I quickly got into a sleeping position and closed my eyes. The tent was rather small, and it was a first come first served situation. There were three other people on my team: Old Wu, Anjali, and Roberto.

I was the first to get into the tent, most likely because I had no intention of socialising. However, it was not so easy to fall asleep when you could overhear the conversation taking place.

‘It is going to be a long night. Chances are, even though we divided ourselves into two groups, none of us are going to be able to sleep because of the noise of the battle.’

A few minutes later, I heard a familiar buzzing noise above my head. I frowned lightly. “Levi?”

“Glad that you have not forgotten about me, human. I have collected some information about your teammates. Would you be interested in learning about them?”

“Oh… You spoke with the other fairies. Not interested.”

Levi lowered his shoulders, disappointed. “Are you sure? Many of them lied earlier about their elements. Maybe they have the intention of backstabbing you.”

“I don’t think so. Besides, I am not paying you anything for redundant information.”

“D*mn… Human. How stingy can you be? I am the only one among my friends who have not received anything. You know I became the laughingstock of the meeting we had earlier?” Levi said angrily.

“What does that have to do with me? I won’t be scammed by you. I know the real value of a point. Others don’t. It is easy to trick them. It is like saying just give me one million in exchange for this. As long as they don’t understand what ‘million’ means, you can easily make a fortune out of them. Fortunately, you fairies know your limits, or should I say, learned your lesson. Putting people in debt is fine but if you push that debt a little bit too far, a war might erupt between our races and both sides would lose.”

I opened my eyes and glanced at the ugly fairy. He seemed defeated. “However, I am not unwilling to pay you if you do a small task for me.”

“Working for you?” Levi became suspicious. He felt that he had severely underestimated this human.

“Yes. If I am not wrong, there should be a few treasures or special items lying around. Maybe not in this room, but definitely in the next one. I know that the fairies do not have the right to take anything from the zeroth floor, but I can. As long as you find these items for me, I won’t mind splitting my harvest with you.”

“Treasures?” Levi blurted out hesitantly.

“Yes. There are going to be a lot more people involved in the next room and we will also spend a lot more time there.”

At that moment, I heard some footsteps outside the tent. The flap was pushed to the side and Roberto stepped in. Our eyes met but I quickly averted my gaze. I sent a meaningful look at Levi before I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

‘It will save me some time if Levi looks for the treasures for me. As a fairy, it is very skilled in scouting missions. Always going against him won’t yield the best results; working together will benefit both of us.’

‘Now, I should get some sleep. At most, I will get one or two hours. The silver wolves rare hunt this early in the night.’

I heard Roberto lay down in one of the nearby beds of leaves. I frowned. ‘He smells. But chances are, I do too. Everyone is covered in sweat and dirt and we did not change our clothes. I cannot wait to go and take a nice shower.’

…

In the middle of the night, I suddenly heard some shouts and howls in the distance. I was still sleepy, but my mind quickly got to work. ‘It has started.’

I heard my teammates shuffling around. Clearly, I was not the only one who was woken up by the sounds of the battle. I felt my wooden staff at my side and slowly got up. It was pointless to try to sleep now but joining the battle immediately was not the right move either.

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We had a plan and it would not be right to completely disregard what my team agreed to do. This was one of the downsides of working in a team; there was no place for selfish people.

I heard two people sitting up. It was Old Wu and Roberto. In our group, only Anjali was still sleeping, undisturbed by the noises. We observed each other in silence.

“Shall we go?” I asked. I was not being benevolent in trying to assist those engaged in the fight. It was just more productive to fight and gather some mana stones than to stay here in the tent.

I heard Old Wu grumble while Roberto did not react to my question.

“Fine. If you guys want to stay here. I would rather go out and help them. I won’t be able to sleep with this cacophony and I won’t be able to afford more armour pieces if I stay in this tent.”

The deliberately mentioned my leather armour to attract the two men’s attention. It was the one advantage I had over them and upon hearing my words, it was easy to imply that I was intending to pull ahead and leave them in the dust.

They did not consider collecting mana stones before and could not transport the monster corpses like Jake who had the Space element. However, now was a golden opportunity for them to earn a good amount of mana stones.

I did not know if they would take the bait. I confidently got up and left the tent. The outside of the tent was brightly lit by the defensive formation. Once activated, the formation would emit a light glow and the intensity of the glow would indicate how many more hits it could take.

In the distance, I noticed five wolves rushing towards Jake and his group. Four more wolves were attacking the formation from another side. The camp was rather large, making it impossible for just four people to cover the entire perimeter.

Three silver wolves’ corpses were already lying on the ground, pierced by Lovin’s arrows. Jake was facing two wolves by himself, using his shield and sword. Marie was distracting another one with her mace while Lovin and James worked together to take care of the last two wolves.

‘Not bad. They should be able to deal with them. The wolves are not that strong and can easily be killed with a few hits. At the end of the day, it is a tutorial, not a death game.’

I turned my attention toward the four silver wolves that have been left alone. Behind me, I heard someone walking out of the tent. I glanced at Roberto holding his spear and shield. Without a word, I pointed at the four silver wolves and headed in their direction.

What followed was a one-sided massacre. Old Wu and Roberto soon joined me and in less than two minutes, we dealt with the wolves. I ended up killing two while the others got one each. We were far more efficient than Jake and his group. Instead of facing the wolves directly, I used the defensive formation.

I stood behind the barrier and whenever the wolves would strike the barrier, I would retaliate with my wooden staff. After a few hits, the silver wolves would whimper in pain and try to retreat. I would then deliver the final blow from behind. The defensive formation was not so easily destroyed; there was no harm in using it. Old Wu quickly adopted my strategy while Roberto preferred to fight the silver wolf directly since he had a shield.

I kept an eye on my two teammates during the battle. Old Wu was rather reserved and clearly unfamiliar with his saber. His attacks were slow but heavy and if it was not for the defensive formation, he would have long been bitten by the silver wolf. On the other hand, Roberto acted with confidence. He did not hesitate to use both his shield and spear as weapons. His timing between blocking and attacking was perfect, to the point that I suspected that he had fought in real life before.

Once the battle was over, I grabbed the corpses of the two silver wolves I killed and put them in a small pile inside the formation. My message was clear: they were my harvest. My teammates did not object and instead copied my actions.

Jake and his group soon dealt with the silver wolves and piled up all the corpses together. Evidently, they acted like a real team and were planning on equally distributing the loot.

“Thank you for your help but you should go back to sleep and wait for your turn. The night is still long.” Jake said with a polite smile.

“Try to sleep with that much noise. I already got a few hours, so I am fine. Don’t worry, I will also be fighting when it is officially my turn to guard this place.” I answer plainly.

“He said it all. Instead of sleeping, I would rather be fighting these wolves.” Roberto commented.

Jake shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, do as you wish. It will be easier to protect this place if we work together.”

A tactful agreement was made between our two groups. It was not my intention to split up, but I would not voluntarily join a disadvantageous situation. As I walked back, I noticed Lovin’s stare and his bitter expression. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to help him.

He has already agreed to Jake’s arrangements. Although he was the one who dealt the killing blow to four silver wolves with his arrows, at the end of the day, because of the equal distribution, he would only receive two silver wolf corpses. Had he been in my group, he would have had obtained all four of them.

‘If I remember correctly, a silver wolf corpse is worth about two mana stones. With the mana stone already present near its brain, a silver wolf is worth three mana stones.’

‘The battle has started which means that the silver wolves should be attacking us at regular intervals. Instead of waiting, I should start dismantling my corpses. This way, I won’t need to pay any additional fees when exchanging them with Stannis.’