Vengeance Without Duty

As I stood at the edge of the forest, with Lily beside me, waiting for everyone, I did a quick check on all my abilities.

*abilities: Reanimate - Lv. 3, Curse of Fatigue - Lv. 6, Buff - Lv. 5, Eternal Army - Lv. N/A, Boone of Regeneration - Lv. 2, Life Steal - Lv. 1, Summon Wraith - Lv.5*

The sound of footsteps sounded behind me, turning to look, I saw teen people standing in a small group. Nodding my head, a small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.

Turning back towards the forest, I motioned for every one to follow me. Heading into the forest, was a first for these ten people, so I could only imagine what they must be going through.

'They'll get over it, eventually.'

Walking in an easterly direction for fifteen minutes, I came to a halt.

"Okay, now, listen up. From here on out, we will encounter monsters, so, I ask that you stay sharp, not lose concentration and please, for the love of god, make as little noise as possible."

Waiting for a moment, I was disappointed that no one asked questions about the monsters we could encounter. As if sensing my disappointment, Lily spoke.

"Can you give any more advise?"

"First, the monsters. I've discovered five different species of monsters that could pose a threat to people that have just been baptized, or have yet to go on a hunt, namely all of you."

Looking at their faces, I saw fear, anxiety, uncertainty and regret.

"You don't have to worry, I'll be here encase anything goes wrong. Now, the different species are as follow, Twin-Tailed Panther, Horned Black Bear, Steel-Winged Falcon, Silver-Back Wolf and Purple Boa. The names are just a reflection of their physical appearance, so they are easy to spot. The Twin-Tailed Panther and the Silver-Back Wolf are similar in fighting styles, both of them are extremely swift and their claws and teeth can easily shred tree trunks. For them you will have to immobilize them as fast as you can because you will outlast them. The Horned Black Bear is slow, but compensates for this with a very sturdy defense, and ferocious power. To kill one, you will have to tire it out, to do this, you will have to apply hit and run tactics, take turns in doing this so you don't tire yourselves out, when it's sufficiently tired, then and only then, do you go for the kill. Now the Steel-Winged Falcon will be a much trickier opponent. I suggest you confine it in an enclosed space, this should take away the only advantage it has, you should also be careful of the wings, you can probably guess why. As for the boa, it has everything the other monsters have, speed, power and defense, you will have to think up a strategy between yourselves to win, my suggestion, build a trap or try and sneak attack it, if you use this option, you better pray you end it in one strike. Now, talk amongst yourselves, get to know the other peoples class and formulate a plan for each of the monsters. Now, who here doesn't have an ability?"

After I asked my question, four people raised their hands, including Lily.

"I will friend you four and transfer a thousand points to each of you, this is enough to purchase a basic ability. I expect that by the end of the hunt, I will have been payed back. Secondly, we will be here for a few days, could be two, could be more. You will hunt monsters until each of you gets a monster core. Now strategize."

Watching as the group of ten start mingling with each other, Discontent clear on their faces, Lily came up to me.

"Aren't you going to help them?"

Staring dead at Lily, I answered.

"You're part of 'them', and you should learn to do this for yourselves, I'm teaching this to you so that you can teach the next batch. I can't possibly teach everyone. Now go join them."

Looking at Lily meekly walking towards the group, I shook my head.

Walking away from the group until I'm sure they can't notice anything I'm doing, I summoned a Wraith. Concentrating my mana, a incorporeal form of a skeleton with it's lower half missing, appeared before me. After the summoning I instructed the Wraith to search for the nearest monster. After which, I made my way back to the group.

Fifteen minutes soon came to pass, when the wraith appeared before me, pointing in a south-eastern direction.

Whistling, I quickly grabbed the group's attention.

"Okay, have you guys come up with a plan yet?"

Looking at each other, they collectively replied with a no.

"Good, now you will learn to improvise, there's a monster about seven minutes walk south east from here and it's a Horned Black Bear. Strap up, were going hunting."

Before the group could voice their complaints, I started walking in the Horned Black Bear's direction.

Standing in a well hidden spot, fifty meters from the bear, I motioned for the group to begin their hunt.

Seeing the go ahead, the group divided themselves into small groups of two, surrounding the bear in a star pattern, leaving Lily with me. Seeing this I frowned, then realized, I had never asked Lily for her class.

"Lily, what classes did you pick?"

"I picked Witch and Alchemist."

"So you're going to curse the bear to weaken it?"

Nodding at me, Lily got into her position, waited for the other ten and as soon as they were ready, she invoked her curse.

Looking at the group, I grew surprised. Two people in the group could make their mana take the form of what ever weapon they chose, four in the group chose one of the elementalist class, the last four was equally divided between summoners and spiritualists.

Watching them fight, I grew proud. The four elementalists, consisting of two fire elementalists, dealing damage, one ice elementalist, using the ice to slow down the bear and one lightning elementalist, using the lightning to stun it, took turns with their attacks. The two with mana weapons, switched the weapons form every now and then, creating a plethora of different wounds on the bear, attacking at all opportunities created by the elemenatlists. The two summoners, summoned their animal spirits to occupy the bears attention. The two spiritualists were simple standing o the sidelines, ready to heal any injury.

Using this strategy, it took them five minutes to take down the bear, a shorter time than I expected, shows me huh?