408 What does that means in practice?
‘This is really taking too long,’ Mathew thought as he stared down at the second field of corpses from yet another vantage point at its perimeter.
In theory, gathering all the cores was just the first step. The problem was, what exactly should they do later.
‘Sending for more system seeds to let all the hunters have at least a basic one should be the most obvious strategy,’ Mathew thought, squinting his eyes a little as he fell into deep thought.
This was the obvious and most efficient solution.
Sure, they could rush to the castle ruins… but they would still need a considerable number of cores to even learn whether it was a good place to set up a fortress.
‘I’m quite sure we won’t get enough cores from those corpses,’ Mathew thought as he forced his tired eyes open and took another look at the field. ‘Even if some of them have more valuable cores… it still won’t be enough. Meaning…’
Mathew pursed his lips into a thin line.
Regardless of what they would do from now on, Mathew had to procure more cores to make his mission possible. Or, in other words, there were more battles to come.
And with that in mind, allowing all the hunters and newbies to grow in every fight they have seemed like a reasonable solution…
‘But am I really going to split my forces again?’ Mathew asked himself, leaning his head to the back as he looked up at the blue sky.
He could easily recall the dread of worrying about his wives when they went to fetch the first batch of the system seeds.
Mathew took a deep breath.
“Haaa…”
His sign lingered in the air for a bit.
“I guess I don’t have much choice here,” he muttered before shaking his head to remove all the traces of his drowsiness.
Even though it was still early into the day, Mathew was slowly reaching his limits.
The intensity of the last few days was simply… too much.
A sudden movement in the distance pulled Mathew’s attention right as he was about to return closer to the center of the corpse field.
It was Nadia vigorously waving her head, clearly hoping to draw Mathew’s eyes toward her.
Nadia’s sight had to be great, given how she instantly recognized when she gained Mathew’s attention. Then, she started to twist her arms and set them up in varying poses.
‘We…’ the young man tried to decipher Nadia’s message as she reached out to all of the people on the field.
‘Done?’ Mathew attempted to guess when the girl pulled both of her hands forward and raised her thumbs.
Mathew deeply bowed, trying to convey how he understood the message.
Then, he finally managed to breathe a sigh and most of his boredom and anxiety with it.
ραndαsnοvεl.cοm “Finally,” Mathew muttered, tapping his hands against his sides to wake himself up a little. He then picked up on his task of moving back to the rest of the group.
“We have a total of seven hundred and thirty cores,” Nadia reported once Mathew joined her side. She then swung her arm, as if to reveal a bunch of bags that sat in neat rows at her feet.
There was a total of eight bags, with one of them being visibly smaller than the rest.
“Did you account for more valuable cores?” Mathew asked, looking at the girl with the side of his eye.
“Oh, I didn’t think about it!” Nadia jumped slightly. She raised her hand to cover most of her mouth with the tips of her fingers. Her eyes then moved down to the bags before turning slightly cloudy. “It should round up to eight, eight fifty,” she guessed a short moment later.
But rather than focusing on the number of cores, Mathew couldn’t tear his eyes away from the small transformation around Nadia’s lips.
She initially raised her hand to cover her mouth. Yet, as she wracked her brains to come up with a reasonable number for her guess, Nadia’s fingers started moving slightly on their own.
And by the time she raised her eyes to Mathew’s face, her forefinger bent inwards a little and ended up hooking on Nadia’s bottom lip, stretching it a tiny little bit down.
‘I must be really tired,’ Mathew thought, gulping his saliva down when he noticed a certain strange behavior on his body.
Just by looking at Nadia’s lips, he suddenly started growing quite the hard one!
‘Is this all the stress getting to me?’ Mathew panicked a little, taken off guard by the sudden spasm of lust that exploded in his groin. He quickly shook his head, hoping to clear his thoughts from the unnecessary filth.
After all, they were standing in the middle of a field full of corpses with a neat row of bags with blood spilled all over them. The stench of the early rot of the corpses was unbearable… And there was still the threat of some known or unknown danger approaching them as they stood!
‘It’s hardly a place for romance,’ Mathew thought, finally exploiting his logical side to quell the strange outburst of desire.
“Matty?” Nadia asked, leaning her head slightly to the side as she gave Mathew a puzzled look. Her eyes shone a little as she stared deeply into the young man’s expression, seeking the answer to her curiosity.
“Ah, it’s nothing,” Mathew quickly waved his hand before shaking his head for the nth time today. “Anyway, I decided against splitting our forces again,” he then casually announced in passing.
Mathew took a step, ready to put some distance from Nadia…
“Wait, hold on!” the girl called while raising her hand and squinting her eyes a little. “What does that mean in practice?” she asked while a look of suspicion arose on her face.
“Nothing much,” Mathew shook his shoulders before averting his eyes. “I’m just going to drag everyone back to get them their system seeds,” he explained. “We already have casualties. People died. I’m not going to needlessly risk anyone by sending them off alone, just to save a bit of time.”