Chapter 104 Experience
After figuring that it was useless for them to rush towards the camp as they didn't know whether the benefits outweighed the dangers they would have to go through, their small team of three decided to come up with a proper plan to solve the most apparent issues at hand.
Those issues were their teamwork which was still far from perfect, their inexperience in fighting within specific environments, and times during the day, followed by their lack of knowledge.
There were probably a few more things they had to come up with, such as procuring food and drinking water, but that could be done quite easily.
By collecting some of the rainwater their biggest issue would be solved at once.
Food could be procured by killing beasts as well.
Hunting a few beasts to obtain meat was also what Bella proposed them to do, to begin with.
Not only would it allow them to procure meat that they could eat without any issues as they were Originals who could endure the mana inside the meat and blood of beasts, but their teamwork could improve while hunting as well.
Furthermore, hunting beasts would also allow them to improve their experience in fighting within specific environments and during odd hours of the day.
If they were to encounter more Goblin Warriors, it would even be possible for them to get to know more information about the gemstones.
As of now, it was not known whether all Goblin Warriors possessed a marked beast controlling gemstone necklace.
This was something their entire group wanted to change as quickly as possible, which they could do by actively hunting beasts.
Following the hunt of Goblin Warriors, Nial proposed that they should also pay attention to the existence of gemstones that had other unique types of runes inscribed.
It might be possible for more socializing beasts that innately possessed a trace of intelligence to live on the island.
In fact, Nial didn't think that it was unlikely for such beasts to exist!
They might even possess capabilities similar to that of the Goblins who could inscribe some unique runes, or do something similar.
With that taken into consideration, they had rested for quite some time before climbing down the large tree and enacting the plan they had come up with.
Rays of sunlight shone through the thicket of the densely grown trees, warming parts of Nial's body.
It was still long until the sun would be high up in the sky, and he knew that barely a few hours had passed since they had climbed up the tree.
Nevertheless, everyone was eager to hunt down beasts, procure information, and to become stronger as a team!
Bella was the most excited amongst them which Nial was able to sense even without his mana perception's visualization!
On the other hand, there was their oddball, Mathias, who simply began to smile in an inconspicuous manner.
He didn't express himself in another way, causing Nial to wonder if Mathias had a split personality or if he was just a reserved and shy person who would become a totally new person when he would fight.
But somehow, the latter sounded rather odd, let alone the possibility of Mathias having a split personality.
'Just what makes his personality suddenly change while in combat?'
Even if it was something intriguing that made Nial want to get to know the answer, it was not like he should be that much affected by that question.
It was weird that he thought about Mathias' personality for so long, but upon averting his attention to Bella, he couldn't help but sigh deeply.
Bella was equally mysterious to him, keeping his interest held high up as more questions flashed through his mind the moment he got to know more about her.
This made him understand that both of his friends were rather peculiar.
What Nial didn't know was that Bella and Mathias' thought the same about him.
Even they were keen to know more about Nial's capabilities, and his motives behind entering the Teradan military camp.
Despite being a newly awakened Original, who was blind, he had been desperate enough to bind a powerful curse to his body which intrigued them both, and much more.
Being curious about each other was pretty good as each of them would want to get to know one another.
However, at the same time, they had to keep in mind that being too secretive and mysterious about themselves might harm their relationship.
And this was something that could happen without them realizing it.
As such, they had to be careful.
But all of them knew that it would take them to form a strong bond but for now, as long as they trusted one another, nothing bad would happen.
At least that was what everyone firmly believed, which was reassuring from multiple perspectives.
Thus, the three settled down on the branches and began scanning their surroundings for beasts.
They didn't plan to leave the large tree on which they had rested for the entire day as they wanted to save their energy and focus on fighting.
With that in mind, they climbed down their temporary hideout and walked through the pine tree forest with a calm demeanor.
Nial had fully unleashed his senses and the mana perception, allowing him to sense the mana fluctuations 100 meters around him.
Only beasts that could conceal their mana would escape his mana perception, and even they were unlikely to be able to prevent him from hearing, smelling, or feeling the vibration of their steps.
As such, Nial turned into a human radar, while Bella and Mathias kept their guard up if Nial were to miss out on something.
However, owing to the incident with the Goblin Wolfriders, where he had missed picking on their arrival before it was already too late, Nial wouldn't dare to make another mistake.
Thus, Nial was probably the last person, who would forgive himself for making a mistake as grave as allowing beasts to approach their vicinity!
He was almost being jumpy and pointed them towards the direction the moment even a single small beast entered his range.
He kept informing his team about every little thing, and they couldn't help but feel as if their mind was overflowing with information about the positioning and strength of the beasts that scavenged through the surrounding territory.
Most of them were not even out to attack them, let alone bother about the lives of the three Originals.
Upon realizing this, the three young Originals couldn't help but feel that the entire situation was slightly different than what they had expected.
"Why…won't they attack us? Dungeon beasts are always highly aggressive…but not now?"
It was the first time that Mathias had spoken since they had departed.
Roughly three hours had passed since they had left the tree and both Nial and Bella had accepted that they had someone mute in their group.
As such, they were slightly astonished the moment they heard him mumble something in a low voice.
Bella was about to answer his questions, thinking that she would provide great intel to both Nial and Mathias, only for Nial to be the first one to speak up.
"Isn't that because most of the beasts are born outside the space of a dungeon? In fact, dungeon beasts born outside dungeons are considered irregulars because they rarely drop any kind of crystal.
Even if they drop some, they're mostly defective or have mutated.
But I don't know why this is the case.
Either way, beasts born outside dungeons are slightly different from dungeon beasts.
Their mindset is probably different due to the lack of mana, or something around that."
Because the sisters Mara and Kira had known that Nial would face beasts in the wilderness, they had given him some basic information about them.
This had allowed him to answer Mathias' doubt to some extent while receiving Bella's intrigued gaze.
Most things Nial was unable to answer were even unanswered by Kira and Mara, which spoke volumes about the knowledge mankind had about many topics revolving around dungeons, their beasts, and the offsprings!
It was bad, really bad!
Thus Bella knew that her answer would have been similar to Nial's, which was unexpected from her point of view.
'Just who recommended you?'
First, she had assumed that someone had simply betted on Nial's superior traits owing to some gut feeling.
After all, Nial had lived in her mother's apartment and even recklessly bound a Curse to himself.
However, in the end, Bella didn't know the truth about the events that happened after she and Nial had parted ways in the apartment complex!
She was oblivious to a lot of things that had happened behind her back and drawing her own conclusion made her mind feel like she had messed up something.
Thus, she kept stealing glances at Nial as she became even more intrigued than before, while Mathias mumbled, "Alright, makes sense!"
Nial didn't think that any of this made sense, but he simply accepted Mathias' word-scarce art before his focus retracted to the surrounding area.
After hours of beasts evading them due to several reasons, Nial finally found something that attracted his attention.
"I think I found a small hideout of Goblins. There are at least two dozen Goblin Warriors with the same strength as the ones we encountered earlier, and three more beings with more powerful mana fluctuations!"
Turning towards Bella, he continued, "I think the three beings have roughly the same density of their mana fluctuations as you have.
When they heard Nial's intel, Mathias halted in his tracks, while Bella quickly walked up to him.
"Did you find beasts other than the Goblins?"
Bella's question obviously indicated that she wanted to know if there were horned wolves or other beasts that were under the control of the beast controlling gemstones' will.
However, Nial just shook his head as he replied,
"I cannot sense any other beasts than the Goblins that are close to 30 in number!"
This was interesting because all of them had expected the red gemstone necklaces to be an object of high quality.
"What…if they're hunting for mounts? They're too short…"
It was Mathias, whose whispered voice broke through the silence and reached the ears of Bella and Nial.
At this moment, Nial figured out what his quiet friend had imagined.
"You mean that they're just a small group of a large settlement, sent out to catch their own mounts? That's possible!!"
If that were to really be the truth, the settlement of the Goblins would be much larger than initially expected.
After all, this would mean that the prior group of Goblin Wolfriders they had encountered, followed by the larger group of close to 30 Goblins would belong to one large settlement.
Considering that thousands of young Originals, including more than half of them being women, were to arrive on the island soon, Nial couldn't help but feel that it was extremely bad.
Goblins were known for their extremely high reproduction rate, and short pregnancy time, meaning that they could multiply at a rapid pace.
Thus, there might be thousands of Goblins who were merely waiting for the female Originals to show up, which caused Nial to question the meaning and hidden intent of the Teradan military camp's first test!