“Unexpected guests?” Ralph mumbled, glancing around the desert. “I do not see anyone.”
“Explain it to them, Karl,” Alnea said, as he walked towards the beast’s body to retrieve his Golden Yearning. He could have just made it fly back directly into his hands, but using the dagger had already exposed one of the few means he had reserved to use in emergencies. Exposing any more of his secrets would be dangerous. Especially considering the strange behaviour of the beasts…
“…Alnea…”
“…I know…”
“…Although it might not help, I think I should tell you…”
“…It is exactly because we do not see anyone that we need to be careful,” Karl said, glancing around warily. “How long has it been since we left the city? An hour? And we encounter five peak phase Oren Beasts running straight at us. Let us not mention what the five beats were doing together… Do you not think that we took down the beasts too easily?”
“That’s because of our teamwork. Teamwork. Do you understand?”
“…Just randomly throwing your attacks at the beasts is not called teamwork. It is called wasting Spirit Power.”
“Mind your words, Onet,” Norren said with a frown. “I agree that we might have a few flaws, but that does not give someone like you, who did not even bother making a move, the right to belittle our efforts.”
“…When did you…”
“…Yesterday, when you were recovering your Spirit Power...”
“…There is no need to be so aggressive, Norren,” Ralph said, waving his hands with a smile to diffuse the tension in the air. “I am sure he did not mean anything.”
“…I meant every word that I said,” Karl said, sounding uncharacteristically firm, and determined. “The Captain and the girls already had the situation under control. You just had to support them in killing the Oren Beasts. But no, you took it upon yourselves to give the beasts a finishing blow. And you attacked all five—four Oren Beasts all at once, bombarding the same beasts over and over again, paying no heed to their state, or your own consumption of Spirit Power.
“What were you trying to do? Competing with each other in who could kill the Oren Beasts first? Is this how you have been exploring the desert in the past month? Just blindly attacking your enemies, and hope that you will win? It is a good thing that I did not come with you, or I would not even have known how I died.”
“…We have not tried it yet…”
“…I know. I was just telling you about it, in case you need it…”
“…Alright…”
“…That’s a bit too much, Karl.”
“Is it? Do you see that mound over there? That’s not a mound. It is the body of the Greedy Sand Mole that the Captain dealt with, showing us how a team should act. That is also the place where you all said that you would act as a team. All of you. And this is what you do?”
“…This is different. That Greedy Sand Mole… it was just an advanced phase beast. This time, we were facing five peak phase Oren Beasts.”
“So? Last time I checked, you are also five people. And that is not counting the four people who were already doing a good job in containing the beasts. All you had to do was pick one beast. One. If you trusted each other enough, like the leader and the girls trusted each other, and attacked only one Oren Beast each, then you would not have wasted so much Spirit Power. Neither would have made such a loud disturbance. Now, we are just sitting duck, waiting for our enemies…”
“It is enough, Karl,” Alnea said, returning after retrieving his dagger, while glaring at the girls, who had just kept on watching the show. “Let me handle the rest.”
“…Captain, something is not right.”
“I know,” Alnea said, nodding to reassure Karl. “For now, just keep an eye out for anything suspicious. And do not stay too far away from the team.”
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“…I would not stay away even if you asked me to.”
“…As for the rest of you,” Alnea said, turning towards the five men, all with varying degrees of flush on their faces. “I think what Karl was trying to say was that you should use your Spirit Power sparingly. Especially when we do not know what our situation is. The beasts… they were clearly agitated by something, behaving more feral than they should. They did not even bother using their Innate Abilities. With the condition they were in, of course, taking them down would feel so easy.
“Besides, have you not found how strange our current situation is? Encountering five peak phase Oren Beasts so close to the city… Not to mention that with the delays we have faced, other teams should have caught up with us by now. But do you see any Wanderer around us? It cannot be that none of the teams are rushing in our direction, right? You tell me, how often did you encounter other Wanderers in the desert in the past month?”
“…Pretty often,” Ralph said, when no one else was willing to answer. Not because they were being stubborn, or resisting his words, but because they were ashamed, and finally understood the gravity of the situation. “Even if we did not encounter them, we were able to see them in the distance…”
“So? What is the difference now? Why are there no Wanderers around us? Could it be that fewer Wanderers chose to come out today?”
“…I… We do not know…”
“…Although there were only four or five teams registering for the Black Desert Trials back when we were in the Blood Hall, that is because the hall could only accommodate so many Wanderers at once. I am sure that at least thirty to fifty teams should have registered for the Black Desert Trials today. And that is the number only from the Sixth Blood Hall. There are sixty such Blood Halls in the city. Even if we count Blood Halls in just the Northern District, there are still fifteen of them. How many Wanderers should be coming out today… you should be able to make a guess.”
“…Are they hiding?” Fran said in a low voice.
“Hiding… Are they not afraid of bringing shame to their clan?” Norren said, glancing around with furrowed brows.
“…If all of us die here, who will know what they did?” Karl said. “Instead of thinking about how shameful it would be for others, it would be better if you think about how we should deal with our enemies.”
“…There is nothing to think about,” Fran said. “We will kill all those who come.”
“…Leave a few for me. Maybe some of them have the answers to my questions.”
“No worries. As long as I am here, nothing will happen to anyone. I still have countless more Arcanas that I have not shown you yet. Just casually using one of them should be enough to deal with all our enemies…”
“…These three suicidal freaks,” Karl mumbled. “If you want to die, then die on your own. Do not drag everyone with you.”
“…Maybe things are not as serious as you think they are,” Ralph comforted, before turning towards Alnea. “Since you can recognise that there are enemies around us, you should also have a way to deal with them, right?”
“…To be honest, I do not have any way to deal with them either,” Alnea said, shrugging his shoulders. “I do not know what means they have used, but our enemies have hidden themselves from us. Right now, there is only two things we can do. Either continue forward, as if nothing has happened. Or go back and accept the punishment for failing the trial.”
“…Should we go back then?” Ralph suggested, with Karl quickly following up behind him.
“That sounds like a good idea.”
“…What do the three of you think?”
“…I do not like the idea of backing away from challenges,” Norren grumbled. “But if that is what you decide…”
“…It’s no use,” Fran said. “If our enemies have truly surrounded us, they will never left us go back.”
“…We are not too far from the city,” Karl mumbled.
“The moment they made their move, it meant that they were confident that they can keep us in the desert.”
“…What about you Aren? What do you think?”
“…I think, we should quickly come to a decision, and get moving.”
“What about the three of you?”
“Your decision is my decision,” Vestia said, putting back the bottle she had been drinking from back into her bag, before winking at him.
“Hey, what were you drinking?”
“…Just some water,” Vestia said. “I was feeling a little thirsty.”
“…I am feeling a little thirsty too.”
“…This is my special water.”
“Tsk. Stingy.”
“Though if Alnea asked for it…”
“No need,” Alnea said, shaking his head. Her special water was not something he could afford. “You have not answered my question, Lia.”
“…Should you not ask that question to yourself?” Cecilia said, glancing at his hands, which kept moving towards the hilt of his sword. “You cannot stop the itch, can you?”
“…I do not understand what you are talking about,” Alnea said. “Just tell me what you think we should do?”
“You want my opinion? Fine. Let’s go, catch those bastards hiding in the sands, and then beat them up until their own families will refuse to recognise them.”
“…Forget it,” Alnea said, shaking his head, before turning towards Yuri. “And you?”
“…There never was any option to begin with, was there?” Yuri said, smiling at him with a mix of pride, and amusement. “In our current situation, we can only either keep moving forward and look for our chances, or just give up and die.”
“…Indeed,” Alnea said after a few moments of silence, bursting into a laugh, before turning around to face the depths of the black desert. “There never was any option to begin with.”