Our lunch was enjoyable, and we were ready to get back into action. After eating, the four of us rested fully before returning. Trisha and Elly had gotten along very well. With me in the mix, I could casually talk to them.
While Crystal still looked down on them, she was less cold towards them, with her joining in a little in their talks. Crystal, on the other hand, would usually talk to me. So while she may be direct, it wasn't a big deal to me.
We rested for thirty minutes, and it was time to go back in. So, putting out the fire, we went back in. Elly, who was usually nervous, became calm. So, we weren't in danger when we went into the forest.
In the forest, we became quiet, there were many monsters in this forest, and we couldn't afford to be distracted. There weren't as many monsters this time. Think about this I heard a sound. The four of us hearing this, my groupmate froze and began preparing for an upcoming attack.
The footsteps have become louder as they continue to move toward us. Seeing something come out, we readied our magic. With something coming out, we've found some tired students.
Seeing that, we stopped our magic. "Hey! Do you know where the exit is? We are lost!." One of their members said.
"How about a trade?" Crystal, who was usually quiet, spoke up.
"A trade?" A member of their group said, unsure of what to do.
"Give us some of the monsters that you've killed." Crystal said it for a trade. If I didn't know her, I thought she would be robbing someone.
They were angry when they heard that, but they needed to find the exit making sure nothing wrong would happen to them. So finally, with the four of them huddling together, they came up with a decision.
Having to begrudgingly agree with her demand, they gave us five corpses of a rank one monster for directions on how to leave the forest. Finally, they thanked us and left with me, pointing at the path out of the woods.
Getting their corpse, we stored them in our bags. With them fighting the monsters earlier, it's no wonder why we didn't find any monsters.
With the other group leaving, we finally ran into a monster. This was the first second-rank monster we encountered. I haven't fought much since they could deal with the monster themself.
I had a power spike when I finished upgrading one of my organs. My fire had burnt the monster. It wasn't efficient when I killed the monsters. The material I got from them would be either damaged or burnt.
Seeing the monster burnt to a crisp, my teammates looked disappointed by the results. Maybe I should use my sword to kill it. But, I didn't want to lose my earnings because of my magic.
Knowing that second-rank monsters were in the area that we were in, we decided to stay in this area. We wouldn't want to go any further. The chances of encountering stronger monsters were higher as we went in deeper.
Searching for more monsters to kill, we heard noises from multiple monsters. We hid behind a tree, waiting to ambush it, heading in its direction. Instead, three boars were snacking on their prey. All of them were at the first level of the second rank.
"Elly, use your magic and restrain the boar in the middle. Crystal, when Elly restrains the boar, use your magic and deal as much damage to it. Trisha, when that happens, charms one of the boars, and I will finish it with my sword. Then, after killing them, we will gang up on the remaining one." I said it loud enough for only the four of us to hear it.
Giving my orders Elly and Trisha both focused their magic. The unsuspecting boars squealed when it was stuck. Confused by what had happened, Crystal launched a large ice needle piercing the boar's stomach. With how hard the skin was, it wasn't dead but highly injured.
Trisha, who had charmed a boar, made it stand there, doing nothing but stare at Trisha. I ran towards the charmed boar and decapitated it. The boar that was hit by Crystal's magic was nearly dead. Crystal began to summon more ice, finishing off the almost dead boar.
Now it was four against one. It tried to run away because it stood no chance against us. Elly had slowed it down with her magic, and Crystal had made a blunt weapon smacking it on the head. With the boar stunned, we finished it with my sword piercing its head.
We've done a great job ambushing these boars. This was the one fight that would give us the most credit currently. I decided to take a ten-minute break after fighting the boars.
"How are you feeling?" Although I had wanted to ask this earlier to the group, I wasn't a hundred percent sure how they felt. So I just wanted to make small talk.
Crystal was feeling good, but while she didn't show it, I felt her mood getting lighter when we beat them, as she saw how well we did against three second-rank monsters on the first level.
Trisha and Elly felt proud that they helped us with the killing. With everyone happy, we began to go on a hunt again.
Being in the forests for hours, we killed about thirty monsters. Two-thirds of the monsters we killed were in the first rank, while the rest were in the second. Finally, we were starting to get tired, and I decided to go back out of the forest and set a camp.
With the four of us making out of the forest, it was already beginning to turn dark. It was good that we went out early. Otherwise, there was a chance we might get lost. Getting out a rank one monster of a bird, we skinned it and began to eat.
While I would like to have a second-rank monster as a meal, I didn't want to lose more credits than I needed to. Seeing how our group had improved in terms of mentality gave me relief.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢