To say I was shocked by this sudden revelation would be an understatement. They were doing something extremely similar to what I had secretly wanted to do! Sure, their reason was completely different, but it was an escape!

Mel shook me out of my contemplation. "Doing it this way means that our mana should be more than a match for whatever the dungeon throws at us, even if we won't have such excellent equipment there. You and Beatrice are from a small town without a dungeon right? I'm sure you can tell the difference in the quality of this gear. It has to be made with mana judging by the durability and strength its offering. Zell likely won't see gear of this quality for years, until the dungeon starts maturing with tier six creatures. We need to be ready for that crucial step to make sure the town survives."

We continued on in silence for a bit. They had pretty much bared some pretty intense secrets there so it was a lot to process.

After a bit of time I eventually let them know my thoughts on the matter.

"That's truly inspiring of you guys. I don't know how you managed to come up with such a huge plan all on your own." I smiled a bit wistfully at both of them. "You know me, I'm truly only here because this was my chance to escape the small town. I'm not sure why this is such a big secret for you guys, but you did tell me this in confidence. I won't betray that, your secret is safe even from Tom and Bea, I promise."

Melania just smiled at me while Emilia stared at the ground as we walked. We were eventually able to get back to some friendly banter as we walked, and we discussed what weapons we would bring next.

Despite us ending our day without running through as many goblins as we normally did, since we took such an easy stroll back we made it back just shortly before the bell tolled, although we were still first back.

The lady knight instructor acknowledged us as we came in. She congratulated us on the forethought to practice an individual extermination while we still had safety in numbers. She said it showed great promise in squires to be to take initiative take that.

It made us all look a bit guilty towards each other considering our earlier thoughts and conversations.

—----

The rest of our month as a three man squad continued pretty much as planned. We rotated through various weapons as we fought each pack of goblins as a solo group. Em still kept the swiftest clear time with her halberd. Something big and sweeping like that and she had months upon months of experience with it at this point was something hard to overcome.

I did end up giving her a bit of a run for her money though. It seemed my best clear time was with a large two-handed claymore. I was certainly not as fancy with it as Em was with her halberd, but I was easily cleaving through eight to nine goblins at a time with it. That helped make up for the extra finesse that Emilia had. And even though we were both tier four I was not tired in the slightest like she was after blazing through her packs of goblins.

Something I made sure to point out and tease her about.

Mel surprised me, and likely Em too, with her second most preferred weapon. She ended up being most proficient with a set of greaves and metal back gauntlets. Its seems that after a bow she was secretly a martial arts expert in disguise. Watching her dance through the swarm of goblins was practically a literal dance. She was all too common perfectly placing strikes into vitals of the goblins. Heads, necks and hearts were all frequently caved in.

I decided it had to be something that ran in the family. Yeah our net results were all the same, about fifty dead goblins per pack. But the level of finesse that Em was able to procure with her halberd and Mel with her dancing through the battle was leaps and bounds more awe inspiring than me just walking forward and swinging my sword left and right over and over.

Eventually we reached our final day as a three man squad and we pushed harder than ever. We each got three packs of goblins that day and we had the opportunity for one person to get a fourth pack but rather than argue over who got it we decided to just call it a day and head back.

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As we did I drifted our conversation back to their plans for their hometown after they leave.

"So when are you guys going to head out then? As soon as you hit tier five?" I was trying to see if they had thought that far ahead of how it would work for them.

"Hmm?" Mel looked at me a bit confused at the question. "Regardless if we hit tier five or not we're just going to decline the squire initiation during the ceremony. At that point the order will give you a little bit of money depending on your ranking and contribution to the dungeon clearing. Naturally we're trying for as much as we can get to make life easier going back home. We plan to get at least as much as needed to pay our way for a lift back home."

"Wait, is it really that simple? There's no kind of repercussions for essentially wasting their time?" I was amazed once again at how well the sisters had this all planned out.

Em looked at me like I was crazy. "Did you come all the way here without knowing how the whole system worked? Really?"

I merely shrugged. "Like I said, this was our only option to grow. I never looked into it to see what the condition was for leaving, what was I going to go back to after all?"

Mel smiled and eased my concerns. "Really there's no repercussions. The order will thank you and reward you for your service. This is the best way for them to recruit really." She glanced at her sister as she continued, "And don't mind Emilia so much, she didn't know either. I did all the research myself."

The sisters had a brief elbow fight as we all laughed and continued back.

It was a good end to our three man dive I felt, and the sisters had given me plenty to think about.

—----

Now that I knew there was some kind of end of year reward ceremony, when we did our weekly obstacle course I made sure to give it my all. Sure I was already completing the course, but if someone else completed it faster I didn't want to get bumped down the ranks or something. I truly had no idea what would happen at that point after all. As I got back in line a lot faster than I normally would, I was getting a few raised eyebrows from my friends. I just smiled and waved them off.

Bella was openly scowling at me though. I couldn't figure out why though, she already knew I was completing the obstacle course. I had to just shrug it off and continue on my way.

As we still got multiple runs at it I feel like I did manage to complete it faster and faster, even if it was only a few seconds here and there. I felt like the knights had to be keeping track someway and I needed to maintain that edge for the reward ceremony.

During my downtime I was still actively practicing my mana detection, though I made sure to avoid sending my radar over to the knight instructor. Sure the course is covered by the guy instead of the lady, but I did not want a repeat of the stare she had given me by him. It was such a scary sound to hear amongst the sea of all the other little dings I was surrounded by.

After dinner with my friends Bella asked me to stay back again.

I guess I was going to be getting to the bottom of why she was scowling at me.

She crossed her arms and stared me down silently when we were alone. She managed to keep the silence until I could not take it anymore.

"What? You might as well come out and say it rather than sit there brooding." I gave a soft chuckle as I tried to ease the tension she was giving off.

She quirked an eyebrow at that. "Fine. Tell me the truth, are you giving up now?" She asked rather bluntly.

Quietly I panicked. Did she somehow get wind of the sisters talk I had with them? I certainly didn't spill the beans, did she get one of them to speak somehow? They seemed like they wanted no one to know or find out so I just didn't see how this was possible.

I had to buy some time. "What? What do you mean? Giving up on what?" I tried to ask while sounding completely clueless as to what she was talking about.

She was back to scowling at me. "The obstacle course Will! I want no pity from you, or whatever it is you're doing. So stop!"

I was completely thrown by this accusation of all things. I was extremely relieved though, nothing got leaked about the sisters' plans.

Taking a calming breath I had no choice but to look at Bella incredulously since I had absolutely no idea honestly what she was on about now. How was she always able to catch me by surprise in these conversations?

"Bella, please, I have no idea what you're talking about. I completed the obstacle course." I even gesticulated wildly with my hands for emphasis on the point.

"Don't give me that Will! You keep coming back early from your course runs. Are you falling off intentionally to lose your ranking spot? What's going on? Trust me when I say you're doing no one any favors and just hurting yourself in the long run." As she continued to talk at me she lost most of the heat in her voice and was actually showing concern for the subject matter.

I laughed, I couldn't help it. This time it was her misunderstanding instead of me. This was fantastic.

This did not improve her mood though and she went right back to scowling.

I raised my hands in surrender. "Bella please, this is just a misunderstanding. I am completing the course. I am just completing the course faster than I used to." I laughed again, hoping she would relax a little bit. "Listen I was just going through the motions on the course since I was able to complete it. However I recently learned that there's a ceremony at the end of the year where I can get a little bit of reward for my ranking, so I'm just giving it my all now. That's it."

I laughed one more time. Bella always took these conversations somewhere unexpected.