As soon as the morning came, Clovis’s group packed up and hurried into the woods. After all, they had to cross the woods before climbing over a small hill to reach their destination.
As expected, the beasts were much stronger than what they had faced so far. It took them three times longer to cross just a hundred meters compared to the previous location.
Clovis and Jay had no trouble dealing with them. Kanaria also had some experience, but it was a bit hard for Melody and Ragna.
Melody might have experienced much stronger beasts when they went around the hot spring, but she didn’t get to fight the beasts during the expedition Hana formed. She could only see the data from the cameras attached to Clovis and the others.
Hence, it took her some time to get used to it.
Still, the biggest problem was actually Ragna.
He barely managed to block a Tier 1 beast and got pushed back by a Tier 2 beast. Even without a shield, Jay wouldn’t lose against such a beast.
At the same time, it was understandable since Ragna didn’t learn the Star Method or wear the special items from Clovis.
Hence, they slowed down their pace even more to create another pattern that wouldn’t be much of a burden to Ragna. If Ragna couldn’t perform perfectly, Jay and Clovis would be worried after all.
After several hours, the group decided to rest for a while before climbing the hill not far from them.
"Hu…" Clovis let out a long sigh, adjusting the plan in his mind.
"Here you go." Ragna suddenly came to him with a wry smile. His hand was holding a water bottle.
"Thanks." Clovis grabbed the bottle with a nod before seeing Ragna walk away to give the rest of the group some water.
That was when Clovis actually found another fact from Ragna.
’Hmm… Even though he is staying in the back, the intensity shouldn’t be that much different. The fact that he can still do all this means he’s got some stamina there.’ Clovis fell silent. ’Now that I think about it, whenever we stop, Ragna always comes to me, either offering me something or asking me if he could do something.’
Clovis realized that Ragna was doing his best to help the group.
’What an evil guy…’ Clovis scratched the back of his head. ’When he wanted to join us, he told us that he would do everything like chores, maintenance, or even planning. If we get too comfortable about this, we will be in trouble if Ragna decides to leave us in the future.
’Yeah. What if we get too lazy and think of the chores being too much and giving us more stress? What if the maintenance work ends up becoming burdensome when it’s something we’re supposed to do? I will always do the planning though, so I’ll just listen to their inputs. The last thing is not gonna happen, but yeah… The group who picks him up will get used to the comfort of being ’served’ all the time.
When that service is gone…’ Clovis pinched the bridge of his nose. It seemed that he had underestimated Ragna a little bit.
…
Subterranean World.
A group of explorers were running away from beasts. They were the same group that expelled Ragna previously.
"Run away!" The captain shouted.
"Why are there monsters in this area? Isn’t this place supposed to be clean?" Another member shouted.
The guardian they hired to replace Ragna couldn’t help but say, "What? This area is always filled with monsters. Why are you assuming this place is clean?"
"But Ragna told us we wouldn’t encounter any beasts if we crossed this place back then!"
"Back then? When? Are you talking about after the monster outbreak?" The guardian gritted his teeth.
*Roar!*
Before he could reply, a black bear appeared in front of them, trying to stop the entire group.
The captain sped up and swung his broad sword. The black bear smacked the sword to push it away.
However, after one strike, he heard something from his sword.
*Crack!*
"What?" The captain looked at his sword, seeing the blade crack. In addition, his weapon felt like it wasn’t as sharp as usual. "What is happening to my weapon?"
The guardian’s eyebrows twitched. "What the hell are you doing? Did you maintain your weapon at all?"
"But Ragna…" The captain suddenly fell silent, noticing something.
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"What are we going to do now, Captain?!" Another member shouted while looking around.
"We…" The captain couldn’t answer that question. Ragna was the one who always pointed in the direction they needed to go, telling them the safe place whenever they had to run away.
"What the hell are you doing? Do you come all the way here without a single plan?" The guardian roared in disbelief. He didn’t expect that these veteran explorers couldn’t do a single thing.
The captain was completely speechless. He had realized something. His group used to do all the things by themselves, but when Ragna appeared, they stopped doing them.
After all, they could simply give all the boring tasks to Ragna. The result was also amazing.
Because of Ragna’s weakness, they would feel superior and not think much about giving him tasks.
They had developed a bad habit before realizing it. It became normal to them to think, ’Ragna is there. Ragna will do it. They can just leave it to Ragna.’
However, they had become too comfortable to think, ’What if Ragna isn’t there?’
The captain felt the maintenance and even the planning become too much of a chore. He didn’t know how much time he had to develop the habit again.
He never thought that his group would receive this much damage just by expelling Ragna.
The fact that he never thought about it baffled him.
"We… We need to go to the safe area first. For now, just keep moving forward." The captain gave an order, but his voice was filled with hesitation. He didn’t know whether it was a safe place or not.
This setback just made him even angrier at Ragna.
"Kh…" He was gnashing his teeth while wondering what he needed to do.