Jash tried hard to come up with a reason that would sway the three to go along with his proposal to descend deeper.
However, no matter how much his thoughts raced, nothing concrete came to him.
'Just what can I say?' he wondered as he straightened his posture, ignoring their inquisitive looks.
After seeing him change his pattern of sword wielding and the sudden shift in his forms and postures, they'd have to be idiots to not question it.
Sadly, that was life.
It wasn't the same as a fantasy novel consisting of an overpowered protagonist powerleveling everything in his way and everyone around him not using their brain.
Well, what did it have to do with Jash?
He was too focused on coming up with an excuse to notice the blood leaking from his mouth.
—Drip!
Only after it detached from his chin and fell into the water with its sound echoing loudly in the tense silence did he notice it.
"Jash!" Caera called out as anxiety overwhelmed her senses and she tried to approach him.
Alas, she never reached him.
Just as Jash touched his wet lips, a bad premonition arose within him. 'Shit! What now!?'
As the danger bells increased in his mind, he instinctively tried to move out of his position, but his legs felt like lead.
He couldn't move, prompting him to curse inwardly, 'Move! Move! Move! Move, damn it!!'
At the last moment, his primal instinct of survival came into play as he stopped using his sword as support and stumbled into the crimson pool.
Although it felt extremely disgusting and repulsive, it was still much better than staying in the same position when he clearly sensed danger.
—Splash!
Luckily, he didn't have to even stay inside for half a second as Emma pulled him out and carried him outside the pool.
Kesha, who had already pulled Caera, nodded at Emma as the four now stood back to the pool's entrance.
Unable to comprehend the sudden shift in her position, Caera felt slightly dizzy as she looked ahead.
Yet the sight in front of her, despite her blurry vision, made her blood freeze. It left her truly motionless, unable to even think.
"Huah... Huah... Huaaa..." Jash opened his mouth wide, allowing the crimson pool to separate from his nose, returning his ability to breathe again.
Feeling the strong grip of Emma, his eyes narrowed in confusion as an uncomfortable sensation washed over him.
Raising his head, he found the three facing forward and followed their line of sight.
'How? No... Impossible!'
That was the first thought after stupefied for a couple of seconds, stunned at the figure in front.
It was the same figure he saw before.
The F-Rank wolf the twins had escaped from.
Strangely enough, it looked too different yet the bloodlust and anger in its eyes as it looked at him confirmed his guess.
Its gray fur was marred with caked blood and wounds as several scars were visibly present on its body.
Yet the most glaring one would be a deep gash on its neck, probably from a bite of another wolf.
'Did it fight the boss and escape?' Jash believed it made sense as boss monsters couldn't exit their specific areas.
As if to prove his conjecture to be true, an enraged howl echoed soon after.
—AWOOO! AWOOO!
The wolf whose eyes were reddened with madness regained a little bit of clarity as its body involuntarily shuddered hearing the incessant howling.
Noticing this, Jash immediately came to a conclusion, 'Its current fighting capability should be around the threshold of E-Rank.'
Turning to face Caera, he asked, "Caera, you wanted to fight it, right? Go for it!"
As he said that, he unstrapped his daggers along with their scabbards and threw them in her direction.
Stunned by his sudden voice, she broke out of her reverie and thought what nonsense was he spouting.
Until he threw his daggers out of the blue and she immediately caught them.
"Are you crazy?" she called him out for his absurd behavior.
"Huh? No! I can't move and it wants to kill me! Aren't you supposed to protect me? Plus, you also get to fight it, just as you wished."
Jash shrugged his shoulders as he couldn't comprehend her two-sided way of doing things.
Despite knowing what he meant, she still found herself tongue-tied as she looked at the daggers in her hands.
"Are you sure about giving these daggers? They will corrode," Caera asked, wanting to confirm it.
"Oh yea!" Jash facepalmed before adding sternly, "I forgot, don't get them dirty!"
His warning left her speechless, though.
At this time, his sword and her daggers had already melted and corroded due to attacking the slimy leeches.
If not for this set of daggers being of a higher grade, they would have suffered the same fate.
Shaking her head at his antics, Caera just strapped them in place of where she previously strapped her daggers.
Before moving, she took out a bow and aimed it toward the wolf, taking out a different arrow from her usual ones.
The wolf finally took note of her as she channeled her mana into both the arrow and the bow.
—Grrr!
It took one step closer but stopped due to the presence of Emma and Kesha.
The two had remained quiet throughout the exchange between the twins as they focused on pressing down the wolf with their mana.
If they hadn't done it, the wolf would have already charged at Jash due to its berserk state.
Alas, its instincts were quite heightened and warned it of not going against these two weak-looking two-legged creatures.
The two obviously felt the mana in the atmosphere stir near Caera and didn't engage the wolf themselves.
It was already quite injured and the twins could've taken care of it if not for the sudden ambush.
Aiming the silver-golden arrowhead with yellow designs all over it, Caera felt her mana drain at a rapid pace.
—Grrrr!
The wolf growled, feeling threatened at the sight of golden tendrils of lightning around the arrow.
Jash, on the other hand, observed everything calmly as he tried to get a feel for what went wrong with his legs.
Looking at Caera just about to shoot, he praised inwardly, 'Lighting enchanted arrow? A good choice.'
He nodded to himself, ignoring the fact it could very well get dispersed towards other creatures due to the pool.
'As long as she pierces through its flesh, it's as good as dead,' he mused, ignoring the difficulty of the situation.
After all, Caera wasn't a pure mage.
Calling her a Ranged Battlemage would be more appropriate.
A Battlemage in general was a type of mage who would also fight in melees with great control and proficiency over such weapons.
They directly reduced the burden of protecting them from their allies and could even go for solo hunts.
Naturally, one needed intrinsic talent for becoming one as comprehending the different fighting style wasn't easy.
Especially when even learning the basic mage spells required some degree of talent and mana control.
During her learning phase of being a mage, Sera found out that Caera had a talent for being a Battlemage.
And she couldn't be happier as her training with the bow wouldn't go wasted, so she decided to follow this path!
A Battlemage was a rare talent, and such people were always in demand to the point they easily got scouted by the Hunter Association or other top employers.