"Kill it?" Jean-Pierre asked, "Kill it with what?"
Zachary pointed around to everyone, "Us, who else? We have seventeen adept rank summons between us. How many adepts do you have? Four? Five? So, we have over twenty adept rank summons. If we went all out, can we take the scorpion dragon down?"
"Hold on, I'm not risking my summons!" Carlos immediately interjected.
"Yeah! No way!" Shuhua said, "That's a stupid idea!"
"Wait, let's just talk about it," Heather said, waving at the other two to be quiet, "There's nothing wrong with considering our options. This is the New World. We have faced many dangers already, some without choice, others because of our decisions. If we choose to fight here, the potential reward is an entire quintessence spring that we can use to train powerful Ensouled and improve our soul cultivation. If we decide to leave and conserve our strength, we might still have to fight with our lives on the line at some point for no benefit... like that battle with the Dark Star Gang."
"Heather, we don't owe him anything. You don't owe him anything." Shuhua said.
"It's not about that!" Heather insisted, "Right now, we are explorers of the New World. We can't get complacent now. We can't lose our fighting spirit. Every day, human explorers are constantly pushing themselves to the limit against unfathomable challenges. Expert rank, master rank, even noble and royal rank summoners are putting their lives on the line in the New World."
"Heather, those are just stories told to entertain little kids, to swindle bright-eyed idiots like the one over here," Carlos said, pointing to Zachary, "We have to be realistic!"
Heather shook her head, "If we leave to conserve our strength, we might still have to fight with our lives on the line at some point but there will be no benefit... like that battle with the Dark Star Gang."
"Why do you always take his side?" Shuhua complained.
"It's not like that!" Heather retorted.
"Sure looks that way!" Carlos said.
Zachary ignored the arguing trio and asked Jean-Pierre, "What is your honest opinion? Can we kill it?"
Jean-Pierre thought about it but eventually shook his head, "If it is a straight-up fight, twenty adept ranks is enough to wear down its strength. If we surround the scorpion dragon and it has nowhere to run, we can overwhelm it with sheer numbers. However, it is not going to let us simply beat it to death. If it gets tired or wounded, it will retreat into the cave and use the quintessences to recover. There isn't much we can do to dislodge it from its lair. Unless we had an entire army of summons, we wouldn't even be able to make it uncomfortable, let alone kill it."
"..."
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Zachary couldn't come up with anything to refute Jean-Pierre's point. The scorpion dragon had all the advantages. If they had twenty earth elementals like Doro, maybe they would have a chance. But with their current lineup of summons, it was a suicide mission.
Zachary couldn't make anybody do anything if they didn't want to. Carlos was looking at him with suspicion. There had always been a competitive tension between them, as if Zachary was somehow treading on Carlos' territory. Shuhua never liked him from the beginning so her gaze was far from friendly. Having to give up her Soul Ruby Fruit to him didn't help matters. Only Heather still seemed hopeful although she was starting to realize the futility of the situation. She was the leader of her gang but she couldn't just order them to their deaths.
As for Jean-Pierre, Zachary had never been able to get a read on him. He was strange; a little too friendly sometimes and a surprisingly competent summoner. He fought a whole squad of Blood Church members alone and was able to come out alive. He also had the shadowless cloud owl which Zachary was sure wasn't a native species. Jean-Pierre was full of mysteries. Meeting again after so long only increased that sentiment.
Zachary looked past the other summoners at the blackness of the surrounding tree. They had come a long way, trekked through half the jungle. Was it all for naught?
He was unwilling.
Nearby, the two giant mountains of bird poop that made up the giant seagull nests weren't visible right now but they would be whenever morning came. Thinking about those oversized, ravenous pests of the sky, he suddenly had a burst of inspiration.
"Jean-Pierre," He said, trying to hide the excitement he felt, "How close is the scorpion dragon to breaking through?"
Jean-Pierre shrugged, "I don't know. It could be tonight, could be tomorrow, or even a week from now. But my best guess is a few more days. That's why I came to warn you."
"Okay, that's good. Then we still have some time."
"What?" Jean-Pierre asked in confusion.
Zachary smiled, "Didn't you say we need an army to fight the scorpion dragon? We already have one."
---
Zachary's gambit, in theory, was straightforward. They would let the scorpion dragon fight it out with the endless hordes of giant seagulls. It didn't matter who won in the end. He would be able to mine earth quintessences in peace. The scorpion dragon would have no room to deal with a few thieves at the back when the front door was being kicked in by a horde of robbers.
Actually carrying out the gambit was complicated and required everyone to contribute. They also didn't have a lot of time to prepare. The scorpion dragon could break through at any moment.
Convincing Jean-Pierre and Heather didn't much effort at all. Persuading the other two required a delicate balance of sweet talk and fear-mongering. Heather did most of the work, pointing out the stark truth that as they were now, Carlos and Shuhua could not hope to compete for the four pardon spots. If they wanted to return to Adorin, this quintessence spring was their best bet. She also pointed out that their recent gains and increases in strength were due to Zachary's arrival. If it wasn't for him, none of them had a chance against the likes of Casimir from the Dark Star Gang, Aaron White, or the other major players.
Finally, with everybody on board, they set to work just as dawn was peeking over the trees.
The first part of the gambit was the easiest, keeping tabs on the sleeping scorpion dragon. Jean-Pierre's owl was the only Ensouled that could enter the beast's lair without waking it up. It would keep watch continuously and let them know if anything happened.
The second part was how to get the scorpion dragon and the giant seagulls to fight each other to the death. Because the cave was surrounded by the dense jungle, those overgrown flying rats would not dare to come down. They had an instinctive fear of trees and all the deadly creatures hiding within. The solution to this challenge was the simple yet difficult task of getting rid of the trees around the cave.