By the time they encountered the second group of wolves, they had arranged for Rorde to be the temporary leader, and he did help them slightly by calling out a few commands, but it was still a very bad situation, according to Reed at least.
They had returned from the dungeon, not having gone further than the wolves, and were currently having lunch when Rorde brought up their lack of experience and asked for Reed to tutor them.
"How about you teach us, Mr. Reed?"
Reed looked at him in silence, then blinked and put his cup down.
"You want me to teach you?" Rorde nodded. "What exactly do you hope to learn from me?"
"You are an experienced adventurer, are you not? I want you to teach us about strategy and formation."
As Rorde spoke, Reed noticed that Porret, Assonletly, Layla, and Blot were all in favour of being taught.
"We are here to learn, but Mr. Mordhal wants us to learn by ourselves, but we don't have that much time, we have only 6 days left before we have to leave to not be late for the next exams."
Reed made a mental note about the fact that they had exams upcoming. He glanced at Mordhal, who seemed unconcerned.
"We need someone to point out our mistakes and tell us what to do to correct them."
Rorde stopped, and now all of them were looking at him, Mordhal included.
"I do not have much free time, but I can spare about an hour or so in the evenings, but what's in it for me?"
"How much did Mr. Mordhal offer you?"
"10 gold per day."
Hearing that price, Blot, Lark, and Assonletly were slightly startled, while the other four did not show any reaction, Reed made a mental not of that.
'Most likely not wealthy, even likelier that they grew up poor.'
"I can offer you double that, 20 gold per day for teaching us." Rorde leaned forwards, looking directly into Reed's eyes.
"How about it?"
In response, Reed stretched out a hand. Seeing this, Rorde smiled before he clasped the hand in his.
"So when's the first lesson?"
"Meet me at the dungeon at 5."
...
Reed cleared the first two levels with his new students following behind him, he didn't want to waste time with the enemies that took little to no effort to defeat.
After they entered they third level, Reed made them gather around.
"Now, I know that you can use magic, but I don't know your limits, what you can and cannot do, since all I've seen of your magic is just basic projectiles."
"So I want you all to tell me about every spell you can do, Rorde, let's start with you."
Rorde didn't speak immediately, he maintained his silence for a few seconds before speaking.
"While we did introduce ourselves by our specialties, we all know the basic spells like fireball, fire stream, rock wall, stone bullet, water ball, water spray, gust, wind blade, thunderbolt, and ice bolt. Those spells are required to be learned by all students."
Reed nodded without commenting.
"Rina and I both know a few more fire spells like fire storm, fire wall, and flame arrow, alongside two or three earth spells like stone spike, and rock armour."
At this point Rina chimed in.
"I also know the spells, gale barrier and shredding winds."
Next was Blot.
"Basically the same, but I don't know her spells." He said gesturing to Rina. "But I am very good at using wind blades."
Followed by Lark.
"Same as him, but without the wind blade expertise."
Then Assonletly.
"Same, but I know a few extra ice spells, like ice wall, freezing beam and freeze."
Layla just gestured at Assonletly, meaning that she was basically the same. Now, it was Porret's turn.
"Aside from the required spells, I can use the water wall, create mud, soften earth, earth collapse, stone spike, gale barrier, and wind blade spells."
After they had finished speaking, Reed lowered his head in thought for a few moments, before looking up and giving them all a glance.
"So, you all can use the basic spells, correct?" He asked, and they all nodded in response."
"That makes it much easier. So here's what we are going to do." he announced, looking at Porret. "For now, you all are going to demonstrate to me, your spells, and I am going to take a look at them, then we will see what I can do with you."
And that is what they did, one by one, they demonstrated their spells to Reed who closely looked at their effects.
When they were all done, Reed told them to give him a few minutes, and told them to think about setting up a proper leader, while he thought about what to do with what he had learnt.
"Set up a leader amongst ourselves? That's not easy." Lark muttered looking at Reed who was in deep thought.
"I don't any of us would listen to anyone other than Rorde in the leader position." Layla was the one who had spoken this sentence.
"Then that's it then? Rorde will be our leader?" Blot seemed mildly displeased with this outcome, but he did not speak his displeasure out loud.
"Seems like it." Rina sighed, and Rorde smiled.
"I don't mind becoming th-"
"Alright!" Reed clapped his hands once.
"You don't have much mana left, do you?" Reed asked them all, before continuing. "Let's leave this place, and I'll tell you what I've come up with on our way back, it's quite late already."
On the way back, Reed spoke to them about their possible strategies, and it looked like they were liking what they heard, as most of them had smiles on their faces, content that their money was not going to be wasted.
'This trip was quite fruitful.' Reed looked at his palm in his room. 'I got quite a bit of inspiration from it.'
His hand glowed with a soft brown light.
'I learn, and I get paid.' He chuckled.
"What a win-win scenario."