As we walked further forward, the forest became more and more like a vast plain. How could a forest become a plain?

It was simple. You just had to put a bunch of spiders in the forest along with Mastiford. With that, the forest naturally becomes a plain before your very own eyes. More precisely, the forest would become a field of ash.

“Mastiford-ssi, are you fine on mana?” I asked out of curiosity.

Mastiford said proudly, “Yeah, light flames like these don’t use up much mana. Impressive, right?”

“Yeah, it’s impressive.”

She suddenly looked away. “H-Hmph! Even if you honestly praise my ability now, I have no intention in letting you enter my organization!”

I casually waved my hand. “Nah, I’m telling you, I don’t want to.”

“Why!?” she exclaimed.

“I wonder why,” I mumbled half to myself.

Why were all the girls around me so strange? There was Yua, who was strange as her cuteness went beyond the realm of humans; Palludia, who after seeing me only once 4 years ago, shamelessly asked me to climb to the 25th floor in just three months; Su Ye-Eun, who had a bigger monsterphobia than ordinary people even with her cheaty stealth ability; and Mastiford, who I couldn’t tell if she wanted to fight me or draw me into her organization…and Loretta too.

Loretta was too complicated of a person, no, elf, to describe in just one sentence.

“Mm?” Mastiford was excitedly setting the forest ablaze, but suddenly frowned.

“It won’t burn.”

I looked around. “Where? Oh.”

It was true. In contrast to the barren surroundings, there was one area of black trees where her flames could not invade. She tried once again using her sun-yellow flame, but it was only enough to burn a few branches of the trees. The black trees were clearly special.

Suddenly, black smoke began to rise amongst the trees. It was as if the trees were calling us.

“Mastiford-ssi, we should go in. It doesn’t look like we can burn them.”

She balked. “B-But! What if a spider falls from above!?”

I shrugged. “Then just burn the spider to your heart’s content.”

“Eeek! You think I won’t!?”

She became angry at my flippant suggestion and produced a white flame this time. I was curious what rank her different colored flames were classified as, but I decided to just watch for now.

The white flame she shot out flew like an arrow and seemed to envelope the entire forest, but before we noticed, it suddenly disappeared. It was almost as if…

A possible reason suddenly hit me. “I don’t think your flames are the problem. Doesn’t it look like the trees are absorbing the mana?”

“You’re right. The trees got bigger too.”

With that, Mastiford bit her lips, drawing blood. She then used the blood to draw something on her palm.

“Tsk. I’m forced to use a skill. Hmph, I don’t like it. Go, Flame Beast!”

I almost couldn’t believe my eyes. Blue flames erupted from her palm and took the form of a tiger as big as the giant spider from before.

I asked curiously, “If you had a skill like that, why didn’t you use it before?”

“I have to concentrate to use it, so I couldn’t use it with those gross spiders staring at me.”

I admonished, “Don’t say that so proudly!”

The giant blue flame tiger wagged its tail once, then ran toward the black tree forest. Meanwhile, we dealt with the spiders that appeared from the flat field. As these spiders did not jump out from hard-to-see trees, we didn’t even break a sweat dealing with them.

When the tiger reached the forest, it swiped at the tree with its huge front paw. This time, there was a reaction! Since the attack wasn’t purely made of mana and contained some of the tiger’s physical strength instead, the tree broke and fell. The tiger seemed excited as it set its flames ablaze and rampaged. Suddenly, however, something swooped down and pounced on the tiger.

“Ah, Cutie!” Mastiford exclaimed.

I gave her a look. “It has a name!?”

I wanted to ask just what part of that twelve foot tall tiger was cute, but now was not the time. A spider leg had suddenly popped out from the black trees and had pierced the tiger’s body. The huge spider leg looked to be sharper than a finely crafted blade, and it then dealt a second and third blow without giving the tiger any chance to escape. In the end, the tiger dissipated into flames and disappeared. Mastiford’s eyes became red-hot with anger.

“You dare kill my Cutie, I won’t forgive you! I shall transform a piece of my soul into an undefeatable army! Army of Flames!”

Mastiford chanted in rage. Although I felt like the chant was cringy, my father clearly thought it was cool. Soon, the temperature around us shot up, and flame incarnations like the tiger Cutie began to appear around us. I saw a tiger, lion, bear, wolf, leopard, elephant, eagle, hawk, owl…the entire animal kingdom was here.

“Oh, it’s the animal kingdom.”

To my dismay, my father had thought the exact same thing. Mastiford quickly turned around and glared at father, then ordered the animal king…the Army of Flames.

“Burn up all the spiders in that forest!”

The animal army answered with their own cries and charged at the forest. Once I saw her flame army, I understood why she was an SS-rank ability user. Who in the world could possibly fight against an army of intelligent flame incarnations? If they were my enemies, the result would be tragic.

Just like that, the rampage of the animal army began. Their goal was to destroy the forest. If this was a movie, it would undoubtedly be a blockbuster. I could just imagine the advertisements: an army of animals destroying the environment and the flame witch commanding them.

But there was one animal who did not join in on the environmental destruction. Instead, it was wagging its tail on Mastiford’s shoulder. The other animals were white or red, but this one was made of blue flames. Mastiford must have noticed me looking at it as she said, “Isn’t my Cutie cute?”

“Is it the same one?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. It’s smaller now because it was reverse-summoned once.”

When it was big, it looked like a tiger. Now that it was small, it was more like a cat. The Flame Witch and her pet flame cat made the perfect picture together.

Whoa, for someone who looks like an evil witch commanding her demon soldiers, how could she look so lovely now…? I shook my head and looked away to prevent myself from being sucked in by her charming appearance. My body then stiffened when I noticed what was happening.

Rather than shrinking, the black forest was expanding!

The barren ground became dyed in black. Seeds sprouted up and grew into black trees in an instant. The black earth continued to expand and approached where we were. Although the animal army roared and set the trees on fire, spider webs endlessly shot out from the trees to restrain them as sharp spider legs cut them in half. Every time a member of the army went down, the black forest’s rate of expansion increased.

[Kiyaaaaa!]

A deafening shriek rang out from the forest. At the same time, I sensed a killing intent sharper than razor blades shooting out toward us. There was no doubt. The owner of the forest had locked onto us.

I shouted, “Mastiford-ssi, cancel your skill! They’re only fertilizer for the forest at this point!”

“Unni, hurry!” Sumire urged.

“Argh…Sorry, guys! Big Bang!”

All of us reacted quickly to the situation. The moment Mastiford yelled Big Bang, an explosive boom rang out. It was undoubtedly a self-destruction skill. All the animals besides Cutie, who was standing on Mastiford’s shoulder, had detonated!

The result was enough to instantly shrink the expanding forest. At the same time, a sharp shriek flew out.

[Kiyaaaaa!]

“Everyone prepare for battle! Minami-ssi, protect Mastiford-ssi!”

Sumire nodded nervously. “G-Got it! Haap, Guardian!”

Minami shouted something and she began to shine with a golden light. I was curious as to what skill she used, but I decided not to look her way as the light was almost blinding.

Father and I stood on guard on the left and right side respectfully when suddenly something flew toward us.

Peika shouted, [It’s poisonous! The spider web is poisonous!]

“It’s poisonous, be careful everyone!” I announced quickly.

After thanking Peika for alerting me, I punched at the spider web and burned it up with her lightning. I originally thought it’d be one or two streams of spider webs, but hundreds flew toward us consecutively. Damn, if I collected it all, there would be enough to make several shirts!

Mastiford also created a few balls of flames in mid air, and was freely controlling them to burn up the incoming spider webs. Father consecutively shot out light shockwaves and exploded the webbing mid flight. As I watched them display their skills, I realized that people’s abilities could be used in various ways. I began thinking of new ways to use my ability as an Elementalist.

By the time all the spider webs had been leisurely taken care of, someone’s voice flowed out.

[Ah, humans. I finally get to meet you.]

Because the voice was so sweet, I stopped moving for an instant. Where is this voice coming from? Whose was it? It was so uncanny that my body trembled slightly.

[Come, come to my embrace.]

I raised my head. Everyone else did as well. The owner of the voice was above us!

From beyond the burnt up trees, the abdomen of a spider appeared. It was slightly bigger than the giant spider from before as it was around fifteen feet tall, but on the place where the spider’s thorax should be, there was something one would not expect to see on a spider.

[Spider Den’s boss monster, Arachne, has appeared! Defeating Arachne and clearing the dungeon will grant special rewards!]

The monster said in an alluring voice, [Come, hurry. I will give you everything you desire.]

“A girl…?” Father quietly whispered.

Yes, it was a human. An extremely beautiful one at that. She had flowing black hair and a pair of large innocent looking eyes. Her irises had a web-shaped pattern in them, which made them unforgettable.

It was a beauty that could not exist in reality. A mystical, illusionary beauty.

She had the power to grasp people’s attention and not let go. Her seductive figure was fully unclothed and it was hard to describe with words alone…!

[Master, snap out of it!]

The moment Peika’s shout rang out in my head, I bit down on my cheek. Although it bled, it roused me completely. After realizing that I was about to run into the monster’s arms, I couldn’t help feeling goosebumps rise all over me. Not to mention, the temptation had not ended yet!

However, with my years of experience as an explorer, I knew what I had to do now. It was something that had never let me down once!

“Ugh!? Who’d fall for this!? You're just a mere monster, and you’re a hundred years too early to try and seduce me!”

[You have used Orc Lord’s Warcry! All party members have been cleansed of negative status effects. All party members’ attack power has increased by 50 percent for the duration. All party members have become super-armored, unfazed by enemy attacks.]

In that instant, my somewhat hazy mind became clear. The girl on the spider’s abdomen was certainly beautiful, but it was still a monster. How could anyone be mesmerized by a girl with a spider body and spider legs!?

“W-What!? I, just what happened?”

“M-Monster! It’s a monster!”

“…ugh! W-Wife! I’m sorry!”

Father, we’re going to need to have a deep conversation about this later!