Chapter 65

Now incredibly exhausted, the squad had unanimously agreed to head back to the campgrounds that they had set up several days before with countless barriers and protective runes. They were all proud of themselves for being able to handle a group of four rank two demonic beasts, but they could not wait to just head back and relax for a while and maybe have a meal and sleep their fatigue off. Once returning it was time for some decisions to be made because there was no reason for the group to attack large groups of rank two demonic beasts if it meant that they had to immediately flee the scene in order to ensure their safety afterwards due to exhaustion.

"It would be better if we just went about defeating one rank two demonic beasts at a time since Timothy can already kill a demonic beast of that rank by himself anyways. We might not grow our foundation and strength by doing it this way, but at least we would be more efficient and can end this mission sooner. I do not know about any of you, but since advancing with my golem summoning technique and raising my mana output, I have not found a way to consolidate my strength overall and wish to return to campus right away so I can." Mark was the first to speak up and he was feeling miserable since today he had gone through a good portion of his mana recovery pills.

Sure with just his portion of the loot's sale of this single battle he could buy twelve times the amount of mana recovery pills that he had used during the battle, but it did not mean that he could right away and because the squad was limited with the resources that they had on hand, there was no telling how any more battles it would be until they had to return simply because they ran out of resources to continue on.

However, if they were to be more efficient to where they did not need to use as much resources each battle or close to none moving forward, it was still possible for them to hunt down enough rank two demonic beasts to a satisfactory level which would of course be one hundred so that they could earn the two technique manuals from the military as a special bonus, and the remainder of the resources could be used to slay a demonic beast of the third rank which would be considered on the lower end of rank three.

Everyone present had of course agreed, but Timothy had a different idea entirely. If Thomas gave majority of his mana output increasing artifact to everyone else on the squad since that was a current weakness they had and Thomas during this time was not really contributing too much other than commanding the squad in battle anyways. If Mark was given the artifacts while the other two mages were given one artifact each, it would make their overall squad's battle strength skyrocket since no one was needing to be healed by Thomas so hoarding all of the artifacts was a waste of potential.

With everyone agreeing, it was time for them to change their tactics and Thomas gladly handed over all of his artifacts to the rest of the squad and even gave lower quality mana output increasing artifacts to everyone who had room to add them to their current arsenal. The squad's improvements were shown clearly in the next battle where the squad chose to take on another group of four rank four demonic beasts. Mark now having access to so much more mana was able to kill two of the four demonic beasts himself using his golems while majority of the damage done to the other two demonic beasts were done by Greg and Alicia instead of Timothy!

This had come as a big shock to them but where they struggled for close to fifteen minutes during their last fight with the previous group of demonic beasts, within three minutes they had overpowered and killed this group. And so similar to last time they tried it, it was decided that the squad would split up once more but this time Timothy would head out alone while Thomas would bring the other three students with him. The idea was that Timothy could take down rank two demonic beasts alone if it was one on one battles while the rest of the squad could take down an entire group of rank two demonic beasts without his help. If they chose to do this for one week, it would maximize their earnings and they would be one step closer to being able to return to the Grey Imperial Academy.

One week went by but instead of venturing out without meeting in between, the squad chose to meet at the beginning of the third day and at the beginning of the sixth day. Once the morning of the eighth day after enacting this new tactic in clearing out the demonic beasts had begun, Timothy had returned and all of their collective earnings were combined and accounted for. As it turned out, the squad now officially slain over one hundred and fifteen rank two demonic beasts which meant that now they could find and kill a rank three demonic beast and would be able to leave with not just a high amount of earnings, but with bonuses from the military and possibly the academy!

But before heading out to locate a suitable rank three demonic beast to kill, Timothy suggested that he began repairing everyone's equipment. During the time that they had split up, there were close calls where a demonic beast would be able to land a blow on one of the students and so the armor on their bodies were no longer considered to be in peak condition and even Thomas felt uncomfortable allowing them to head into such a dangerous battle without their equipment being in peak condition. And so, everyone took off most of their equipment and handed it over to Timothy to begin repairing. Mark and Alicia only had one piece of armor each that needed to be repaired, while it seemed that every piece of armor Greg had worn showed signs of decaying.

As Timothy began his blacksmithing efforts, everyone else began preparing a nice meal which may be their final meal if Timothy was fast enough in repairing all of the equipment and they were lucky enough to spot a weak rank three demonic beast before the sun went down. During this period of time, Greg needed to use the restroom and with the permission of Thomas being the squad leader and there being no signs of demonic beasts coming anywhere close to their camp, Greg was given permission to run over in his own little corner to go to the bathroom.

While relieving himself, Greg was contemplating how much his family would freak out when he returned with many large sacks full of gold coins and other materials he knew that they needed. Greg's mother was a seamstress and would make clothes to sell in the open market while his father was a simple general store owner that used the storefront to flip items he would purchase for a discount through his partners for a small profit to the public. Calculating how much gold Greg would be given when all was said and done would allow his mother's business to skyrocket since she did not have the funds to purchase higher quality materials outright in bulk, and his father would be able to hire a store manager as he focused on buying a storefront in another village in an effort to begin expanding.

As Greg had finished up and buttoned up his pants, he realized that he made a small mistake by stepping too far outside of the closest barrier that protected the campgrounds from intruders but he knew that they had already cleared out the nearby demonic beast population so he was not worried. At this moment, he felt his body going numb as he looked down at his chest and realized that something's tail just stabbed through it as he lost consciousness on the spot!