With the dungeon now cleared, Roy put both the staff and the mana potion inside his backpack. He then walked with his friends toward the now-familiar white portal. As Roy put one foot in, words floated in front of his face.
“Congratulation on your clear. You will be rewarded with 300 red monster gems (tax not included) (Available once you become an official citizen of a territory).”
Roy was pleasantly surprised by the increased reward. Even though he still didn’t understand what the red monster gems were for, it was not bad to have more of them.
After they went through the portal, they teleported back to the dark forest. Thankfully, the Wolf Den’s entrance was in a clearing illuminated by moonlight, so they could see what was happening around them.
Roy looked back at the cave’s mouth before voicing out his thoughts, “I think for the easy difficulty we should have smaller groups. That way we can have more runs.”
Jack looked down in thought before responding, “I could split my group in two. I will lead one half while Hassan leads the other.”
“Did Hassan get a skill?” Fred asked with interest.
“No, he didn’t,” Jack shook his head. “But he is still really good. I don’t think he will have much trouble against the boss of the easy difficulty. Especially if he has Parker with him, that kid is faster than a monkey.”
“What’s this thing with kids being the best assassins,” Roy shook his head as he thought of Jaimie’s absurd combination of skills. He then looked at Alfonse and asked, “What about you guys, can you split your group?”
“Probably,” Alfonse shrugged. “The only problem is that my skill only works with someone who also has a skill. So I should stay with Fred.”
Fred nodded at Alfonse’s words, “Yeah, we need to be together. But I think Conrad and Alric can take care of their group. They were already very strong yesterday, they should be even better now.”
“That’s great,” Robb commented. “That’s already two rewards we wouldn’t have gotten. If Marth’s group can split too, that would make it three.”
Roy nodded at Robb’s words before looking at the rest of his friends, “Let’s try to beat the dungeons early on today. That way we can be at our best when we fight the red bear.”
“What about Lorenz? Who will be guarding him first?” Jack asked.
Roy looked up in thought for a few seconds, “Why don’t you do it? Then Alfonse, and Marth after.”
“Sure, it’s all fine by me,” Jack shrugged.
“Same here.”
With Alfonse’s confirmation, the group made their way out of the forest. They had already spent many hours stalking the red bear and going through the dungeon. As such, dawn was about to break when they reached Roger’s place.
“Welcome back, how was the dungeon?” Marth, who was sitting amongst his group of knights stood up to talk with Roy and his group.
“Pretty hard to be honest,” Roy replied with a wry smile.
“Yeah, that boss was really troublesome,” Jack added.
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Marth was taken aback as he furrowed his eyebrows, “Really? Was it that hard? What happened, how was the boss?”
“Very tricky,” Roy thought for a few seconds before finding the right word. “Not only is it big, but it also has too many skills. It can completely heal itself from all injuries. It has a magic attack that broke Fred’s barrier even with the help of Alfonse. And it can create illusions where you see five of its clones-”
“Okay, I get it,” Marth cut in. He looked back at his knights and let out a sigh, “Guess we can’t be doing it today. I’m sorry for getting your hopes up.”
“It’s all good, captain,” Hassan shook his head and laughed.
“Yeah, there is always tomorrow,” Hawk added.
On the other hand, Conrad looked at Roy with interest, “How were the rewards? You got something good?”
Alric’s eyes also shone, “Oh yeah, the normal difficulty should have some good stuff.”
Roy chuckled before answering, “Well, we did get a staff. It helps with my mana and spells, they should be stronger.”
“That’s great,” Marth raised his eyebrows. “That would help us a lot with the red bear.”
“Yeah, it definitely will,” Jack cut in. “Also, I wanted to ask you, Marth. Can you split up your group when going to the dungeon? That way you get double the rewards.”
The knight captain looked down in thought before shrugging, “I will need to check with the rest of my guys, but it shouldn’t be a problem. We had it pretty easy yesterday.”
“Hey, Jack. Are we gonna be doing that too?” Hassan gestured with his head and asked.
Jack grinned at Hassan’s question, “Yeah, you think you can do it?”
“I would be more worried about yourself,” the brown-skinned knight teased back.
“Okay, talking about ideas, I thought of something earlier that can help us,” Marth cut in and changed subjects.
Roy’s interest was piqued at Marth’s words, “Oh, what’s that?”
“It’s a strategy we used once in war, around a decade ago. When we were running away, we put the land on fire to not let the barbarians follow us without starving to death. The problem is that it’s very hard to predict fire and it could break into our territory.”
Roy leaned in the more Marth spoke. The problem that he was stating was practically the same one that they were struggling with.
Seeing Roy so interested, Marth smiled and continued, “So, the way we solved that issue, is that we dug massive trenches. It took us a week to dig a trench that would separate the forest in two. Of course, we chose a place that wasn’t too wide and wasn’t too dense with trees.”
“Yeah, I was with you in that one,” Conrad laughed. “That shit sucked so bad. We were just out of the battlefield and then we had to dig for a full week without sleeping. I think I fainted in the dirt like five times.”
Marth looked up in reminiscence at Conrad’s words, “Really, those were the worst of times. We were running out of rations too.”
Seeing the two delve deep into their own worlds, Hassan cleared his throat, “Captain, I think you forgot the main point.”
“Oh yeah,” Marth looked back at Roy and the rest, “So, we can do something similar. We can dig up a proper trench around the place where we wanna bait the red bear. That way even if you use your fireball, and trees do catch on fire, it will have a hard time spilling over to the rest of the forest.”
“You, you’re a goddamn genius!” Jack pointed his index finger at Marth. “We don’t even need to worry now, this bear fight is gonna be easy.”
“Okay, calm down there, Master Jinxer,” Robb rolled his eyes. “Lady luck hates to be called.”
Jack was about to retort when he stopped and shook his head, “Using my breath on you is gonna be a waste.”
Marth laughed at the two’s interaction before laying out the plan, “Here is what I think we should do.” He then pointed back at Hawk, “He is going to stay as a scout to keep an eye out for the red bear, and keep an eye out for our sides and back.”
"Yeah, I'll be doing that," Hawk said, making what was probably the millionth joke about his name. "You know the drill - since my name is Hawk. Archer, Hawk..."
Marth ignored Hawk’s comment and continued, “The first thing we’ll do is dig up a hole that is big enough for the booby trap. After that, we can bring all the buckets we can find, and also the wooden spikes we have made at Jeff’s house—those can be useful.”
“And then we will start digging the trenches, right?” Roy continued Marth’s words in his stead, “I like that plan, let’s go with it. Just make sure you find a time to do your dungeon run.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Marth shook his head. “We should be alright.”