"But, wasn't that too easy?"
Alyx said that while hitting the ground with the tip of his sword. He could see agents moving the dead monster's corpse and clearing the area. Nibel who was sitting on the dirty floor angrily replied to him.
"Easy? Which part of it seemed easy to you? I nearly died!"
"But you literally didn't do anything."
"What? What do you mean?"
Ellyn interrupted their conversation. She, who was deep in thought until now stared at Reyan and Kairen in the distance and talked.
"Actually, none of us did anything. Those two killed a level 2 monster by themselves…"
"To be exact, Kairen was the one who did the most part…"
The three of them turned and looked at the two boys who were walking towards their tent. After the monster was dead, Kairen suddenly started staggering and plopped down on the floor. Reyan was stuck to him since then, treating him as if Kairen was some kind of a near-death grandpa. He started yelling and running around, calling a doctor, and held Kairen toughly even though he could walk by himself.
"Hah. How can a mere energy beam do that to such a monster?"
Ellyn shook her head as if she couldn't understand it at all. The other two had the same thought as well.
"I know right! And that lighting as well. so weird."
"You… you saw him last week as well right? The final exam."
"Yeah, his spells were strong back then as well…"
"I could understand that Serria had modified the spells to make them stronger, but Kairen was using the simple spell itself!"
"Hmm."
The three of them gathered together in a spot, continued thinking. A little far away, Kairen was struggling to run away from a suddenly sticky Reyan.
"I told you I am fine, there is no need for this."
"Shut up and hold my arm. Or do you want me to carry you in my back?"
"NO!"
"But you are really pale…"
"Haah! I am just tired."
Kairen had a headache and was a little bit dizzy, but he could walk by himself. It was just too much.
'Why is this dude always so overreacting?'
Back then when he came to this world as well, he was too worried about him. Kairen sighed and walked while being supported by his friend.
"But really, wasn't that monster supposed to be super strong?"
"It WAS super strong. Just what did you do to it?"
"I don't know…"
"Haa! You gave that answer to everyone!"
"But I really don't know!"
Kairen answered with a somewhat sullen expression. Since the moment that the monster died, everyone kept asking him this question. How would he know?
Kairen couldn't even remember what he did as he was too afraid back then. He thought he would die and unconsciously cast a spell. When he came back to his senses, the monster's body was half blown and he was exhausted as fuck.
"Anyway, isn't it nice that we killed it? We can go back home tomorrow, right?"
"That won't happen. Will be given another mission tomorrow probably.
"Other mission?"
"Hmm. Right, no one explained to you how it worked I guess."
"….?"
"As soon as we killed the monster our work was done. And I, as the team leader, informed our supervisor. After completing a mission, most of the times cadets do another one. After doing a few missions one after another in a short duration of time, they are given some time to rest before continuing their missions."
"I didn't know that."
Kairen spent most of his time training, so he didn't get the opportunity to ask about how this experience-gaining program worked. He didn't ask anything in front of others not to make them suspicious and acted as if he knew every single detail.
"It seems to be hard…"
"Yeah, it's a little bit tiring."
'A little bit? I'm dying of exhaustion just in the first mission! How can you use poor cadets like this? Are we slaves?'
Kairen grumbled in his mind while walking. Well… they said that they will be paid after each mission so it wasn't for free… but still, it didn't feel right.
"Then…. can you let me go now? We have arrived."
Just as Kairen said, they were standing in front of their tent. Kairen was really tired right now. His body felt heavy and his mind was blank. He even welcomed the idea when Reyan told him to go and get some rest.
"Ok."
Reyan let go of his arm as they entered the tent. Kairen hadn't eaten anything since launch, but it didn't matter. He fell asleep as soon as his head met the pillow.
When he woke up the next morning… well, he was woken up, his headache and dizziness were gone. He told Reyan that he was alright though he felt a little bit exhausted. Kairen felt guilty but just didn't want to deal with his worries again.
They were assigned a second mission as they expected, so they had to leave this place soon, going to another small city near this place. Kairen felt it was a shame that they couldn't stay in this nice weather a little bit more.
This mission again was monster hunting. This time, instead of killing a single level 2 monster, they had to stop a herd of monsters that suddenly appeared this morning. All of them were supposedly low level but their number was big.
That was why they left the camp early in the morning and got on to the train again. Their destination wasn't that far away this time as well.
While sitting on the train, the 5 youth started chatting.
"Should all of us write a separate report? Isn't just one enough for all the group?"
Nibel said that while taking out a paper and pen from his backpack.
"Each cadet has to write their own report because the report itself will be graded as well."
Reyan answered him while writing something on the paper. The other two were doing the same thing as well. Nibel grumbled but he too picked up his pen.
"Argh! What am I going to write? Kairen killed the monster Why am I supposed to write a report? They are just unnecessarily strict!"
Kairen, who was dozing off leaning against the window, unaware of what was going on, suddenly sat straight hearing his name. He looked at his other teammates who were writing something.
'Who called me? What are they doing?'
He peeked at Reyan's paper while rubbing his sleepy eyes. Its contents were detailed explanations about what happened yesterday.
'Hmm?'
"Hey Kairen, you wrote your report last night?"
"…."
Kairen tilted his head and Nibel was the one who answered Ellyn's question.
"When would he write it? He was asleep the whole night he didn't even move. It was a little creepy as if he was a corpse."
"Oh?"
Alyx also chimed in.
"That's right! You weren't on the boys' side so you wouldn't know. He was so deep in asleep that we had a really hard time waking him up! Reyan nearly had a heart attack thinking that something had happened to him."
"Ooh!"
Ellyn placed her hands on her mouth to hide her chuckle.
"Ahem!"
Kairen scratched his cheek and coughed. He was embarrassed. Wasn't it natural to sleep after killing a huge monster? He was also woken up early in the morning. It was Reyan who was over worrying!
Kairen tried to change the topic by asking a question.
"So you are writing your reports?"
"That's right. You'd better write yours as well."
"Ok."
Kairen took out a paper and pen just like the others, resisting the urge to sleep, and wrote everything that happened yesterday just like what he was in Reyan's hand.
By the time they finished writing, the train arrived at its destination.
"What the hell!"
The first thing they saw when they got off the train was a really big dark cloud in the bright day's sky. The cloud was moving forward, towards the city. Looking more closely, it wasn't a cloud but a bunch of flying monsters.
The city was deadly silent and not a single human could be seen. They stayed there, but unlike yesterday, no one came to them as their guide.
"I guess… we should move towards those things."
Reyan said while pointing at the dark cloud, the monsters, in the sky.