It took some time to grill up enough meat to satisfy Taylor’s seemingly endless hunger, but eventually, Leo got to the point where he was fairly confident he wasn’t at risk of being throttled when he put his frying pan away. She hadn’t gone too far during her wandering, no doubt not wanting to risk the safety of her own personal chef now that she’d gotten a taste of his cooking, so once their stomachs were filled and his pan cleaned, the two of them ventured out into the plane together for the first time.

  Their new surroundings reminded him of the diminutive plane he’d first found himself in after escaping the collapse of his home plane. Only rather than a tiny meadow stretching a few miles wide, the vast plain was clearly far larger. They were able to see small herds of cows off in the distance identical to the ones Taylor had killed, as well as a few other, smaller animals that they ended up startling whenever they got close. Despite the relative peace, the grass was tall enough that there could be any number of magical beasts lying in wait, so Leo was careful not to let down his guard. Even with Minor Tremorsense tucked away within his core, that didn’t do him any good if something leapt the last dozen feet before landing on him.

  “Monster?” Taylor asked, pointing at a large rabbit that bolted the moment they stumbled upon its warren.

  “No, not a magical beast,” Leo sighed, shaking his head at her continued insistence on calling them monsters. “Though I did encounter a rabbit-based magical beast a few weeks back called a rock rabbit. Nasty little things that bash into your shins.”

  “Does this plane even have any monsters?” Taylor frowned, clearly annoyed at not having gotten a chance to tear out anything’s throat since her butchering of the poor wild cows.

  “Unless it’s been cleansed, there will be magical beasts to worry about,” Leo reassured her. “And seeing as we haven’t spotted any people yet, I highly doubt it’s been cleansed.”

  “What does that mean? ‘Cleansed?’”

  “The resources of any plane are constantly refreshing themselves, ever so slowly,” Leo tried to explain. “Animals, plants, basically everything. The same goes for magical beasts. However, for some unknown reason, magical beasts are somewhat different from other resources. If a team of gem holders goes around eradicating them as soon as they appear, and they continue to do this for some time, eventually, they’ll simply stop spawning altogether. That’s what people refer to when they say a plane is cleansed.”

  “The monsters just stop?” Taylor asked, tilting her head as they walked. “Strange. Why?”

  “Nobody really knows why. I’ve read a few different theories, and most scholars seem to believe it has something to do with the ambient power drifting around in each plane falling into a routine. That magical beasts take up more power than other resources, so if they are continuously killed and the plane is forced to continue dumping more and more power into replenishing them, it will eventually choose to simply stop before it runs out of power for the other resources. Again, that’s just a theory, but it’s the one that makes the most sense to me.”

  “Weird,” Taylor decided, pointing a finger yet again. “Monster?”

  This time, Leo paused, blinking as he took in the sight of grass swaying in the wind a few dozen feet away. Only after a quick pause, he realized the grass was actually swaying in the opposite direction of the wind, as well as in a curving line.

  Steadily approaching them.

  “Yeah, I think this one’s a magical beast,” he said, gripping his sword as he prepared for anything. “Be careful, we don’t-”

  Taylor blasted forward, lunging the entire distance between them and the magical beast with a furious snarl on her face. Before Leo could even shout at her, the magical beast reared up from within the grass, revealing itself to be a large snake at least three times larger than Leo was. The same moment it revealed itself, its tail swung out, slamming into Taylor and knocking her out of midair with a resounding crack.

  “Taylor!” Leo screamed as his companion was smashed into the ground. Cursing, he darted forward, hoping to draw the beast’s attention away from her long enough for her to recover. He would have been concerned seeing any other rank 11 gem holder take a blow like that straight to the chest, but Taylor was strangely durable. Still, that had to hurt.

  “Over here!” he shouted, running around the side of the snake and forcing it to turn toward him. Flicking its tongue out, the snake’s head shot out, revealing rows of serrated teeth rather than two simple fangs. Leo barely managed to throw himself to the side, narrowly avoiding having his head bitten off from the lightning-fast strike. Though even as he rolled, he slashed out with his blade, scoring a clean cut across the snake’s neck.

  Hissing in pain, the snake slithered forward, trying to surround Leo before he could come out of his roll. In response, Leo kicked off toward the small opening he could still feel available with Minor Tremorsense the moment he was on his feet again, scoring yet another hit on the snake’s body as he escaped its confines.

  The snake immediately tried to lash out and bite him again, only to rock backwards as Taylor slammed into its neck like a living projectile. Not only did her impact throw off its aim, she wrapped her legs around its neck to lock herself in place before going to town with her claws, slicing again and again as she tore through its skin and began ripping chunks of flesh out of it.

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  The snake let out a hiss that was far closer to a scream this time around as it realized it had a pesky tick latched onto its body that was rapidly ripping through its neck. Unable to bend down and bite her, the snake turned and slammed its entire upper body into the ground, smashing Taylor between it and the compact earth and sending a small shake through the plain. Praying that Taylor wasn’t too injured, Leo took advantage of the beast’s new position to leap up onto the snake, running along its lowered neck all the way up to the head. With a shout, he thrust his sword down, slamming the blade straight into the magical beast’s skull and twisting for good measure.

  A shiver traveled from the top of the snake all the way to the bottom, before it went still, collapsing onto its side and curling up slightly. Panting, Leo ripped his sword from the beast’s head, hopping off and going to check on Taylor.

  “Are you still alive?” Leo asked, helping push the snake off his companion. For her part, Taylor merely groaned a bit, shaking her head as she took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

  “That… hurt,” she admitted, as though even the concept was foreign to her. “Haven’t felt pain in… a long time.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s been years since you actually fought something a higher Grade than yourself,” Leo pointed out, giving her a more thorough look over. Miraculously, Taylor seemed relatively unscathed, even after getting slapped out of the air and slammed by the snake’s large body. “…What are you even made of?”

  “Hm?” Taylor hummed, tilting her head. “What do you mean?”

  “I know your soul is weird, but no rank 11 should have a body as durable as yours. You know, seeing you shrug all that off, I think I might actually have a theory. But first…”

  Leo reached out a hand and poked Taylor in the ribs, watching as she did a fantastic snake impression by hissing at him.

  “Ow! That hurts more!” she complained, slapping his hand away. “Why?”

  “Just confirming you’re not completely invincible,” he said, prodding her a few more times to confirm the extent of the damage. “Though you’re pretty close… If I’d taken those two hits, I probably would have broken half the bones in my body. I think you only fractured a few ribs. Honestly, they might only even be bruised!”

  “Poke me again and you lose the finger,” Taylor threatened. “What’s your theory?”

  “You know how I explained the evolutions gem holders go through, right? I think you had something like a bonus evolution upon first having the gem integrated into your soul. And I think the focus was on survivability. Think about it. It would explain how you managed to survive the process of taking in a gem at such a young age in the first place. How you lived through the poisonous wasteland you were dumped into. And how you’re able to take attacks like that and walk away practically unscathed. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Maybe I’m just that good,” Taylor offered, turning and trailing a clawed finger along the snake until she reached a seemingly random point about a third of the way down its body. Getting to work, she quickly carved a hole through the flesh, before plucking out a shining blue gem. “Hm. Feels like a strength skill. Lots of strength.”

  “Let me see.” Taking the gem from her, Leo held it to his chest, breathing lightly as he used his soul to ever so gently touch upon its power. He’d put in a lot of practice over the past two weeks of recovery working on detecting the Grade of gems before absorbing them, and he was now rather confident in his skills. “Grade 13 magical beast. And yeah, definitely something involving strength. My guess would be Constriction. It’s a common skill from snake-based magical beasts. It would give you immense grip and crushing strength, but it's worthless for stuff like punching.”

  “Not interested,” Taylor said, taking the gem back from him and popping it into her mouth. Immediately, her eyes widened, and she let slip a feral grin as a shudder racked her body. “Mmm… so much power… I’d forgotten what it felt like to grow stronger!”

  “How long does it even take you to… what, digest a gem, anyway?” Leo asked, staring at her stomach while trying to visualize what was even happening inside her body. He still didn’t understand the physical changes her body had gone through to allow her to do something as ridiculous as eat a magical beast gem without exploding.

  “Depends on the gem,” she shrugged, turning to look at the snake once more. “…Can you cook snake?”

  “I can, but it’s a magical beast. It’s almost certainly not going to taste all that great. Regular animals are what’s best, though there are a few exceptions.”

  “So some magical beasts do taste good?”

  “Yeah, but not a lot. There are some Cartographers who make that their entire life’s mission. To seek out and discover brand-new magical beasts that don’t taste like you’re eating tainted meat. To be fair, I’ve never personally tasted one of those fabled beasts myself, so I can’t really judge them too much. Maybe tasting those types of meals really are life-changing for all we know.”

  “I will do that as well,” Taylor declared, surprising him with the firmness in her voice. “Grow stronger than anyone else… and discover good-tasting monsters. Which means we must test this.”

  Realizing what she was getting at, Leo shuddered, taking a step back from the snake’s corpse. “Taylor, I’m telling you, it’s going to taste terrible!”

  “But we don’t know that for sure,” she countered, nodding as she bent down and tore a chunk of snake meat off its corpse, before thrusting it out toward him. “Here. Grill this.”

  “Are you seriously going to make me try cooking every single new magical beast we come across?” Leo drawled, staring at the blood-soaked meat clutched between her clawed fingers.

  “Yes. Cook. Please,” she added after a moment. He’d been trying to instill in her the importance of using ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ when talking to others, and he had to admit he was happy some of his lessons were taking root. They’d be hitting up an actual town sooner or later, and the last thing he needed was for his lone companion to accidentally pick a fight with anyone.

  “Fine,” he sighed, pulling out his pan and charcoal and snatching the meat from her fingers. “Just because you said please. But don’t come crying to me when it tastes awful!”

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