Strictly speaking, it was strange to call it human. It had a head, arms, and legs.

It didn’t have eyes, a nose, or a mouth, and its standing posture was awkward, so it was a bit… yeah… yeah! Like a zombie? It looked like a zombie.

If I had to describe it, it was a zombie completely melted by fire, wrapped in flames.

It moved slowly, turning everything around it into ash. Is that thing walking? Damn, does Darwin’s theory of evolution apply to fire too? Why is something that used to crawl on the ground like a leech now walking on two legs?

“Is that really a flame? Well, since it’s emitting fire, it must be a flame. But why is it walking around like us? Ugh, thinking about it is gross. Why is fire walking?”

No, it feels unsettling. What is that thing, walking? Who are you to walk on two legs?

“My master, Jae. Near the terrarium blessed by the World Tree, the power of the flames is suppressed. To maintain its power under external pressure, it takes the most optimal form, like being compacted into a sphere.”

Mesquite raised her shield, and everyone assumed a battle stance.

“A fire separated from the power of blessing unleashes its suppressed strength freely. It also tries to grow stronger by consuming and burning everything around it. This desire for power often manifests as mimicking something stronger, which in this area usually means the apex predator of the ecosystem. You said another druid cleared this area beforehand, right? This fire probably survived by luck, and from its perspective, that druid looked like a stronger being. So it mimicked the druid’s form.”

Disgusting. There’s no way that druid actually looked like that, right? So it mimicked him and turned into that? If it keeps mimicking, will it start talking too, huh?

The sand flowing from Mesquite’s shield was absorbed into Daisy’s feet, and at the same time, the fire spotted us.

Tremendous flames burst from its flailing arms. The surroundings instantly grew scorching hot.

I can’t stand heat, I can’t even go to a sauna!

The area turned into a sea of fire in an instant, and the heat surged so intensely that my skin stung. It was suffocating, and I wanted to strip off the robe I was wearing, but Elder stopped me, saying exposing bare skin would cause burns.

With no choice, I pulled a water bottle from my pocket and poured it all over my head. It felt like standing under the scorching midsummer sun for a long time.

The cool water flowing down from my head gave me some relief, but it was short-lived. The water turned as hot as warm water… dammit…

It was definitely on a different level from the small flames we’d encountered in the low-level hunting grounds.

No wonder Mesquite was wary of going further. If we hadn’t invested diamonds early on to level up, we would have been completely wiped out! But what about that druid who came ahead and cleared out all those monsters?

My dryads are no pushovers either, but what kind of dryads is that guy traveling with? No, isn’t his level several times higher than mine?

The human-shaped fire suddenly started swinging its arms wildly.

I hid behind Elder’s barrier, watching what that crazy thing was doing, and it looked just like someone swinging a baseball bat. No, it felt more like swinging a sword or some kind of weapon.

The problem was that every time it swung its arms, enormous flames would crash toward us. Damn, where did it see something like that to mimic!

With Mesquite at the front filtering once with her shield, and Elder’s barrier, glowing red from his ring, filtering again, we took no direct damage, but it was unbearably hot.

Crazy, now that I think about it, I’m pissed off! This is just the second hunting ground after the beginner zone, right? Right after the low-level area! How can the difficulty suddenly jump like this?

If this were a game, players would complain about the insane balance! It reminds me of the Hell difficulty in some game! Do I really have to stay up for three days and nights to beat this?

Mesquite, who had retreated with her shield, suddenly lunged forward with her lance pointed ahead.

With a loud whoosh, the incoming flames split to both sides under the force. The lance tip, flying like a bullet, struck the abdomen of the human-shaped fire head-on, causing it to explode.

With a bang, the fire’s head and limbs burst into five directions. If that had been a person, it would have been a horrible sight. I squinted at the gruesome thought.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t a one-hit kill. But the fire mass, cleanly split into five, had shrunk to a size that couldn’t display the same overwhelming force as before.

Daisy quickly ran out to finish it off, and Elder swung his staff to give his a buff accordingly.

But something felt off.

In fact, I’m not sharp enough as someone who knows nothing to notice something strange.

This was a gut feeling. More precisely, it was a fleeting sensation through the soul tightly connected to Mesquite. Daisy shouldn’t step forward now.

“Daisy, come back!”

It’s never easy for someone sprinting at full speed to stop immediately upon hearing my words.

But Daisy instantly shot vines from her arms into the ground, screeching as she dug in, stopping with the recoil.

She bounced back toward us a bit like a rubber band, but she stopped nonetheless.

And my gut feeling—no, the instinct of Mesquite, tightly bound to me—was right. Just when I thought we’d finally found an easy way to deal with it, the fire wasn’t so easily handled.

As Mesquite’s shield planted into the ground, creating a massive sand wall in front, the five fires simultaneously sprayed something: a shimmering powder reflecting the light.

It resembled the pollen blown by spring flowers, or the disconcerting sight of glitter powder scattered in the air, leaving me staring blankly.

The sand wall looked sturdy, but since it wasn’t fully enclosing all four sides, Mesquite was highly likely to be caught in that strange attack.

My move was almost instinctive. It shot out reflexively, without a single layer of thought.

When the soul is firmly connected with Mesquite, we feel as if we share each other’s thoughts almost simultaneously.

I think I finally understood what she meant before: that my will is the Main Dryad’s will, and the Main Dryad’s will is my will.

So in that moment, I severed the connection with Mesquite and linked with Daisy instead. No preparation was needed. Everything moved according to my intent just as I desired.

The eyes of Daisy, whose soul was connected with mine, gleamed sharply. Sharing my thoughts, she extended her stem and wrapped it around Mesquite’s waist.

The power of the tiny Daisy was nothing compared to Mesquite’s, but thanks to the team’s attack boost buff and Mesquite’s quick, slight leap from the ground, everything went as intended.

Daisy pulled at the stem, and Mesquite was dragged along by it, quickly escaping from that place. As Elder cast a barrier in front of Mesquite and I reconnected with him to receive the team’s defense buff, a massive explosion occurred by a hair’s breadth.

A dust explosion—the most dangerous fire-induced blast in a chemical plant. It was as if a bomb had detonated right before our eyes, with black smoke instantly engulfing us.

Elder covered my nose and mouth with his large hand and hastily flung himself backward. The deafening sound made me think my eardrums had burst.

Mesquite’s sand barrier was caught in the explosion, shattering into large fragments that rained down on us instead. They bounced off Elder’s barrier, but couldn’t block the smoke surging in from all directions.

The precarious barrier flickered with a red glow, matching the color of the ring on Elder’s finger.

The damage now was so severe that it couldn’t be withstood unless Elder exerted himself to the point of drawing out combat bonuses.

Choking and scorching, at the moment I felt I was truly about to die, a refreshing energy suddenly swirled in my chest.

In the midst of that, it seemed one of the stupid embers got caught in the explosion, was hit by Mesquite’s sand wall, and got eliminated. Thus leveling me up.

A blessing in disguise. When I level up, my dryads are also affected. Just as my fatigue recovers, so does the fatigue of the dryads.

Though the combat wounds remained, the energy within the body was reset to its state before the battle began.

In the smoke, the party was scattered. I was with Elder, but couldn’t confirm the positions of Mesquite and Daisy.

The black smoke was thick. Clinging to Elder’s hand as if it were a respirator, I squinted my stinging eyes, streaming with tears, and surveyed the surroundings.

Just then, along with a massive gust of wind, Lance parted the smoke, revealing a figure within.

Mesquite, covered in soot marks here and there, was kneeling on one knee. His shield was enveloped in a yellow glow and had doubled in size.

Fortunately, Daisy also seemed safe under Mesquite’s protection. Though there were pitiful burn marks visible here and there, she didn’t look exhausted.

Elder thrust his staff into the ground, and from around it, a circle of white flower petals spread out like a massive wave.

The light touched the dryads like freshly piled first snow, then quickly melted away. I had only ever seen single heals being cast, but this was my first time seeing an area heal.

“It absorbed the power.”

Mesquite gritted her teeth and glared at the fire. Her amber eyes blazed even more fiercely than the flames with rage.

In the distance, four flickering fires could be seen, shimmering like will-o’-the-wisps. But considering it absorbed power, their size seemed unchanged?

“If it shrinks, it might use the same attack again. Can we take it down in one go?”

“Yes!”

In response to Mesquite’s words, Daisy gripped her daggers tightly in both hands and shouted her reply.

“I’ll take the two in a straight line. Can I leave the other two to you?”

“No problem!”

Mesquite rose from her spot and lifted her lance, and the shield returned to its original size. The Elder swung his staff toward Daisy, who had assumed a ready stance.

The form of the erupting light and the swirling flower petals looked familiar—I’d seen it before. It was the buff the Elder had used on Mesquite, who was sending down roots to find Daisy. A buff that utilized the Elder’s traits to increase luck.

“Aim for a critical hit. Right in the center. Make it vanish in one shot!”

“Yes!”

Just as the two dryads aimed their weapons at the fire, annoyingly, the fire twitched and shook itself once more.

Could it really use that cheap finishing move again? You guys have no cooldown? As the dust was about to burst out, the Elder suddenly reached out his hand.

Around the fire, the mother branch of the Elder Flower sprouted out. The fluttering white petals clung to the dust particles and began to form clumps.

“If this fails, even my mother plant will be absorbed, making the fire stronger. I’ll block the dust, so finish it in one blow!”

At the Elder’s words, the two dryads leaped forward simultaneously. Mesquite’s lance shot out like a bullet, piercing through the two fires in a straight line and exploding them in an instant.

Daisy, boosted by the Elder’s long-cooldown luck buff, threw his daggers, embedding them precisely in the centers of the two fires on either side, sealing the finale.

Her level shot up in an instant. Just like when she first caught a fire near the village, a refreshing feeling lingered in succession.