Wipe that smile off your face

As the harpies approach Juni, his body glows purple and he speeds up. The first one dives towards him, and he waits until the very last moment to dodge its claws, sliding beneath it and hopping onto its back.

In desperation it starts to fly up and they get high in the air. The second one uses the chance and begins to try to slash him in off the first. But Juni once again waits for the last second and dodges again hoping on the other’s back. The first one gets hit by the slash and begins falling to the ground.

The second one starts to shake him off but he is holding on.

“Holy Nightmare Protection: Partial transformation” His arms begin to turn into a semi-transparent blue liquid substance. “Corrosive shot.”

He flings his arms aiming at the wings of the harpy and droplets of acid slime shoot from his fingers. The sound of sizzling, like someone putting water on a hot pan can be heard, and a faint smoke begins to come from them. The harpy screams in pain as feathers start to fall from their wings and the both of them begin to lose altitude.

Even in this desperate situation it doesn’t stop trying to reach Juni on its back, but Juni grabs the neck and begin leading it in circles, making it glide towards the ground.

He waits until they are almost at the ground and at the very last second, snaps the neck before they crash, ending its suffering.

The first harpy has many broken bones form the fall, put even still dashes towards Juni, attacking him with the claw on its working wing. His legs glow purple and turn into the same liquid substance as his arms. He crouches and his body compresses smaller than ever before. As he lets go, he bounces high and dodges the attack going over it.

He extends his arms, which stretches like rubber and grabs the harpy by the mouth. The slime liquid impedes it to breath. It tries to shake him off, but it can’t properly get a grip and eventually it also drops dead.

Now for me to take out these spiders.

They both rush towards me. They are even bigger than the wolf back in the cave. But I’m not scared anymore. My body feels light, and as I look to both sides, I can see Lafanda, Mimi and Juni fighting. This quick glance gives me even more courage.

(Here they come. Remember the training, don’t prolong the fight and finish it quick!)

The left one attacks with its web, but with my left hand I summon a shield with a blessing. As the web gets stuck to it, I light the shield on fire.

“Holy Dream Blessing: Dawns Flame” The orange and white flame quickly travels down the webs, lighting the spider on fire.

(Now it’s occupied.)

The right one decided to come towards me to attack with its fangs. I put up another shield with my right hand and block its advance.

It begins to try to climb over the shield, but that leaves its underside wide open.

“Darkness Ward, Bed of nails.”

Spikes erupt from the front of the shield, piercing the spider. It shrieks with pain.

As I let the shield disappear it falls on the ground next to me, but it doesn’t have the strength to stand up with its legs anymore.

I take a deep breath and begin to feel that same felling ruining down my spine, like entering a freezing pool of water.

“Partial transformation!”

My right arms turn once again into the Mostrous form from the cave, its muscles stretched and tightened under my skin, and my nails sharpened.

I aim at the area between the back of the head and its big round body and with a clean slash, it stops moving.

The left burning spider is now going towards me in a straight line.

(You probably can’t see through the flames.)

With my left hand I raise my finger. I once again start generating fire but this time I give shape to it turning it into an arrow.

“Dawn Flame, Arrow!”

I bring my finger down, and it shoots from the air like it was fired from a bow, hitting the spider and the same spot I slashed the other.

It creates a small explosion, and orange flames shoot out of the spider eyes as it falls over dead.

I look around, Lafanda, Mimi and Juni are also done.

“This was, AMAZING!” I say loudly.

I can’t contain my excitement anymore.

I was already over the moon during training, but this?

I just took down two monsters with ease. Using magic!!!

This is what an Isekai should be! New friends, slaying monsters and…

“Aki, what do you mean amazing?” Lafanda says with a concerned look on her face.

I look around and they are all staring at me with a grim look.

(Shoot, I probably shouldn't get this excited about this.)

“I mean uh… our teamwork! We took all of them down in a flash.” I say.

“Oh, I see…” Lafanda looks sad.

“Aki, I know you get really excited about blessings and protections, but please wipe that smile off your face. This isn’t training…” Juni says in a cold tone scolding me.

I reach up to my mouth with my left hand. My cheeks are sore from smiling.

Was I like this the entire fight?

Before I can recompose myself, they are already moving the bodies, lining them up, closing their eyes, just like Gora and the rest before.

The looks they gave me made my smile vanish immediately, having them look at me like that is awful.

They finish the preparations and stand next to the corpses.

“C’mon, we’re going to start.” Juni calls me over

(Right, the prayer. Every day after training we would recite it. Always with a straight face. I hate to admit but It reached I point where It became more of a obligation. I just wanted to get over with it so we could go eat.)

“Oh goddess. She, who watches over us all. Please guide these lost souls who have met their ends in suffering. May only dreams find them in their eternal slumber.”

I gaze around me. They all have looks on their faces I have only ever seen before on funerals. To feel this for complete strangers. Stranger that didn’t even have the same human like appearance as us.

(When did I lose all this compassion that they have. Was it when I stopped being a kid? Did I ever have this level of compassion and empathy for others?)

The worst part is that I’m not sad for the one’s dead in front of me. I’m sad because I made my friends sad.

(Am I really needed for this world like Sonala said? Am I really as kind as she said I was?)

As the bodies are enveloped in the orange light and ascend to the sky as dozens of orbs, these thoughts and the faces of my teammates are engraved in my mind.