The Sandworm let out an unholy shrieking sound into the air before diving straight at the trio of rookie hunters. Larsa, Ilja, and Holly scattered like mice as its massive body careened into the area where they had been standing moments before.

  Larsa, scrambling, drew her broadsword and rushed in to slash at the beast. However, upon connecting with a clean slash through its skin, a stream of highly pressurized sand blasted out instead of blood. It sprayed her with surprising force and knocked her backwards a few dozen feet.

  Larsa dug in her heels and came to a stop next to Holly, the mousy woman having regrouped after the initial attack.

  “These worm monsters have a dermis composed entirely of sand. Its internal organs are a lot more insulated and protected than most creatures.” She hurriedly informed Larsa.

  “Milo’s right, I really do need to hit the books when I get back.” Larsa thought to herself as she briskly brushed out a few lumps of sand that had gotten stuck in her blonde hair.

  The worm's skin quickly resealed itself like new, halting the outpour of sand. It roared into the air again, preparing to launch another assault towards the two women.

  Before it could, however, it was pelted with high-calibre machine-gun fire from the side; unlike Larsa’s broadsword, the bullets didn't pierce the creature's hide, though it did get the monster's attention.

  Ilja swore something fierce, the large mounted gun he had somehow materialized smoking from the nozzle. He abandoned the unwieldy weapon as the monster lunged towards the Russian man’s position, devouring the firearm in an instant. Ilja jogged over to his teammate's placement, putting a decent distance between him and the worm.

  “That was a bloody KPV! Shit is made for piercing tanks and aircraft, and it didn’t put a dent in that thing!” Ilja raved.

  Meanwhile, the Sandworm slowly chewed upon the metal with apparently no ill effect to its body. For what it was worth, the beast’s impressive size meant it could only cover a distance in short bursts, offering a brief window for the trio to strategize.

  “Ilja, you created that weapon yourself just then?” Holly analytically pondered.

  “Da, that's my innate power, I can create any weapon on the spot so long as I'm familiar with it. Given my background, that means firearms, explosives and heavy ordnance.”

  To demonstrate, he held up his hand, the colourless and empty outline of what looked to be a pistol appearing before becoming the real deal.

  “What's it to you anyway?”

  “Even though you’re using magic to create them, it seems they are still just regular guns with no special properties. They won't even scratch most monsters without some enchantment.”

  Holly was deceptively quick to pick up on things Larsa realized; she mentioned this wasn't her first time doing the one-week trial, making her the most practically experienced of the current three despite her earlier demeanour.

  She was right, of course; all of the weapons used by hunters contained special properties that made them far more powerful and durable than anything that regular militaries had access to.

  These tools were custom-made and tailored to their wielder's fighting style. Larsa’s own sword was no different; while a gift from her father, it was initially forged in the Templar Order’s smithing division like all the others.

  Ilja sighed with his brows furrowed in frustration.

  “You’re telling me that nothing I make can hurt that thing?”

  “Not necessarily, can you make a grenade?” Holly inquired, her thumb and index finger clutching her chin in contemplation.

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  Ilja nodded and gave an “Yes, ma’am.” A response, no doubt, hard-programmed into him from his military days.

  Holly then turned to Larsa.

  “You’ve got the same special magic as your father, I’m guessing?”

  Larsa also nodded as Holly laid out her plan to them. It was really noticeable to the swordswoman that the stuttering and timid girl in the dune buggy had vanished; in her place was an exceptionally sharp tactician.

  With that, they enacted their strategy.

  Holly touched the ground with the palm of her hand while Ilja fired his recently created pistol into the air. This re-attracted the attention of their worm nemesis, who had just finished its feast on the KPV. It heaved itself forward in another attempt at offence, only to find a trap waiting for it this time.

  Six large icicles protruded from the land and pierced into the worm's hide, trapping it in place as multiple streams of sand began spewing out of each puncture wound.

  Holly, it had turned out, was an ice mage, and while she had a ways to go before she was anywhere close to Rebecca or even Milo in skill and power, her attack was enough to leave the Sandworm vulnerable to the second step of their plan.

  Ilja created a grenade in his hand, pulling the pin and tossing it at Larsa, who swatted it with the flat of her blade.

  In the mere moment of contact between the broadsword and the explosive, Larsa’s enhancement magic flowed from her hands to her sword and from there into the grenade.

  The grenade, now glimmering with the signature azure of enhancement, was propelled towards the worm. It went straight into its cavernous mouth hole cleanly, not even clipping the teeth.

  A few seconds later, the Sandworm's body visibly distorted, the skin stretching outwards in places from the force of the explosion inside its body. The beast collapsed lifelessly to the ground, sending vibrations beneath the hunter's feet.

  “Home run.” Larsa stated coldly.

  “You Americans and your sports…” Ilja huffed.

  “But…not bad,” he reluctantly admitted. He looked towards the corpse of their now-slaughtered quarry, a reflective look in his eyes.

  “Too little force and the grenade wouldn't have made it in, too much and it would have blown up in your face. Perhaps there is something more to you than a common brute that swings mindlessly.”

  “Gee, thanks, prick.” Larsa thought to herself. Even this guy's compliments were backhanded.

  “A-alright! That's our first monster down, f-five more to go!” Holly squeaked, her voice returning to its usual hushed tone.

  For their part, both Larsa and Ilja looked back at her with a befuddled stare. It was like Jekyll and Hyde, one moment she was confident to a degree rarely seen among rookies, the next shy and unassuming.

  Which one was the true Holly and which was the act? Larsa couldn't help but start to wonder this to herself.

  ————————

  The trio had been roaming on foot for a few hours, their transportation destroyed, and by some luck, they had run into an Imp and two different Slimes. These were weak creatures easily dispatched. Holly’s ice magic in particular froze and shattered the slimes like they were just cheap glass. Thus, their total stood at four, only two more to pass Inquisitor Juan’s test.

  “I swear, we should count the natural wildlife as monsters; that poisonous spider in the brush came way closer to killing me than what we've fought other than the Sandworm,” Ilja grumbled, more to himself than either of the girls.

  Larsa didn't really care much for whatever Ilja was going on about. Still, her gaze did wander backwards to Holly, who was trailing behind them and occasionally biting her nails while glancing around with wide eyes.

  Just as in their earlier encounter, each time they had come into contact with a monster, her personality flipped like a switch.

  It didn't seem to matter much that even the most fledgling of trainees could take on Imps and Slimes relatively safely; she acted with dead seriousness.

  “What is it about this job that attracts so many odd people?” Larsa contemplated.

  “Then again, I guess we all have to be a little crazy to willingly take on horrors you'd only dream of in your worst nightmares.”

  Suddenly, she collided with Ilja’s back, the Russian man having stopped his marching.

  “Watch it.”

  “Why did you stop?” Larsa turned her own neck to the direction that Ilja had stopped to stare at. In the distance was a humongous sandstone monolith, the only one of its kind as far as the eye could see.

  “Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock.” Holly chimed in for the first time in a while, explaining to her two partners exactly what they were looking at.

  “It's one of Australia’s greatest treasures, its colour shifts vibrantly at both sunrise and sunset.”

  “Sounds like the type of place to attract a beast or two. We can probably clean up the last kills we need closer to there.”

  Holly’s eyes widened even larger at Ilja’s proposal.

  “B-but that's a national monument! People aren't supposed to get too close to it!”

  “Last I checked, monsters don't give a fuck about national boundaries or getting arrested for trespassing. We're the ones who have to clean them out of these places, not a bunch of koala-kissing Aussies swinging their big knives around.”

  Holly seemed to shrink at Ilja’s barking; the dynamic between the two flipping out of combat; she glanced at Larsa to hear what the third member of their team had to say.

  “He’s right, loath I am to admit it, we've only got a few hours before the sun comes up, and it'll take us too long to get anywhere else without the vehicle.”

  Larsa paused to look at her partners, Holly starting to turn white as a sheet, while Ilja had a relatively confident and smug smirk donning his face.

  “With how open things are around here, any of the more intelligent monsters will have made their way to take shelter on and around Ayers Rock. We were lucky to have conserved as much energy as we have in our battles. Even if a more formidable foe than the worm is wandering around over there, we should have the capability to take it on.”

  Larsa concluded by simply pivoting and walking confidently toward Uluru, her two teammates following behind her, with dread and light enthusiasm, respectively.

  If only they knew what awaited them, they would have realized the smarter course of action was to turn right back around.