With a yawn, Zaroth slowly opened his eyes.
He placed his right hand on his forehead and gently massaged it.
"Fuck, I can't sleep," he muttered as he quietly exited the tent.
Surprisingly, the sun was already up.
"It seems I managed to get some sleep after all," he muttered as he began his training regime.
By the end, he had done 180 squats, 80 push-ups, and 30 pull-ups. It seemed he was slowly progressing and getting stronger.
Once he was done, he sat on the ground with his legs crossed, focusing on his mana core.
In the end, he managed to connect about 10 sparks to it.
"I wish my progress was faster," he admitted as he quickly undressed and entered the river for a quick bath.
'Zaroth, progress isn't linear. There are times when you feel like you aren't progressing, until suddenly, you begin succeeding seemingly overnight,' Luna tried to encourage him.
'Even if that is the case, isn't my progress too slow?' he asked.
'No, you are progressing abnormally fast,' Luna replied.
Zaroth raised an eyebrow but didn't continue the conversation further.
After finishing his bath, he dressed and began playing fetch with Silverfang.
At that time, the others slowly began to rise. The first was Lily, still with droopy eyes and messy hair. She turned to him as she exited the tent.
"Good morning," Zaroth spoke.
"Good morning. How long have you been up?" she asked, massaging her eyes.
"Not long," he replied, getting up. "Let's wake the others first."
After getting up, everyone prepared and set out to explore the forest again in search of their next prey.
They didn't have much luck, which was surprising, as usually, the wildlife concentrated around water sources, and their camp was currently positioned near one.
Left with no choice, they pushed further and further in search of their prey.
"Oh, my feet hurt!" Zack cried out.
Zaroth raised an eyebrow. "From here, you are the one of the knight category, so you should be the last to complain."
"All right, I'm just bored," Zack admitted.
"Well, don't," Roran interjected. "In places like these, once you drop your guard, that's when shit usually goes down."
"You're too rigid. You need to be more flexible, man. Relax for a moment," Zack said.
"I can't," Roran replied quickly, throwing a glance at Zaroth. "It has been forbidden for me to drink."
"What, you can't relax without alcohol?" Zack asked, raising an eyebrow.
"I can," Roran quickly glanced at Lily. "But now is not the time."
With a sigh, Zack continued forward.
Everything was fine until the sound of a branch breaking was heard. Everyone turned their heads in the direction of the sound, but it was already too late.
A wounded black hyena was already leaping into the air, moments before crushing Lily's neck.
The next instant, a sword that looked like it was made of gold materialized out of thin air and slashed through the hyena's body so hard it split in two.
"Ambush!" Roran called out.
Immediately, they were surrounded by more than a dozen hyenas.
All of them had black fur stained with red, most likely dried blood from recent battles.
Zaroth knew about these beasts. While they weren't strong individually, their strength lay in numbers.
He unsheathed the sword from his back and gave Silverfang, whom he had kept summoned, the command to attack and go for the kill.
Lily stretched out her hands, and two spells began to appear simultaneously.
Zack dug his foot deep into the ground as he exploded toward the hyenas.
Roran stayed close to Lily. Conveniently, the golden sword that had appeared earlier was nowhere to be seen, but nobody paid attention to that.
Zaroth cursed as multiple hyenas attacked him. Right now, it was every man for himself.
He slashed with his sword but missed the hyena that charged forward and sank its fangs into his leg.
Gritting his teeth, he brought down his sword, killing the hyena.
Stretching out his hand, he concentrated and sent a green fireball toward the next nearest hyena.
Suddenly, one approached that he had missed and was about to leap into the air with the intention of biting his neck.
But before it could, Silverfang appeared and stopped it, using his massive weight to overpower the creature and crush its neck in an instant.
"Fuck, how did we not sense them?!"
Zaroth muttered as he raised his sword to slash at another enemy while simultaneously trying to fire another fireball.
'No, in the first place, why did they attack us?! From what I know, these creatures go for easy kills, and four people with a wolf by their side doesn't sound easy…'
With these thoughts, he decapitated the head of another hyena, shutting his gaze and searching for his next target, only to realize that there were none.
He observed his surroundings.
There were about a dozen hyena bodies around, but not enough.
Just a moment ago, they had been surrounded, but now there were no more enemies.
Had the others escaped, seeing that it was not worth the trouble?
Zaroth glanced around, meeting the gazes of his companions.
They were painted in red from the blood of the hyenas but otherwise were fine.
All of them bore the same expression,
'No idea what happened.'
With the exception of Roran, who was staring at the ground, lost in thought, gears slowly turning in his head.
"Attack… ambush… they were injured… quick retreat," Roran suddenly muttered. His eyes narrowed as he shouted,
"It's not over!"
Hearing him, everyone put their guard back up, quickly scanning the area for nearby danger.
"Wait, is it possible they weren't attacking but running from something instead?" Zaroth commented, his eyes narrowing.
The next moment, a few trees fell down as a green snake, about 15 meters long, appeared. Its red eyes fixed on Zaroth's squad with hunger and menace.
"It's a Rare!" Zack cried out as the snake suddenly swung its tail and hit him with all its might.
Even from a distance, Zaroth heard Zack's bones crack as he was sent flying.
"ZACK!" Zaroth screamed, which made the snake fix its eyes on him next.
Gulping audibly, he spoke as he tightened his grip on his bloody sword.
"Shit."