Alex stood at the exit from the city with a quest sheet in her bag, – made with her Biomass (how exactly she could create inorganic materials was a mystery to Alex, a mystery she needed to solve) – she went to the Adventurer's Guild before her Quest and found out that for five dead toads they named the price of 25,000 Eris. Not as much as she expected, but more than nothing. Elise also mentioned that the Guild also paid good money for their carcasses, so Alex decided to leave the three toads intact… somewhat.

The giant toads were a problem for the whole city, because in the mating season they were very voracious. Basically, they ate small cattle and humans who went too far from security in the walls of the city.

"Why does everything in this world want to eat or kill a person?" Alex muttered walking towards the forest. Most of the toads lived near the lake in the south of the city. There they had enough water and food for survival, but it didn't stop the hungriest from hunting people.

Today her quest was not to kill toads, but to test her limits. She didn't know how many weapons she could create, because in the game the Protagonist only got new weapons when the player bought them. Alex, on the other hand, knew perfectly well that with the Shapeshifting, she could create any weapon she wanted at any moment. The only thing she has to watch out for, is her Biomass.

Alex looked around and suddenly realized that she had already reached the place where the Toads were last seen. She saw pawprints on the flattened grass that led into the depths of the forest. She was lucky that they hid from the eyes of people, that meant that no one would see how she killed them.

She stepped into the forest and followed in the footsteps of the Toads. Alex hoped that she would first come across a lone monster to test her strength without being in immediate danger. Although, given that Toads usually swallow their prey whole, she will be able to consume them faster than they can digest her.

"Ho, lucky me." Alex muttered, noticing the Giant Toad's back turned towards her. Thanking her skills in sneaking around, she sneaked up to her target unnoticed.

For starters, she wanted to test her raw physical strength. The numbers on the card told her little about real power. She knew that a stat over two hundred is very high, but she didn't know what exactly a person with such stats could do. 'Well, I'm about to find out.'

A branch snapped under her foot and Alex cursed to herself. The toad began to turn in her direction, but the girl was faster. Thinking quickly, Alex jumped, leaving a crater on the ground behind her. She flew in a small arch and landed with a deafening kick on the toad's head. The toad only slightly jerked down, Alex noticed that the kick did nothing and quickly changed her tactics.

Grabbing the sides of the toad's head with her hands, Alex placed her feet right in front of its eyes. The toad didn't have time to understand anything as two legs dug into its skull and turned only once, destroying the toad's brain from the inside. "Lobotomizing toads, no questions asked, no License needed." She chuckled.

The toad fell to the ground with a loud thump, and Alex's body immediately began to take in the new Biomass. She winced at the sensation of her own skin crawling around her body, pulling fresh flesh to her bones. 'I don't think I'll ever get used to it.' In five seconds, the toad's huge body disappeared and Alex felt that just one body gave her more Biomass than all the corpses from the Goblin's "meat house".

She wanted to throw up at the sensation, but her stomach was empty. Blacklight processed absolutely everything into Biomass in a matter of seconds, so there was nothing to throw up.

"Seven fucks, this is disgusting." She muttered and walked on. Now that she has tested strength, she can advance to other skills. Walking through the quiet forest, Alex fell deep in thought. She didn't get any memories from that toad, which meant the creature wasn't smart enough for her to get its memories – she didn't think it could be because she destroyed the toad's brain, but all people make mistakes. It wasn't exactly a pleasant limitation, but when the alternative was getting every memory of the toad…

Alex stopped, seeing her targets: the second and third toads were sitting near the lake and completely ignored her existence. Without thinking twice, she focused on her right hand and willed it to turn into a blade.

For a couple of seconds, nothing happened, as if her body didn't know what exactly it was supposed to do, but then her arm was covered with a black wave of muscles. And then the pain came.

Alex clenched her teeth to keep from screaming and grabbed her elbow. Flesh, bone and muscle began to move to turn her hand into the perfect blade. The white bone became the blade, and the black muscles became the support for the blade. Slowly but surely, her hand took the desired shape.

A long white blade was extending from above her elbow and ending closer to her waist, the black muscles supporting the bone looked like unholy bridges connecting the blade to the arm. Alex has never given much thought to what a Blacklight weapon looks like up closely, but now that she sees it, she can say that it looks quite menacing.

"A note for the future: need to cut off the nerve endings when I Shapeshift." She muttered and jumped towards the toads. Needless to say, the toads were painfully slow on turns, so Alex managed to pierce the side of the head of one toad and push off towards the other. Again, it didn't have time to react to the fact that Alex sliced its throat.

Blood poured from the toad's neck, but before it hit the floor, Alex began to consume its body. The toad was ripped apart and became one with Alex in seconds, and she realized with horror that she had already begun to get used to it. "Right, I'll think about it later. Two toads left. If I'm lucky, I'll find even more."

After transforming the blade back into a hand, Alex willed her body to become stronger several times over. She felt her bones getting sturdier, her muscles swelling, and her skin thicken. Her body was covered in small black tendrils from head to toe, giving her strength several hundred times that of a human.

This skill required a lot more Biomass than all the others, but it was definitely worth it. Alex was about to jump towards the lake when a long tongue wrapped around her waist and jerked her to the side. In a second, Alex was inside the toad's mouth and… well, she panicked.

"Fuck!" She struck blindly to felt bones crack and flesh tear under her fists. Before Alex could blink, the toad's head exploded and its body fell to the ground. "That works." She looked at the headless toad's body. "Well, that was your fault anyway."

Alex slowly looked around and noticed that she was surrounded by toads. Her method of killing was not the quietest one, so it was not surprising that the sound attracted other monsters. A dozen multicolored Giant Toads looked at her as if she was a pound of fresh meat and Alex couldn't help but grin.

Her hand became a blade again and she rushed towards the first toad. Alex plunged her blade into the monster's neck and cut off its head in one clean motion. Her feet pushed her towards another toad and she cut her way through its flesh. She disappeared in its stomach for just a moment, only to burst out of its back the next.

"Holy balls, I've never felt so alive!" She ducked and dodged the tongue of one of the toads and sliced it in half. Alex plunged her blade into the heart of another toad and kicked its body into the tongueless one. Both fell into a heap of limbs, and Alex didn't dare to waste such an opportunity. She jumped on the fallen toads and tore off the head of one still alive with her free hand.

"Eight left!" Adrenaline pumped through her veins along with her heartbeat. Alex had never experienced anything like this in her entire life. The feeling of pure power coursing through her veins and muscles… it was intoxicating. She jumped over another tongue and cleaved the toad's skull in half. She slid down its back and rolled under the black toad's stomach, slicing it along the way as if an afterthought.

The corpse was consumed in a couple of seconds and Alex felt like she was approaching her limit. Her body, purely physically, could not hold more Biomass. She looked at her prey and smiled madly, the six toads would make perfect target practice.

After a couple of minutes only Alex remained alive. She stood there, surrounded by the corpses of the Giant Toads and looked down at her bloodied hands. A black wave of muscles passed through her body and her clothes became perfectly clean. "Well…" She drawled. "Now I definitely can't consider myself human. That's too handy to be a human skill."

Alex didn't notice how her Adventurer card pinged and changed her race. But just as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared. No one will know for a long time that the Shapeshifters are not shown as a separate race, but only as the race they pretend to be for the moment.

She also did not notice how one sneaky Arch Wizard was watching her "test" from behind the trees. If Alex had known in advance exactly what her first quest would lead to, she would've closed herself in the library until her death. (Or until the death of everyone else.)

---

Alex entered the Guild in slightly rumpled clothes, there was not a drop of blood on her. Her armor was slightly scratched, but that was just to maintain the image. She approached Elise and with a smile, and put the quest sheet on the table. "I'm done."

Eliza looked at Alex in surprise, but only nodded, remembering her stats. "Congratulations on completing your first quest, Alex! Where can we pick up their carcasses?"

"I left a dozen near the city walls, hard to miss." She answered while looking at the bulletin board. "Do you know where I can rent a house for a couple of months? I doubt that I'll like living on the street." She turned back to Elise, only to see her shocked face.

"You left a dozen Giant Toads near the city walls." She repeated, trying to understand exactly what she had just said. "You killed a dozen Giant Toads, brought their corpses to the city, and did it all in six hours. Alone." Alex nodded, not understanding the problem with what she had done.

"I read they're not that dangerous." She shrugged. "And to be honest, I agree with the book. You just need to know their weaknesses."

Eliza could barely contain her cry of happiness. For her, the appearance of a strong Adventurer who did business with the Guild through her was very good news. 'If she's as good as Kyouya… The Guild will start getting twice as much money from the crown!' She smiled brightly and picked up the paper describing the quest.

"Great! I'll give you a reward for the two completed quests now, but to get the money for their corpses, you'll have to come back later." Elise started filling out the quest paperwork, but stopped when Alex spoke again.

"Ah." She raised her finger in the air. "Three quests. I killed fifteen toads. Unfortunately, the bodies of five turned out to be in unpresentable condition."

This time, Eliza couldn't contain the squeak, even if it came out very quiet. Then Alex's card turned out to be in a strange box that confirmed the completion of quests. She thought that this artifact looked too much like a terminal for paying for purchases, but said nothing. Alex also found out that her level had risen to the seventh, which was a nice bonus, even if it meant nothing to her.

As a result, Alex received a reward of 75,000 Eris and decided to have a snack while the Guild was processing toad corpses. She just now realized that she had never eaten since being reborn in this world, so she ordered herself the biggest dish she could find on the menu. Oddly enough, it turned out to be fried Giant Toads legs with salad. She was about to bite into the delicious meat, but she was interrupted by an unfamiliar young voice from the right.

"I happened to hear your latest achievement in the Guild." Alex turned to look at the speaker, only to meet one blood-red eye. She could tell with certainty that the girl approaching her was a Magic User. "That we would meet is a fate chosen by the world itself. I have anxiously awaited the arrival of those such as yourself." She said, trying to sound like a seasoned Adventurer, but failed once Alex realized she couldn't be older than her, in fact, she was sure that the Witch was younger.

The girl in front of her was dressed in clothes that just screamed Witch. The first thing that caught her eye was her black hat with a wide brim. Two buttons were attached to the upper part of the hat, directly below which an unusual pattern of gold triangles with red edges was embroidered. Around her shoulders hung a black cloak that covered her shoulders, and under it she wore a short, long-sleeved red robe. Her right leg was wrapped in white bandages and her left leg was covered with a black stocking. She completed her outfit with orange high boots, and a black wide belt around her waist.

Alex just blinked a couple of times and looked around. There were usually no Adventurers in the corner where she sat down, especially at this time of the day. When it finally dawned on her that she was talking to her, the girl had already continued her monologue.

"My name is Megumin! My calling is that of an Arch Wizard, one who controls Explosion magic, the strongest of all offensive magic!" Megumin swung her brown staff to the side, dramatically flipping her cloak back so that it fluttered in the wind.

Now, Alex has met many people in her travels: geniuses and madmen, scientists and dumbasses, children and adults. Therefore, she considered herself a fairly good judge of character. But even without her vast experience dealing with people, Alex knew that Megumin most likely had 8th grader syndrome.

"Are you one of those who are looking for a forbidden power so mighty that the world has closed it behind seven seals?" She covered her face with her right hand and for a moment it seemed to Alex that she was going to pose like Joseph Jostar, but she only laughed softly. "Then show me your eagerness to look into the abyss with me! For when one looks into the abyss, it always looks back." Megumin ended her speech with a satisfied smile on her face.

There was a beat of silence between them, it seemed that even the people outside the Guild were silent and waiting for more to come. Alex knew at that moment that she was dealing with a Chuunibyou, but her brain just refused to come up with something "cool" to respond to the moment.

"Uhhh… Cool, but why are you here?" She finally asked.

Megumin sputtered, but quickly pulled herself together. "It's obvious! I want to form a Party with you! No, wait, you should be the one to beg me to form a Party with you!" Megumin finally broke character, sounding as childish as she looked.

"It's not that I'm not flattered by the offer, but why me? You're an Arch Wizard, and a member of Crimson Demon clan to the boot. You should be fine even without me." Alex was very confused; she didn't expect that someone would approach her with a request to form a Party.

Seeing a topic where she could raise her value for the Party, she began her speech again. "Indeed! I am a user of the finest magic Crimson Demons possess!" Megumin returned to her character as she posed again, obviously proud of her heritage. "My lethal magic has smashed boulders… demolished mountains…"

Somewhere along the word lethal, Alex noticed that Megumin's body began to wobble and her legs began to shake. She barely had time to react and caught the girl before she could fall to the floor. "Whoa– whoa, easy there. You alright?" She gently seated her on one of the benches and checked her pulse on her arm while she was distracted.

"I–" Her answer was interrupted by a painfully long howl of her stomach. The sound even made Alex feel starved.

She thought long and hard. On one hand, she hadn't eaten since waking up in this world, so she didn't want to share her food. On the other hand, she didn't feel hungry, so she could skip one snack, right? "You hungry?"

She nodded, leaning on her staff. "I haven't eaten anything in three days…"

Alex blinked; she wasn't expecting this. "How are you still walking?" She muttered and pushed the plate towards her and ordered in a commanding voice. "Eat."

She looked a couple of times between her and the food, but after a moment of delay, she swooped down on the frog's leg like a panther on a wounded prey. Alex thought it wasn't the best comparison, because right now Megumin looked more like a cat than a panther.

Alex didn't know this, but the special substances in the Toad meat helped with indigestion. So, for Megumin, who had not eaten anything for three days, it was quite safe, even healthy to eat.

While she was eating, Alex was able to see Megumin's face better. She wore an eye patch on her right eye, it was a small red patch in the shape of a shield with a white cross right in the middle. It was tied into her face with almost invisible threads running behind her head. Alex didn't know what exactly happened to her eye, but decided to ask about it later.

She had pale, almost white skin, a pair of long black bangs framed her face, but the rest of her hair was cut fairly short. Her untouched eye was blood red, thin eyebrows, soft features and pink lips. Alex suddenly realized that she strongly reminded her of a doll, but quickly dismissed the thought – because she did not want to think about living dolls. Not after Anabelle.

She looked rather skinny, but not to disturbing proportions. Most likely she ended up here without money and without a Party. 'And judging by how quickly she took food from a stranger, she doesn't even have a Party… Or any money.'

As Alex understood, in this world, people gathered in small groups to kill monsters, which was logical. But most of these Parties either quickly broke up or died in the dungeons. The remaining groups were really well coordinates and strong, or remained to fight weak monsters.

The only question that remained was, if the two of them formed a Party, what kind would they become?