Spirit Soul

Felix was full of confidence while his eyes that were filled with greed glimmered brightly.

As the others listened intently, he shared his master plan that he had created within a short amount of time.

"I have a simple, yet efficient plan up my sleeve! Three adventurers in our group have a fire affinity. Let's use that to our advantage and attack the most crowded areas of the tribe with highly explosive fireballs...I guess you guys can conjure such fireballs, right?

If not, we can work around that too.

The most important thing is to pay attention to the peak Vitae stage Nasgas.

You need not worry about the two Krysal stage Blood Nasgas which I will personally assassinate.

I have the means to achieve that so leave that to me.

Your only task is just to kill the peak Vitae stage Nasgas while distracting the rest.

If you manage to do so, I can launch a surprise attack on the Blood Nasgas.

They won't survive my attack…that I am certain of.

Afterward we can reap all the benefits by destroying the tribe.

We shall claim the spoils of the battle and deprive the Nasga of their equipment while fulfilling our mission.

Sounds good, aint it?"

WIth a bright smile on his face, Felix ended his short speech and looked at the others expectantly.

Their faces mirrored the palpable excitement that coursed through Felix.

All of them were eager to earn as much from the mission as possible.

They required more funds to increase their strength in order to accept more missions.

In turn, it would give them even more funds to become even stronger.

As such, it was only obvious that Felix's plan was accepted by the majority.

But, despite the enthusiasm, only a few timid adventurers questioned Felix's capabilities to kill two beings at the Krysal stage.

What they lacked in strength, they made up in rational thinking and level-headedness.

After hearing Felix boast about his strength for the nth number of times, Kyle and Gaby could only shake their heads.

Setting the entire place on fire would make it more difficult to rescue the Lohars.

Other than that, another issue was the unknown number of holes in the alleys.

Kyle suspected foul play and was extremely wary of the holes.

'Something dark and dangerous is lurking inside the holes. Yet, why does nobody care about that?? The Nasga tribe's infrastructure is too cluttered and messy.

Thus, there is no other reason than something dangerous residing within the holes for the Nasgas to avoid this location!'

At the same time, Kyle even recalled the fact that the Nasgas weren't hiding from these holes.

On the contrary, some of them even ventured inside.

Due to this, he assumed that the Nasgas were not afraid of the dangers inside the hole but avoided them if they could.

Owing to this, it was even more perilous for the Adventurers that were driven by their greed.

Even after the few rational-minded adventurers explained their concerns, the others turned a deaf ear to them.

Fueled by Felix's excitement and greed, they labeled the weak ones as cowards.

Meanwhile, Felix, who might be greedy, yet rational enough to know the dangers looming around them, took out two items.

He held purple colored orbs around the size of his fist in each of his hands.

It was as if a small piece of thunder and lightning had been caged inside those orbs.

All of them could hear crackling noises and faint, shining lightning that swirled inside the orb.

"These are the new products designed by the 'Bronze Goddess', called Thunderous snake orb. By inserting mana into them, I can shoot out thunder in the shape of a snake at an opponent.

It's only a one-time-use item, so I will have to be careful while using it.

This is just to let you know that I have made sufficient preparations for the battle.

If I cannot defeat the Krysal stage Blood Nasgas with my own strength, I will use these thunderous snake orbs!

They're extremely expensive, so I will naturally need more to make up for the loss of using them… With that being said, if you guys want me to use it directly, I demand more profit from the tribe's spoils.

In return, I can guarantee that no tragedy would befall you guys as long as I use these orbs!"

Hearing this, Kyle realised that Felix was a decent strategist too.

This was good to know, but Felix was as brave as he was greedy. It was the calculative mindset of a greedy person that made Kyle feel worried about the future.

But only Kyle was the one to think like this. The rest of the adventurers simply ate up Felix's words.

They believed that the thunderous snake orbs would definitely finish off their targets.

Everything should work perfectly fine as long as they weren't malfunctioning while being as potent as Felix had said.

Despite feeling that Felix was exploiting them, the adventurers thought about it for a moment.

After much deliberation, they reluctantly decided to give Felix 5% of their spoils after the Nasga tribe was annihilated.

Felix had demanded 10%, but the adventurers didn't accept this.

The disagreement had led to them complaining with a loud enough voice that reverberated through the area.

It genuinely worried Kyle if the noise would alert the Nasgas.

Fortunately, that was not the case.

Thus, the majoirty of them decided to go ahead with the simple, reckless, and suicidal tactic presented by the 'brilliant Felix.

Kyle could only shake his head as they decided to approach the Nasga tribe with careful steps.

Everyone grew silent and tense which was only obvious.

Only 34 adventurers were about to face a total of 1000 Nasgas and two amongst them were too weak to fight.

Because of that, Kyle and Selene were tasked with rescuing the Lohars. Meanwhile, the others were supposed to massacre their way through the Nasga tribe.

Fortunately, Gaby intervened in Felix's decision.

She stated that she had been appointed by the Guild to protect them.

As such, she was excluded from the task of acting as a crusader.

Meanwhile, the brown furred Lohar was simply ignored.

Felix didn't care about the other Lohar at all whom he considered a pushover.

Not just Kyle, but even Selene, who was deemed as noble couldn't be bothered about by Felix.

However, what had astonished the trio was that there was someone else who thought like them.

It was Johana, the woman who had praised Felix, in the guildhall of Vila town.

She wanted to rescue the Lohars instead of slaughtering the Nasgas as well.

This was something they hadn't expected to hear.

But, the reason she gave Kyle after he had asked her was even weirder.

"Little one, why do you ask a rhetorical question? Shouldn't it be obvious why I want to rescue the Lohars? It's your mission after all!"

Kyle had just nodded at this answer, not knowing what to make of it. But Selene, who didn't believe Johana's reasoning, probed her further.

"But you could also rescue the Lohars while killing the Nasgas. This would allow you to earn a huge fortune too as you seem to be strong!"

Ever since Selene had gotten to know that she was a noble, she had changed.

However, this change was not bad, and rather positive.

However, Kyle grew worried about her change in behavior.

She had become more open to strangers and didn't hesitate from asking questions if she didn't understand something.

It was as if she was slowly coming out of her shell, but that was exactly what Kyle was not sure about.

Selene was one of the weirdest people he had encountered because he couldn't understand her train of thoughts at all.

Nevertheless, her question was something Kyle was also curious about.

Johana looked at Selene for a short moment without saying anything.

She only gave her a small smile before her gaze brushed past Felix.

"It might look like I praised Felix for being strong and a young prodigy, but he is too full of himself. Despite having entered the Krysal stage at the age of 25, he is not the only one to have done so.

Achieving this is not rare to find in the regions behind the three adjacent kingdoms.

He loves being praised by others for being above average, or at most good talent.

Like a kid, he wants to be the center of everyone's attention. I might have come with him, but let's be honest, trusting him is the worst you can do!"

Kyle was surprised to hear many things he didn't know before.

But before he could digest the information, Johana added something he, Selene, and Gaby had been thinking about too.

"Furthermore, I don't like the holes in the empty alleys...Felix might ignore them because he is ignorant, thinking that the Sadorla forest is not dangerous, but that is simply stupid!"

She added matter-of-factly and looked curiously at Kyle.

Upon hearing her, he couldn't help but feel confused.

'So Johana and Felix traveled together from the region behind the adjacent kingdoms? Why would they travel so far, only to enter the Sadorla forest?

Is there something special here?

What exactly is the relationship between Johana and Felix that she doesn't like, but travels with him?"

It was confusing, but at the same time, Kyle found it reassuring to have someone strong nearby them.

Johana seemed to be open-minded too because she had spoken against her friend quite openly.

She wasn't required to do so, yet she had revealed information to them without hesitation!

As such, Kyle decided to give her the bare minimum of trust.

There was no need to question her a lot about her relationship with Felix.

It was highly likely that they would never meet again.

It was also only now that he realised that Johana was not much older than them.

Yet she was already at the peak of the Vitae stage and was about to enter the Krysal stage soon.

This caused Kyle to be interested in the regions behind the kingdoms.

The fact that people from faraway were interested in exploring the Sadorla forest too!

He wanted to ask Johana about the reason for their interest in visiting the Sadorla forest.

But he stopped himself from asking that.

Somehow, he felt but Kyle knew that this would only increase the problems he already knew about.

Thus, Kyle simply assumed that Johana and Felix hailed from a big family.

Either that or maybe they belonged to a sect that ordered them to procure something specific from the Sadorla Forest.

According to Kyle, Sadorla forest wasn't a big treasure trove.

Though he knew that a few specific ingredients could only be found in particular regions.

As such, it was better to focus on the more important tasks.

One was to rescue the Lohars without being killed.

The other was to return safely without any serious injuries.

At least he wanted the three of them, that is, Selene, Gaby and himself to not be injured.

Johana was not someone he really cared about right now.

And, he didn't even know the adventurers and the brown furred Lohar to be bothered about their safety.