"Oi. Where are you going? We should go there!" Erwin pointed to the left.
"No. We’ll go to the right!" Jay pointed at the small settlements on their right. It was only a few small buildings, but Jay needed to check it out.
"Haven’t you seen that there are a lot of people clearing this wasteland? If we want to kill more beasts, we should go a bit deeper."
"We should check the safe place first and create checkpoints that we can use to secure our road."
"We can worry about that later. If we get a lot of essence today, we can pressure the other two groups!" Erwin started gritting his teeth, annoyed because Jay didn’t listen to him.
"And what? You are just making them work harder." Jay let out a long sigh, trying to calm down.
When they were about to continue, they suddenly heard roars coming from the distance.
"!!!" Jay and Erwin turned their heads at the same time. Both of them had the same thought.
"There are 15 beasts coming." Jay squinted his eyes.
"We should use this to determine whose words we shall follow for the rest of the day." Erwin suggested.
"Fine by me." Jay harrumphed.
Their rivalry wasn’t similar to what Jay and Clovis had in the past. After all, from the start, Clovis had been determined as the captain.
Even if there was a rivalry, Jay would still listen to Clovis. However, Erwin was different. Erwin was aiming for the second seat in their group, while Jay tried to show why he was the vice captain. That was why they were clashing with each other.
Both of them immediately turned their bikes around and drove forward.
Surprisingly, they stopped at the same time and leaped off their bikes when they reached a certain distance from the beasts.
Jay waved his saber with all his strength.
The beasts tried to stop him, but the blade completely overpowered them and cleaved them horizontally. Three of them ended up dying in an instant.
Meanwhile, Erwin slipped past the beasts. His right hand shot out a small device between the two beasts. After that, a wire was shot out to left and right, puncturing their bodies. The same applied to his left hand, capturing yet another two beasts.
Then, Erwin pulled the two wires toward each other, causing the beasts to move toward him. He enveloped all of them with his sharp wires and sliced them with a single wave of his hand.
He smirked as if showing Jay that he could kill four at the same time while he was only three.
However, that was when Jay used his beast soul, increasing his speed. He suddenly arrived in front of two beasts and sliced them, resulting in him killing a total of five. This was an indirect reply to Erwin.
Erwin extended his wires toward more beasts, killing them. At the same time, Jay was using everything he had to ensure his victory in this match.
Both of them became even more monstrous than the beasts themselves.
The beasts instinctively realized that they were nothing but prey in front of these guys.
However, the result came ten seconds after that.
Jay chopped the last neck while Erwin’s wires were already wrapping around the beast’s body, slicing it into pieces a fraction of a second after Jay.
"!!!" Erwin gritted his teeth.
With a smug smile on his face, Jay stated, "It seems the victor has been decided."
"You were only 0.01 seconds faster than me."
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"Says the loser. Once a loser, always a loser." Jay snorted. "Now you’re going to follow my order."
"We’ll have another competition to see who will lead tomorrow. Whoever gets the most money will win today. You can only get essence from the beasts you kill. If there’s a beast soul, it won’t be counted." Erwin bit his lips.
"Fine. I’ll beat you a total of 14 times." Jay harrumphed.
"Hmph." Erwin looked away while gathering the essence. "Just remember that you shouldn’t cheat by ordering me not to kill any beasts."
"Clovis has told us to contribute equally." Jay walked away.
Jay and Erwin somehow settled their problems on their own, even though this wouldn’t be the last time they would argue with each other.
Meanwhile, Ragna and Kanaria were actually having a hard time.
"Ragna. There are a lot of beasts coming from our right!" Kanaria shouted.
"I got it." Ragna nodded and moved to the right. However, the beasts that he was supposed to stop ended up breaking their defense. Two of them followed Ragna, attacking him from behind.
"Wait. You can still wait for twenty seconds…" Kanaria bit her lips and started shooting all her bullets at the beasts.
The beasts continued advancing at high speed. Two of them went down after numerous bullets hitting their heads, but the rest still closed in.
Kanaria was using her rifle this time since they didn’t have any trees or buildings where she could get a height advantage to see the whole battlefield.
But as a result, three beasts ended up coming toward her.
"!!!" Ragna panicked and turned around. However, the two beasts behind him pounced on him.
"Tsk!" Ragna clicked his tongue. His shield blocked one of them while his spear thrust another.
Still, his momentum was completely stopped. As a result, even if he managed to defeat these two beasts, he couldn’t go back to Kanaria since the beasts from the right would arrive.
This was the first time Ragna let the beasts behind him. Normally, Melody would be there to give the micro-adjustment on his task. At the same time, Kanaria was unable to give the perfect order to let Ragna function perfectly.
Kanaria kept shooting, killing another beast. However, the last two beasts were already so close. The one on the left pounced on her while the one on the right swept its paw from the side.
Kanaria lowered her stance and let the beast jump over her. But before it passed her, Kanaria pushed the beast to the side so that the other beast would hit him instead.
Her plan worked. She immediately shot the body. Unfortunately, the bullet didn’t pierce through the beast’s body, so the other one chose this time to move away.
Kanaria stopped firing for a second and kicked the beast’s body down to clear her view. After that, he shot the last beast several times, ultimately killing it.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t catch a breath as she had to support Ragna right away.