Listening to Theo's assessment, the group suddenly gave another thought to their own performance.
When Alea realized that she had been looking at her skill wrong, she suddenly thought of something and ran to the woods with her sword. She apologized to Theo for suddenly leaving, but she just needed to test her inspiration as soon as possible before she forgot about it.
Theo shrugged, letting her do whatever she wanted.
Phyrill and Laust had finished looking at each other as if they just understood what both of them wanted to do. Like Alea, they walked to the woods together.
Ellen waved her hand while shouting something vulgar but was shot down by Phyrill right after.
Sihan didn't say anything and returned to his tent to pick up his armor while Ellen changed her seat to the empty space next to Theo.
Theo ignored her and thought about what he could do to get stronger. In the end, he returned to his own tent and grabbed all the skill cards he got. Due to Alea, he had gotten 3 E Rank Skill and 15 F Rank Skills, making him wonder whether he should proceed in leveling up his Elemental Shield or not.
After a while, the group returned to rest because they needed to continue their leveling tomorrow. And Alea also needed to finish her shift first since she couldn't let Theo do it alone.
Unfortunately for them, the peace didn't last for long. A series of explosions resounded in the area.
Ellen and the others quickly opened their eyes and came out of the tents.
Alea and Theo furrowed their eyebrows and turned around, looking in the direction where the explosion came from.
"A fight?" Theo glanced at Alea.
"Probably. This was not a rare occurrence when you camped long enough in this world. I'm afraid the battles are near us."
"Is that so?" Theo thought for a moment and turned around, walking to their camp.
"What are you planning to do?" Alea frowned.
"Return to our camp. I won't do anything to help them." Theo shook his head. "I will just ask Phyrill to scout the area to make sure nothing goes wrong."
"…" Alea didn't know what to say because she could see Theo was serious.
"If you don't like my decision, you're free to do something. But the moment you become useless, then this mission is as good as lost."
"What if you are in their position? No, what if we're in that situation again, Theo? The one where we almost died together. In that situation, we hoped there would be someone to save us, right?"
"In that case, I will die. I realized I was too immature back then when I still hoped for my master to come." Theo shrugged. "This is why I'm planning ahead."
Without waiting for her reply, he already sat down on the ground, acting as if nothing happened.
On the other hand, Alea was lost in thought.
Theo turned around and looked at Phyrill, asking him to scout the area while the others prepared for anything that might come their way.
Suddenly, six people climbed the hill and found them.
The front was a young man that seemed to be the same age as Sihan, while the one behind him was a purple-haired female.
In that instant, Alea realized and couldn't help but utter her surprise out loud. "Students?"
"Please help us!" The male shouted. His clothes were covered by blood.
They seemed to have undergone a hard battle earlier, especially with how dirty they were and the amount of blood on their bodies and clothes.
The four behind them were two males and two females. And as expected, they were another group that became the qualifiers for the third stage. All of them looked exhausted and wanted to collapse at the moment.
When they found Alea in their group, a smile appeared on their faces. Alea furrowed her eyebrows when she saw their expressions, but she thought they might be desperate, so she didn't mention anything.
Theo also observed their condition without a change of expression.
"Are you alright? What happened?" Alea quickly came to them and asked with a worried expression.
"We were ambushed by a group of monsters when we were about to sleep," said the male while panting. "Please, please help us. I'm Lex, another group from the school that challenges the competition. If we knew it would end this way, we wouldn't have gone to this area and quickly retired from the competition."
The male was shaking while the others looked down with a sad expression.
"Please… Please save us. We will return to Art Beats Castle tomorrow… Just for tonight."
Alea was unsure what to say because of what Theo said earlier. As expected, Alea's personality, which had been ingrained since she was young, wouldn't disappear in an instant just from Theo's words. She clenched her teeth and looked at Theo with a begging expression. "Theo."
Theo furrowed his eyebrows as his expression had turned extremely cold. He looked away and said, "It's everybody's choice."
Alea clenched her teeth and looked at the others, asking for their opinions.
Laust turned his head away while Ellen made a smile, showing her approval. Sihan was silent but still nodded his head while Phyrill shrugged, abstained from the vote. This meant three were in favor while one abstained and the other two rejected the idea.
"I understand. Come in first. We will bring you some water. Please tell us what happened."
"Ye-yes."
While they were taken care of, Theo met Phyrill a bit farther away from their location, talking about this incident.
"So, what do you want me to do, Theo? I can assassinate them if you want, you know." Phyrill smiled.
Theo shook his head and asked, "Can you check their trail and learn anything from it, including their camp and the monsters that attacked them? I can cover your night shift today."
"Hmm?" Phyrill squinted his eyes and said, "Nah, you don't need to. I should be able to check the distance to their camp and the monsters. However, I won't go to their camp if it's too far, okay?"
"That's fine. Thank you." Theo nodded.
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If we reach 2000 powerstones, I will start uploading 3 chapters/day + 1 Bonus Chapter every 300 PS after the milestone.
