It’s Friday again, the best day of the week.

How so? What makes me think that? Are there any fewer tasks or some shopping in the city?

Sadly no, with the exception of Sunday, we follow the same day-long regime six days a week. Today, however, Martha has to take me, or us now, into the forest for some extra fun.

I learned to value the dueling practice a bit more after my victory against August two days ago, although I’d still choose real-life experience any day of the week. It’s easier to maneuver against beasts since what they gain in the brawn department is usually deducted from the quality of the brain they work with.

“Can’t we restrict these outings to once every two weeks?” Martha asks.

She’s currently escorting us four to the forest, as she should, for our weekly hunt. She prefers to call it a team-building exercise even though we aren’t a team yet and are just here for the levels.

I treat her question as a rhetorical one. I won, a deal is a deal, period.

“You kids have no mercy on the elderly,” Martha grumbles like a child. “I only get so much free time a week and you’re taking up my entire Friday evening.”

It’s only half the evening and a woman as… aged, to avoid being rude even just in my mind, you never know,... so someone her age shouldn’t act this way. Be the adult here, will you?

“How about double or nothing?” And she has all of our attention with that one simple question.

“State your terms!” Victor as the de facto smartest leads the negotiations on our side.

I haven’t given up on that title yet, my efforts are just on pause.

“We’re here to improve your team play after all, so what do you say we test how well you can work together? The usual goal for a squad on a forest tour is 300 levels worth of monsters till sundown. Should be child’s play, right? If you win we come twice a week, if you fail we’ll drill more in the Fort instead. Are you up for the task?” The old hag asks with a challenging smile.

Bah, 300 level is for a six-man team of kids eleven or older and a full day, what a scam. We might be children, but even we…

“You’re on!” Kayla jumps enthusiastically.

“Easy.” Answers August, aloft as ever.

“I don’t see why not.” Victor agrees.

What? NO!

“Fools!” I shout. “300 is for an experienced six-man team for an entire day. She is trying to scam-”

“I see you agree to the deal. Wonderful.” Martha cuts me off.

“The hell we do!” I retort.

“I heard the majority concur, did you not?”

“Nothing was shaken upon, and I didn't even cast my vote back then!” I’m fuming at the injustice I’m facing.

I can’t believe this… not my Friday evenings!

Martha just shakes her head and walks on without wasting any more breath on the argument.

She’s right. These halfwits failed us.

“Eli, she got us, we lost the moment she had critical information over us. The only thing we can do is win the challenge.” Victor tries to be rational.

“You should’ve used that brain of yours before walking into her trap.” I point a finger at him accusingly and talk with the attitude of a furious parent. "She got you not me, I'm not part of this deal, I worked hard for this, unlike the rest of you."

“You could’ve shared what you knew before the vote” He counters.

“You idiots answered immediately!”

“Great negotiating skills and brilliant teamwork.” August adds, as if he wasn’t in the act first, think later gang.

“Guys, c’mon we should work together. Arguing won’t change a thing.” Kayla tries to appease us.

The only thing she achieves is silence, uneasy, stuffy silence. We all have plenty to say, or at least I sure do, yet finding common ground with these halfwits seems impossible.

"Elyssia, you cannot distance yourself from the team because they made a decision you don't like." Martha adds as we stop our banter. "You share the victories, the failures, and the burden as a team and you all need to grow up to the task. If you want to complain about things being unfair then get in line right behind the slaves, people starving on the streets and people losing their families in a war."

Wise words and I would even take them to heart if only she wasn't the one who caused this only to flee from the responsibility she agreed to when we made that bet. I guess we just have to win now, that's the only way.

"Elyssia, we never specified the frequency of our outings when you won that bet, coming once a week was just me being generous." Martha reads my thoughts again, although it can't be too difficult right now. "You can blame the other or me all you want for how unfair we are or you could do your best to win. Complain all you want, the world is unfair, I did that too after you won the last bet... there shouldn't have been any locusts in the forest in the first place."

I ignore her words, she's fallen to the same level as Bennett on my list of people. How dare the old hag complain when she brought it on herself the last time and now she has to cheat because she's lazy. This is unfair, so fucking unfair and there's nothing I can do to punish her for breaking her promise. Honor and trustworthiness should really mean something, even though one of the first lessons the Fist taught us was that honor is nothing more than a fancy restriction. Losing a duel because you choose honor over your life or waging war like gentlemen up until desperation takes over... Honor is only meant something if there is anything to enforce it. In this case, I have nothing.

We trudge behind the visibly cheerful Martha, the old fox who played us like a fiddle, along the familiar road to the forest I hate with all my being and can’t wait to visit every week. We refuse to speak or even look in the others’ direction, even Kayla which only ever happens when she is asleep.

They just had to ruin it… damn greed.

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It’s… well I wouldn’t say it's been many times: me making this short trip to the forest however the occasions are certainly adding up. So our happy little group makes the journey in record time as all of us, except maybe Martha, try to be rid of the others as soon as possible.

“The rules are simple,” Martha speaks up as we reach the treeline. “you have until sundown to find and kill beasts as a team. Their levels have to add up to-”

“Yes, yes we know.” I say and stomp into the woods, still angry at her.

I don’t really care if the others follow. I could do the 100 levels alone and will do the same this time. Let’s just hope the three of them can pull their weight and get the other 200, simple as that.

“As a team, Elyssia.” Martha calls after me.

Bollocks, even that? Does she have no heart? There’s no way we can work together.

My dislike for old people grows by the day. Martha and Bennett both put in ample work to reinforce my mindset.

“We need to head deeper, the beasts out here are too few and weak.” I instruct the others.

I know I forgot that they too have been allowed out here while I was recuperating after the Courtyard Incident… In the end, I was first and I did win my previous bet, that sounds like enough experience to me.

I keep walking, whether they follow or not is up to them, although I’m not really giving them a choice. As the rule states, we have to work together. I still hear footfalls in my wake so at least they seem to have enough gumption to follow me.

I follow my previous strategy of ‘Search for tracks and find beasts’. A bit primitive, and could be a little more refined, but still it worked the last time.

We keep on walking and walking, all of us keeping our eyes peeled and ears open.

After a lot more than a few minutes Victor breaks the ice. “So, where are we going?” He asks. The smartass.

“Looking for any beasts or tracks obviously.” I try not to sound too snappy, not sure it worked.

“Wha? No, stop. Are you shitting me?” Victor sighs. “Are you telling me we’ve been walking all this time relying on your mole-like mage eyes to spot any tracks for us? Why not let me do it? Or even August? Let’s not even talk about Kayla asking a few small birds to tell us where to find some.” He keeps on ranting rants. “Have you even been thinking? We need a lot and the time is ticking, we only have like… hours!”

“Four and a half hours.” Kayla corrects, earning some stink eye from both of us.

“Point is, you’re responsible for destruction, nothing more, so stop overestimating yourself, Miss Knowsitallbetter.”

Wow. I didn’t expect a tantrum like this from the usually calm and collected Victor.

He’s half right, I could’ve acted less selfish. On the other hand, how am I supposed to know their capabilities? August is mostly a mystery, besides being fast as fuck. Victor is some lightning-type hunter/trapper and Kayla is a beast tamer, obviously.

“Whoa, take a step back okay?” I push him away. “Any of you could’ve stepped forward and taken on the role of tracker. Did you really think I was just strolling around aimlessly?” I defend myself.

Of course, I do. He’s only half right… make it a quarter.

“Fine.” Victor huffs. “Kayla please, could you get us some info on the surroundings?”

“Oh, you can ask her nicely huh?” I murmur.

“Sure.” Kayla ignores my comment with a reserved smile.

She starts whistling with such proficiency that even a wizened farmhand would be ashamed. Her call is soon answered by a plethora of different chirps echoing in the area and some wings fluttering as the feathery scouts depart.

“We should keep moving. I’ll take point with August, Kayla in the middle and Elyssia, you take the back.” Victor quickly sorts out the roles and takes over the tracking duty.

Even if grumpy and grumbling we continue as a team with a goal binding us together. Kayla keeps on communicating with the birds, Vitor searches for any sign of a beast’s passing and August surveys our surroundings.

Oh me? I’m bored and I feel useless. I’d like to believe that me running into those locusts last time was a little more than blind luck and I’m a bit less useless than Victor described me… Nothing has proven me right yet.

He’s not wrong about me having zero Skills and skills to help out with tracking. I’m just not geared towards it. I can, however, help with surveying our surroundings as that’s exactly what Mana Vision is for.

I activate the Skill and the world turns colorful and slightly blurry, as always. Both the range and accuracy are far from top-notch, so I can only hope for our potential stalkers to be of a similar level else their stealthy Skill might just make them completely invisible to me.

The draw on my mana is almost negligible, the mental strain much less so. The eyes aren’t functionally geared to observe this much visual input and my poor little brain, despite me dumping all those points into mental stats, still struggles with it long term.

I won’t admit this out loud and I won’t reduce my efforts either. I’m no dead weight and nor a crybaby, especially not right now.

“Two rabbits to the right not too far and a boar a bit further straight.” Kayla relays the info the birdies brought back.

“Anything more concrete?” August asks.

And I can’t argue with him. We only know general numbers and directions and even those are questionably accurate.

“Sorry, animals don’t have Identity, and birds aren’t the best at concentrating on a task.” She answers timidly.

I can’t fault her. She still found more beasts than any of us and she is genuinely trying. I respect that.

“So rabbit or boar?” Victor asks.

“Boar.” I answer without hesitation. “The rabbits might not even have levels and that direction leads to the outskirts of the forest.”

“Now we’re talking,” He chuckles. “just a little teamwork and we have this.” Victor gets all fired up. “Let’s go and make Martha regret making this bet.”

I’m not sure where this turn in attitude came from. Just minutes ago he treated me like a fool with condescending eyes and now… Where did the enthusiastic team person come from?

I personally prefer the August style, constantly a pain in the ass, irritating but at least consistently so. It’s not that bad when you get used to it and always great fun to start arguments with. He gets pissed easily and then tries to hide it… the best.

We pick up the pace, now that we have a concrete destination. That’s not to say that we lower our guard. Now that we’re moving faster and making more noise, keeping cautious becomes even more important.

***

Lo and behold, it turns out the little feathery scouts were mostly right. There is indeed a boar a few minutes from where we came from. It has a weird horn on its forehead and orangish fur just a little bigger than the one Bennett made me fight, lying in a small clearing and resting under the retreating rays of sunlight passing over the trees.

And another.

And a third one.

I’m not quite sure whether to be positive about the prospect of us progressing quickly with our task or have serious reservations about Kayla’s information-gathering abilities.

Mostly the latter one.

[Boar lvl 26]

[Boar lvl 31]

[Boar lvl 28]

Ah, the good old boars, we should win no problem.

Okay, I take that back, no need to jinx anything, we could still mess this up or another… I don’t know, another five boars could lay in ambush.

Pfff, yeah boars and ambushes…

We obviously noticed them first, or rather August did, so now we have a little planning session.

“Kayla, can you keep one of them busy?” Victor starts as always.

I let him do the planning and the important decision-making for now because it’s not like our lives are on the line with Martha around somewhere.

It’s cool to be the leader and come up with genius plans don't get me wrong, but when any of those plans or decisions backfire, just like glory, a larger share of blame similarly follows.

“I-I don’t know.” Kayla stutters and fiddles. “If they’re too aggressive or have a close bond, it's unlikely. If they get hurt or are frightened maybe and even so I’ll need to allocate most of my attention there. Similarly…”

“Okay, okay, thank you. Just give it your best shot.” Victor cuts off the limitless chatterbox.

Strangely, when she was low-spirited earlier, due to the high tensions, her chatty personality flipped, turning into a quiet and shy girl. Is there no medium setting?

“So, here’s what we’re gonna do…”