The girl looked at me with deep horror burning in her ember-colored eyes, her hair swaying gently as the wind rushed through the forest.

  "What do you mean oh no...?" she asked bluntly.

  Before I could even answer, she grabbed my colr and started shaking me violently.

  "What do you mean oh no?!"

  Her voice cracked as the world split into two—then three—before my eyes.

  "Hey—hey! Stop shaking me!"

  I shoved her away, stumbling backward into one of the bushes behind me. The world spun for a moment, my vision swimming—but the massive level 23 tree charging toward us snapped my focus back into pce instantly.

  "We need to get away," I shouted, grabbing her wrist and yanking her up, "or we're going to end up as fertilizer for a ghost tree!"

  She didn't argue.

  I pulled her with me, boots tearing through undergrowth as we bolted away, the ground shaking behind us with every heavy step the creature took.

  "What are we going to do now, dude? That thing completely outlevels us!"

  Lavapup panicked, fingers cwing into her hair so hard it actually looked painful. She spun in pce like she expected the forest itself to colpse on us at any second.

  Meanwhile, the tip of my wand was already glowing with a deep, unstable purple.

  "What do you think?" I shot back, forcing my feet to turn even as my heart smmed against my ribs. "We kill it."

  I raised my wand and spoke my favorite magical words—and no, I didn't mean please.

  "Magic Missile!"

  A purple, star-filled sphere formed instantly and tore through the forest, space folding tight around it as it smmed into the Dreadwood's trunk.

  "Tch... almost nothing."

  The red health bar shaved down by a miserable sliver. Purple embers crawled across its bark, but the thing didn't even slow. Its roots tore free from the ground with a shrill, wooden screech as it surged toward us.

  "I-I'll help!" Lavapup yelped.

  "Wait—!"

  Too te.

  "Magic Missile!"

  Her spell burst out wildly, spiraling off course before smashing into a completely different tree.

  Silence.

  Then that tree moved.

  "...You are really bad at aiming," I said slowly.

  My eyes snapped back to her just in time to see her staring at me, face pale, mouth hanging open.

  "...We're fucked. Like—really fucked," I muttered.

  "This is not how I imagined my first quest going!" she blurted, already half backing away. "Couldn't we have picked something normal? Like herbs? Mushrooms? Literally anything that doesn't scream?!"

  "Shit, I'm sorry I didn't find a quest beled baby's first adventure," I snapped back, skidding to a halt as my stamina bar drained to nothing.

  My legs burned.

  Both Dreadwoods closed in, branches snapping, roots tearing grooves into the dirt as they advanced from either side.

  "Type shit..."

  My gaze flicked around fast—terrain, distance, weight.

  Trees.

  Big ones.

  I raised my wand again without hesitation.

  "Magic Missile!"

  "Magic Missile!"

  At the same moment, Lavapup finally caught on.

  "Oh—oh! Like this?!"

  She fired too.

  Both spells smmed into nearby trunks. The trees cracked, groaned, and came crashing down, smming into the Dreadwoods and pinning them together. Their health bars dropped in solid chunks this time.

  "Oh my god—did we do it?!" she shouted, bouncing in pce.

  The Dreadwoods tore through the fallen logs like paper, splintering wood apart with brute force alone.

  "Nope—way too early!" I barked.

  The air around my wand fsh-froze, frost crawling outward as I adjusted my stance and aimed properly this time.

  "Snowball!"

  The white ball flew—and hit.

  An icy blue sheen raced down their massive bodies, frost crawling along bark and roots as the debuff took hold. Their movements slowed sharply, branches creaking as if the forest itself resisted them.

  "Fuck—both spells are on cooldown!"

  I shouted the warning more for her than for myself, panic creeping in as I watched the cooldown timer refuse to move fast enough.

  The Dreadwoods shuddered... then pushed through the ice.

  Their speed surged back.

  They were almost on us when Lavapup suddenly stopped running.

  She stared at her wand.

  Then at the monsters.

  Then back at her wand.

  "...What are you pnning?" I asked, sweat running down my neck as I gnced between her and the ticking timer in my vision.

  She didn't answer.

  Instead—

  "Urgh, whatever!"

  She threw her wand.

  Straight into the dirt.

  I didn't even have time to yell before the Dreadwood's branch-arm came crashing down. Lavapup twisted at the st second, leaves barely grazing her cheek as she rolled past the strike.

  She grabbed one of its protruding twigs mid-motion, used it to spin—

  —and drop-kicked the thing square in the trunk.

  The impact echoed like a cracked log.

  The Dreadwood lurched sideways, smmed into its partner, and both staggered, roots tearing free as they stumbled.

  "Haha! You stupid bush—eat that!"

  She ughed like this was the most normal thing in the world.

  "...What the fuck was that?"

  I shouted, jaw hanging open as I stared at her, then at the discarded wand, then back at the two level-23 monsters recovering far too quickly.

  They were already pulling themselves upright.

  My cooldown still wasn't done.

  "I kicked him!" she yelled back, pointing proudly at the Dreadwood like she'd just solved a puzzle.

  "You threw away your wand!"

  "I can't aim anyway!" she shot back. "So I thought—why not hit it physically, you know?!"

  I stared at her.

  Long.

  Then I exhaled.

  "...Type shit."

  The cooldown ticked to zero.

  I raised my wand just as purple light gathered at its tip once more.

  "Magic Missile!"

  I shouted, letting the sphere run wild once again. The purple blob of magic bent space around it like always before, before exploding into a massive burst of violet fire as the system announced something.

  "Magic Missile has leveled up: 1 → 2."

  My lips twisted upward at the notification as I watched the two trunks simmer, flickering with unstable magic.

  By then, Lavapup had already caught up to me, and we rushed through the dense leaves together.

  At this point, it was less running away and more kiting them.

  "Girl, you are crazy—do you know that...?" I ughed, struggling to manage my rapidly depleting stamina bar. "In no world would I have ever expected you to just throw away your wand and kick a stupid tree."

  She ughed with me, her unevenly cut bangs bouncing wildly with every step she took.

  "Well, the game did say there are infinite possibilities," she said between breaths. "So I thought—why wouldn't it work? Hehe!"

  She even flexed her nonexistent biceps while runni

  ng, clearly proud of herself.

  "But how do you pn on casting spells now?" I asked.

  The moment the words left my mouth, her expression went completely bnk.

  "...Shit. I don't know."