"So, did everyone sleep well?" I asked ter that night, feeling refreshed and ready to fight.

  "Yes, Commander Daphne!" The more I hear it, the more I love it! I thought, soaking in their praise with a smile.

  "Good, tonight we'll be ambushing monsters, pin and simple, but before that, I'll need to know your levels." Lucia had been using a fire spell to light up the surroundings while Kimmel, Sarde, and Batti were keeping watch at the rear with a group of soldiers and adventurers, so I could afford to take my time like this. I wanted to know who the closest units to promoting were, as we had found a few Limit Breaks in the Empire soldiers' possessions and the ruined Fort.

  They came forward one by one and told me their levels. After hearing them, I made up my mind, saying, "We'll allow Arnaud and Geiter to take most of the kills since they are the closest ones to promoting." Arnaud was at level 47 while Geiter was at level 48. "Once you are eligible to be promoted, I'll discuss your options with you before handing out the rings. Is that okay?" They both nodded, so I spoke a few final words of encouragement to the others before we finally headed out on our hunting mission.

  Hertz, once again proved invaluable. With [Night Vision], he had no problems seeing in the dark, and his concealment skills allowed him to act as an excellent scout for us. He would rey his findings to me through the communication rings Phildina gave me. We would then follow his directions, ambush the monster, and kill it.

  We'd sin Zombies, Skeletons, Giant Spiders, HellHounds, and more with this system, but as luck would have it, we happened to run into a monster Hertz had not specified, a rge three-headed beast with bck fur and fiery red eyes. Uh-oh, another boss fight! It slowly turned to face me with its three heads and before I even knew what was happening, it had closed the distance and was moments away from ripping me to shreds with its three jaws. I couldn't react in time, so I stood there, frozen stiff, cursing at my bad fortune. Will the future she saw inevitably come to pass? But I was a bit too quick in thinking that, as Phildina swooped in to rescue me.

  "Thank you, Phildina. You're a real lifesaver," I said with a relieved sigh as she carried me on her Pegasus.

  "You've gotten good at controlling your speed, but you need to get better at reacting to your opponent's speed," She said, going into instructor mode.

  "You mean, I could've dodged that?" I asked.

  "Yes, it just happened to get the jump on you. We'll be facing enemies with simir or even higher speed stats, so you'll need to learn, Daphne," She said with the gravest expression I'd ever seen on her face.

  "I will," I said as I looked down to see how the Company was fairing. Lucia had already trapped it inside a Lighting Cage, giving our best fighters enough time to surround the Cerberus. She sure works fast, I thought to myself as my attention turned to Sarde.

  "Hraaah!" He threw a spear at the Cerberus, but it jumped out of the cage to avoid it. That must not have been an ordinary attack, I thought to myself. It essentially judged that it was better to get shocked by the lighting than to receive a critical hit from a Padin like Sarde. From there, it turned its attention to Matilda, charging towards her at blinding speeds. However, Kimmel stopped the beast in its tracks with his Mythril sword, but that was just part of a two-step pn, as Batti had leaped into the air moments prior, quietly preparing himself to cut the beast in half with his great axe. With a loud crash that left a small crater in its wake, the beast was nowhere to be found when the dust finally settled. We looked around for a few minutes, eventually concluding it had fled.

  In the dream and here, it chose to attack me first. Why me? I wondered. And was there any special significance to that? As I pondered, it only made more and more sense. It wanted to throw everybody off bance by killing me first since it judged I was the leader. Then, when that pn didn't work, it shifted its attention to our main healer. These monsters are intelligent, I concluded. If we want to win against them, we'll have to be even smarter, I thought to myself as we continued our night hunt, more alert than ever.