The next morning, Cross takes a walk through town, deep in thought about how he can get stronger. He can’t afford to fall behind the others, but buying a new weapon or swinging a sword in the woods won’t cut it. Just then, a young boy bumps into him and quickly apologizes. Cross tells him not to worry—it’s no big deal.
He notices the boy has an adventurer tag around his neck and asks if he’s registered with the guild. The boy confirms and, after finding out Cross is also an adventurer, desperately asks him to join his party. Normally, Cross would have declined, but the kid looked so pitiful he couldn’t say no. Besides, he had time to kill anyway. The boy introduces himself as Lynn, then drags Cross to the town’s adventurer guild.
Cross notices that Lynn carries a bow and arrows—clearly an archer—but wonders why he’s running around solo, since archers without a party are basically free monster snacks. His question is quickly answered when the whole guild starts whispering and snickering. Turns out, Lynn is infamous as a walking disaster with a bow. Everyone feels sorry for Cross, assuming he’s about to get dragged down.
Lynn, embarrassed, admits he’s only E-Rank and apologizes for not mentioning it sooner. He even says he understands if Cross doesn’t want to help a “loser” like him anymore. But Cross doesn’t leave. To cheer him up, he says he’s also looking for ways to get stronger. Of course, Lynn immediately assumes that means Cross is low-ranked just like him, and happily declares them “low-ranked brothers.” Cross just sighs and decides it’s not worth correcting the misunderstanding. Instead, he suggests they pick a quest from the notice board.
Meanwhile, Yui is wandering the town in search of a dessert shop she heard about. But after weeks of eating sweets like there’s no tomorrow, she’s starting to worry about her waistline. Just then, she hears shouting. Turning around, she spots a pompous noblewoman berating a boy for getting mud on her dress. The boy is trembling, apologizing again and again, but the dress isn’t really the issue—this woman just wants a victim.
She orders her guard to execute the poor kid, and the man’s creepy smile makes it clear he’s been dying for an excuse to cut someone down. The townsfolk want to step in, but they don’t dare. This noblewoman is apparently high-ranked nobility (the “haird”), and anyone who interferes would just end up her next victim.
The soldier raises his sword, ready to strike the boy down—when suddenly Yui yells for him to stop. The noblewoman is outraged, demanding to know who dares interfere with her orders. Yui, unfazed, has absolutely no clue who this woman is… and honestly, she couldn’t care less. All she sees is a cranky, ratchety old hag who gets her kicks by bullying the weak—and that’s not happening on her watch.
The woman gets flustered and orders her men to kill Yui first, so all of them charge without hesitation. Yui tells the boy to hurry up and escape while he still has the chance. As the guards strike, she pulls her sword out of storage. The men are baffled because they could have sworn Yui didn’t have a sword a moment ago. Normally, that would be the kind of red flag that makes you reconsider your life choices, but the woman orders them to keep fighting. So, they do what they’re told—like good little disposable NPCs.
Meanwhile, Cross and Lynn are out on their first quest, tasked with killing some red slimes. Cross figures this should be an easy mission, even with Lynn’s atrocious aim. He pulls his bow out of storage and gets ready to fire—but oops, he forgot he’s supposed to be pretending to be a low-ranked adventurer. When Lynn notices, Cross quickly makes up an excuse, claiming it’s just a basic spell a friend taught him. Nice save.
Cross then takes aim and nails three slimes right through their cores. Lynn thinks Cross is incredible, but Cross tells him he can’t just sit there gawking, so he should try too. Lynn gives it his best shot… and somehow manages to shoot worse than a blindfolded archer on a rollercoaster. Training him is going to be an Olympic-level challenge.
Back in town, Yui is still holding her own against the guards. The noblewoman can’t understand why her men are struggling against a single girl. The townsfolk eventually recognize Yui as the famous sword prodigy who became S-Rank at just 16. Now it all makes sense. Honestly, she’s probably going easy on them so she doesn’t accidentally slice them into confetti.
Yui asks the noblewoman if she’s ready to give up, but nope—this hag’s still got one trick up her sleeve. She signals to a mage hidden in the crowd, and suddenly a magic circle appears beneath Yui’s feet. Chains shoot up and bind her, draining her mana until she can’t move. With Yui stuck, the noblewoman orders her men to finish her off.
But just then, another woman passing by notices the chaos. She knows it’s not really her business, but watching four-on-one feels like bullying, so she decides to “adjust the numbers.” She takes a single step forward—and in the blink of an eye, all of the noblewoman’s guards collapse unconscious. The only one who could even track what happened was Yui, because the woman dashed behind every guard and returned to her spot in less than a heartbeat.
She was so fast she probably could have stopped for coffee and a snack along the way, and no one would’ve noticed. And while Yui generally avoids killing people, this mysterious woman seems perfectly fine with taking home a head or two as souvenirs. So, when she threatens the noblewoman, the lady promptly faints like a cheap prop in a bad play.
With the fight over, Yui thanks the woman for saving her but also asks a favor. She’s dazzled by the woman’s incredible speed and wants to know how she can become that strong. The woman replies that Yui is already remarkably powerful for her age, so there’s no need to rush—but Yui insists. She explains that her party has a white mage named Lloyd, who’s absolutely amazing, and she doesn’t want to become a burden to him.
The woman is surprised at the mention of Lloyd’s name, then realizes Yui must be the leader of the party that Merlin once spoke of. It turns out this stranger was actually a former member of Merlin’s party, and now she’s officially interested in Yui. So, she agrees to train her a little.
Meanwhile, back at the inn, Lloyd is burning brain cells non-stop, trying to optimize his spells. The others start worrying about him, suggesting he take a break before he combusts. Claire even offers to take him on a walk around town.
As for Yui, she’s now deep in the woods with the woman. The woman finds it a little alarming that Yui just followed a random stranger into the forest without hesitation, but Yui shrugs it off. She’s sure the woman isn’t a bad person—though she would at least like to know her name. The woman hesitates (clearly allergic to honesty) and instead gives a fake name: Lilith. The dramatic pause before saying it only makes her seem more suspicious, but Yui still believes she’s trustworthy and resolves to learn as much as possible from her.
Meanwhile, Cross is teaching Lynn how to properly use a bow. After a few pointers, Lynn manages to graze a slime—progress worth celebrating. Cross encourages him to aim for the core next, and surprisingly, Lynn pulls it off, landing a direct hit. Cross is stunned; he genuinely thought Lynn was hopeless, but it turns out the kid’s a quick learner.
Back in the woods, Lilith begins Yui’s training. Lesson one: cut down that tree over there. Sounds easy enough—until she adds that Yui has to do it without moving her feet. Because why make things simple when you can make them ridiculously hard?
Yui thinks Lilith must be joking—cutting down a tree without moving her feet? That’s basically asking for anime logic to do the heavy lifting. But then Lilith casually demonstrates the technique and fells the tree in one clean slash, like it’s no big deal. She explains it’s simple: coat your sword in mana, swing with all your strength, and voilà. Naturally, Yui is hyped to try it herself.
Meanwhile, Lloyd and Claire are chilling by the hot springs, munching on snacks while soaking their feet. Lloyd is relieved to finally take a break from his non-stop magic research, but since magic is always on his brain, he asks Claire something that’s been bugging him. He suspects the magic she used to control monsters might have been ancient magic.
Claire freezes—oops, secret exposed—but admits it’s true. Lloyd isn’t surprised. Magic that powerful clearly wasn’t cooked up in the modern era. So, he asks if he can learn it too, hoping it’ll help with his research. Claire immediately says nope. Ancient magic users are born once every few centuries, and anyone else trying to force it risks catastrophic backlash. She even recalls records of a man who used ancient magic to save a village… and promptly died for it. Her point: Lloyd should not be messing around with that stuff.
Back with Cross and Lynn, they finally clear all the slimes. The job’s done, though Cross silently curses the archer life—reloading eats up precious time. He tells Lynn to help gather slime materials, but suddenly Lynn spots a giant spider. It’s a high-level monster, and Lynn’s survival instincts scream: “RUN!” But Cross isn’t about to let all that slime loot go to waste. He fires an arrow at the spider’s head, but it barely scratches.
That’s when Lynn has a lightbulb moment. He tells Cross to try rapid firing. Cross scoffs—archers don’t rapid fire, that’s called “cheating.” But Lynn insists he use his storage spell more creatively. So, Cross tries it: shoot, summon arrow, shoot again—instant reload! Suddenly, he’s machine-gunning arrows into the spider, finally piercing its shell.
Back at Yui’s training, she’s been swinging at trees all day, failing miserably. Lilith notices her effort but decides to add some “motivation.” She lets a panther attack her, forcing Yui to step in. Under pressure, Yui finally pulls off the mana slash, obliterating the beast. She’s thrilled… right before collapsing from exhaustion. Luckily, Lilith catches her before she faceplants.
That night, Lloyd and the others sit around the table, growing worried. Yui still isn’t home. Just as concern peaks, Lloyd hears something at the front door…
When Lloyd opens the door, he finds Yui passed out on the doorstep like she just rage-quit reality. Meanwhile, a block away, Lilith strolls off into the night like a mysterious NPC who just finished her side quest.
The next morning, the group prepares to resume their journey, but Lloyd looks pretty down. He feels bad because everyone else managed to pick up flashy new skills, while he only—and yes, he actually thinks this—optimized all his spells, learned new attack magic for large-scale battles, and invented an original search spell. Somehow, in Lloyd’s brain, that’s “meh.”
The rest of the group, however, is getting real tired of his “I’m useless” routine. They’re basically one pep talk away from smacking some self-worth into him.
