175 Teamwork

Four figures darted from the trees, but Thomas was only focused on the two coming straight towards him, a brightly dressed noble with a curved blade and another heavy-set noble with a whip. Thomas barely managed to take out his spear just before the curved sword swung down. The blade bounced off his hardened shafted and knocked him to the ground with the force of the swing. His weapon shook in his hands. Then came the whip, which Thomas blocked with his arm and a bit of life essence.

The other two opponents were commoners: a taller and shorter pair in shabby clothing and heavily worn leather armor. Doevm and Frey were ready to defend themselves, but they weren't ready for the other two opponents to jump clear over them and at Elero, who was still working on undoing her second brace. As the taller commoner's weapons flashed. Elero fumbled out her longsword. The two met and Elero slid back on her single unbraced foot. Her braced leg, she curled up and locked into position.

Then came the shorter commoner, who closed with his two short swords calling her name. Elero rolled under the first sword, but the second dipped into her back and ripped through her flesh. She didn't scream. She just fell, cursing at herself.

Frey transformed his shield into a spiked wall before charged the closest opponent down, the fat noble with tightly fit dragon skin armor, and crushing him into the ground with a which he had transformed into a spiked wall. The noble's muffled groans indicated his surrender. Frey turned to the next targets, the two commoners standing above Elero, and let out a war cry so loud that it made them take a step back.

While their attention was on Frey, Doevm launched throwing knives through the gaps in their armor. They cried out in pain as blood dripped down their wounds but remained standing with a fury in their eyes. They surrounded their bodies in a blue mist, as did the noble standing over Thomas, who slashed his sword downwards.

Thomas rolled out of the way and got to his feet while the noble tugged his sword out of the ground. The noble didn't allow him any time to breath, nor for him to get into a stance. Swing after stab after slash, the unrelenting combination of attacks kept pushing Thomas back, who blocked the blows within inches his vitals. Each strike loosened his grip on his spear and pushed him further from the rest of the group. He shambled over the uneven ground and over the roots. Finally, he couldn't hold onto the spear anymore. A vicious sideswipe knocked it clear out of his hands.

Two figures, the commoners, flew from the camp and collided with the brightly dressed noble just as he raised his sword again. All three slammed into the trees.

'Where is Doevm?' Thomas thought as the three got up, their eyes wide. He took the chance to pick his spear back up.

"Maybe we should go," the taller commoner said as he separated himself from the entanglement.

The shorter commoner jumped back as the brightly-dressed noble shoved his way to his feet: "You don't order me around peasant." Then the noble looked at the three and bit his lip. "But in this instance, we are tactically retreating." He turned away from Elero only to find that Thomas had run behind them and cut off their retreat. He held out the spear directly at the noble. "Charge left!" the noble ordered. He hadn't even taken a step before several throwing knives hit the dirt to the left of them. "Then let's go right!"

Thomas surrounded his legs in life essence and moved before they had even turned around. "Round two?" Thomas said with confidence he did not feel, but as he looked at his comrades, he realized that he did feel a little confident. He increased his speed.

"Where is the fourth?" The noble said right as Doevm flew down from the branches overhead like a demon in the night. He held a dagger to the noble's throat.

"That's the second one down." Doevm said with a smirk. The two commoners jumped away from Doevm - accidentally heading straight for Frey, who bashed them with his shield. Elero grunted as the life essence around her leg and arms soared. The taller commoner held his arms out, but the longsword blasted straight through his guard and hammered him twenty feet back and into a tree, which fell over.

The last standing opponent, the shorter commoner, raised his weapon. His eyes were locked onto Elero, who was still recovering from the swing. She tried to roll but her gears locked up and she halted. Frey rushed forward but the commoner's swords were faster. Faster than the swords, however, was Thomas. He shot out faster than an arrow and stabbed straight through the commoner's forearm.

The commoner screamed as he dropped to a knee. "What…" he said before he found he could no longer control his mouth, nor his body for that matter. His swords dropped from his hands and clattered to the ground.

"That's enough. They are beaten," Mr. Quinn walked out of the camp while dragging the fat noble by his armor. "Give them what you have earned so far."

"But we earned this." The fat noble said, having barely regained consciousness. He held onto his spatial ring as if clutching onto his heart.

"And they are taking it from you, you spoiled little shit," Mr. Quinn added that last part in with an underlying sting in his voice. "I've been listening to you gripe as you hid around me for hours. All the while, I haven't been able to say anything back. You've been putting poor Fang on edge all day." He pointed to Fang, who's head and ears were drooping. He tried to follow behind but he tripped on the tangled roots. Mr. Quinn let out a smile full of anything but joy. "You'll get some rest soon."

Mr. Quinn pulled the spatial ring from the noble's fat finger and tossed it to Doevm, who pulled out quite a few corpses from it. While all of them were small in size, there were a lot. There were thick-shelled turtles, which slammed to the ground. Snakes with multiple heads had ten sets of fangs. Small alligators with multi-colored eyes flopped down. Giant hawks with bloodied feathers and a dozen or so fat fish with growths all over their bodies made up the last of the corpses.

"That group had a total of one thousand points, which they had taken from other teams." Mr. Quinn said. Doevm glanced at him, then to the pile of corpses. "Do you not trust me? There is no way to tell since you can't see their life essence."

Doevm simply went through the corpses. Elero shambled over and tested the strength of each corpse's skin with a knife. Doevm stepped back and observed the process along with everyone else. Mr. Quinn clicked his tongue. "Fine. There may be a way to tell, even after they have died, what level of life essence they were. I'm surprised you know of it. But I swear that there is…"

"All of these are actually worth thousand and five hundred." Elero said. She stood up from the pile and tossed the spatial ring back at the fat noble, who was barely clinging to consciousness. "And since we can't take anything not regarding points, here is this back." She glanced at Mr. Quinn. "I don't know who you are, but you seem to make something out of this by being a shop. I know you can't keep the corpses, but maybe you make commission. You see, I'm not a very trusting person." She narrowed her eyes.

Mr. Quinn sighed. "This year is going to be interesting. That distrust can turn into a curse if you aren't careful. I've had it happen to me too many times." He pointed to the pile of corpses. "Kid, the rest if you don't mind." Elero and Thomas pulled out the rest of the corpses from their spatial rings. "Fang, fetch." Fang walked forward and gently pulled each and every monster's corpse into Mr. Quinn's spatial ring while Mr. Quinn jotted the details of each creature down with a pen and paper. After it was done, he smiled. "Usually, I would say I made a nice profit today. It is too bad I can't keep any of it." He folded the list up and looked at Doevm. "Did you still want to buy the same items?"

Doevm shook his head: "No. I want something different." He took out the menu and pointed to an item worth a thousand and five hundred points, a map of where the rarest creatures of the swamp dwelled. "I want to know where the bobcats are. I'll also take everything else I had previously asked for."

Frey groaned. "Those are nocturnal. Doevm, you can't be serious. Are we really going to go after them without sleeping first?"

"Of course not," Doevm shook his head. "We'll go after frogs in the morning and bobcats in the night."

"But those are rare," Frey insisted. "They try to stay away from humans and are rarely seen. My grandfather…We can search through this entire swamp and, if we're lucky, only find a single one. Won't that take too much time?"

"That's if you don't know what you are doing," Doevm responded. "If you only go by the words of your grandfather, you'll get tunnel vision." He put emphasis on those last words before adding on, "Or do you doubt me?"

"N-no," Frey hesitated. "I know that you have a plan. But my grandfather is-"

"Not here," Doevm cut him off. Something passed between him and Frey, something that even someone as blind as Thomas noticed. When he looked at the two of them, it was as if they were standing further apart than usual. "And fortunately, I know exactly what I am doing." Doevm turned to Mr. Quinn. "I would like to cancel the monster bait. Instead, can I get light crystals?"

"Of course," Mr. Quinn said. "How much were you looking to buy?"

"Twenty."

Mr. Quinn narrowed his eyes. "I can't help in the competition, but I don't like sending people off to their death. What do you plan to do with all of those light crystals if you don't mind me asking?" Doevm simply smiled, causing Mr. Quinn to laugh. "You're a monster, do you know that? This school year is going to be interesting. Take some advice kid, fuck this competition. Just get stronger. The materials and the wealth they may bring you are all negligible when you get deeper into the academy. Just focus on getting as strong as possible so you aren't bulldozed by the competition. Although, there is something much scarier than them." He cursed and muttered, "I really can't keep my mouth shut." He turned over to Fang and whistled.

Two other heads appeared next to Fang's single head as he regained a burst of energy. The Cerberus bounded over to the bones and ripped them into pieces all the while getting slobber all over the camp. After he was done, he trotted back to Mr. Quinn and looked at him expecting to be pet.

"That's some good advice," Doevm said. "But I'm greedy. I want everything I can get."