"Ewen, you wewe awesome as usual. You took cawe of that boaw, in what like a minute, right? *Sigh We wewen't so lucky. It's all Jake's fault…"
White Raven crew was having dinner in the Beast Sanctuary. There were huge chunks of pork roasting over a couple of campfires. The pieces roasted before the current ones were already served to the members.
The group was discussing its mission's highlights while enjoying a delicious meal and root beers. They drank root beer instead of potion-like ranked ales because they wanted to keep their heads straight in the middle of the forest.
"Listen here, you little sh*it. It was you who bolted towards the wild pork as soon as you got a glimpse of it. You'd be seriously injured if not dead if it wasn't for me or Ana.
Not only do you not thank us, but you also want to blame your mistakes on us? Steve, let's beat this guy's ass up."
Ramy tried to pin the blame on his team almost letting the F-Rank beast evolve into a full-blown menace on Jake. But Ramy's bullshit was too much for the tank. Thus, he proposed to Steve that he help him beat the team's sound knight.
"Oh, Jakey, you got that wong. I'm and will always be thankful to Ana. She has helped me a lot in this mission. It was a cewtain tank in ouw squad that didn't offew me suppowt when it was needed when I fiwst launched my attack.
We would have been done with ouw hunt sooner if it wasn't fow that small instance of uncoopewativeness."
Jake's face turned red in anger when he heard Ramy's blatant lies. He felt that the guy was becoming more and more like Eren in the art of bullshittery after following the latter's footsteps. However, unlike Eren's manipulative style, the sound knight's talk was aggravating to listen to.
Jake was going to get up from his seated position on the ground and grab Ramy up by the collar. But Eren spoke up before he had a chance to act on his intentions:
Jake, don't get your balls busted over Ramy's talks. I was looking at all your battles from my position. I must say, I'm impressed. The progress you have made over the past few months is exceptional.
Ramy, I hope you don't need me to tell you that you started with a reckless move and jeopardized the safety of your squad."
Eren said until here and then paused to observe Ramy's expression. The guy seemed guilty after being called out for his mistakes. His earlier instance of blaming Jake must have been his way to lighten the mood. The butcher thought to himself and continued:
"But give credits when credits are due. You bounced back from your mistake pretty well. And handled that about-to-evolve boar excellently.
Naturally, your element has a huge advantage over the boars. But the elemental spells the rankers use are a part of their individualities. So their strengths and weaknesses are carried by the rankers themselves. And so are the credits when they get efficiently used by them."
Eren looked over at Becky and spoke up:
"Becky, you did well."
The butcher concluded his comment on the team mage in just four words. Becky was infuriated in her mind after she heard Eren's concise response.
She knew he was doing this on purpose. Almost everyone in the team appreciated her AoE stacking, which she displayed splendidly in the mission. Except for the team's shadow leader himself.
"Steve, the stunt you pulled back then has cost us a sizable chunk of Merps. The appropriate amount of cut will have to be taken from your share of the mission rewards."
'I fu*cking knew it. Eren would even ask hookers for their money for sleeping with them.'
Steved sighed and nodded at Eren's decision. It's not like he had much of a choice anyway. But he heard the guy talk more about him:
Regardless of what we do with the damaged tusks, you handled the task with the proper amount of bravery and intelligence. As I said before, a berserker needn't be mindless when entering the berserk state.
As for the question you asked me. If you want to form a beast contract with Earth Suidae, I'd say go ahead. The beast is a good match for someone like you who is a berserker and a user of the earth element.
And if you want to borrow Merps to get the beast contract spell, hehe! You know whom to ask?"
Eren said and wolfed down another piece of pork chop. The whole team was now accustomed to the butcher's appetite, so they only paid attention to his words and not his actions while he was speaking to them.
'I'd rather commit a robbery, get the thing I want, and get punished for it than to ask you for another loan.'
Steve snorted after thinking like that. At least the chances of him escaping the consequences of the robbery were slim, but not zero. But Eren's loans were a debt trap.
Eren understood what Steve was thinking and told him that the loan amount would incur zero interest. After all, the spell was meant to power both the team's berserker and the whole team by extension.
White Raven's team members were all shocked when Eren let go of his claims of interest. Since all these months they had known him, this was one of the rare few times the butcher had shown them a slight bit of leniency.
Steve was put in a daze by Eren's offer. He was shaken up hard by Becky who then whispered in his ears that this might probably be Eren's last form of monetary help towards his team. So he has to take the butcher up on his offer.
Steve agreed to Eren's help immediately. the latter verbally marched forward after concluding on the berserker's issue:
"Speaking of spells. Jakey, your Hydro Whips spell is working so much better for you than I had expected. You need to keep on practising the spell until you can get absolute control over the whips.
Bel and Ana are effective in terms of their non-combat roles. But you guys need to work on developing your combat potential.
Anywho! You need to take up more missions like these in the coming days. I'll be gone for a few days. So rake in as many Merps as you can. We are going to need them in the future."
Eren said that after having his last pork chop for the day. He was content with the amount of food he had and his team's battle results so far.
Now it was time to take care of some of his pending tasks.
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AN: A lighthearted chapter before we plunge into some serious stuff. I'm trying to up the release rate. But a few personal chores that have popped up unannounced are preventing me from having the time to do so.. Let's see if we can pick up speed in the coming weekend.