed. She makes that down for abilities she would have to try out later.

"Are you alright?" Laura asked the second Clara walked into the training room.

"Huh? Why wouldn't I be?" she inquired. Laura tilted her head and sighed.

"Well, you have eyebags forming under your eyes and your hair looks like a mess. And I'm almost scared to ask when the last time you showered was," Laura explained, pointing at Clara's hair and clothes. The girl looked at her feet sheepishly and muttered about being busy with things.

"You may be busy, but you need to take time to take care of yourself too. Take a shower after today's training alright?"

"Alright," Clara muttered and put her weapon on her thigh.

"Good. Today we're gonna spar and see where you are in terms of combat. Then we'll work from there and finish up with a couple dozen laps. You ready?" Laura asked, getting into a battle stance. Clara tried her best to copy her and nodded.

"Alright go!-CLARA!"

Clara blinked a few times and looked around. She was on the floor with a worried Laura shaking her shoulders.

"Huh?" she muttered, reaching towards her face. Her cheek stung the second she touched it but there was no swelling.

Did I get… I didn't even see her attack!

"Thank goodness you're ok. I think we should do this without the Sky Iceberg accessory for now," Laura sighed, pulling the needles with the glowing blue stone out of her hair. Clara reached towards her wrist to take off the bracelet, only to realize she didn't put it on yet.

… I'm level 52 and have equip bonuses and I still got bodied! And most of my stats are going into attack and agility!

Laura seemed to have noticed this, but she didn't comment on it and instead helped Clara off of the bench.

"Alright, I'll go slower this time. You can start the fight," Laura said as soon as she made sure Clara was back to normal, throwing another healing spell at her just in case.

"Ok. Here I come!" Clara exclaimed, as she ran forward. She had both of her hands raised near her head like she saw boxes do or people in manhwas her brother read often. When Clara was within range, she threw a punch at Laura, but the woman easily ducked and countered with a punch to Clara's stomach, sending the girl staggering back and gasping for air.

Laura dashed forward and threw another punch at Clara's face. It was a lot slower than her first one, but even so Clara barely managed to block it with her hands. And even though she did, the impact hurt like hell. Clara could almost hear her bones cracking. She tried to return a punch, but Laura easily dodged it again and countered with her own.

This continued for several minutes. Clara tried to hit Laura, but she would just dodge and hit Clara even harder. Clara also saw that Laura was beginning to slow down as she got more and more used to Clara's own speed, but she was still way too fast for the girl to fight back.

Laura swung once more at Clara, but this time Clara managed to grab the woman's hand. She tried to kick her in the stomach, however, her body felt sluggish and to Laura the kick was painfully slow.

Laura grabbed Clara's leg and pushed it up in the air, dropping the girl to the ground. Clara tried to get up but Laura stopped her.

"Alright, that's enough for now. Take a small break and then start running. I want 3 dozen laps done," she said, handing Clara a water bottle and a healing spell.

Clara just groaned as she downed the water. Even with the healing spell healing any injuries and somehow removing bruises, the soreness still stayed.

Well, I just got absolutely crushed.

"C'mon. You don't have all day. You still have to level up later today according to the captain so good luck with that. Don't get hurt too much, alright?" Laura smiled, offering a hand to Clara. Clara returned the smile and took the hand.

"Alright, I'll try," she replied.

"Alright, now 3 dozen laps, let's go!"

The second grinding session passed by very similar to the first. Then the third. And the fourth. Every day Clara woke up, worked a bit in the kitchen in the morning, trained with Laura, went to grind with Sherone, teleported back, and finished off the day by changing the bandages on her burns. The curse wasn't going away as fast as she wanted as she long went past the estimated 1 week treatment time, but she guessed that was because she used bandages instead of swimming in the hot springs, and because she neglected it early on.

Clara saw that her stats rose compared to what she had just a few days ago, both from the training and from getting three extra levels. While the training focused on her stamina and a bit of agility, leveling up raised her agility and power by quite a lot in comparison. It was good to have both, but at this rate it seemed more worth it to level up for a bit than train for a week.

Clara closed her status and sighed. Her body ached. Thanks to the healing magic and all the training, the soreness was a lot less severe than it was when she first started. Everything in her status was increasing slowly but surely. The only problem she had is that her magic still didn't get better.

She was able to form a single orb of light and even somewhat control how bright it is by using more mana, but she still couldn't use the magic bullet Ellis showed her when she arrived into this world.

Her skills have also increased in power as their masteries rose.

SKILLS

Erst Slash - 100%

Erst Lid - 24%

Erst Throw - 32%

Second Slash - 56%

Second Lid - 12%

E Float Knife - 46%

Chain Bind - 100%

Knife Rain - 45%

Portal Knife - 33%

Despite spamming them so much, Erst Slash and Chain Bind didn't evolve. I guess they are basic skills so I need to find better skills. They also raise their mastery at different speeds so it's gonna take a while for me to master every skill. Oh well. I hope Knife Rain will evolve into something cool.

Clara finished tying her bandages and unsummoned the light orb and her E Float Knife. It was already dark and she was ready to go to sleep. She mastered almost all of the forms she unlocked recently and unfortunately didn't get any new ones yet. The forest was filled with red and blue slimes and a bunch of trees. While she could use knife throw with the burning knife effect to kill them easily, there were simply too many. She looked at her last monster knife.

Flaming Vulture Feather Knife

abilities locked equip effect: heat sense

Clara already tried to use this effect in the forest to see if it helps her see monsters coming after her, however she couldn't sense the different slimes around her, and the tree monsters blended in with normal trees, and the effect itself just felt weird.

Clara shrugged and equipped the knife anyways. The feeling of being aware of the heat around her was weird. She didn't know how to explain it. However, it was listed as a masterable bonus, and the knife probably knew more about what bonuses are helpful and what aren't, so she sighed and decided to master it anyways.

She was about to lay down and fall asleep when suddenly an ear piercing screech was heard all across the ship. Clara covered her ears but it didn't seem to help at all, as if someone was screaming directly into her head.

She ran out into the hallway and towards the direction she thought the scream was coming from. As she reached a turn in the hallway she paused to try to hear if the noise rang out again, but nothing happened.

But just as she was about to leave, she heard another scream, this time sounding like a woman was screaming in the cafeteria. Clara ran through the hallway as fast as her tired legs let her.

She was just passing by the kitchen when a shiver ran down her spine and she felt something odd behind her. Clara equipped her Vulture Pot and turned around to see a creature standing behind her.

It was similar to the soul eater that they fought on the first wave, except it was a bit larger than before. The red eyes were glowing even brighter. The sharp teeth seemed sharper, and a semi transparent liquid was running down from its mouth and dripping onto the floor. Its whole body was thinner and its twitching body was covered in dark spots that looked like bruises. A few cuts with smoke coming out of them were also visible.

The creature glared at her like a starving person would glare at their meal. It's body seemed to take all the heat around it away. It dug its claws into the walls of the hallway and a low grumble escaped its throat.

It raised its head and let out another soul piercing screech before it lunged at Clara at full speed. Clara's heart skipped a beat as she got ready for combat. She only knew one thing for sure.

She wasn't gonna get a lot of sleep today.