Shadow Slave

Despite the fact that Rain's clash with the Stone Worm had only lasted a dozen seconds, she was tired. Not only because she had tracked the creature down for a long time first, spending hours to prepare the ambush, but also because those few seconds of absolute mental concentration and daunting physical exertion took a lot out of her.

That was how it went every time. If a mundane human wanted to face a Nightmare Creature, anything less than giving it your all, and then some, meant death. Not that there were a lot of mundanes going out of their way to fight abominations - not a lot of those who lived to tell the tale, at least.

In that sense, Rain was an anomaly.

Sadly, the harsh physical demands of the hunt were not over after her prey was dead.

Grimacing, Rain gripped her sharp hunting knife and went about dressing the Stone Worm.

Its flesh was wiry and tough. Its scales were even tougher. Even with her knife having been forged from mystical steel, it took all of Rain's strength to rend the dead abomination. Especially because she didn't want to become drenched in its blood - not only because that would have been icky, but also because the stench of blood could attract other Nightmare Creatures,

"Curse it.,, curse it all…”

She worked up a sweat, eventually taking off her Jacket and vest and rolling up the sleeves of her henley. The ash continued to rain from the sky, smearing her Ivory skin like black ink.

Her teacher, meanwhile, sat comfortably on a rock and observed her with a content expression, not even trying to help.

'Bastard..’

"Cursing again? Rain, a proper young lady should act with modesty, poise, and decorum. Ah, you were such a well-mannered girl when we met... where did you even pick up these bad habits? Who taught you such foul language? Tell me, and I'll beat the crap out of the damned bastard..."

She paused for a moment, glared at him, and then returned to her work without saying a word.

"Stop pouting."

'I'm not pouting!’

its limbs and separated the stonelike blades from the joints. The blades

true treasure was the hide of the Stone Worm, Although it was merely a Dormant Monster, the scales of these creatures were lightweight and tough. The Awakened who had not earned a good armor-type Memory yet often used them to fashion scalemail those with plenty of coins could

when the latter got in trouble, their armor needed to be mended with even more scales. Therefore, there was always demand for Stone Worm's hides. Rain herself had worn such a scalemail armor at

could earn a pretty penny by selling this hide. It was

it the best she could, and rolled it into a

them for a few moments, Rain sighed. One could be repaired, but the other was unsalvageable. Her arsenal of arrows was growing dangerously poor - there were plenty of them in the quiver, but only a few of those made

arrow and put it

the most important

the Stone Worm, Rain

"Shall I?”

raised his white hands and applauded her

"Go ahead. Good kill."

often saw Awakened crush soul shards in their fists, but her mundane hands bruised terribly if she tried. So, instead, she simply brought the butt of her knife down on

foreign essence trickle into her soul. It was a strange sensation, and one she

seemed satisfied, and she was,

long do you think it will be before

a

sense and control your essence, so it

sigh escaped from his

hurry up. You have to hunt

Awakened Nightmare Creature. That clash had almost cost her life. Had that th been strong,

him