It has been a few days since the attack on the village. I played with Hybry in my room as Gnash and Tara slept peacefully near the dragon egg. Sophia told me that since the bandit attack on the village was only to capture the guild master, the chance they launch another raid was low, especially with their low number, but still probable. In that mind, the guild would spare no effort to find their base location and eradicate them as soon as possible.

When I asked her if she wanted Gnash to help track them down, she refused, saying the guild had multiple tracking dogs specifically trained to hunt monsters and bandits for situations just like this. Still, if I wanted to participate in the operation once their base would be found, I was free to do so. After all, after the news that Fany's party has been almost entirely killed except for her and another girl, the number of A-rank adventurers has dropped to half a dozen in the entire city.

The remaining A-rank adventurers were composed of me, Serra and Sebastian, Fany and her friend, and one other adventurer I haven’t met yet. Fany and her friend still haven’t entirely recuperated yet, so there were really only four A-rank adventurers available for battle in the city.

On top of bandits, there was also the problem caused by the monster roaming the dungeon. Until the monster was eradicated, no one was allowed to enter the dungeon without express permission from the guild master. But before dealing with the monster, the guild wanted to get rid of the bandit first, so they focused on that.

With more money in my pouch than I needed, I spent most days training with Reylia and Phyralia as I awaited the news that the guild found the location of the bandit den. We kept the clearing in the middle of the forest near the river as our training ground. Mizuko has proven herself perfectly able to transport us there in less than an hour and in return, we gave her meals with smells so captivating that her stomach was forced to growl whenever it was near eating time.

Her appetite was deep but so was our wallet pouch, especially after the guild compensated us for rescuing both the village and the guild master. Sophia told me that Fany even added more from her own pocket as a special thanks for saving not only her but her friend's life too.

To add even more on top of that, the belt full of pouches from the bandit leader Gnash mauled in some unknown alley was filled to the brim with gold and silver coins. Saying that the guy had a lot of money with him would have been an understatement.

At that point, I just stopped counting. Even after sharing the money with the two sisters, I had too much money to know what to do with it. It was probably not that much, but enough to not have to worry about it for a while without restriction.

Tired of staying in my room, I left the inn to wander the city without the sisters. They both have gone on a regular monster-hunting quest with Mizuko. Apparently, the pay was average, but the monster in question had delicious meat that they couldn’t ignore. Of course, they wanted me to come with them, but I refused. I wasn’t in the mood for doing quests.

Gnash strolled beside me with his tail swinging left and right. His rather malnourished and wild appearance wasn’t appreciated by many people, as they did their best to avoid us as we passed. Almost all of them keep their child hidden from my dog's view. I guessed they would have preferred if the dog had a leash.

Hybry was as usual in my arms, snuggling my boobs to his heart's content, which wasn’t shy at all. The indecent display got him more stares than I liked, but they all looked away when I stared them back. For all I cared, these boobs were the hydra property and as such, he could play use them as he wanted. He was just a kid anyway, barely a few months old.

Behind us was Tara. She followed me while her legs made a melodious fury of ticks against the paved ground. Between the four of us, she was by far the most intimidating in my opinion. She has grown in size since she became my familiar. Before, her height was around half my size, but now her eyes easily reached my chest. If she stretched her legs directly under her rather than outward, she could probably reach my height.

Adding to her imposing figure, Tara had a web blanket tying up her abdomen and hiding what it was underneath. She always kept the dragon egg close to her whenever she could, and that day was no exception. I consistently made sure that at least one of us was watching over the egg, but it just felt more natural whenever it was Tara's turn on the task.

Passing in front of a food stall, Gnash's nose began making noise, Hybry noticed the smell not long after the dog. I knew what to do and asked the man behind the stall for some skewer filled with meat. The delicious smell was almost enough to tempt me into taking the first bite, but I refrained.

I crouched, holding Hybry in my left arm and offering a skewer to Gnash with the other. He took the entire thing in his mouth, as I slid the stick out of the meat. I'm not sure how much he chewed, but the wag of his tail was all I needed.

I put the next skewer in front of the hydra heads as they each took a bite, almost snapping the wood holding the meat chunks together. They all licked their lips with a blessed look in their eye as if it was the best moment of their life. When they saw that a single chunk of meat was left on the skewer, the smile on their faces vanished, and the three heads began fighting for the leftover.

Too busy with the war over the meat to give Tara her share, Tenta was kind enough to do it in my stead. With the tentacle exiting my clothes, it offered a skewer to the spider and she obliged. Holding the thing with her two front legs, she ate slowly, savouring each bite as long as possible. The way she did it almost made us look like savages eating beside a noble lady.

The outcome of the war over the meat was still undecided on Hybry's side, so I still had to hold his skewer. Tenta put my share in front of my mouth before I could ask anything. The meat was wrapped with some leaves from my personal snack pouch, courtesy of my favourite tentacle.

“Do you want some?” I asked the tentacle.

Its appendage looked at the meat for a second before sliding one of the four chunks out of the stick. The meat wrapped in leaves disappeared as it got siphoned into the tentacle. I wondered how it worked before I noticed the tentacle pocking my mouth with the rest of the skewer. The meat was indeed as delicious as the smell suggested.

We left the stall behind, I didn’t want our stomachs to be tempted even more than they already were.

Reaching the city plaza, I entered the guild and made my way to Sophia. The wolf lady was free after what seemed to be an hour of rush. It was only afternoon, but most of the adventurers seemed to have already finished their job. There really weren’t that many adventurers wandering the guild hall like I was. In the peaceful silence, the only things loud enough to hear were the multiple hundreds of paper sheets the employees were working on.

Taking a seat in the corner, I playfully tickled the hydra heads with my fingers to pass the time. He tried to bite softly the fingers that were harassing him, but he wasn’t fast enough to eat them. Not long after, Sophia noticed me, took a pause and came to my table. With a soft smile, she joined the session. The hydra now had to deal with double the amount of tickles, his three heads scrambling to defend themselves against the unrelenting assault.

“You know you don’t have to come here every day, don’t you?” Sophia said, still smiling. “If he comes again, which his delegation probably will since directly in the way, I make sure he stops by your inn.”

“Again, I’m not here for that! How many times do I need to tell you, I’m just taking the week off!”

“Trust me, adventurers don’t often take a day off, and when they do, they don’t spend it alone in a corner of the guild.”

“What else do you want me to do? I’m fine, there nothing wrong with me taking my familiars out for a walk.”

Sophia sighted. “I know, but why don’t you go shopping? There are tons of interesting shops scattered around Dawnriver. If that’s not your style, you could always take a dip at the new hot spring at the city's main bathhouse. Renovation just finished two days ago. Unlike the open bath, you need to pay an entry fee but trust me, it’s truly worth the money.”

“Wait, hot spring, you mean scorching hot water that can melt the tension in a person's body? I guess I could, I don’t remember the last time I took a hot bath… or if I ever took one at all.”

“Exactly! It’s not mandatory by any means, but it’s almost impossible to go wrong with a hot spring. You should go tonight when the stars settle in.”

“Why not now?”

Sophia laid back on her chair as she stretched her arms above her head. A small yawn escaped her lips. “Because it’s a thousand times better before going to sleep. Don’t think too much, just relax. You saved an entire village, you deserve it!”

We chatted until she was about to go back to work. The second she returned behind her counter, the door of the guild opened. It was Lavanda.

She smiled when she saw me and took the seat Sophia previously had. She scratched Hybry under one of its chins, before talking. “What are you doing here? If I recall, you told me you were taking the day off of not only quest but training too.”

“Hey, I was taking a walk and my feet just led me here. Not my fault. I imagine you already finished your quest.”

“Yeah, Sophia still has a few hard quests in stock for me, but they can wait for later. Today I took a simple hunting task, think of it as my own day off.” Looking up, Lavanda took a moment to breathe. Sweat was present on her forehead, and her slightly wet hair had seen better days. There was a faint smell coming from her that was different from her normal scent, even if I wasn’t able to tell what it was.

I knew her well enough to know that I didn’t have to worry about her, but I still asked. Curious to know what happened. “The quest was harder than you anticipated?”

She sighed. “Not really, the monster was a giant slime. They really aren’t that hard to kill, I’m sure I could do it even if I was at death door, without any mana and broken arms.”

“Then why are you looking defeated?”

“Before I killed it, it splashed me with slime. Washing my hair in the river took longer than killing the slime itself.”

“So that the smell, slime. Never would have guessed. If I ever saw a slime, I make sure to burn it before it could mark me.”

“Is it that bad?” She asked worriedly.

“No, a good bath and you should be fine. I prefer the lavender smell you normally have, that's all.”

“While I was having a nightmare washing that thing off, I thought about something. There is a technique I could teach you that I’m sure you would like. It’s the attack I used against the calamity monster back on the island. It’s rather hard to learn and requires multiple affinities, but what do you think, wanna try it?”

I looked at her, wondering where that came from. She had been training me, but recently I mainly only learned about close combat. Lavanda hasn’t taught me any spells since the island. I didn’t think there was a particular reason for that, melee encounters were simply how most fights ended. As long as I could close the distance and get up close, a well-placed strike, magic or not, was the only thing necessary.

“I’m in.” I said without hesitation. I didn’t have any reason to refuse. If Lavanda wanted me to learn her signature move or whatever she deemed necessary, I felt too indebted to refuse.

“Great! I had the idea since you told me about your battle with the bandits when in the village attack. If you had a reliable and precise range attack, you could have ended the fight much quicker than you did. Don’t get me wrong, what you did was impressive, but there’s always room for improvement. Let me see if the guild training ground is available.”

Lavanda stood up and walked up to Sophia, who had just gotten back to her counter. At the same time, she received her pay for the quest. When we got the green light, I followed the witch to the backdoor of the building, where we entered the guild arena. There were training dummies ready for use at our disposition and nobody else to bother us.

Warm sunlight shined on us and a cold wind settled in the arena. I gave Hybry to Tara. My familiars didn’t have anything to do other than watch, so that’s what they did.

I clapped my face to vanish any thought of taking the day off. Took a deep breath to fully wake myself up. I was ready to train, and so was Lavanda.

“Watch and learn, Emery!” She grinned.

Lavanda presented her hand as a dim flame appeared in her palm. I watched silently as the fire grew in size until it was bigger than her hand. Even if I wasn’t the one holding it, I felt the burning flame slowly scorching my skin with its heat. My fire affinity protected me to a certain degree, but there was still a temperature limit I could handle. Lavanda continued to feed the fire more mana without breaking a sweat. Her hand was completely fine, unfazed by the miniature red sun growing in her palm.

When it got too volatile for her, Lavanda added some wind mana around the fire spell. The previously untamed fire was now safely locked in a wind prison where it could cause us no harm as long as it didn’t pop. She aimed at a dummy on the other side of the arena and threw the contained fire at it.

With perfect precision, the ball made contact with the head and exploded, freeing all the energy it had in store. Everything was engulfed by the scorching fire, I had to stand my ground to not be blasted away by the sheer force of the explosion. From the other side of the arena, I felt sweaty and warm. Burning life away for a good ten seconds before nothing was left to consume, the flame disappeared when it emptied all its fuels, both mana and matter to burn. The dummy was gone, not even leaving ash behind. There were scorch marks around the area of impact, it gave the impression to be standing near freshly erupted lava.

Lavanda was totally unfazed by her own spectacle as if she had done this a million times. “This is a little different from what I used against the calamity monster, but the concept is the same. It’s different from a standard fireball, instead of simply accumulating fire and firing it, you need to feed the fire continuously.”

She began showing me how to control the flame. “Starting a flame is easy, but making it grow without losing control is harder than it seems. First, start the flame as small as possible.”

I followed her instructions. Circulating mana to my palm, I change the smallest amount I could into fire. A fire emerged in my previously empty hand. I recoiled from the size of the flame, I didn’t want to create it as big as I did. I initially aimed for nothing more than a candle flame, but the result almost completely filled my hand. The fire continued to grow exponentially as I didn’t stop the flow of mana. Before I knew it, it was so hot that my hand started to hurt from the heat.

“Toss it!” Lavanda screamed.

Aiming at a dummy, I launched the fireball. As soon as it was out of my hand, the fire busted in the direction I was aiming. Covering my view in a splash of red, my body was slightly pushed by the explosion. The fire dissipated in a flash. Only a warm heat remained.

“That wasn’t bad for a first try. Are you okay?” Lavanda checked my hand, only releasing it when she was sure there was no damage.

“I’m fine. Why did this happen? I only changed a small portion of mana into actual fire, it shouldn’t have turned it all into flame!”

“You probably never noticed it before, because you always go overboard with the amount of mana when you cast a spell, raw mana is easily changed by any contact with an affinity. The small amount you used caused a chain reaction with the rest and turned it all into fire affinity mana. Try only channelling a small amount of mana to your hand. Use only a little at a time. Don’t stop feeding the fire otherwise it starves, but don’t overfeed it, or it will get out of hand.”

I tried again. This time I was more careful. When I changed the mana into fire, a small flame appeared in my hand. The flame dissipated before I was able to feed it more. Its lights faded before I was able to save it.

“Good, you need to be quicker next time. Try again!”

So I did. I trained for hours under her watchful eye. I took multiple pauses in the process to regenerate my mana back. The spell needed a lot of mana to work, not that I didn’t have the mana necessary, but there was a limit to how many times I could try without rest.

She gave me advice each time I failed to create a flame I could control. Whenever I lost control of the flame, she yelled at me to toss it away before it hurt me. The results of these failures were actually pretty impressive. At one point, I tried again, but directly next to a dummy. When my fire got out of control, I busted it directly into the dummy torso. Creating a flash of flame in his face.

The blast pushed me back a few feet and when I looked at the result, I was shocked. The mannequin wasn’t completely incinerated, but its front was completely charcoal black, smoke escaped the burned parts. Touching it, I recoiled from the heat. If it had been alive, the attack would have killed it.

“I never thought to use it that way. That's not a bad attack, but you’re here to learn something with range.”

“Come on, it never hurt to experiment! It’s still a step forward to learning yours… what’s the name of the spell?” I thought about it and I couldn’t remember her ever referring to spell by their name, except the most basic concept like fireball or incendiary sand.

Her head tilted to the side. “Name?”

“Yes, what’s the name of the attack? You said it yourself, it is more than just a fireball. Stuff like that needs a name! You’re the one who created it, what’s the name?”

“Hum, I don’t know. Do you have any idea?” She redirected at me. I just said she was the creator, so she should find a name for it, not me. But, I helped nonetheless.

I thought for a moment. I remembered the first time I saw Lavanda use this attack against the calamity monster. It was like she imprisoned the monster in a living hell. When the monster got out, it was barely alive, only due to the fact that it was a calamity monster. An appropriate name for it would have been something like hell prison.

Lavanda was waiting for me to come up with an answer. She wasn’t even trying to find a name.

“What about Inferno bomb? I think it fitting for what the spell does.”

“That perfect, Inferno bomb it is! I was never good with coming up with names, I knew I could count on you!” If she was happy with it, then I was too.

I still wasn’t able to do the full spell correctly, but Lavanda assured me it was only a matter of time. My close-range variant of the Inferno bomb wasn’t very bomb-like, so for the time being I named it Flash Fire.

We spent some more time practising until the moon showed up. My familiars were sleeping in a corner of the arena, and part of me wanted to join them. They looked so comfy, Gnash fur would have made the perfect old pillow.

Lavanda yawned. “Let's stop here for today, we can continue another time.”

I was tired too, so I agreed. We were all sweaty from the intense heat the spell created. The entire arena was maybe as hot as a sauna. I couldn’t be sure, because I never entered one before. Our skin was as dry as a desert, begging for it to rain.

Lavanda inspected her hair. “For the gods’ sake, I still got slime in my hair! I hoped it would go away with the heat, but I was wrong. I need to take a bath.”

“I heard they opened a new hot spring in the city. Wanna try it out?”

Lavanda grew a gaping smile, probably dreaming about what it would feel like to enjoy a rest in hot water. “Really, that would be a blessing! Where is it?”

I shrugged my shoulder. “I don’t remember. Sophia, the one who told me about it.”

“Good, let's take her with us. Earlier she looked tired too, her fur could use some care.”

We left for the hot spring right when Sophia finished her work, which didn’t take too long. The appeal of a warm bath with friends was too good to pass on. My familiars followed us, excited to enjoy a good wash.

 

https://pixai.art/artwork/1685953939080922230?utm_source=copy_web

This chapter poll is all about the future of Better Off In Another World. I already know where I want the story to go, but there are still some area where I am not sure what to do. Mainly, if the story should be darker with more difficult fight, choice and event or be more happy-go-lucky with less stressful situation for the protagonist and a more direct path forward. 

Choosing one or the other doesn't mean a 180 shift or that only this path will happen. Both will still happen nonetheless, just the percentage ratio of each will change accordingly.