Chapter 48: Chapter 47
Slap.
The first thing Vince did was give Estelle a sound slap. It was strong enough to leave a red mark all over her cheek. But it's not as if his hand was any better.
"Do you know you could have died back there? You didn't even keep the Bounded Stone with you!"
Estelle could only mumble a bit, lowering her gaze. She tried reestablishing eye contact a few times, but she immediately lowered it back again each time. She didn't dare to argue back.
"We're just in an academy. I have no clue what the teachers were thinking by letting you split the party. And there was a Kobold Chief here as well! Do you think some leaderboard is worth risking your life for?"
"B-but, I survived, didn't I?"
"If there had been a single Kobold Chief more, you would have been done for. You wouldn't have had any chance whatsoever!"
'It might be a bit of a gamble, but…'
"Whenever you fight, remember that my life is on the line too. If you die, I'll die as well. Even if you think it's worth risking your life for a cause, remember you're also risking mine. And if you do it, at least do it for something worthwhile. There's only so many times you can risk your life before you die for real."
After hearing all of his preachings, Estelle slowly started crying. She tried to hold it back as much as she could, but she eventually faltered.
Vince slowly put his hand on her cheek and slowly made her face him. With his thumb, he removed the tear that was coming down, and as he stared into her big eyes, he started whispering.
"Look at me. It's fine. Everybody can make mistakes. What's important is to learn from them."
Every time Estelle tried to cover her face to cry, Vince stopped her with his hand.
"If you want to cry, you have to do it with me staring at your face."
After a short while, the tears stopped.
"Let's go and reunite with the others, milady."
Estelle silently nodded, but she could hardly walk.
Noticing that, Vince lifted her arm slightly and placed it behind his neck.
"Here, let me help you."
Hugging her with one arm in the back, they resumed walking.
***
After a good twenty minutes of walk, they found both parties marching towards them.
From Estelle's party, only two people worried after seeing Estelle's state. One being her closest friend, Artemisia. The other was their assassin, Timeo.
Unfortunately, you couldn't call Timeo great at expressing his emotions. Thus, Estelle didn't even notice his worry.
Artemisia rushed to Estelle's side and lifted her from the other side, much alike Vince.
"Well, then, what are we doing now? And why are you helping her?"
"We're setting up camp and resting, of course."
"But the four of us can still fight!"
"If you want to do it, do it alone. I won't allow you to drag her anywhere. Even though she managed somehow, her condition says it all. If I were to leave her in your hands again, who knows what might happen."
"What happened was merely the consequence of her own decisions!"
Similarly to a kid being preached by a teacher, Andre denied all accusations.
"She always made the final decisions as the party leader. It was natural for her to take responsibility for her actions, right? And since we found ourselves in this situation because of her decisions, she should also be the one fixing it. It wouldn't be fair for us to drop in ranking due to her being a poor party leader."
"Rankings? That's all you care…"
"Vince, stop! They are right. It was my decisions that led us here."
"I don't care about whose decisions those were. I'll admit you all made a lot of terrible mistakes. The headmaster clearly said challenging the dungeon right now was a big challenge. Yet, you still made rash decisions only thinking about your stupid ranking.
Back to what I was saying. Any decision made by a leader is the group's decision. This isn't the military. You have no obligation to follow someone's decision if you think it's a poor one. And if you didn't oppose those decisions, then you were tacitly agreeing. You should have all stayed there and helped.
What kind of party leaves their leader fighting alone? Especially more so when in a simulation! You should have just broken the Bounded Stone."
"Didn't you detach yourself from your party as well to rescue her, though?"
Artemisia wasn't one to accept preachings from a hypocrite.
"I did indeed. I took a risk as well to save her. But I think the circumstances made it a whole lot different. I didn't leave my party while surrounded by a group of monsters, for starters…"
"Well, are you done? Can we go now? There's a certain Prince's party we have to crush."
Andre Von Rais didn't take this to heart at all. Elene simply yawned.
"If you want to go, go. Don't dare to think you can bring her along, though. I won't let you, not after what happened. You clearly don't care about her well-being at all. I'll take care of her. You are free to do whatever you want."
Andre wanted to say more, but Vince simply turned and kept on walking.
As Vince was going in the distance, someone approached Andre.
"This party is boring. Can I join yours? It seems way more fun."
Harlan McKowen, who had refused to follow Vince's orders up until now, asked to join their party.
"Pink hair seems to want to stay with piss hair. Since we are shorthanded, why not."
"Nicole, you should come as well! You shouldn't stay there and listen to that loser's orders!"
"You are the loser here."
As she was saying that, Nicole stuck her tongue out.
Since Artemisia decided to follow Estelle, it meant only three people were left in what was now Andre's party. Being this shorthanded, he didn't refuse help, even if it came from a weak guy. If he was too much of a deadweight, he could always abandon him.
"Anybody else dissatisfied with their trash party leader wants to join us?"
Nobody answered.
***
Vince and his now six-man party set up camp for the night and treated Estelle's wounds.
They then all sat around a small campfire. Vince prepared something to eat for everybody, but for the whole time, nobody spoke.
"Well then, let's make plans for tomorrow. According to the map, we're almost at the end of the floor. Even if we take it slowly, we should manage to clear it tomorrow.
I have no clue as to how the points will be assigned due to all the changes we had in the parties. In theory, we shouldn't have made any changes during the dungeon dive. Yet, now we have a party of six."
"Can we really clear it, though? Looking at how we fared yesterday, I wouldn't be so sure."
"Artemisia, right? Don't worry; if at any point we feel like we won't make it, we can always run away. Also, I don't think Estelle should fight at all, considering her condition."
Estelle reacted by standing up and swinging her sword around.
"Don't worry about me! I can still fight! Ouch…"
Too bad her muscles were screaming in pain. After months of having her cultivation sealed, her body, which was already stressed by the powerful core she had, snapped at the sudden surge in power.
"Don't sweat it; we won't need you. As long as your friend can help with dealing damage to monsters, we should be all set. What we were lacking the most was an excellent close-quarters fighter. As long as you listen to my commands, everything should be alright.
Now then, let's go to sleep that tomorrow will be a long day for everyone."
The following day the six of them got up and started marching. After a while, they passed by the settlement where Estelle had to fight. It was now just a ghost town full of corpses, blood flowing all over the main street.
"D-did you kill all those Kobolds?"
"Yes."
Hearing the answer to his question, Gero shivered. He couldn't fathom how she could do something like that. Even their whole party together probably couldn't take on so many Kobolds and come out alive.
Artemisia kept on alternating her gaze between the mountain of corpses and Estelle. Even she had underestimated what had happened here.
Nicole had a disgusted face for the entirety of the time.
They then came out on the other side of the settlement.
"From here on out, the chance of finding Kobolds drastically increases. Keep your focus and be wary."
As Vince had warned, they soon found a patrol of Kobolds.
The six of them immediately jumped into action. As always, Vince managed to take one Kobold down while they still hadn't been noticed.
There were four more Kobolds. But, having Artemisia's help, they could easily manage to deal with them.
"Artemisia, take the left one. You'll have to manage that one alone. Zack, you'll take the middle one; Nicole will support you. As for Gero, keep the third one busy while I deal with the last one."
Artemisia managed to cut down her Kobold within five moves. Zack and Nicole, working together, could do so just fine as well. Once the three of them were done, they saw that Vince had already taken care of both his and Gero's Kobold.
"Don't try to take them down so much. Conserve your stamina as much as possible. With just four Kobolds, there's no need to rush killing one. Let's go on."
As they kept on fighting, their teamwork improved drastically —Nicole began supporting both Zack and Artemisia simultaneously. Estelle, who was watching them from the back the whole time, was mortified.
She realised only now what being a party meant. She thought that merely having strong people together could work, but that was a big mistake. A party of five "average" students could probably take on a party of high ranks if the former's teamwork far surpassed the latter.
Noticing how amazed Estelle was, Vince took the chance to indirectly teach her. He started doing less and less by himself and willingly took on a progressively more passive role. That way, he could show what good teamwork was all the more.
But suddenly, they found a big pack. It was thirty armoured Kobolds. Armoured Kobolds were specialised in combat, thus making them more fearsome opponents.
"Let's do this. It will prove a big challenge for us, but it's also a great chance to test how much we improved in this short time."
Vince wanted to take on this pack as a cherry on top of the cake. It would be the coronation of all their efforts, and it would be a great opportunity.
"But… thirty of them? Are you sure?"
Nicole immediately started shivering at the idea of having to deal with them.
"It's not like we will have to deal with all thirty simultaneously. The cave here is pretty tight; six of them can fit side by side at most. And I think we can manage six at a time. It will surely prove to be a challenge. But don't worry. If anything happens, I'll immediately break the Bounded Stone."
"But that way, we wouldn't score that many points…"
"But this is also a great chance to test our limits. If you don't try to cross them, you'll never reach the top. What is a semester's ranking in comparison to a chance to grow?"
'I also think we were never supposed to clear the first floor at all considering the difficulty… but I won't tell them that.'
Gero supported Vince's opinion. Well, he had kind of decided always to do so.
"I'm fine with whatever you choose. I'm a guest in this party anyway. As long as you guarantee our safety."
"I'll take on this challenge. Looking at Artemisia especially, I realised how much I still have to grow as a swordsman."
Zack seemed to be up for the challenge.
"Fine, fine. I'm in as well."
Seeing how things were going, Nicole couldn't help but change her mind. She didn't want to be the one ruining everyone's fun.
They thus started preparing. As always, Vince wanted to take one down by taking advantage of their ambushing.
He immediately aimed for what looked like the leader.
'That Kobold has a red decoration on the spear. I'll bet he's the leader. There wasn't any information such as this on the books I read, but I think that's because this isn't always a valid fact.'
Phoosh.
With a swift shot, he pierced the Kobold from behind his neck. It perfectly hit the artery that brought blood to the brain. That was a near-instant kill.
"Everybody, let's go!"
The five of them started taking positions while Estelle hid behind a little rock and looked at them fighting.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
davidebic
davidebic Sorry for being slightly late... entirely my fault.
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