“I’ve never seen magic like that!”
“Is the absorption enchantment even working?”
“Look, it’s even crushing the ground...”
Cracks appeared in the floor around the dummy, then a section of the room’s stone walls collapsed.
“Whoa! Look at that!”
“You’re telling me she was unranked until now?!”
The priest cried, “Th-That’s enough! Stop! You’ve passed! You’ve passed!”
When Mil finished her spell, the dummy had been crushed flat and the floor nearly shattered with it.
“I passed?! Yay! Yulia! Kuro! I did it!”
Yulia and Kuro were jumping up and down with excitement just like Mil had.
“Did you hear?” said one examinee to another. “They say the princess of the Holy Arphil Kingdom escaped from the Demon King’s Castle not long ago.”
“The one who broke the castle walls down on the way out?”
“No... She can’t be...”
The adventurers were all looking at Mil.
I might be drawing a little too much attention to myself.
“N-Next,” the woman from the guild called.
“Oh! That’s me. Let’s finish this.”
“Do your best, Kuro!”
“Y-You can do it, Kuro!”
The priest froze for a moment when he realized Kuro was with Mil and Yulia. “W-Wait! You’re in the same party as those two?!”
“That’s right. I fight with a sword. If I slice one of those things into little pieces, will that be enough?”
“Eek...”
Kuro passed as easily as her two friends, making all the three of them ranked adventurers.
Once outside the exam hall, the trio huddled up together. Mil took command as the party prepared to set out on their first guild quest. “All right, everyone! Let’s go get those garuda eggs! Yay!”
“Yeah!” her party members cried in response.
✧✧✧
Mil’s party learned that the garuda they sought was a monstrous bird that roosted in the valley north of town—a valley hidden deep among towering mountains.
The road there was every bit as treacherous as the guild staff had warned. Or more accurately, there were no roads at all. They clambered from one rocky mass to another, shuffled along narrow ledges, and squeezed through narrow openings. It seemed that every single step had to be made with care lest someone be sent tumbling down the mountainside.
“Haah, haah,” Mil panted. “This is tougher than I expected... Haah, haah...”
“At least we didn’t meet any man-eating rocks...” Yulia replied. “Haah, haah...”
They were on a dirt path, strewn with boulders, where no trees grew. The path followed a cliff edge that afforded a view of the sprawling forests below. A single misstep would prove fatal.
“Maybe they were exaggerating about that. Ugh, I’m hungry. Mil, isn’t time for—oh?” Kuro had accidentally kicked a round object and sent it rolling across the dry ground. It was a human skull.
“Eep... Looks like someone ran into trouble here,” Yulia said.
Mil gasped. “Watch out, you two! Something’s coming!”
A section of a rocky wall dislodged itself, and then massive eyes and a mouth appeared in it.
“A face in a rock? It must be one of those man-eating rocks.”
It was a massive face in a round rock, along with protrusions that functioned as arms and legs. Mil recognized it from the pictures she’d seen in an encyclopedia in the Demon King’s Castle library. This rock golem had been disguising itself as part of the mountain.
Mil had expected golems to look more like humans, but all four of its limbs grew directly out of the spherical rock with the face on it.
“It’s all round and cutesy. I wanna carve it into something a little more stylish.”
“Careful, Mil!” Kuro warned. “That monster must have eaten countless humans. Don’t get careless.”
“Oh. Sorry, sorry.”
She certainly couldn’t afford to take risks. Their footing was unstable and it was a long way down.
Mil and Kuro both drew their swords, but fighting looked near impossible.
“We’d better watch our feet,” Mil said. “We can hardly move or we’ll fall over the edge.”
Since they were perched on a narrow ledge on the side of a cliff, trying to dodge any attack from the golem could prove disastrous.
The golem swung its arm down at the ground, carving away the rock surface it grazed. They’d have to deal with it quickly or it was going to make the ledge collapse completely.
“Mil! What can we do?!” Kuro asked. “The ground we’re standing on won’t hold out!”
Mil tried to think of a useful spell. Extinction Gate was too risky because it could erase more of the ledge, poison wasn’t likely to work on a rock monster, and explosions were out of the question. Maybe Yulia knows something more useful...
“Yulia! Can your magic move the ground?!”
“Um... I think so, but how would that help?”
“Can you push the golem off the cliff using the rocks behind it?”
“Oh! Yes, I can do that!”
Yulia stood directly facing the rock golem with the cliff to her back. Meanwhile, Mil and Kuro backed away against a wall.
“This spell should work wherever there’s a large stone surface. Create rock!”
“Oorrrh!” The golem groaned.
The rocks behind the golem suddenly jutted outward as Yulia used her magic to control the stone itself, shoving it toward the cliff’s edge.
“Ah wah wah.” Yulia hurried back to Mil and Kuro.
“Ooorrrhhh...” The rock golem stumbled toward the cliff then went tumbling over the edge.
“You did it! That was amazing, Yulia!”
“I r-really did it... Haah...” Yulia heaved a sigh of relief.
“Impressive! So this is what magic can do!” Kuro in particular was awestruck because she couldn’t use magic herself.
“Hey, why don’t you use that same magic to make some steps for us,” Mil suggested. “We’ll reach the top in no time.”
“Ooh, nice thinking!” Kuro said.
“I’ll g-give it a try!”
Yulia had previously explained that water magic worked best where there was a lot of water and wind magic worked best in windy places. It stood to reason that earth magic was stronger in places with an abundance of dirt and rocks.
Since almost everything in sight was a rock, the conditions were perfect for earth magic. Though that didn’t make Yulia’s magic any less impressive.
Aided by Yulia’s stone staircase, they found the remainder of the mountain much easier, and soon they reached an open space. In the center of the space was some flat ground peppered with large boulders. It was the perfect place to rest.
Yulia sat down with her back resting against one of the boulders. “Phew. Haah... I’m...exhausted...”
“Nice work, Yulia,” Mil said. “Now let’s all take a break.”
Kuro leaped up onto a boulder. “The shade behind this rock should be—whoa! Come over here! Someone’s hurt!” After peering at the ground behind the boulder, Kuro jumped down.
“Huh? A person? Kuro, wait.” Mil went behind the boulder to take a look for herself. It had to be an adventurer, which meant it was up to her party to save them.
Behind the boulder was a person lying face-down in its shadow. Kuro was already by their side trying to wake them up.
When Mil got closer, she found it was no human adventurer, but a demonkin. The two horns growing from their head and the two black wings on their back were those of a demon. She was a slender, fair-skinned demon girl clad in light armor, with an unusually pretty face.
“It’s a demonkin... Wait, she’s...”
Though the demon girl’s face was thinned with exhaustion, Mil recognized it, and the huge scythe lying by her side eliminated any doubt in her mind. It was the Demon King’s daughter, Mary Garland.
Judging from the dirt on Mary’s armor and all the cuts and grazes on her limbs, she’d been walking for a long time before she finally collapsed. Mary let out the occasional groan, suggesting she was still conscious and in some pain.
“Uwaah... Mil... Kuro...” Yulia approached from behind then collapsed in a heap on the floor as her stamina finally gave out. She was as exhausted as Mary.
“Mil, what should we do?” Kuro asked.
“For starters, I’ll try my magic on her.”
When Mil cast her healing spell, the injuries on Mary’s body rapidly faded, and the color returned to her face.
Kuro opened her waterskin and held it to Mary’s mouth. “It’s water. Drink it.”
Mary gulped it down willingly. “Ugh... Uuugh.” Her gaze was vacant but her eyes were open now.
“Mary, are you all right?”
“Uh... Huh? How did I...?” She still looked absent minded as she slowly came to her senses.
“You must have passed out. Don’t you remember?”
“Passed out...? Umm... Oh, you’re...” Mary was suddenly wide awake when she saw Mil’s face. She jumped to her feet and put some distance between the two of them with surprising quickness. “What are you doing here?!”
“I was about to ask you the same thing. You can’t have walked all the way here from the Demon King’s Castle.”
“I... Um...” Mary looked at Kuro and Yulia. “Don’t tell me you just saved me...?”
“Well, you were hurt really bad, and you looked thirsty. Oh, we can give you some food too, but it’ll be dry rations unless you can wait a while.”