Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

The black thing charged toward the monster. 

It was Serria. 

The girl that had clad her sword and muscles in her black aura jumped at the monsters from the top of the stairs.

SLASH

And slashed one of the eagle's wings with her sword.

KIEEEE

Kairen looked away from them and turned towards the monsters in front of his eyes. His spells were already ready. Waiting for the right time, Kairen activated his spells when the eagle was about to move higher in the air.

Dang

The eagle that was flapping its wings faster and moving higher in the air suddenly hit something transparent on its way. 

KIE?

The eagle jumped up once more but hit something again. It was as if a transparent barrier was blocking its path.

It was at that moment that it saw the fire spheres approach it at a high speed. Just when the eagle was about to move back to avoid the spell, it noticed that it couldn't move its body at all.

It was because of the magic chains that had emerged from the ground, shot up into the air, and wrapped themselves around its body while its path was blocked by the magic barrier. 

And at that moment...

B-BOOOOMM

The fire spheres collided with its body.

KIEEEEEEEE

After the loud sound of something exploding, the shriek of the eagle filled the area.

THUDD

The monster fell to the ground with most parts of its body burnt and wounded. The scent of burned flesh filled the space as the surroundings turned silent for a moment. Everyone stopped fighting for a moment to glance at the horrible state that the monster was in.

'Oh wow man I still have lots of mana left!'

Now being more than used to the people's gazes, Kairen didn't care about them to the point of not even noticing them sometimes. Instead, he was excitedly calculating the amount of mana he had left. 

If it was before, he would be out of mana by now. However, now he still had about half of his mana left. That one fact made him feel a lot more confident and safe at the same time.

Looking down at the monster again, Kairen thought about the spell he needed in order to finish the monster off. The monster couldn't move so he could kill it without much difficulty and there was no need to cast a high-level spell.

However, Kairen hesitated to do that.

'Why do I have such an iffy feeling?'

Kairen couldn't shake off that feeling. It was some kind of fear that crept into his heart all of a sudden after half-killing the monster. 

He also couldn't help but think that it was just too easy to kill the monster. Aside from the wind pressure, there was nothing much about the monsters. They weren't that strong or intelligent. He could see the other monster that was also almost killed by the combined attack of Reyan, Serria, and Captain Neal.

The others didn't even need to intervene in the fight as it was not an intense battle from the beginning. 

'What if... something will happen if I kill this thing?'

Kairen didn't know why and how that thought crossed his mind, but it made him stop casting the spell and look at the monster once again with suspicious eyes.

'Nah, no way.'

Yes. There was no way. Why would killing a mere monster cause something dangerous to happen? 

Like... they had all killed countless monsters till now and nothing had happened.

Kairen pressed his lips together trying hard not to show his inner thoughts and then screamed inwardly.

'But these monsters came out of two fucking statues! They were stone and now monsters! They looked so scary back then with their red eyes glowing and all! Are they trying to fool us? I'm not buying it! Why was it so easy to kill them????????'

KIEEE

While he was busy screaming in his mind, the monster on the ground made noises and twitched, using the last bits of energy left inside its body to move.

"What are doing dozing off in the middle of a fight?"

Kairen was snapped out of his thoughts after hearing a woman's voice. Jerking his head, he saw deputy team leader Bray approach the fallen eagle while holding her great sword. As soon as she reached the monster, she raised her sword up in the air.

"N-no wait-"

Stab

And stabbed the monster's head before Kairen could stop her. The monster stopped moving, its body becoming limp and motionless.

"Huh? Did you say something?"

The deputy team leader turned to Kairen.

"....."

Kairen looked at the dead monster with a blank face. 

"Woah what is this?!"

Both of them turned to the other side after hearing a shocked voice. There stood Serria, Reyan, and captain Neal looking at the body of the second eagle that they had killed. The body was slowly falling apart and turning to dust. The dust moved with the wind and slowly disappeared after a few seconds.

Looking back at the dead monster closest to him, Kairen could see its body also slowly turning to dust.

The two monsters both turned to dust and vanished without leaving anything behind. As soon as they both were dead, the wind pressure was also lifted and the temple turned to its previous form except for the two missing eagle statues.

'Nothing happened...'

Contrary to his thoughts, nothing really happened after the two monsters were killed. He seriously expected something like an explosion or a blast of light like earlier, but the two monsters were killed and then disappeared like the strange centipede they saw at the third ruin.

However, Kairen's mind still wasn't in peace.

He still felt that something was not right. Like they were ignoring something really really important. 

"Haaa!"

With a sigh, Kairen plopped down on the ground. 

The fight was over, he still had plenty of mana, and nobody was injured. Everything was perfect, right. 

Everything except for Kairen's tired body, which was itching all over, and his chest, which was a little bit heavy and was making it hard to breathe sometimes.

While wondering why was he feeling like shit again even though he was not out of mana and was not injured either, Asa hesitantly approached him.

"Um... you fine?"

Kairen wasn't really 'fine' but he didn't feel like nagging at the moment so he just nodded his head.

"Ah! You know back then when you hit the pillar your bones were completely broken that your insides would turn into a bone soup if you moved a little bit so I just hurriedly fixed everything and because of that I couldn't heal everything to how they were before so you must be feeling a little bit pain now and breathing might be hard but there is nothing I can do about it now as I have exhausted my power so the only thing you can do is rest for a few days but don't worry as it is not a big deal and you will be fine after resting for a little bit."

Asa suddenly blabbed out all of those words that she had to pause and take a deep breath after she was done.

"....."

Kairen nodded his head in understanding.

"Oh also thank you."

Asa thanked him and immediately turned away from Kairen, strolling over to the deputy team leader who was standing a few meters away from them. While moving, Kairen saw her glance between Reyan and himself with a strange smile, but he had other things to think of so he didn't mind her.

In a few minutes, everyone gathered in one spot in the center of the yard. After a few minutes of silence, captain Neal finally opened her mouth and stated her mind.

"So, what just happened?"

No one had an answer for that. As everyone was thinking about some possibilities, eventually all of their eyes turned to the light-brown-haired boy that was staring at the air not even looking at their faces. 

Still avoiding eye contact, Kairen shrugged and murmured.

"I did nothing!"

That answer wasn't convincing enough, Kairen knew that. He just wanted them to stop making strange theories in their minds, his own strange theories were enough for the whole world, but he didn't know how he was supposed to do that. 

The group stared at him for a few more seconds before they all looked away.

"Sigh!"

"Poff! I'm not surprised anymore."

"Right. I'm getting used to it."

"Yeah. Just keeping Kairen around is enough to turn any regular walk around the park into a battleground."

Kairen couldn't help but stare at them with a dejected face.

"But I didn't do anything! This isn't my fault-"

Kairen paused and cahnged his words.

"It might be my fault but that doesn't mean it was my fault!"

Honestly, he himself didn't understand what he said but didn't show that on his face so he just stared at the group with a serious face.

The others either sighed or shook their heads after hearing his nonsense and then turned to team leader Dains.

He too sighed before folding his arms.

"I don't think there is anything else to see here..."

They had originally come here to see if there was anything strange in this temple and they had seen much more stranger things that they could comprehend. There was no need for more than this. 

"Let's go back for now..."

Everyone agreed with him. They had to go back. 

"What should I say about those statues though..."

There was only captain Neal that didn't seem that happy.. She looked at the empty spot of the two eagle statues, wondering how she was supposed to explain the reason behind the disappearance of two precious statues.