Chapter 193 - Challenges and Tasks
Souta looked at Yujin and said, "I'll leave this thing to you." He pointed at the frozen corpse.
"What are you going to do?" Yujin asked Souta as he glanced at the frozen corpse.
"Me? I'm going to check if there are monsters in the vicinity." Souta replied to him as a black ball materialized around him.
"Okay, I hope you come back in one piece." Yujin nodded at him.
Souta just smirked at him as he didn't say anything. He floated on the ground and looked down at his team members.
Alice, Lumilia, and Lynn paused for a moment when they saw him floated but Yujin told them what he's going to do.
He shook his head and he opened his palm. A ball of shadows appeared on top of it. It then flew towards the direction of the meeting place.
"Okay, I could escape anytime with this," Souta muttered as he turned his head towards the opposite direction, in the deep place of the Night Light Forest.
Boom!
He then felt a heavy pressure pressing him on the ground. Souta descended as he knew that it was dangerous to fly above this forest.
"That's dangerous but I managed to see a glimpse of the monsters," Souta muttered. He saw dozens of orcs coming in this direction. It seems that his guess was right. That black orc really called reinforcement.
He then looked above and thought that the monster who pressured him was a monster at the third evolution as there's no way that a second evolution monster could pressure him. The pressure only disappeared when he descended so he guessed that it was an aerial type monster.
"I'll hold these group of orcs for a while," Souta muttered and the ground beneath his feet turned into black. Several tentacles like shadows emerged from it.
Holding these monsters was not a problem for him as he could escape anytime in case something dangerous occurred.
After a few seconds, more than twenty high earth orcs and four black orcs appeared before Souta. Their face was filled with rage.
"Go..." Souta said and the tentacles flew straight towards the group of orcs.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
Some of the orcs got caught but most of them managed to avoid the tentacles. Their movements were fast for their huge body. Especially, the black orcs' movements were swift and their bodies were agile. It's hard to imagine a five-meter huge body could move like that.
The four black orcs jumped in the mid-air and they swung their weapons. Then, a blue wave shot out from their weapons. It went towards Souta at high speed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The tentacles went in front of Souta and it protected him from the attack of the black orcs.
"Their level is high... Maybe higher than me." Souta muttered while looking at the four black orcs.
The difference between the black orcs strength and the high earth orcs strength was huge, even though both of them were second evolution monster. It's the same for goblin species, Souta was stronger than the normal evolution of goblin, the hobgoblin. Hobgoblin didn't have any special traits like [Corruption].
One was a normal evolution path while the other one was a rare evolution path.
Bang! Bang!
The four black orcs landed on the ground and they charged at Souta in different directions. The four black orcs arrived in front of him and red aura coated their butcher knives.
"Hmm...?"
Souta frowned when he saw this. The black orc that Yujin fought didn't use this skill. He then quickly moved the tentacles like shadows in front of him.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The four black orcs swung their weapons heavily and it landed on the tentacles like shadows causing a powerful gust of wind to swept out. Cracks started to form on the ground.
"Get down..." Souta muttered as several tentacles like shadows formed behind him and to shot towards the four black orcs.
The four black orcs immediately jumped away when they saw this.
"See... You've possessed intelligence. I wonder who's the one commanding you. I want to meet that monster. Maybe, I could negotiate with your leader." Souta smirked and said even though he knew that the black orcs couldn't understand him. That's the same for him, he couldn't understand the language of the orcs.
Souta turned around and raised his right hand. He said, "See you."
Souta disappeared in front of the black orcs. His presence and aura were gone and the black orcs didn't know how he did that.
After a few seconds, the tentacles dissipated into thin air.
The black orcs frowned before they turned their heads and looked at their subordinates. They saw that the tentacles that were binding their subordinates also disappeared.
...
Souta teleported back to the meeting place. He already did his job in delaying the group of orcs. He actually wanted to meet who's the one commanding those orcs but he thought that they would not be able to understand each other so he denied it.
By the time he arrived in the meeting place, some of their classmates were already here. Bryan and Randolf's group also finished hunting some monsters.
Lynn and Lumilia walked towards him when they saw him appeared.
"A-Are you alright, Souta?" Lynn asked him with a worried expression.
"As you can see I'm fine. I don't have any injuries." Souta replied to her and he looked at the five frozen corpses of the orcs.
"I'm glad," Lynn said with a sigh of relief.
"There's nothing to worry about me facing those orcs. I wouldn't have a problem even if there's a dozen of them." Souta shook his head and he walked towards the frozen corpse.
"Souta, have you read the challenge and task?" Lumilia asked him as she walked beside him.
"Oh, right! I completely forgot about it." Souta exclaimed and he looked at the device on his wrist. He read the content of the message of the Ladro Institute.
Challenge &123;Team&125;: A group must establish a base of operation.
Challenge &123;Solo&125;: One person must hunt three second evolution monsters. (1/3)
Task:
1. Defeat one team from a different class in a fight. (50 points)
2. Defeat one class in a fight. (500 points)
3. Defeat three teams from different classes in a fight. (300 points)
They say that it was not a competition but looking at the task, Souta thought that it was inevitable. Competing with other classes couldn't be stopped.
The reward points could drool other students. They could buy some skill books and spellbooks by getting these points.
But it wasn't mandatory... Everyone could finish this outdoor training without completing the task but the challenge was a different story.
Souta looked at Alice and asked, "You already complete the solo challenge, right?"
"Yeah, thanks to you leaving those three orcs to me," Alice replied to him.
"Ah, I should've at least hunt two orcs when I stopped the group of orcs," Souta said with a sigh. Well, the challenge today was easy and their team could complete it later.
"Haha, in the end, this training is still a competition!" Randolf laughed loudly. He looked around and saw that some of his classmates have wounds on their bodies.
Souta glanced at him and said, "Stop Randolf, don't worry about them. Let's wait for the others before we go to the village."
"Haha, fine..." Randolf laughed and he looked at his teammates. "Don't expect help from me in the solo challenge. I don't need to carry all of you in this outdoor training."
The staffs of the Ladro Institute were watching their movements. They even knew that the students already hunt some monsters and knew how many they have hunted.
...
After half an hour, some of the students that went out to hunt monsters have arrived at their meeting place.
They were out of breath and tired at the same time. They clearly experience hardship inside the Night Light Forest. Fighting low-level monsters should be easy for these students who haven't experienced such battles, it was too hard. They could barely move under the killing intent of these ferocious monsters.
"It's really good that no one dropped out in our class." Lumilia stepped forward and said to everyone. She looked at the sky and said, "It's getting dark so we should probably go to the nearby village."
Everyone agreed to her as some of them were already tired and wanted to rest.
"If you want to finish this outdoor training then you have to complete the challenge that the institute gave to us," Souta said to them before he turned around and left.
Alice, Lynn, Yujin, and Lumilia looked at each other before they followed him. The rest of the class started to move as well.
...
The group arrived in a village called Ibish village. The Ibish village was a large size village. It has ten thousand population.
The Mage class 1-B entered the village. Souta told them to sell the corpses of the monster in some merchants or the Adventurers Guild. But he didn't prefer to sell the carcasses on the Adventurers Guild because of the lower price.
Souta's team went around the village and they sold the five corpses of the orcs to a merchant. It's good as they earned some money to rent rooms in an inn for three days.
As for food, Souta didn't want to expend their money to buy it. There's a lot of low-level monsters that they could hunt outside the village.
After selling the orcs' bodies, they rent two rooms. One for the boys and one for the girls. He then gathered everyone in his room.
"Do you want to earn points in this outdoor training or not?" He asked his team members with a serious expression.