A Salamander, but Mighty

Hello! I have a question for you: would you say that a novel in which the party is overwhelmingly female is an harem even if there might not be a romantic interest towards the main character? I'm thinking if I have to add the [Harem] tag or not...

POV: Tamara

The rodamuse was walking calmly inside the dungeon; the light produced by the dungeon itself to mark the different day and night cycle of that sort of fold between time and space was strong, it must have been around midday. The little rat-like monster was drinking from one of the many puddles of light – Tamara discovered that they were drinkable and tasted exactly like water – that dotted the floor of the entire dungeon like little ponds.

It was at that moment that the salmadrer fell on it from a hiding place in which she had positioned herself to ambush passing monsters. She was not hungry and her condition had gone from [Satisfied] to [Well Fed] just a few hours earlier; what she was doing wasn't a hunt for food, it was a hunt for experience points.

She had recovered some of her health points and mana – reaching 19/70 health points and 4/40 mana points – clearly, it was not enough to fight safely and she would have been better off staying hidden and resting for at least two days, but that meant slowing down her level progression, and the monsters in the dungeon seemed strong enough to be a problem if they had the chance to surprise her like she was doing.

So it wasn't like Tamara was giving in to her new monster instincts...

Those were…

Umm…

Preemptive strikes! She had to defend herself, and defense was the best attack!

It was not the first Rodamuse that she had killed that day and therefore she had learned how to strike: she attacked it by grabbing it by the neck and used her paws and the weight of her body to block any hope of reacting, the hairy little animal made a squeak of terror realizing that it was its end, Tamara had learned how to kill them more efficiently, but she was nowhere close to inflicting painless deaths.

The small claws of the hairy monster scratched desperately on the smooth scaly skin of the other without causing any damage, warm blood ended up in Tamara's mouth and one the snout in the time it took her prey to die.

Tamara continued to bite the raw flesh of the creature, occasionally swallowing a bit of fur, she only let go when she was able to regain control of herself and realize that any potential danger had been neutralized.

SYSTEM: DING! You went up [1] level! [+2] Traits points to place.

The message from the System informing her that she had achieved the desired result certainly didn't help her feel better about what she was doing... she got up early and from that moment on she went on a literal monster hunt to be able to achieve as much experience as quickly as possible. There was no reason why Tamara wanted to reach the ninth level so fast, it was just a question of safety that moved her: the stronger she became, the easier it would be for her to defend herself, not only from other monsters, but also from adventurers… ESPECIALLY from adventurers.

She hadn't had much chance to inspect any adventurers aside from Luchael, and she judged the leporan to be an inadequate sample for accurately estimating the potential of the average adventurer.

Tamara let go of the rodamuse's body, the smell of still fresh blood entered her nostrils forcefully.

Survive, for now I survive, then I question the humanity of my actions, she thought, squinting.

Until that moment she had refused to eat, she didn't need it and in all honesty she still felt disgusted by the taste of raw monster meat, mostly she tried not to think about it, since she couldn't do anything to change it... She wasn't just incapable of making a fire, she simply didn't even have the hands to make a try.

Her mind slipped away, Tamara saw herself sitting at the table busy playing with her tablet. In the air there was an inviting scent of food cooked by the expert hands of her mother, who from the position in which she was sitting could only see from behind. Those moments were so precious to her now that she knew they wouldn't return that she found herself wishing she had put down her tablet to focus on her family instead of her video game.

I want to go home... she thought to himself, who knows if my parents and my brother have already given me a funeral... does time pass the same between Tala and Earth? Maybe months have already passed since I died and they all moved on...

The noise of some humanoid beings approaching forced her out of her vicious circle of thoughts; Tamara turned her head towards the direction of the noises in the hope of seeing Luchael's long hare ears and large pink eyes, a hope she decided to follow from a safer position a moment later: she dropped back into the cove in the stone from the which had launched her attack on the rodamuse, huddling in the cold embrace of the earth and stone and taking advantage of the fact that the color of her skin helped her hide in the shadows.

It was a group of adventurers that she had never seen before, and thinking about it better, it was the first time that Tamara had seen a group of adventurers with her own eyes. Needless to say, she didn't miss the opportunity to focus her attention on them and learn about their capabilities.

[Human – Lv: 10]

[Croconoid – Lv: 9]

[Beastkin – Lv: 9]

They were a varied group of three different humanoids, the first was clearly a human male, tall and with dark hair, the second to Tamara seemed nothing more than an anthropomorphic crocodile wearing metal armor and wielding an ax with two hands, impossible for her to say whether it was male or female. The last member of the group of adventurers looked like she came out of a manga: ears and tail were those of a dog and she seemed to have light brown fur peeking out from the sleeves of her dress. She was - probably - the only female in the group, and Tamara had no idea why beastkins and leporans were two distinct races given that they both had in common being humanoid with some animal traits.

“Another dead monster,” the croconoid muttered in annoyance. There was a feminine inflection in the tone of voice, that however wasn't enough for Tamara, "and like the others, it hasn't been eaten."

The beastkin approached the monster's body and inspected it with a thoughtful expression on her face, “it's still warm, it wasn't killed long ago. The signs are the same ones we've already seen on other monsters,” the girl waved her tail nervously as she pointed to the rodamuse's throat area with a finger, “something small, it doesn't have enough strength to quickly kill a monster this level and size.”

“And it doesn't eat them either,” the human observed.

Tamara pressed her long abdomen on the floor beneath her, as if trying to become one with the dungeon.

“Perhaps it kills for fun,” the beastkin said, “strange as it is, ascended monsters and adventurers might do so, but these signs rule out both possibilities.”

“So a normal monster who kills for fun?” The croconoid asked.

“Or to level up…” The human added, “as if preparing for future dangers.”

“This is absurd! Normal monsters capable of thinking like this only exist in old stories!” The beastkin exclaimed, standing up and taking a step away from the rodamuse's body.

“Be that as it may, something strange is happening in Sleepy Swamp,” the human shrugged, “first the sighting of a salmadrer in here, now monsters killed and left to rot without even taking a bite out of them…”

“Could it be… Nightmare Tyrant?”

The hypothesis just proposed by the croconoid caused silence to fall between the three adventurers; Tamara had heard about that bizarre prophecy while she was locked in Luchael's backpack, and apparently there were people who actually believed it, and were on the lookout for monsters who might behave suspiciously from the norm.

In short, monsters like her…

If I don't level up I'll be easy prey, if I level up I'll have a lot more people chasing me, Tamara mentally cursed herself and the gods who had put her in this situation, this isn't a problem, it's a dilemma!

“Wait a minute…” the beastkin sniffed the air and raised her head, making her ears move and for a few moments also focused her amber eyes on the hiding place in which Tamara was hiding.

Oh no!

Tamara waited until the last second, she didn't want to fight the adventurers but when the beastkin approached and changed her facial expression, it was clear that it was now too late to hope for the best: at the same moment in which the adventuress exclaimed to give the alarm to her companions, Tamara came out of her hiding place and bit the beastkin on the ankle in an attempt to incapacitate her before she could escape.

“Another salmadrer!” The beastkin screamed as she tried to kick Tamara, but only managed to graze her.

“No, I don't think it's another one. Look at it,” the human said, holding his warhammer, “it's full of healing wounds and it's level nine, I think it could be the exact same specimen seen by Bogrim and the others.”

“Whether it's the same or not, it's better to get rid of it!” The croconoid declared, raising his(?) ax and approaching menacingly and with such rapid strides that he(?) surprised Tamara.

The croconoid's ax whistled through the air resonating in the tunnels of the dungeon, Tamara had just enough time to lower her head to feel the sharp blade rubbing against her scales, their levels were similar, but she was still alone against three opponents that were able to collaborate and change strategies quickly in combat.

Tamara ran past, slipping almost eel-like between the legs of the giant croconoid in an attempt to escape into one of the tunnels. The first part of the plan went well, the second... a little less well: in an attempt to distance herself from the clash Tamara had lowered her guard enough for the human to swing a hammer blow towards her head.

“Aak!!” Tamara groaned, only managing to move away from an otherwise potentially lethal blow enough to avoid having her skull shattered. “What have I ever done to you to deserve this??” She complained in anger and frustration, perhaps forgetting that they couldn't understand her, perhaps she didn't even care about that.

“Hold it still!” The croconoid exclaimed.

“The bastard bit me!”

The croconoid was about to bring his(?) ax down on her and so was the human, the beastkin was closing the distance and soon the salmadrer would be surrounded from every direction. Probably throwing herself between someone's legs again to escape a blow wouldn't have worked since she had already tried the trick.

Tamara had to think quickly: she had little mana and would have liked to save it for the monsters, but at that moment, the three adventurers were the monsters. She concentrated the mana in her acid gland and took aim at the croconoid's axe. She leapt towards the ax in what must have looked like an attempted suicide to outside eyes, but when she opened her mouth and used [Acid Spit], pouring a jet of acid onto the wooden handle of the axe, melting it and passing where it would otherwise have been struck, her intentions were made clear.

“What the…” The beastkin said, surprised.

Tamara landed on all fours, beyond the opening that she made with the croconoid, then ran away without even looking behind her, little paws, fast on the cold and damp floor of the dungeon.

“It's running away!” Tamara heard someone say from behind her.

“We have to chase it! That monster will become a danger if it continues to live!” The beastkin's voice added.

The other words became too confused with the echoes of the dungeon for Tamara to understand, and she didn't think to stop and focus her ear to listen; she had managed to escape and they weren't chasing her, that was all she needed at that moment.

Of course, Tamara had survived the encounter, but there was no doubt that from then on the rumor about the bizarre salmadrer of Sleepy Swamp would spread throughout the surrounding lands and from then on as increasingly vague and probably even exaggerated rumors from bards looking for some captivating story.

But this is nothing that delving deeper in the dungeon couldn’t have solved, right? Right?