After the dangerous battle they fought in the forest, Har wanted the group to take a small break but Teras had other plans, he had promised the old man to help if they could and now it was the perfect opportunity for him to assist the man without having him or his friends risking their lives for nothing

"Teras how are we supposed to go to Yuka? Isn't this village like 10 km from here?"

Har asked him as he packed his things, Lia and Cara were also packing their things

"Don't worry about that, the guild will inform someone from the village to pick us up, a carriage will arrive here in about an hour or so"

Teras told him, Har looked annoyed

"Since we have all this time why don't we go to the river?"

Cara suggested

"I agree, today is a pretty hot day so going for a bath before leaving would be great!"

Lia supported Cara's suggestion

"Sure we don't have to lose anything"

Har said, Teras didn't mind either, the group then got ready and began to walk to the river, the girls left the boys to walk a bit further away from them so they can discuss business

"As I told you before I have become very close to Har so the only thing that remains is you getting closer to Teras, you yourself told me that you had a crush on Teras from the start of the adventurers' exam"

Lia whispered to Cara

"I get that but how am I supposed to make a move? He doesn't seem interested at all, also it's my first time doing something like this"

Cara whispered back, she seemed very afraid

"Remember the plan! We go to the river and you both get closer by playing in the water, also by you showing him your body you are increasing your chances of making him fall for you, so just go along and you will see that everything will fold the way you want!"

Lia told her to convince her, Lia genuinely believed that Cara could make it easily but Cara didn't think the same about herself, Lia then left Cara behind while running at the boys

"How about we stop here? This place is quite nice and it's relatively remote"

Lia told them, the group agreed and then they all settled to the side of the river, the boys quickly took off their shirts, revealing their muscular bodies, Cara turned red when she saw Teras

'When did I get this muscular? I don't remember working out that much?'

Teras wondered as he observed his body

"What? surprised that you build up this much muscle?"

Har asked him, he seemed like he knew about Teras progression

"I'm guessing you know something, right?"

Teras asked him, Har left a small laugher

"Of course! You see training your mana is like training all of your muscles together, but your muscles developed way faster than normal, I assume it's because of your mana overflow use but that's just a guess"

Har told him

'That makes sense but it still surprises me'

He thought, a sudden splash of water then hit him, It was Cara, to capture Teras's attention she threw water at him

"Oh? You want to have a water fight?"

Teras asked with a smile, Teras then with a powerful kick sent a massive amount of water at Cara, he didn't pay the slightest attention to Cara's body

'Don't worry Cara you got it'

Lia thought as she watched them, Har then peacefully got inside the water with Lia, they didn't have the energy to water fight like Teras, after some time Cara and Teras stopped slashing water at each other, and the group simply relaxed in the water

"You know what guys? I always wondered what's the difference between the ranks of the adventurers, I mean we are bronze but king slime is considered a low gold-ranked monster, so that means we are considered silver ranked now? and if not when will be considered one?"

Teras asked, nobody knew exactly the answer but they could easily theorize

"I heard somewhere that most adventurers have significantly higher mana pool than others and that's how they get put on a rank, for example, a silver-ranked adventurer has more mana than us and a gold has more than a silver and goes on and on, the only thing that changes is when someone enters the gold rank, gold ranked adventurers are considered "real" adventures since they have developed some kind of a special move with their cards and also have a much bigger mana pool, all the above ranks are mostly achieved with achievement and/or strength"

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Lia explained them

"Teras has developed some special moves with his mana so isn't he considered gold-ranked?"

Cara asked, Lia nodded in disapproval

"Not really, even if Teras is this strong, firstly he doesn't have the power of a single card and secondly, he doesn't have a large enough mana pool"

some time passed and Teras started to swim away, he apparently was bored of the conversation, Har got out of the water after Teras left

"It's enough water for today"

He said as he got out, Lia's plan advanced perfectly now

"Go after him! Now is your chance!"

Lia whispered to Cara before she exited the water she was also winking at her intensively, Lia then exited the water and sat beside Har

'Lia is working this hard to help so I can't back down now'

Cara thought, she then mustered all of her courage and went after Teras, she wanted to finally confess to Teras, Teras was standing in the water practicing his mana so Cara approached him

"H-Hey Teras do y-you have a m-moment?"

Cara asked him, she was very anxious about what she was about to do

"Yeah, I do... Hey, what's wrong?"

Teras asked her, he noticed that she was anxious so he thought that something bad happened

"It's nothing I'm okay, I just wanted to tell you something..."

Cara told him while shaking, Teras was very invested to know

"I.....LIKE...."

Cara started to confess but midway through she backed down

"The river!"

"That's what you wanted to tell me? Sheesh! I thought that it was something serious, don't scare me like that"

Teras told her as he laughed it off, Cara laughed too but she was dying inside

"HEY TERAS COME HERE!!!"

someone screamed for Teras, so he and Cara quickly got out of the water and walked in the direction of the voice, it was Har with Uncle Jem

"What are you kids doing? it's been at least 3 days or so but you look much better"

Jem said, he was very happy to see them

"Likewise uncle! I see you are doing well even though you seem to be in a hard position"

Teras told him, Lia and Cara had no idea that Jem was from Yuka

"Thank you, kid, I also thank you for accepting to help us in these difficult times!"

Jem said but it was clear from the start that he was glad

"Hop in the back while I go to inform the guild about this quest, since you took it I have to tell the guild to take it off their quest sign"

Jem told them, he then left them

"Did you guys know about his situation before accepting the quest?"

Lia asked, she was a bit mad

"We did but we couldn't bother if we didn't get any rewards from helping"

Har replied, that made Lia even madder

"What do you mean no rewards? Are you telling me you were willing to let those people suffer just because he didn't offer any rewards?"

"It's not like that! Those bandits have a strong monster under their control so fighting the monster and the bandits together will prove to be fatal for us so I tried to avoid it, it's not like I don't care about those people it's just that I care for you more than them"

Har replied, his tone was aggressive, Teras got embarrassed after hearing that, it was his first time hearing someone say that about him

"Stop that guys! We can't argue for things like that, it's meaningless so how about we look forwards to a plan on how to fight against them?"

Teras told them as he walked between them, both of them calmed down

"We haven't even seen the enemy so how can we plan ahead?"

Lia asked Teras

"Even if we haven't seen them yet we can develop a simple strategy against them, you see most bandits rely on the use of gadgets and potions meaning they aren't the greatest fighters in either firepower or tactic so splitting them would prove fatal to them, also by combining our powers we can overcome their numbers"

Teras told them, he seemed confident about their power, since beating the king slime Teras began to think highly of their team synergy and strength

"I'm back! Did I miss anything important?"

Jem asked with a smile

"Nope, nothing to worry about"

Teras told him, Jem then got up to the carriage and whipped his horses, the carriage began to move, and after some time of moving Jem asked them

"How did the slime hunting go? I was worried about your results"

"You can say it went well, after some time of killing green and blue slimes a king slime suddenly appeared splitting us apart but we managed to overcome it and kill it, so we easily collected 500 slime samples"

Teras explained to him, Jem was surprised

"You 4 managed to beat a king slime? That's pretty impressive for bronzies like you! Maybe you really stand a chance against them"

Jem told them with a smile, the others felt happy hearing that from Jem

"Uncle Jem I wanted to ask this for a while but were you ever an adventurer? I mean you do travel a lot"

Cara asked curiously, Jem was happy to hear this question

"Of course, when you weren't even born I used to fight in a party of mine, we fought slimes, goblins, and much more, I used to fight with the speed card so my group called me "Yuka's thunder" I was the joy and pride of my village but all things had to come to an end, so when I was 20-ish I injured my leg in a fight against the angels"

Everyone was surprised to hear that from Jem

"Angels? I heard that they existed but I didn't think that someone had seen them, how were they?"

Har asked

"They were very... beautiful you can say, they all had golden hair with beautiful blue or golden eyes, at first sight, I thought that they were my allies, they also had massive wings, those wings had multiple eyes on them, angles were similar to devils but the only difference was that they didn't attack in order to kill, for some reason they only injured us but didn't finish us off"

Jem said, the others were a bit confused

"If they didn't fight to kill then why did you kill them?"

Teras asked

"Because they were enemies of the Game master, those angels randomly fell down from the skies attempting to take him away from us, they were repeating the word, "Give it back" over and over again but the Game master told us to not let the angels get ahold of him"

Jem told him, but for some reason, Teras thought that it was still wrong to kill all of the angels cruelly like that, he also felt weird about what he heard

'If the game master is that strong then why does he need protection?'

Teras wondered as he looked back at the forest they left behind

The hours passed and the night came, all of them were sleeping except Jem that drove the carriage

"Angels huh? They sure are cute but they are also strong, it's not fair! No race can compete with them!"

A boy whined

"But aren't angels evil?"

Teras questioned the boy, the boy looked at him weird

"DUDE? Use your eyes! Angels are helping everyone and they are the ones that taught us the power of cards so why would they be evil?"

the boy asked

"Wait so are they aren't evil?"

Teras asked him

"NO! Of course not, the game master told us that he is the leader of them, so why would they be evil?"

Teras then woke up from the bumps of the ride

"Oh, you woke up kid? Sorry about that but we entered a quite bumpy road so bear it with me please!"

Jem told him

'What's happening in this world?'

Teras wondered after experiencing this dream