“Hey Alex!”

“Hello?” As soon as I walked away from Yadav and Eric, I was approached by a couple. I recognised the two as being members of my new team; the man was the new leader. He was a rather short man with a messy beard. He looked young but his hair was already showing signs of falling off.

“I am Jacob, and this is Elisa. Nice to meet you. It is the first time we are talking, and I wanted to get to know each other for tomorrow. Will you be hunting with us?” He asked politely.

I sized up the couple carefully. It was clear from the woman’s posture that these two were more than just strangers. She was rather pretty, wearing a plain V neck top that highlighted her assets. According to Earth’s standards, she was only average looking but, in the tower, she could be considered as one of the prettiest girls.

There were no make-up, cream, facewash and other cosmetic products in the tower that was suitable to humans. It forced many people to display their real face and natural beauty, redefining the standards of beauty.

“I don’t think I will be joining you for now. As you already know, I like to hunt on my own.” I replied politely.

“That’s fine. I won’t force you to join us. Are you going out to hunt tonight then?”

“Oh? You know about that?” Our eyes met and I could see a faint trace of jealousy lingering in his dark pupils. “Were you in one of the teams that went out two nights ago then?”

Jacob lowered his gaze embarrassedly. “Sadly yes. We did not make it very far before a whole pack of coyotes assaulted us. And in the dark, with only a few people holding the torches, fighting these beasts was not easy.”

Elisa lightly rubbed Jacob’s shoulder, as if to comfort him. “We simply believe that we can achieve greater things by working together. You know the correct method to hunt the monsters at night, but you also know that it is impossible for you to fully cover the canyon. Since we are on the same team, why don’t you tell us the method? We simply do not want to have to compete with the other teams during the day. We promise not to interfere and fight with you over the monsters.”

I felt no ill will coming from these two. They simply came to me to give it a try; they were not really expecting me to agree. Truth be told, I did not mind explaining to them that they could ask their fairy for many more things than just collecting information about the tower and the other hunters. However, I also did not want to see an increase in number of people in the canyon at night. There was always a risk that the entrance to the tombs would be discovered and I needed to minimise it.

After a brief moment of awkward silence, I lightly sighed. “I do not mind telling you, but I doubt you will be able to use the same method as I did. Also, hunting at night is now much more dangerous and less profitable. The reason I was collecting so many points at first was because the monsters were unaware of our presence. Now that they have their guards up, even at night, it is not easy to sneak into their nest and kill them in their sleep.”

“It does not matter. Maybe we can still profit from it. Aren’t you earning more than us anyway? We earn about thirty points per day while you earned more than eighty today.”

“Fine. All you have to do is ask your fairy to guide you.”

“Ask the fairy to guide us?” They asked with a confused expression.

“Yes. Drop the torches and trust your fairies to guide you in the dark. They have magical eyes that allow them to see in the dark. All you have to do is trust your fairy. Naturally, this will come at a price. I doubt that your fairy will do it for free which is why I said that it is not profitable at all.”

“You can use your fairy like that? Mmm, I never thought of doing so.”

“The rules are pretty loose but at the end of the day, it is up to the fairy to accept your request.”

“We won’t try to hunt tonight but we may do so in the near future.”

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I shrugged my shoulders. “Up to you but you will be at your own risk. Just be careful with the child and don’t abuse her.”

“Who do you take us for? We will look after the members of ours team.”

I smiled as my eyes landed on the little girl of our team. She was laughing happily with the women of the team. She was only seven years old and looked extremely cute despite her dishevelled appearance. The women had no trouble looking after her, some even considering her as their own daughter.

‘She looks healthy. At the very least, I did not see her cough so far.’

…

Nothing much changed for me. I remained distant and focused on exploring the tombs. Every night, I would sneak out and dive deeper into the tombs. The only interactions I had with the others took place during the daily monster rush when everyone gathered.

Surprisingly, the proposed plan worked perfectly and had little to no opposition. The adults grumbled but all cooperated to weaken the monsters and protect the children. As a result, in just three days, all the children had already come out of debt. With hundreds of points being funnelled toward them, it was only a matter of time before it happened. The results were already showing themselves as the children were now all wearing enchanted defensive equipment.

While I remained at the top of the daily ranking from hunting the giant rats in the tombs, the children were never far behind. I could not believe how well the discussed plan was working. It was all thanks to the innocence of the children.

The adults could have very well applied the same strategy among themselves, allowing a single hunter to clear his debt and quickly purchase enchanted equipment. But this never happened and was never even discussed for the simple reason that adults did not trust each other. It was only thanks to the innocent children that they all agreed to work together.

It was a winning situation for everyone. The children were being protected by the adults while the adults were getting their hands on enchanted weapons.

When discussing with Jacob and Elisa, I learned that a tactful agreement was made between the different teams. They essentially shared the canyon among themselves. Eric’s team and Xia Shiyu’s team both hunted exclusively in the ogres’ territory. Now that they had so many teammates, it was easier to explore this dangerous zone. The three healers of the villages also formed part of these two groups.

Yadav’s team and Jacob’s team then took the slime’s zone for themselves while the remaining two teams split the coyotes’ zone in two. Everyone was happy to minimise the conflict between teams.

As for me, the harvest of these past few days has not been bad either. I entered the Commoner’s section of the tombs after solving increasingly complex puzzles. The puzzle had a similar concept to the Slave’s section; I needed to move a particular dyed block out of a maze. However, this time, I was only able to move the dyed block.

The obstacles could only be moved if I pressed onto certain pressure tiles in the room. There were large stone bricks scattered around the room; their size coincidentally matched that of the pressure tiles. Each pressure tile would move certain obstacles and the key was to use the stone bricks and activate the correct combination of pressure tiles before moving the dyed block and repeating the process until it reached the exit.

Nevertheless, after many attempts at solving each puzzle, I managed to reach the end of the Commoner’s section. During these last three days, I killed a total of 68 giant rats. There were a lot more rodents in the Commoner’s section which meant that I was getting close to the main nest.

The Commoners buried in the tombs were also much wealthier than the slaves and workers. Levi and I now both had about three thousand Nazlock Coins to spend. But neither of us was reckless to blow this fortune on small trinkets. We were both saving for the truly valuable treasures of the merchant tower.

Aside from the Nazlock Coins, Levi and I also collected three more protection amulets. I kept two and attached them directly to my belt. They were very useful items to have. Upon sensing a powerful magical attack aimed at its owner, the protection amulet would activate itself and protect its owner. The major benefit of protection amulets was that compared to enchantments, they did not need to absorb the mana of their owner to activate but they could only be used once.

We also brought back a few miscellaneous items that survived the passage of time and exchanged them all for more Nazlock Coins at the merchant tower.

It was now the fourth night since the rearrangement of the teams. I was lying on my bed, calmly staring at the ceiling. There was a small stack of mana stones at my side and I was unconsciously playing with these circular stones.

‘I am close to the threshold. I can feel it. Just one or two more mana stones and I will reach the threshold. My mana pool can store 19.9 times the cost of the Heal spell. I have about ten mana stones left but now is not the time to use them. If I do so, my skill seed will sprout and will start growing. It is a good thing, but the process will take at least a day and I have to fight the monster rush tomorrow.’

‘Right. There is no harm in waiting for a day. It is not as if I am in a hurry of reaching the threshold. For now, let’s focus on exploring the tombs.’

“Levi. Any fairies flying around me?”

Levi magically appeared at my side. He looked unpleased. “There are two fairies and this time, they are very persistent; they are refusing to leave.”

“Two fairies? Interesting. It seems that people are really curious about how I still manage to obtain so many points. Is there any way of getting rid of these fairies?”