Traversing the ground covered by roots and leaves I was following closely behind Will to make sure I would be able to react quickly in case something happened. At the same time, Lydia was periodically putting her hands down on the ground, sending out a pulse of mana that supposedly told her if there were any monsters in the vicinity.
"Two monsters straight ahead. Seem like they are on the smaller side."
Turning his head back to us, Will gave the same order that he had already given us a couple of times before.
"Then we will circle around it."
"Understood."
Once again, we were taking a detour to the place that Will had already scouted out on the map, not wanting to face off against any monsters until we had made a base of operations. Which in this case was planned to be a cave on the western side of the forest.
Then, as Will looked at the map on his phone once again, I yet again felt a piercing look on my back, a look that I by now knew for certain belonged to Lydia.
'It's bothersome...'
Knowing that I had someone looking so closely at me didn't do anything but make me feel a bit on edge, and, frankly, a bit disgusted that a human dared...
'Fuck! Stop!'
"We're here."
Shaking out the weird thoughts that invaded my mind, aware that it wasn't Aarick who was thinking like that, we had arrived at our destination.
In front of us there was a relatively big mountain, and in it was an opening that I assumed was the cave where we would not only spend our nights but also where we would think about our next moves.
Withdrawing the silvery blade out of its sheath, glimmering as the rays of sun that had struggled their way through the treetops welcomed it, Will readied himself to clear out the cave in case there were any monsters inside it.
In response, Lydia and Jessica also brought out their weapons, in the form of a bow and a wooden staff respectively.
"Aarick?! What are you doing?"
"It's fine."
Walking ahead, I for some reason already knew that the cave was empty, probably due to the fact that I couldn't sense any beings filled with blood inside it.
Even though I was the most sensitive to humans, I had already noticed from our little trip that I could somewhat feel the presence of monsters that surrounded us. And after Lydia had confirmed it with her magic, I was now pretty sure that I could trust this sense.
'It's pretty spacious...'
Entering the cave, I was surprised to see that the interior was so much bigger than the entrance would suggest. Thanks to my special body, I could clearly see how deep the cave was even in the dark.
"Aarick!"
A hand suddenly took hold of my shoulder from behind, quickly turning me around to be met with the sight of a very upset Will, his teeth showing in frustration.
'Ah, guess I did do something pretty stupid...'
"What the fuck are you doing, just waltzing in like this?! What if there were monsters here?!"
Behind him, I could see that neither Lydia nor Jessica appeared to have ever witnessed Will act like this, as their mouths opened a bit. I, however, already knew that although he tried to hide it, and he did hide it pretty well, he was still a very impulsive man.
Knowing this, I also knew that there was no use arguing with him either.
"My bad. I just didn't think there were any monsters in here."
"And just how would you be able to tell if there were or not?!"
As Will's face slowly closed in on the same color as his hair, I sort of understood that his frustration wasn't just the fact that I didn't follow the order of things, but also because he was at least to some extent worried about me.
'He is pretty strange...'
I didn't doubt for a second that if he had the chance to make me disappear from Augustus, he wouldn't hesitate for a second to do so. And still, despite the fact that he probably hated my guts, he still felt guilty enough about our past that he didn't want me to get hurt again.
Or that was at least what I told myself.
Ultimately, my response would be the same.
"I apologize."
"How dare...? You, what?"
"I said, I apologize. I made a mistake, and for that, I'm sorry."
Just like before, there was still no point in trying to argue with him, and therefore I decided to just apologize without any further explanations. Because as long I added even a single line of defending my actions or explaining them, he would have something to latch on to.
Therefore, instead of him continuing to chew me out, he didn't have much choice but to accept my apology or make himself look incredibly petty in front of our group members. Naturally, this kind of display instead probably made me out to be a pretty weak individual in their eyes, but the difference was that I didn't care.
"... alright. Just... don't do it again."
Despite him still looking very disgruntled, he managed to keep his frustration in. Following this, probably feeling like he had to restore the status quo as soon as possible, he turned around to the two girls behind us while sheathing his sword again.
"The cave is clear. Let's start setting up camp, and after that, we will be planning out hunting spots. Lydia, please start spreading the repel powder around the area outside the cave. Jessica, could you cut some wood in preparation for dinner later? And Aarick..."
'Hmm?'
"Please just... don't do anything stupid."
In a matter of less than half a day, I had already lost the small amount of trust that Will previously had for me, now becoming nothing more than glorified baggage that they had to drag around.
"Sure."
Seating myself down, leaning my body against one of the cavern walls, I was completely fine with this arrangement.
==========
A few hours later, all the camp preparations had been finished, all thanks to the hard work of Will, Lydia, and Jessica, while I had been spectating them from the side.
Now, however, I had been brought into the conversation again, with all of us standing around a table, that actually was just a wooden stock standing on its side, looking at the map that Will was pointing to inside the cave.
"I think we should try to go here first."
The location he was pointing to was a small stream of water, and as it would make sense for us to find something there, as monsters also needed water, there was no one that objected to his plan.
And with that, we got moving, making our way to our very first hunt of the excursion. And for me, my very first hunt ever.
****
[Astor's Pov]
*BOM!*
Yet another poor goblin had been blown into bloody pieces after getting a taste of the watery spear that our beautiful leader had shot out.
'Is she really alright?'
We hadn't even set up camp before Levi decided that we would be starting our hunt, a hunt that had now gone on for more than a few hours without a single moment of rest with our leader being the one who had fought more than anyone else in the group.
"Hey, did something happen to her...?"
it wasn't too surprising that Celina as well noticed that something was off with our leader, as she softly elbowed me to get my attention.
Acting as I always did, and not wanting to give away anything about what happened between her and Aarick this weekend, I just gave her a bright smile.
"Isn't she just very motivated? That's how it should be, right?"
"Why are you still acting like that even when we are out here? Who are you trying to fool?"
"Hmm? I don't think I quite understand what you mean."
"Tch!"
Walking away from me, going to Levi's side to once again try and convince her that we should take a rest, I wasn't too surprised that she had seen through my façade. Coming from a family that had made their living by trading information and reading people, I didn't think from the start that I could fool her anyway.
At the same time, another student came to my side, his face seemingly covered by a thick blanket of exhaustion.
"Aren't we... huff... going to rest soon?"
Although I felt a bit sorry for the student called Gerald Top, an archer who used a crossbow from the B-class, I wasn't the one who could bring him any good news. Luckily for him, however, a certain Celina seemed to have somehow appeased our queen of terror.
"We will be taking a break in turns. Astor and I will be the first to stay on guard, and then after fifteen minutes, we will rotate."
With her long hair flowing in the wind, holding the gem-like spear in her hands, she finally seemed to have realized that if we continued like this, the risk of someone getting hurt was just way too high.
As I only briefly knew the history they shared together, it was difficult to imagine just why fighting Aarick had affected her to this degree, but there was no doubt that it had.
'Maybe they were more than friends in the past...'