After Sophia had trained the entire evening of the day before, she was confident in holding back enough. At least to not accidentally kill someone if one of the beastpeople were to really challenge her. Preventing any injuries might still be a challenging demand, though. That's why she still hoped no one would want to fight her, but knowing her luck, she wasn't confident about that.

Having had a good night's sleep, the two continued traveling towards the beastfolk city until early afternoon when Fen suddenly stopped.

"Sophia, have you noticed?"

"The red dots about a kilometer in front of us?" She, too, found something with her detection magic.

"Yes. A group of three is fighting something, it seems."

"Déjà vu?" Sophia felt reminded of a particular encounter from not too long ago.

"Luckily for us, they aren't humans. Judging by the response of my detection magic, they should be beastpeople. I'm not sure about the monster they're fighting yet, but it's considerably more powerful than a kow."

"Can anything be less powerful than a kow, anyway?" She had to make a remark.

"Uh… You win that round." Fen had no comeback to such a burn towards the humans.

"Are they able to win against the monster?"

"Difficult to say from a distance, but judging by power levels alone, it'll be a close call… Want to take a look, Sophia?" He paused for a moment. "Actually, no… it probably won't be close…"

"Hmm… It can't get any worse than last time, can it? Sure, why not… let's go."

----------------

As a kilometer wasn't a mentionable distance for the duo, they instantly closed up to the group. There, the two took a look at the battle while Fen changed his size.

"Oh~, a rock-golem, I haven't seen those in a while." Fen watched the over three-meter tall monster with a slightly humanoid-looking body, as far as having limbs goes, that was made entirely out of stone.

"Eh? It's actually called golem? Not something like a kolem or gorem?" The girl, having thought she finally got the naming system of this world, felt cheated.

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't mind me. Mmnh, it does look quite capable, that golem. What about the beastpeople?" She shifted her attention to the group of three fighting the monster. "That's a pretty… interesting bunch."

One was a mix between a reptile or even a dragon and a human, grey-ish skin, a scaly tail, and some smaller wings on his back. He was also holding a massive shield together with a sword in his hands. His face was definitely closer to a reptile rather than a human. The second beastperson was a girl and resembled a human a good bit more, but Sophia wasn't sure how to feel about her. "Well, she is cute… yeah, but," She started with an unimportant observation. Her face, quite attractive, and her body was that of a human of about 18 to 20 in age.

Still, aside from the fluffy-looking tail and cat-like ears sticking out of her hair, which Sophia could easily tolerate, like, or adore even, the girl had hands and feet that resembled paws in a way. Her hands were slightly shaped like their human counterpart, but it was still covered in fur. This fact was a bit too much for her. Just like her hair, those were dyed in the same brownish-orange hue. For the group's last member, aside from the small and round animal-like ears on top of his head, he looked like a normal human in his early thirties. He looked so remarkably unremarkable that Sophia almost forgot about him the moment she looked away. Although, she was curious about his ears because she couldn't remember what animal these originally belong to, no matter how hard she tried to recall.

"Hey, Masi, get your magic ready! I'll get its attention in the meantime," The reptile readied the giant shield he was carrying. At the same time, he addressed the guy with the curious ears. "Chiyo, once he fired his magic, immediately attack! Give the golem no time to react!"

"Roger!" The cat-girl did a cute pose before she grabbed the daggers hanging from her waist."

"O powerful fire, please let me borrow your strength to slay this foe!" The guy named Masi began to chant, and a medium-sized fireball appeared in front of him after a while.

"Oho." Fen seemed a tiny bit impressed. "That's a nice short chant. That guy's not bad… Relatively speaking."

"Really…? That chant would already be way too much for me… Sooo embarrassing!" She visually shuddered and was happy about having no need for spells.

"Still, fire magic against a golem, that's not going to do much."

"Go!" After his magic was ready, Masi immediately fired it towards the golem, engulfing it in flames as a result.

"Hyah!" Once the fire began to subside, Chiyo wasted no time and jumped at their enemy. Sparks flew as her daggers made contact with the rocky body of the golem, but that was about it. Noticing that neither her weapon nor her comrade's magic did much, if any, damage, the cat-girl swiftly retreated to a safe distance. "Oi, Rashk, I think we picked a fight with the wrong guy!" She addressed the reptile with a complaint while he was busy defending a punch from the golem's huge fist with his shield.

"Ahaha, you might be right about that… What do we do? Bail?"

"I think that's the best choice!" The other two agreed.

"Ehh…?" Sophia was shocked for some reason. "What's that? They're actually… sensible and intelligent? I haven't seen that before."

"Well, they're not humans." Fen had a simple explanation for her. "Still, as intelligent they might be-" He looked to his right. "Unfortunately, golems aren't really alive and can't sense magic power that would've scared them off from us being here…"

"Hmm?" Following his line of sight, she noticed what he was implying. "Oh…" Two more rock-golems had shown up, blocking the group's path to retreat.

"Guys, let's re- Oh…" Rashk turned around while he was giving instructions when he noticed the other golems. "Ahh, I'm sorry… everyone…"

"Oi! Don't give up so fast!" Chiyo was trying to keep the morale up. "Masi, use all of your power and get the biggest wall of fire you're capable of ready. Ignore strength and make it as flashy as possible! We need to divert their attention!"

"O-Okay!"

"That girl has a great reaction, giving such precise instructions in this situation." Fen had a positive impression of the group. "Unfortunately, rock-golems don't even react to fire."

"They're going to lose then?"

"Yep, see?" The wolf gestured at the group. Masi had just set the entire place on fire, but the golems paid no attention to it and simply kept advancing towards them. "Want to help them?"

"Might as well give it a try." Hoping it's not going to be a repeat of last time, Sophia stepped forward. She soon arrived at the edge of the battlefield, where the group immediately noticed her, despite the danger they were in.

"A human…?"

"Girl, get away from here!"

"It's too dangerous! We're trying to run as well! You still have time not to become a casualty!" They were completely aware of the situation and didn't want Sophia to get caught up in it.

"Errm, that's why I'm here… I wanted to offer my help…" She tried to go with the same route as last time.

"Help? A human… hmm…?" The cat-girl, Chiyo, didn't think a human could be of any help as absolutely everyone, except they themselves, knew how miserably weak they were. Still, she then noticed something being odd about Sophia. "Girl… wait, are you even human…? That power I'm sensing… Can you really help us? If so, I beg you! Please!" Completely different from the human party before, the cat-girl, noticing her power, immediately made the right decision in asking for help.

"Yes, I fought against a couple of these golems before. I'm quite confident." It was a complete lie, but Sophia just knew that they were no threat to her. She just said it to relieve the group's tension. "Ah, but my weapon broke during the last one… Could I borrow your daggers?" Not wanting to put her chantless magic on display the moment she met someone, and even less, wanting to fake a chant, Sophia thought about a way to hide her magical strength. Ripping apart those golems with her hands seemed a bit too flashy as well.

"Really?! Thank you so very much!" Chiyo was incredibly glad to her. "Please take them! I don't care if they break as long as you can save us with them!"

"Alright." Receiving the daggers, she did some practice swings to get familiar with the weapons before jumping at the nearest golem.

"W-Wha…" Chiyo couldn't believe her eyes. The girl in front of her had basically vanished and reappeared in front of the enemy. There, she cleanly cut off one of the golem's arms in a single motion with the same daggers the cat-girl failed to do as much as to put a scratch on it. Afterward, this outrageous girl jumped at its head, cutting it off that as well. Once it had lost its head, the golem's body fell on the ground and stopped moving.

"Fen!" As Sophia jumped at the second golem, she called for her companion.

"On it!" Understanding what she wanted him to do, the wolf attacked the third golem.

"E-Eh…?" Chiyo was utterly overwhelmed. Not only was the girl already destroying the second target, but she also suddenly called out a wolf out of nowhere, a mighty one at that. Instantly after, the two remaining golems died at the same time.

"Good job, Fen."

"It was nothing." The duo had no sense of tension as they approached the group.

"…"

"…" The reptile, Rashk, and the animal-eared guy called Masi were unable to react at all.

"H-Huh…?" Chiyo wasn't much better off, though.

"Here, your daggers…" Sophia handed back the weapons she borrowed. "Sorry, they got a little scratched up, but it should be fixable…"

"…Thank you…" The cat-girl was still recovering from the shock, but tears suddenly flowed down her cheeks. "T-Thank you! Thank you so very much! You saved all our lives!" Overcome by emotion, Chiyo jumped at Sophia and wrapped her arms around the girl's neck, tightly hugging her.

"U-Uh…" Sophia didn't know how to deal with this. All the girl knew was that she had some complicated feelings about the situation. All of which were purely her own fault. Thanks to the cat-girl having fury paws, she wasn't exactly in Sophia's strike zone. Still, the other parts of her body, especially the soft parts pressing against her, were fully human-like. This caused a significant amount of confusion in her head. Having never developed a resistance against this feeling because she had absolutely no experience in her past world wasn't helping, either. But, seeing how scared Chiyo was before and seemed in need to be calmed down, she managed to ignore her slightly impure thoughts.

"Ah…" Once she recovered enough, though, Chiyo pulled away from the girl again, looking slightly embarrassed. "S-Sorry… I did that without thinking…"

"N-No, it's fine… I-I don't mind…" The mood got awkward all of a sudden. "A-Anyway, I'm glad I made it in time…"

"Yes… Again, thank you very much for saving us!"

"Thank you." Her two companions, Rashk and Masi, finally seemed to have rebooted to the point of being able to use words again.

"D-Don't worry about it, uh…" Sophia was getting bashful by the repeated and heartfelt thanks.

"Oh, I almost forgot! My name's Chiyo, as you can see, I'm part of the cat tribe."

"Rashk, I'm a lizardman, obviously."

"Nice to meet you. Masi's the name, and I'm part of the panda tribe."

"Ahh!" Sophia looked at his ears again, finally noticing which animal these ears belonged to. "A-Ahem… I'm Sophia, and this is my, uhm… companion…"

"Fen." He took over. "As you might've noticed, I'm a full of the wolf tribe."

"Eh?" Sophia was the shocked one, only to realize that he was making up a cover story on the spot a second later.

"Nice to meet you." The group seemingly bought Fen's lie.

"Likewise."

"Erm, Sophia…?" Chiyo timidly addressed her. "You… You aren't human either, are you…? That power and… positive attitude towards us… You're something else, am I right…?"

"Uh…" She had no idea what to answer. Technically speaking, she was human, but not from this world. Not to mention her specs were anything but human. Furthermore, she really didn't like to be associated with them anymore after everything that happened. Still, telling them about her background also seemed like a bad idea, so she wasn't sure how to respond.