Jack woke up the next morning just as the sun started to rise. There was no ambush in the night so he had a full rest throughout the night. They had decided to meet at the dungeon entrance on 8 AM, so there were still around two hours.
He stored his camping tent and took out his Apprentice Cooking Stove to make some meals. He made five portions of Chicken Soup with haste before storing them all into his inventory bag. He also made another Whetstone to replace the one he had used last night. He set out soon after, towards the destination that had been marked on his map. For breakfast, he just ate a bread while he was on the move.
He avoided the monsters in his radar as he was in a hurry. He could not afford to waste time fighting them. He arrived soon at a grove under the foot of Mount Thenias. The destination marking was now visible as a point on his map instead of an arrow indication. He knew then that he was not far off.
He went into the grove as it was the closest distance, he didn’t have the time to go around it. The grove was not so populated with monsters, he could avoid them with ease with the help of his radar.
When he was a hundred meters into the grove, he noticed a small group of blue dots were entangled with a larger number of red dots. Some players were in combat with monsters. He gave it some thought and then decided to go over to see. They might be Silverwing’s team, he should lend a hand if that was the case.
He could hear the sound of people fighting and yelling when he got closer. But all the yelling were women’s voices. Were they group from Wicked Witches? If so, he should just let them fend for themselves. He didn’t have a good impression from that arrogant grannie, Queen Magenta. But he decided to still continue to go closer to have a look.
He lowered his posture when he was close, and sneaked into a thicket that could conceal his presence. From there, he could see the group in fighting. There were four female players battling a group of seven cave trolls. They seemed to have been fighting for quite a while.
He inspected both parties in combat. The Cave Trolls were level 12 with two at level 13, while the female players were all level 12, except for one of them, who he recognized. It was Jeanny, one of the Wicked Witches players who sat beside Queen Magenta in the meeting yesterday. The other three were unknown to him. Jeanny was now level 13, one level higher than yesterday when Jack last saw her. She was holding a spear as her weapon.
The female players seemed to have difficulty as they were outnumbered. They had been able to be on an equal footing against the Cave Trolls as their teamwork were rather good. Jeanny and one of her comrades were Fighters, while the other two were a Ranger and a Magician. They covered each other well, it was obvious that they were used to fight as a team.
However, it was also apparent that they might not be able to last long. Each of them had lost quite some HP, and the Cave Trolls did not give them an opportunity to consume a recovery potion.
The Cave Trolls were small size, only a tad bigger than Goblins. They had black fur covering their entire bodies, with long snout of a nose. They fought using a stone club on each of their hands. Their eyes were dark and wild, they looked determined to crush these four female players into mincemeat.
Jack was contemplating whether or not to intervene. If that Queen Magenta was in this group, he would have happily walked away. He might even show himself and wave to her before walking away just to show some spite. But he had no enmity with these players here. Jeanny hardly spoke in the meeting, and she had not said anything that offended him during their encounter.
While Jack was in thought, another thicket opposite from where he was hiding at was ruffling. A large humanoid monster came out of it soon. Jack noticed its feature was similar to the Horned Ogre boss he had fought before, except for it being slightly smaller and without a horn. He inspected it using his God-eye monocle.
Ogre (Basic monster, humanoid), level 14
HP: 2000
They were done for sure, Jack thought. The female players seemed to be in agreement, judging from how pale their faces became. This Basic monster Ogre didn’t wield any weapon, but his fists seemed deadly enough already. He gave out a savage roar as he waved his thick arms around in an intimidating manner while walking towards the group of female players.
Jack was considering what he would have done if these female players were not associated to Wicked Witches. He figured he would have intervened already without hesitation. After a few more brief thoughts, he had decided. He would just treat this as he was doing his hunting missions. After all, both these monsters were among the list that he had yet to complete.
He cast Energy Bolts and Mana Bullet to the Cave Trolls, he then came out of hiding as he sent Sword of Light towards the Ogre which was moving towards the female players. The two spells crashed into three out of the seven Cave Trolls, while the Sword of Light struck on the Ogre’s head.
The monsters that were struck, turned their attention to Jack. The female players were also startled by this interruption.
“It’s you..!” Jeanny said when she saw the one who had intervened.
“You know him?” One of her comrades asked.
Jeanny nodded.
Jack retreated out of sight when he saw the Ogre and three Cave Trolls came towards him.
“Oh no,” Jeanny uttered when she saw the four monsters chasing after Jack. “We have to help him! Those four monsters are too strong for him.”
“We should worry about ourselves first,” her friend said. “Good things he had taken some of the monsters with him. We should be able to deal with the remaining ones here.”
“Don’t worry about him, he should have his friends with him,” another of her friends added.
“Yes, I saw spells from magician came from the place where he came out from. Let them deal with those monsters first, we will go help once we deal with the remaining ones here.”
Jeanny knew that this was the only thing they could do at the moment. “All right, let’s kill these monsters fast. We should have no problem now that there were only four of them. Let’s hope they could hold out until we arrive.”
It took them several minutes to deal with those remaining four Cave Trolls. They were not without injury, one of her comrade Ranger had his HP bar at the critical already.
“Let’s drink healing potion and go to help them, I doubt they can hold out any longer,” Jeanny said.
“Wait! Pick up the loots first,” the ranger on the team said as she went around picking the coins and items dropped by the Cave Trolls.
“No time!” Jeanny said as she ran to where Jack had disappeared to. Her other friends had no choice but to follow. The ranger reluctantly followed at the back as she picked up as many loots as possible on her way.
When they came out of the thicket that blocked the view, they saw Jack was bending down picking items from the ground.
“Huh?” The four of them were confused as they looked around. Where were the Cave Trolls? where were the Ogre? Where were his teammate?
Jeanny approached Jack with bewildered look.
“Have your team defeated the monsters?” She asked.
My team? Jack asked in his mind. Then he remembered that he had used Magician’s spells to draw the Cave Trolls’ attentions. He decided to play along.
“They have left, I’m staying behind to pick up the loots,” he said.
“You team is rather capable,” the female Magician said. “That big monster looked strong.”
“It was a level 14 Ogre,” said the Ranger who had used Inspect when the Ogre appeared.
“Ogre? Wasn’t that the monster that one of our guild team had encountered two days ago? It took six of our strong members to kill a single Ogre, and they lost two people in the process.”
“Amazing, did your team really defeated that monster in such short period? It was not even five minutes,” the female Fighter other than Jeanny said to Jack.
“Well, we are very strong,” Jack replied without a sense of humility.
