SPIRIT SOUL

Kyle felt weirdly good when they left Vila town despite the premonition he had only a short while earlier.

Selene was walking next to him and Gaby was right beside her.

The Guildmaster of Vila town, Laila, couldn't participate in the mission.

She had to stay back and oversee the security of the town.

But that wasn't the only reason for her to disregard even the possibility of joining the others.

Laila was considered a Variant of the Lohar race because she had awoken the Maest cultivation vein instead of the Pryr cultivation vein.

Even if she was not necessarily weaker than others, the Lohar race was extremely narrow-minded and strict with their rules.

They gave a lot of importance to the color of a Lohar's fur which was why Laila wasn't too keen to join the mission, to begin with.

That was also the reason for Selene to have been treated like garbage all her life.

However, she was granted the respect and status of a noble overnight with her double awakened cultivation veins after her condition became better.

Kyle didn't think highly of the Lohar race, owing to their double standards.

But he thought that the situation was not necessarily bad for them.

Selene being elevated to the ranks of a noble might not be the best considering her past trauma.

Nevertheless, her status that granted her a little bit of respect and power would only be advantageous in the long run.

The slight tension and awkwardness surrounding the group of adventurers disappeared after they had left the town walls.

Most of them had begun chatting to each other.

They were excitedly discussing what they hoped to find as their task for the day.

Despite that, even Gaby was vigilant against the others.

"Even if we are working together to complete the same mission, most adventurers only care about their own life. As such, if they're not confident in themselves, they might run away from danger.

Or if they think that someone else's sacrifice can guarantee their own survival, they might backstab their team.

Other than that, an adventurer's greed shouldn't be underestimated. Never tell others what your mission rewards are, or what you gain from the spoils by killing an opponent!

Those two issues are considered the most problematic, and the Guild has yet to solve them.

As this is possibly your first big mission, I would advise you two to be careful. It would be best for both of you to stay by my side and not offend anyone!"

Gaby explained everything important, and the things they had to be mindful of.

Because of that, Kyle didn't even notice that they had been walking for more than half an hour towards their destination.

He was engrossed in their discussion, listening intently to Gaby's instructions.

Meanwhile, he had also shot furtive glances at the others.

Kyle was trying to determine the average strength of their small group of 34 members including them.

There were a total of one adventurer at the Krysal stage, 14 at the peak Vitae stage, and 17 at the late Vitae stage, with Kyle and Selene being the weakest.

All in all their entire group was considered extremely strong with the combined strength of the cultivators.

Even Kyle had to acknowledge the fact that the only problems that could occur in their journey were internal conflicts.

Fortunately, that didn't seem to happen. Everyone seemed to mind their own business after the small talk had died down.

They all began focusing on absorbing the surrounding energies while walking.

Cultivating while walking was much slower, but it was still better than doing nothing.

Thus, throughout the entire trip that took five days to complete nothing special seemed to have happened.

They would have reached sooner if not for Selene and Kyle's low speed as a Low Fortification stage cultivator.

However, this was only what one could see from the outside.

So far, none of the beasts inhabiting the surrounding area had attacked the group.

They didn't even encounter a single group of Nasgas either.

But, that was mostly owing to the brown-furred Lohar's great memory that allowed him to recall everything.

It was only logical for the previously injured Lohar to participate in the mission.

But what irked the duo was his numerous attempts to strike a conversation with Selene.

He left no stone unturned in trying to approach Selene every single time an opportunity presented itself.

This was frustrating, but Kyle and Selene didn't comment on his behavior.

They followed Gaby's advice from doing anything that would make the others hold a grudge against them.

Fortunately, Gaby was next to them the entire time.

She behaved like a protective mother bear shielding her cubs from the surrounding danger.

As such, owing to Gaby's presence, the Lohar at the Vitae stage stopped with his approaches.

But he did make a big display of his disappointment by kicking stray rocks and mumbling to himself.

However, that was not something either of them was bothered about.

The Lohar's behavior was a clear indicator that he wasn't lying about Selene's noble status.

Otherwise, there was no reason for him to relentlessly approach Selene.

'Trying to get on friendly terms with Selene before she accepted her status as a noble? Nice tactic, but it won't work, sorry...or not!'

Now that five days had already passed, the group dynamics were slowly beginning to change.

One particular issue Kyle and Gaby had already expected had begun to bother them.

Everyone wanted to be the leader of the adventurer group, and lead them into the fight against the Nasga tribe.

Every single member thought that he or she was capable enough to rescue the Lohars.

Being a leader of such a coveted mission would enable them to reap more benefits while increasing their reputation.

Despite everyone's desire, Felix, who was by far the strongest, became the undisputed leader. He didn't have to put much effort into convincing others because he had the highest cultivation rank.

As such, Kyle could only hope that the overly confident young man wasn't all talk and no action.

They relied on him being able to pull off a good battle strategy to fight Nasgas after all.

In the end, their primary goal was not to kill the Nasgas.

Though killing them wasn't quite difficult, it was a waste to spend their energy and efforts on the same.

What they needed to truly focus on, instead, was saving as many Lohars as possible.

It would send across a message that the Thunderclaw kingdom's aim was to rescue the Lohars.

Their actions would also show that they were trying to make up for those Aldras that had been abandoned.

Unfortunately, this was a little bit more difficult than one could assume.

It was widely known that the Guild was an independent entity.

Thus the Guild's involvement in the mission would only possibly clear the Thunderclaw kingdom's name from the mess they had created.

Neither Kyle, nor Gaby nor the Guild master were under the impression that the Lahin kingdom's Queen expected the Guild to act.

Just because they wanted to retain the slim chance of maintaining peace that prevented war from breaking out.

In the end, a single mistake could lead to a large-scale war between three kingdoms.

If that were to happen the quiet Sadorla forest would turn into a bloody battlefield.

This would devastate the entire forest, including the landscape and its abundant flora.

However, worse hit would be the inhabitants of the Sadorla forest.

Seeing death and destruction all around them would strike terror and confusion in their minds like never before.

This would not just be the case with beasts but also intelligent races whose home and territory would be snatched away from them!

Fortunately, with the Guild's intervention, the tension might not escalate to a warlike situation.

Nothing should happen as long as the worst was prevented.

And this was the very reason for the Guild to act, in the first place.

There was no need to drag innocent people into the strife of the three kingdoms.

They all had a weird, yet not completely hostile relationship with each other.

On the morning of the fifth day, they finally reached the proximity of the Nasga tribe.

But instead of charging upright through the gates, five scouts were sent out initially.

They were allotted the tasks of investigating the situation, location, and infrastructure of the surroundings and the tribe.

The most important task was to assess the current situation of the abducted Lohars.

In the end, the group of them had to find the location they were being imprisoned at and how difficult it was to rescue them.

Within a few hours, the scouts returned with both good and bad news.

The good news was that the abducted Lohars seemed to be fine apart from some who had minor injuries.

They were imprisoned in several large steel cages that were placed near the center of the tribe.

This central location was huge and was roughly as large as Vila town.

This increased the difficulty in rescuing the Lohars.

Breaching through the walls to reach the center without anybody noticing was tough.

But, there were several paths leading straight towards the cages from outside the village.

As such, there shouldn't be too many problems to reach them.

However, that was exactly what most Adventurers, including Gaby, Kyle, and Selene, found weird and extremely suspicious.

It was as if a trap was laid out in the open with clear ways to reach it before they get nabbed by the Nasga.

Even the scouts had found it quite odd and suspicious to not meet any resistance as they infiltrated the tribe.

The alleys through which they had traveled to find the cages seemed eerily empty and void of life.

This had made them be even more alert. With careful and measured steps, they had slowly approached the tribe.The scouts barely maintained the necessary distance to prevent being spotted by others.

Thus, they had been able to find several gaping holes all around the said alleys that directly led to the imprisoned Lohars.

None of the scouts could see what exactly was inside those holes.

All they could see was a few Nasga that entered and left the holes.

But their gut feeling told them that there was more to it.

There had to be something else in the alleys that made the Nasga avoid them despite opening a path straight to the steel cages.

With that information, the adventurers decided that it would be a bad idea to use said paths to reach the Lohars.

Scribbling everything on a paper hastily, the scouts drew the map of the entire area.

They also stated the numbers of Nasgas and Aldras they had spotted in the tribe.

Astonishingly enough, there were more than ten Aldras in the tribe including the chubby merchant.

Meanwhile, the bad news the scouts had revealed was the information about the Nasgas' combat strength.

Shockingly enough, there were even more Nasgas than they had initially expected.

With more than 300 Nasga at the low Vitae stage, they were the largest majority.

The rest constituted only a few dozen who were at the Fortification stage.

In total there were more than a thousand Nasga.

Out of them, more than 900 were at the Vitae stage, and half of them were Blood Nasga.

Nevertheless, the worst was that the scouts even encountered two Blood Nasgas at the Krysal stage!

They seemed to have just advanced to the Krysal stage according to their unstable primordial energy fluctuations.

But after hearing about their presence, Felix's ego deflated like a balloon.

Even he wasn't stupid to recklessly attack the Nasga tribe.

He simply ignored the fact that Blood Nasgas were innately much stronger than ordinary Nasgas.

The number of opponents at the Vitae stage did not really matter to him.

This was what he had been saying throughout the five day trip to the large Nasga tribe.

Now, with the appearance of two Blood Nasgas at the Krysal stage, he wasn't so boastful anymore.

His initial plan of simply attacking and eradicating the entire tribe was not possible anymore.

At least Kyle thought so.

Yet the other adventurers grew more motivated to fight against the Nasga tribe than he could have expected.

Their excitement to fight the Nasgas was overflowing, and Kyle couldn't fathom what made them feel so confident of defeating them.

It was then that he spotted the distinct greed glimmering in their eyes.

'Don't tell me that they want to attack the Nasga tribe in a suicidal manner.

Are they willing to risk their lives just to get their hands on the spoils they would get by killing the Nasgas?'

Kyle knew that the price of a Nasga corpse was higher in comparison to normal corpses.

According to him, the most valuable asset of intelligent beings was their spatial ring and the fortune inside it.

Nevertheless, Kyle couldn't understand how the adventurers even considered attacking the Nasga tribe. There were beings at the Krysal stage in the tribe after all!!

However, when Felix began to explain the plan he had put together, Kyle realized that the present adventurers were not just reckless and suicidal, but also exceedingly selfish.

All of them had distinct greed shining in their eyes, Felix's more than anyone else.

Seeing all of them made Kyle worry that they wouldn't even care if they endangered the success of their mission, or worse, other's lives.

'Do they want to be the cause of a large-scale war between three kingdoms, just because of some benefits?!'