A day later

Two caravans moved slowly through the forest as the sun began to set. The soft orange light was falling between the tall trees, creating long stretches of shadows.

At the front of the vehicles, instead of horses, two large moose-like beasts pulled the caravan. Their bodies looked strong and heavy, and their wide antlers stretched out like branches.

Inside one of the caravans, the newly advanced hunters were talking about the mission they were about to begin.

"I’ve been thinking, wouldn’t it be better if we made someone lead the group..." Krishna, one of the swordsmen, suggested to everyone.

"umm! if yo wan-"

Soren was about to agree when Daniel suggested shaking his head.

"Hh! No need for that, don’t you think?"

"Yeah! That would be too formal. There is nothing to worry about in the mission... it is just a newly spawned dungeon..."

Calyra said, remembering the briefing they had heard from the Templar. After they had taken the vow of secrecy, the Templar had told them many things about the dungeons.

And, the very first thing he mentioned was how easy it is for the Church of the Eternal Dawn to clear a newly spawned dungeon on the first try. And he gave two reasons for it.

The first being the unintelligence of the monsters. Being at tier I, the newly spawned monsters don’t have much intelligence, nor do they have a strong instinct. All they know is to attack without considering.

The monsters still haven’t evolved enough to obtain the ability to recognize the strengths of others. They viewed everything as prey to them. This simple pattern makes them easy to manipulate and kill without any extra effort.

The second reason is a bit of a mystery that even the church hasn’t been able to fully explain, and it is that a newly spawned dungeon can’t have both. It can only have either a large number of weak monsters or a small number of large monsters.

The dungeon boss not being that intelligent makes the icing on top of the cake. And that’s why, with a bit of preparation and caution, they had been able to easily win most of the fight.

Unlike what the Templar had thought, the talk brought an entirely different result. Instead of boosting their moral it made them overconfident in their ability. Somewhere that wasn’t wrong either, as they consider themselves the best of the best, after all, they had received the teaching from the academy.

With an inflated ego, they had begun comparing themselves with the highly trained Inquisitors.

"Yeah! Monsters will be at the first tier without any experience in fighting, with no intelligence... haha! If I’m being honest, I’m looking at this more as a field trip than a mission... don’t you all agree?" Nyron said, being smug and all.

"Sounds about right to me!" Calyra said, laughing.

"Still... I think it would be better. What do you think, Michael..." Krishna asked, looking at him.

’Huh! What I think is to shut up, you all, and let me sleep...’

Instead of letting his thoughts out, he looked at Adam and muttered.

"Adam would be a good candidate... his mind magic would help in handling the information and all. With a pendent protecting him, he could be there in the battle as well."

Neither agreeing nor disagreeing, Michael gave a brief explanation about his opinion.

Adam got perplexed at being suddenly suggested as the group’s leader.

"Me!? Are you sure?"

"I don’t see any problem," Vaidya said, nodding her head.

"Me too."

"No matter the difficulty, a leader will be a good thing," Dirham added.

The others were the top of their batch, but when even the best of them suggested making a leader, the others quickly agreed, and soon the group formed their leader.

"If you say so." Having no problem with it, Adam agreed with a smile on his face.

Soon, the conversation turned to their positions in the battle. As everyone had already practiced fighting duels and in teams, it wasn’t difficult for them to come up with the positions that maximized their individual strengths the best.

The talk continued for a while before the caravan suddenly stopped in its tracks.

"We will stop here for some time. The beasts need some rest." The caravanner informed them from the outside.

"While we are at it... We should prepare the dinner as well." He added.

"Okay!?"

Others agreed, and soon everyone went to do their part in preparing the dinner. Some lit the campfire and began putting up the tents for the eventual rest. Cleaning the meat, those who were proficient in cooking began preparing the dishes.

Soon, the feasts were upon them. Tasting the soup, Michael couldn’t help but lick his lips. Looking toward her, he couldn’t help himself from praising her skills.

"Well, I didn’t know you could make such good soup.. well done, Misha."

"Yep!! Top notch. Did you have a skill related to cooking?" Dirham asked.

Before she could reply him Adam added sarcastically.

"You should be a chef, why are you wasting your talents like this.."

"Well..." Pausing, she replied, "...it is the dream of my family for someone to become a hunter and th--"

"Ohh! Chill chill... I was just joking."

Seeing her being all serious, he couldn’t help but correct himself.

"Ahhh!"

She smiled, a bit embarrassed. In a bid to get out of the spotlight, she looked at Adam and asked.

"If you are comfortable... can you tell us your reason?"

"Ohh! Mine?"

Hearing the question, Adam paused for a moment. Going back in his past, he tried finding any particular reason as to why he was a hunter today. Sighing, he looked at the group and shared his side.

"Well, it’s no secret... everyone in my family is a hunter, and so I got in this line."

Reminiscing about her own past, Misha asked back.

"Well... did you always want to be one?"

"Huh! Yes, I think..."

After a pause, he tried coming clean to them.

"No point in hiding it... Well, comparing some of you guys, this might sound trivial, but when... when I was five or six, I don’t know why, but I always wanted to talk to animals and wanted to become a shepherd. I know, weird, but yeah.. that was my dream for a while, if you can call it that."

"Ohhh!! I see where this itch for mind magic comes from."

Dirham added with a smile. Even without others asking, he suddenly began talking about his ambitions.

"When I was a child, there was a teacher who was soooo kind to us... I mean, he would always talk with care, and the way he explained topics was something really great. I wanted to always become like him..."

Pausing, he looked at the sky where the stars had begun to appear and added.

"...then those monsters attacked our village... the chief told him to run away... he was someone who had transferred there, so there wasn’t any family to protect him... if he wanted, he could easily run away..." 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

"...but do you know what he did... he remains there... he said... h-he said to me... don’t be afraid I’m here. And he was. he remained there until the end.."

Seeing his forced smile, everyone was silent when Misha spoke in a sincere tone.

"Well, he would be happy seeing you grow this much."

"Haha! That is right, and this will be my first offering to him..." Dirham said, wiping the tears around his eyes.