Chapter 103: For now

Why was he doing this? Nero pondered the question for a brief moment. Gathering everyone had started out feeling like a good idea. It even paid off, when the size of their group drove away small animals, such as the martens. But the situation quickly devolved.

Now he was doing it because it was good experience. The increased burden did not daunt him, nor did the thought of the increased difficulty. He just wanted to use this current situation to derive as much experience as he could, and improve as fast as possible.

"I'll give you all five minutes to decide amongst yourselves," Nero said to the onlookers. "After that, if you have not come to a decision, then we will be moving on by ourselves."

Then Nero turned to his own group, and pulled Charles to the side.

"How come you stopped attacking the snakes?" he asked straightforwardly. He did not sound interrogatory as he questioned him, nor was he looking at Charles critically. It was as if he was just asking a general question.

"In the beginning I did attack, but my explosions weren't doing a lot of damage to them," he explained. "Once a majority of the snakes were revealed, I stopped to conserve my aether in case the situation changed. Although my ability is useful, it also consumes a lot of aether. I cannot keep using it for long."

"I recall you only caused three explosions," Nero commented. "If we were in a critical situation, about how many more of those could you pull off?"

Ordinarily, this was a very invasive question. But since they were in a team together, bound to face potentially dangerous situations, this was one of the few situations where it made sense to ask such questions.

"Eight explosions is my maximum," he said with a tightness in his tone that Nero ignored.

"Do you have any idea what Henry was doing?"

So far, I can't say that it's anything special, but that's because everyone is just starting out. But it's better to make mistakes now and learn from them, than make them later and die from them."

Although he was smiling as he said the last part, as there was no need to intimidate Taylor, it gave her chills nonetheless.

"Umm, does that mean we'll be spending the night together?" she asked, her voice becoming quieter and quieter as she said each word.

"If everyone agrees to follow my orders, most definitely. I'll try to finish our own mission today, so we can do the rest tomorrow morning and make our way back. But either way, we'll have to spend the night here."

Taylor only nodded, but as soon as Nero turned around she did a small fist pump, her gaze fixed on Nero's broad back. Who knew she would enjoy getting drafted so much?

Nero waited until Henry came back, having discovered a flowing stream nearby, before he turned to the group once more.

"What's it going to be?" he asked, setting his spear beside him like a walking stick. But even though his voice had returned to normal, the intensity of his figure remained. No one had the guts to accuse him of blackmail anymore, or for their failures.

"Will you... really help everyone complete their mission?" one of the recruits asked hesitantly.

"I won't do anyones mission for them. But I'll escort everyone to the location of their missions. If you still can't complete it, then that'll be on you."

The recruits looked at each other. No matter what, they didn't want to fail their first mission, and so, albeit reluctantly, everyone agreed to listen to Nero's orders. At least, that is what they claimed, for now.