Una showed no reaction at all. Though the two boys looked wary, they were too bewildered to notice anything. Penny's little hand went to the short gun at her thigh, but Charlotte almost instinctively spun around and fired, blasting apart something round and plump.
After the round thing exploded, it spewed out a disgusting slurry that corroded the ground until it sizzled and smoked.
Una cried out despite herself, "A Poisonous Human Head!"
The two boys were startled as well. Each raised his two-handed sword before him and assumed an attacking stance.
Charlotte took a look. The thing did resemble a human head, covered in tiny tubes. It could probably spray the poison inside its body outward. Whether the protective battle aura of a Low-Order Transcendent could withstand that highly toxic fluid was hard to say.
Penny held up her torch, walked over, set it on the ground, and lit the monster on fire.
Only then did Una remember what they had been taught at the academy: when encountering a monster like a Poisonous Human Head, they had to burn it, because it contained tiny spores that, if scattered, would parasitize nearby living creatures. A faint flush rose to her face as she said softly, "Penny, you're more meticulous than I am."
The two boys also recalled what they had learned in class, and fear appeared on their faces only after the fact.
Charlotte had no time to care about these youngsters. A prompt appeared before his eyes: 1/26942.
Charlotte hesitated for a moment, expanded his Insight, and fired again, killing a small monster lurking one hundred and fifty paces away on the spot. Sure enough, the number changed to 2/26942.
He could not help cursing under his breath. "How many am I supposed to kill?"
"I didn't bring enough