FFF-Tier System, SSS-Rank Wife

The battle only took a few moments from when the saintess advanced to when the monster's massive gorilla-like head slid off its neck and fell to the ground.

A minute, maybe two tops, with most of that time spent on the Saintess either approaching the monster or avoiding its attacks to get a read of its movements before executing her own counter.

It didn't feel like just a single minute, not with how jam-packed it was with action, small upsets, and an overwhelming amount of power contained in each of the attacks. And especially not when the outcome of this battle would directly decide my own fate, making the whole thing stretch out in my eyes.

For an objective observer, though, a single minute was all that it took… and that's already by rounding up to a whole number!

'Well, I shouldn't be surprised, seeing how she managed to kill it with just a single strike,' I thought, replaying that moment in my memory.

The saintess jumping up to compensate for the several meters of height difference between herself and the chimera. The single, elegant motion of her hand as she brought her sword across the monster's neck, her blade pushing through the monster's thick fur, flesh, and bones with seemingly no resistance whatsoever.

'So that's the power of an SSS-Rank system, huh?' I thought, clenching my fists while trying not to let my emotions appear on my face.

That kind of power… was what this world robbed from me.

First, by granting me that FFF-Rank system, then by having it bug out and then sealing the deal when the panther's attack brought it to its decisive end.

And in the end, here I was, systemless, fate-less and, well, pretty much hopeless.

'It's not like it's the first time something like this happened to you, is it?' I thought to myself, trying to fight with the emotion that made me clench my fists so hard my nails nearly cut through the skin of my palms. 'You've seen countless instaounce stars, professional gamers, mytubers and other representatives of success.'

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, relaxing as I then slowly breathed it out.

'The only difference between them back then and the saintess now is how I'm watching her deeds directly rather than from behind a screen.'

I slowly pulled my eyes open, right in time to see the saintess waving at me to get my attention. And as soon as she saw me look her way, her gesture changed to now call me closer.

'Here goes nothing,' I thought as I gathered all the courage I could find in my mortal heart and approached the open plain wrecked by the short combat from just before.

There was hardly any vegetation there beyond just some grasses, leaving no spot for anything or anyone to hide away from the eyes of the now-dead guardian.

"This entire area looks like a damn perfect perimeter…" I muttered as I approached, looking all around, constantly worried about the possibility of another monster showing up.

Still, with the saintess right ahead, was there really any need for me to worry?

Between her and the corpse of the guardian beast of the jungle, what kind of monster would ever dare to approach?

Once again, I took a deep breath.

'That's just your own logic, your own sense of reason,' I thought, doing my utmost to keep myself calm, 'who knows if the same logic applies to this world?'

By the time I got close enough to see the details of what the Saintess was doing, she already got her arms elbow-deep into the bloody insides of the fallen monster. Then, with a single pull, she wrestled her arms free from the monster's insides while splattering a considerable amount of the stinky, thick, dark-green blood all over the place.

"This here," the saintess spoke while raising her hand and showcasing a single, egg-sized crystal, "is a monster's core. And selling those is the main reason why anyone even bothers fighting with the monsters in the first place," she explained, only to shake her hand for a bit, just fast enough to cast most of the monster's blood off her skin.

She then turned away from the carcass, her sword already back in its scabbard by her side while her eyes moved ahead, in the same direction we've moved for the last two days.

Initially, I wanted to do the same right away, but before I could even make a step, my eyes drifted over to the monster's corpse.

"Are you not going to harvest any other of its parts?" I asked, my eyes jumping from the monster's fur to its hooves and even peeking towards the hole in its chest the saintess created to extract the core, only to then land right between its two, oxen-like legs.

'If Earth's myths have any bearings here, then wouldn't its balls be a potent alchemy material?' I thought, seeing at least a dozen different ways in which the remains of this monster could be put to great use.

And if I, a complete crafting amateur, could see so many potential uses, then the people actually living in this world, in this reality, would have a few hundred of those, wouldn't they?

"This beast is…" the saintess hesitated for a bit, "well, it's a bit of a special case. As for why…"

Rather than answering, the saintess merely shook her head before increasing her pace just a bit enough to force me to get on the move myself and follow her, lest I was willing to go forth on my own.

Only about a minute later, she suddenly came to a halt and even reached out with her hand to stop me from advancing by my lonesome.

"Look," she called out while using her other hand to point right back the way we came.

I slowly turned my head, not exactly sure what to even expect from the place we just left…

Only to see it.

The ground literally opening up to swallow the remains of the jungle's guardian only to then close over the monster's corpse and then sink back down, like a raw, skeletal jaw of hardened earth and stone breaking free from the surface of the land only to swallow its prey and then fall right back underground, into its natural habitat.

Then, as if there weren't enough surprises for the day, the ground where the skeletal jaws appeared suddenly bubbled up and then cracked open, releasing a fresh, altered version of the chimera the Saintess slayed, this time a quadruped with a pair of raven-black wings on its back and a set of dangerous-looking horns at the top of its head.

"The jungle always stays protected," the saintess spoke, offering a word of explanation before I could even ask for it. "That's why we didn't linger. First, it's not to anger the spirit of the jungle by taking more than my reward for the fight. And secondly," she shook her head before shrugging her shoulders as if to dismiss the topic, "I wasn't really in the mood to fight that thing, not again."

I stared at the girl for a moment, weighing pros and cons in my mind before raising my eyes back to the freshly-made chimera… and then hanging my head low.

"I understand, thanks," I said, only to then turn around, leaving the horror of that forest behind me as I got myself ready to brave through whatever wilderness lay on the outside of the jungle.

Yet, right the moment I did so, I realized two… no, three important things.

The open plain that I took to be just an element of the jungle guardian area actually turned out to be a huge meadow situated on the jungle's edge.

Secondly, there was now a visible thread of a road out in the distance, just close enough for the two of us to comfortably reach it before the end of the day and…

And then there was the finale, the one thing I was so damn desperate to see, even if it was but a tiny shadow rather far down the road I just saw.

It was but a small shadow, a picture too distant for me to properly take a look. Yet, even from all that distance out, I could tell.

It was a city!